Episode 12: From Trauma to triumph: Sam White's founder journey

0:00Sam White:Welcome everyone to the Naked Founder podcast, a business podcast where nothing is hidden. This episode of the Naked Founder podcast is sponsored by Financial, the home of money for women. Our guest today is Sam White, founder and CEO of Stellar Insurance. Big welcome to you, Sam. Thank you for having me on. Delighted, delighted. Sam, we always start each episode of the Naked Founder podcast with the same question. What didn't they tell you about founding a business that you wish you'd known at the beginning? Well, I was only 24, so people hadn't told me anything at all. And I might not have done it if I'd known it all.

0:33I think, you know, the biggest thing is probably just because you can doesn't mean that you should. So as a 24-year-old and probably for many, many years, I have the enthusiasm of a founder, which means I love starting things. I do genuinely believe that anything is possible. and my life has taught me that to be true. I've had lots of adventures and experiences and built lots of stuff. But I think, you know, one of the big lessons that you learn is that it is as important to know what not to do as what to do.

1:10Sam White:It's really, yeah, really clever point as well is that it's very easy. Sometimes the best decision you make is the one where you decide not to do anything at all. If somebody had told you when you were 24 what to do, would you have listened to them? No. Right, Sam, you've spoken before about this next area, and you're fine talking about it. You come from quite a dysfunctional family. Your mum was an entrepreneur herself but had a problem with alcohol, which has shaped your view on life and certainly your relationship with alcohol. You largely raised yourself. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood and how that shaped the person you are today?

1:48Yeah, and look, in a lot of ways, I am actually very grateful for my childhood, which some people find a bit shocking when they are aware of the intimate details. But yes, my mum was a brilliant entrepreneur, but unfortunately when her parents died, she ended up leaning on alcohol way too much and she ended up with a problem with alcohol, which meant that as a child, I wasn't really parented. My dad worked import-export, so he was out of the country a lot. and my mum wasn't really in a fit state to look after children. And so I kind of found my own way through life. And I actually think most entrepreneurs that I meet have similar stories.

2:33I don't know about you, but I find that when you really get into conversations with very successful people, there's normally some kind of dysfunction or trauma that they've gone through. And what that does breed is resilience. and it breeds a reliance on yourself in a way that a lot of people that have been brought up in incredibly safe environments don't have. So, you know, friends of mine that take safe what I would consider to be middle-class jobs as accountants or teachers or, you know, things that are predictable with a career path and a salary generally have a belief that the world has some kind of structure and will protect you in some kind of way.

3:18And I don't think I had that bred into me. And so the alternative to that is you've got to make it happen for yourself. You have to find a way to make it work.

3:28Sam White:Stephen Bartlett talks about that. He was the youngest of four children. And there was a bit of a gap between him and his third sibling as well. So he largely brought himself up as well. But he said that taught him a lot about entrepreneurship. And it taught him a lot about business. And life could have gone one of two ways. And thankfully, it went the right way as well. but it probably wouldn't have happened if it'd come from what you might consider to be a fairly straightforward upbringing. You've always been entrepreneurial. As a teenager, you used to wash cars, as did Lisa Morton, actually.

3:58Sam White:She also used to wash cars when she was a teenager. At the age of 24, you launched a claims business called Action 365 from your sister's conservatory, no less. I think you grew it to 220 people were riding on that wave and everyone looked up to you. And then the business went into administration as well. So you saw both sides of the coin with that business. What are your key lessons from that experience? Yeah, look, so I grew the business to over 20 million in turnover, three, four million EBIT. And I just kept growing. And there wasn't ever for me any reason not to do that. I was having fun.

4:36I was building stuff. Everything that I was starting or creating generated, you know, revenue and then profit. So you can get to a point where you believe that things will always just keep happening. And I think to my point earlier, I, you know, I didn't really spend much time looking at key risks that could destabilize the business because my response was always just build something more, grow it further and that will stabilize. So, you know, I learned that anything is possible. I ended up living in Beverly Hills at one point for a couple of years. You know, I had more money than I could have ever imagined as a 24 year old starting out in my sister's conservatory.

5:24But I think the biggest lesson for me that I have learned is that you if you don't have a plan to exit. And everybody always used to say this to me when I was younger. They'd be like, what's your exit plan? I used to think it was a stupid question. I was like, why would I want to exit? I'm having fun. But actually, the purpose of business is to build something up, create value and then sell it to a large degree if you're talking about it from just a commercial viewpoint. And I don't think I fully got that until much more recently. And when you are capable of building things, if you start from a position of what does this look like at the end, you can continue.

6:10You can build something up like a number of the businesses that I have had. I could have sold and then started again with something new. Like you don't have to keep the same business for 25 years. You can build lots of different businesses, create value and move forward.

6:27Sam White:But that's the thing, actually. I think people's timelines have changed. The idea that you start a business and that's a business you'd retire in. It's like starting a job. You know, you stay in that job for life. Now people have got three jobs at the same time and have got six careers. In your 20s, and it's hard to believe now, in your 20s you had a real problem with anxiety attacks. You used to have as many as four or five a day. So can you explain how they manifested themselves and what the cause was? Yeah. So, look, you know, even in my 20s, I've always been quite a strong character and I've always been able to make my own way in the world.

7:02So when I started getting panic attacks, it was really destabilising. And, you know, I think people think...

7:09Sam White:What did they look like, panic attacks? So the first one I had just caught me completely out of the blue, like wasn't expecting it at all. And the feeling that you get is that you can't breathe. So your immediate assumption is that you're dying. Right. And the sensation of a panic attack is absolute terror, like the kind of terror that you have never experienced. Like I'm I'm generally not frightened, scary movies don't frighten me. Roller coasters don't frighten me. But this feeling was just abject terror and an absolute belief that I was about to die. So the first time I got it, I was I was in Greece.

7:48I was away with a boyfriend at the time. We weren't doing anything particularly exciting. I think we were having dinner and this panic attack hit. And I think, you know, one of the challenges with panic attacks is they are your nervous system trying to give you a bit of a warning flag that it's not happy. It's, you know, the more I've learned about them, it's about your ability to process your emotions, manage your you kind of all the stuff that you need to be dealing with on a general basis. But most people kind of park or push away. and it's you know it's deeply unsettling and overwhelming but for me it taught me how to manage my emotions it taught me how to manage myself and take care of myself in a way that again I think unfortunately the best lessons that you learn in life sometimes are the hardest things that you have to go through.

8:50So I wouldn't wish them on anybody. But if you can navigate your way through them, what you get at the end of it is a very stable, robust system. Did you know what caused it? Probably the childhood trauma, to be fair. You know, I went through quite a lot from the ages of seven to 23. My mum overdosed when I was 23. And I think you you store stuff up. So you just kind of keep going and kind of push yourself through things. But what you're capable of dealing with cognitively and what your nervous system is prepared to tolerate are two entirely different things. And I think a lot of founders are the sort of people that will just keep pushing through stuff, regardless of warning signals or signs that maybe they need to do something slightly different.

9:49Sam White:You mentioned you were in Greece when you had your first panic attack and you were with a boyfriend at the time. At the age of 30, you came out as gay after two long term relationships with men. It wasn't the same time then as it is now. Was that a difficult decision for you to make? and talk about it publicly? No, it wasn't. And I always feel a bit conflicted in this regard because I know it is really hard for a lot of people to come out. And I know a lot of people do suffer with prejudice as a result of their sexuality or other factors that are outside of their control. But I didn't. Like, so I don't think I invited too much discussion around it because for me, it was this was something about me that uniquely affected me.

10:45And so it didn't really occur to me that anybody would be would be able to have a view on on this. Like, why would you care type thing? And I think because I was so nonplussed about it, I probably didn't get the kind of reaction. You know, people tend to look for weaknesses in others. If they if they are ill minded towards you, they're going to look for a chink in your armor. So as a kid, if you're uncomfortable about some factor about yourself, then the other kids are likely to kind of focus in on that. And I think because I was that bit older and probably a little bit more settled in my own skin, there wasn't really a space for people to do that.

11:37Sam White:Was there a, did you have a feeling before coming out at the age of 30 that you might be gay? So, look, my relationship with men was very good. Like I had a great relationship with my dad. Yes, he worked very hard when I was younger and he was away a lot. but our actual sort of base relationship was good he was a kind guy he was emotionally intelligent so I've always had good relationships with men so I I wasn't in relationships with guys and thinking um oh I should be you know I should be with a woman I think the first woman I was attracted to was probably I was probably 23 so it wasn't something in my teenage years that had really occurred to me.

12:22And for me, I'm the sort of person, I'm quite open and curious generally. So when I first realized that I was attracted to a woman, it wasn't like, oh my God, this is awful. I was just like, oh, that's interesting. And then I started to realize that the intensity of the attraction and the emotional connection that I was having with women was much greater than so the guys you know it was it was easy you know and it is a lot easier I always laugh it's easier dating men than than dating women no no question um but I I liked the complexity I liked the depth of connection and so once I'd made that choice it wasn't really something that I was ever going to come back from.

13:16Sam White:Okay. So we're going to go from coming out to setting up Stella. Yeah. I'm sure there's a seamless link there somewhere. You launched Stella in the UK in 2022. You actually set it up first in Australia. It's a female-centric motor insurance business. So just tell us what the approach was to Stella when you started it. Yeah. So, I mean, I went over to Australia. We were talking about this earlier. I completely fell in love with the country. It is a fabulous country. It's filled with opportunity, energy, positivity. And I went over just with a bit of curiosity about whether there might be some stuff that I could do over there.

13:53And I met with some senior insurance businesses. We ended up doing some projects. I did some claims projects, which was my background. It's what I understood. And then I met this fabulous CEO of one of the biggest insurance companies in Australia. And he was really keen for me to set up an insurance business. And I didn't want to. Like, I'm not particularly passionate about insurance for insurance sake. I'm passionate about lots of things, supporting female entrepreneurs. I'm passionate about creating businesses and, you know, trying to create businesses that are good for the community that they operate in.

14:38But insurance in of itself is, you know, it is not the thing. So when he asked me if I'd set up a business in insurance, I at first I was like, not a chance. I'm not doing it, John. And he said, why not? And I said, well, because it doesn't really light me up in that way. And he said, well, what does? And I said, honestly, you know, I'm passionate about supporting women and supporting female entrepreneurship. And he said, well, couldn't you bring those two things together? And I said, well, that is interesting. If I could create a financial service brand that was specifically focused on women and designing products around them, but standing for something, that would excite me.

15:20And he said, well, do that then. And so I was like, all right, then I will.

15:23Sam White:Good old John. You started Stallow in Australia. You opened up in the UK. How big is the Stellar Group now? Yeah, so in Australia, we'll do around 26 million in premium this year. Australian dollars. Australian dollars. In the UK, we should do around 60 million pounds. 606 or 16? 60. 60 million. 60 million pounds of premium in the UK. We've got probably about 60 ,000, 70 ,000 customers in the UK. and around 12 ,000 in Australia. Right, okay. So, and number of staff that you employ? So, Australia is a tech, more of a tech business. So, we've developed our own policy administration system. So, we build all of our products on it from scratch.

16:14The idea there is to make it as efficient as possible and obviously to be able to utilise the new technology that's coming down the pipes as much as possible. So the Australian business employs around 12 people at the moment. We're recruiting for another three, and the UK has 35. Okay.

16:38Sam White:One of the fascinating things about this podcast, and people listening to it or watching it will think to themselves, what an accomplished, confident speaker Sam is. But the truth is that for a long period of time, it might even still be the case, you used to hate public speaking. How did you overcome that fear? yeah yeah I hated public speaking um and and again you know I I had a coach who um was working with me and he you say are you very confident in meetings and putting deals together and blah blah but um I've not seen you like present in front of the staff uh you seem to leave that to other people in the business to do and I said well yeah that's deliberate I don't like it and he said oh that's interesting why don't you like it I said I just it's something that I'm deeply uncomfortable with don't want to do it and he said but the people that are talking on your behalf are not talking you're losing your voice because what how they would articulate the the the situation or the vision statement or the mission is not the same as you and so you are passing that power to them by not doing it yourself this is something that you've just got to kind of get over some and you know I went away and I read some things I mean um there's a lot of extremely um successful business people that also struggled I think you know Steve Jobs didn't like publicly speaking and And I had to kind of tear himself through it quite a lot.

18:12And I kind of realized that it was one of those things that if I didn't get a handle on it, it would hold me back. And so you say, how do you get over it? I actually hired a speaking coach and did the boring stuff, like everything in life. You want to learn how to do something. You will never just go into it and be fantastic at it. So I hired a coach and then you get to a certain point where the only thing you can really do is force yourself to actually do it. And so I signed up for some keynote speaking gigs and just forced myself to do it.

18:49Sam White:I mean, you're on BBC Radio 4, Sky News, BBC Radio 5 Live, Wake Up To Money, various publications, actually, that you've spoken on before. You made a concerted effort, I think, at the start of your career to really raise your profile on LinkedIn as well. Free resource. I mean, that's something other founders should do if they want to. People say to themselves, hey, how did that sound like it got on Sky News or how did it get on BBC Radio 5 Live Wake Up to Money? Raise your profile. Use the assets that are free and at your disposal. Would that be fair? Totally. I think the other thing, though, as well, is being brave.

19:22so there's a lot of noise on social media and it's easy um for people to just blend like a lot of people are using ai now to write their posts which will mean that you haven't got any i mean i use ai to sort out my spelling and grammar which is frankly diabolical um but i always write my own stuff and i think you know there are things that you will care about deeply that will resonate with other people and when you speak from that place where you talk authentically about things that you care about other people respond to that because they can feel your your authenticity and your passion whereas if you're frightened to say something that you think might be a bit controversial or that other people might not um relate to you you run the risk of just becoming so generic that nobody notices you you've spoken very authentic you've spoken about using

20:21Sam White:coaches you just mentioned it earlier you also spoken about using therapists as well what's been your experience of those two professionals i assume like i i like the gym we you know we talked about that as well you've lost six stone um you've lost six stone and you know for the benefit of the people who are listening to this podcast you've got a sleeveless t-shirt on showing your guns off okay uh the sun is out the sun is out the sun is out the sun is shining in manchester um but yeah you've used therapists and coaches before i mean has that been a good thing yeah look this is you know if you want to grow as a human being the idea that you can do that without any help from anybody else is frankly ludicrous and you know i had a conversation with a friend of mine that said well i'd never go to a therapist that's what my friends are for like I can just talk to my friends and I said that's great but your friends will never actually tell you the truth and he's watching me I'm very honest with my friends and I said no like I'm sure that you and your friends feel that they can disclose honestly but the reality is your friends want to still be your friends and so there will be many people in your life that you have thoughts about where you go, oh, my God, he's doing that thing again.

21:40It's a disastrous relationship or, you know, he drinks too much and he keeps telling me he's giving up or he's cutting down. But you're not going to tell them that the majority of the time.

21:50Sam White:He's just summed up my life there. You don't tell them because you want to stay friends, right? Yeah. So for me... I do. I do. I do. I haven't got a filter. I'm very happy in my relationship. But, you know, I do. I think if somebody asked me a question and they asked me for my advice, not that many people do, why would they? As a friend, I think the worst thing to do is not to say what you really want to say. But you're right. You're too worried about losing that relationship. So you go to a third party who's not got any skin in the game as well. Yeah. And do you still use therapists? I would do.

22:26I don't I'm not currently in therapy. I, you know, when my dad died, I went back for a few months because I wanted extra help processing grief. And, you know, I think you for me, there's always more to learn. So and I have to be ready to learn it. It's the same as as business. It doesn't matter how much success you get or, you know, failures that you deal with. There'll be there'll be a learning stage, a growth stage. And then if you want to punch through that, you need to do things differently and you need to you need to reflect. You need to look at what has happened and what you've done so far and go, am I exactly where I want to be?

23:16Like, am I am I having the life that I want to have, having, you know, the feelings on a day to day basis that I want to have? And if the answer isn't 100 % yes, then there's more work to be done. And, you know, you just got to do the work.

23:31Sam White:If you mentioned earlier that, you know, I think your weight, there was an article in the National Press that said that I think your highest amount, your weight was or your size was 24. Is that right? That is correct, yeah. Yeah, and you lost six stones since then. I think you work out at the gym every day. And, you know, I can vouch for that as well. in 2022 you took the decision to stop drinking alcohol now you mentioned your mom at the start of the podcast as well what was the reason behind that decision was it driven by what happened to your mom um so i think you know i can't ignore uh the effect that alcohol has had on my life and you know um again that alcohol is generally sort of rolled out as this wonderful thing that makes everybody have so much fun and enjoyment and and and that's true sometimes um what's also true is it can wreak absolute havoc so for me alcohol was something that had robbed me of you know a mother figure as a child ultimately kind of killed her off and so i i i think i always had a bit of a a nervous relationship with alcohol so you know when I drank which I did um I always had in the back of my mind like what what at what level did my mum's drinking tip from like a heavy drinker to a problem drinker to an alcoholic so I was always conscious of that so I used to that spoils having those thoughts and I can understand that having those thoughts so it takes away from the actual enjoyment of drinking doesn't it yeah I think it does because I think if you if you're second guessing it if that thought is in your head then it is going to impact just the idea oh well I'm just having a few drinks and I'm having fun I think also though for me as I got older it's the law of diminishing returns so for me anything in life is it is it adding to my life or taking away and that's true of um you know activities that I might have friendships I might have relationships I might have and and substances that you might use so I smoked until I was 30 and you know same thing I woke up one day I was like what am I doing I this is completely pointless it's just poisoning me and making me feel bad and I gave up and I never touched them again and then with alcohol I sort of went through I said I was so sober curious for a number of years so I you know when I was in LA I didn't drink for a year it's a lot easier people in Los Angeles aren't as obsessed with alcohol as we are in the UK um I just before COVID I had another break for I think it was a year, year and a half where I didn't drink.

26:33And then there'd be a set of circumstance, like a celebration or whatever. And I think, you know, why? And then for months, I'd just drink really lightly. And when I'd have a couple of big nights, feel terrible. And I think, like, again, why am I doing this? What is it that I think I'm getting out of it?

26:52Sam White:You've got two young children as well. Yes. And I think that really focuses the mind as well. Going back to the early stages in your career, Unfortunately, you did suffer a lot of misogyny and sexism as well. How bad did it get? I mean, look, I think I'm obviously I'm 50 now. So a lot of the stuff, you almost forget it and you move past it. And it is just the way that it is. But when I was building the business initially, I started it from my sister's conservatory. And then, you know, we bought this semi-detached house together and we turned the basements into offices and it was growing and it was doing well.

27:33And I got approached by a business guy who had a business that wanted the work from us. So we were generating a certain volume of work and he he wanted us to generate more. so he really pushed to invest some money into the business which I was very very reluctant about at the time and he was like look I'm just gonna I'm just gonna give you enough money so that you can generate the the work that I need and it was a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things but we um I agreed to it and then we went out maybe a week two weeks later and we went for a night out supposedly celebrating the partnership and I got to the hotel and he booked a hotel room next to mine adjoining.

28:24So I was like, not sure how I feel about this. Married guy, hadn't got any vibes before and then a few drinks in the nightclub and he just suddenly lurched for me in the club and kind of tried to kind of get me to kiss him. and I just need him really hard in the balls. And it just, you know, it obviously from a relationship viewpoint was not great, but for me it was, that's, you know, that is not the exchange here. We don't, you don't put money in and I then, you know. And there was, there was a number of sets of circumstance like that. And whenever I speak to other women in the industry and, you know, they they relax enough to trust you, every single one of them will have a story like that.