Episode 2: I had it all and then I got divorced

0:00Welcome everyone to the Naked Founder podcast, the business podcast where nothing is hidden. Our guest today is Hayley Roberts, founder and CEO of specialist IT cybersecurity distributor Dystology, headquartered in Stockport. She founded the business in 2015 and has grown it to 63 million pound turnover, 50 people and has offices in the UK, in the Netherlands and in Germany. This episode of The Naked Founder is sponsored by Financiale, the home of money for women. Welcome Hayley Roberts.

0:30Hayley Roberts:Thank you for having me. Delighted to have you Hayley. We always start every episode of The Naked Founder podcast with the same question, what didn't they tell you about founding a business which you wish they hadn't told you? Founding it's the easy bit. I think the hardest bit is evolving it actually. Did you, when you were a kid growing up, did you want to being an entrepreneur was that the plan well um i wouldn't have said that was my major plan because i probably didn't know what entrepreneur meant let alone spell it um you wanted to be an actress yes i did i wanted to be an actress um i was obsessed with that um i thought performing was brilliant um who in particular did you like oh i mean sir laurence olivier was my big fave um i went to see time in london uh back in the day and uh and i did part of the manchester youth theatre when I was growing up as well and that was phenomenal and I was desperate to you know get my equity card and go and perform but I remember having hard conversations with my dad who was incredibly black and white and would say you know but you'll get rejected there's no money in it you know you're just going to be one of many so go down the academic route and at least you've got something to fall back on.

1:45I'm going to talk to you about your dad shortly I'm going to talk to you about a trend that I've seen a lot with successful female entrepreneurs who get divorced. You got divorced. Okay. Just talk about that trend.

1:59Hayley Roberts:Obviously I set the trend. I wouldn't say it's a trend. Well, it probably is a trend, but in my head, I've changed a huge amounts through my 20s, 30s, 40s, that I think you start on a road of, rightly so, wanting to achieve something and be with somebody forever. But forever is actually a really long time nowadays. And I think that what happens is we change the path in which we take, we change the desires we have, we change the goals that we have, and no longer sometimes are they fitting or matching with the person who's with us. So I think you either evolve together or you evolve apart. And it's a bit like, somebody explained it to me once, it was like one degree of separation.

2:47Hayley Roberts:So you're on a railway track, you can't see one degree of a different turn. But as you go further down the track, that one degree gets wider and wider. And I think you suddenly just look and go, I don't know whether I want this anymore. And that's, it's a horrible thing to go through, actually. See, I know lots of entrepreneurs. And when I know lots of male entrepreneurs who've maybe had a marriage breakup, and they sort of talk about it. And it's sort of, I'm not to say it's a badge of honour because it's very painful, but they talk about it. And yet I know a lot of female entrepreneurs and you talk to them and they think, actually, you've separated from your husband, you divorced from your husband.

3:23And there's probably eight or nine really successful female entrepreneurs that I know, of which you're one, who separated from your husband. You had children together as well. At what point do you know it's not working? and how much of that is down to the fact that you're a founder and you're running a business

3:40Hayley Roberts:because if you'd been a stay-at-home mum yeah would it have been different do you know i'd love to know the stats on all of this between men and women female male entrepreneurs and the divorce race i can't talk about all women i'm going to talk about what i went through um and i don't think the realization just suddenly hit me one day i think it was a gradual creeping up of I didn't want to share my journey and my successes with the person I was married to. I wanted to do things for other people. I also think that as a woman and a mother, you always put yourself last. So as soon as you have children, and certainly this was for me, and I know lots of my friends are the same, you have, and I think there is a burnt chop, I think it is analogy, but it might be something else, but you always take the burnt food, right?

4:28Hayley Roberts:So you'll give the kids and your husband the nicest stuff you've prepared, and you'll take the scraps. You'll take the one that was a bit shit. You'll take the last omelette that was a bit crappy around the edges. Yeah. And I did that for years. And it wasn't like a major martyrdom or sacrifice. It's just being a mum. You want the best for your kids. You want to give the best. You want to do the best. I loved being a mum. I really did in the very early days of getting organized, getting the feeds right again. But as soon as it got complex where I had to get involved in the school playground, get involved in the homework, it's really, really hard.

5:02Hayley Roberts:And actually, I wanted to find myself again. And I was at conflict with myself a little bit of, well, I want to make something of me, but I can't make it being a mum. You know, I wanted to, maybe I was competitive with myself and I wanted to do well, but I knew I was never going to be mum of the year. I love my kids. I want to do the best for them. but I wanted to find something for me as well. And I think that was the burning thing that got bigger and bigger and bigger. So as I was working and doing well and I started to see success because I had my children early, I didn't have my career early.

5:31Hayley Roberts:So I started to see it. I became almost not addicted to it, but I became more obsessed with doing well and doing better for myself, not to the detriment of being a mum, but that's what I did. And I think that was the build and the burn and the desire to do well, not to just have the best house, have the best, you know, kitchen, you know, have the dinner parties and the great garden and the gym in the garden and all those gorgeous things that you can have, which is stuff inside I wanted to achieve more for me. And I don't think you can get that from just seeing your children flourish because it's still not you.

6:07Can you have everything? Can you have a successful marriage, a great relationship with your children, a great home life, a successful business and be happy yourself?

6:17Hayley Roberts:I want to say yes, but you've got to understand that everything's a gauge. It's not 100%. You can't have 100 % of everything. Something has to give. Like, you know, my marriage had to give to a certain extent. And even though he was supportive in a way, I think I wanted... I didn't want that. I didn't need that support. I didn't want it moving forward. But, you know, being a great mom is idiosyncratic, right? It's very, very personal because your children's needs are going to be very different. but actually also we need to teach our kids resilience too so having something for yourself I've realized it's actually really really positive for them too so yes you can have it all but what is all as well that's quite idiosyncratic and very personal too so having a great marriage is not just something that happens you have to work at relationships I appreciate that now and I just think I just didn't want to work at it I interviewed Sarah Davis famously on Dragon's Den and she spoke about the fact that she missed her kids.

7:13I think it was either Christmas ball. It was the sports day or the Christmas nativity or something. And she said she doesn't beat herself up about it. No. But when she is a mum, she gives 110%.

7:23Hayley Roberts:Yeah. But she can't be a stay-at-home mum. No. But she's not looking down at stay-at-home mums. It's just not her. No. Look, everyone's got their place and there's not just one thing or another. There's not a stay-at-home mum and a career person. There's blends of all different things, right? And whatever works for you, And I'm a massive believer in that. I think we're all so desperately wanting to get pigeonholed into groups of people who are this or who are that. And actually, we just need to accept that what we are is unique and perfectly fine, actually. And there's a whole opportunity for us to be a mum or a career person or a blend of both or, you know, or not be a great mum and be better at their career.

8:00Hayley Roberts:That's OK, too. I don't think I was a fantastic mum. You know, I wasn't always there at things. I wasn't, you know, the one at the end, at the finish line. I wasn't the one watching things going, this is great. I was often watching these going, I could be doing something better. I mean, that's terrible to admit. I don't think my kids would ever know that, but I love them more than anything. And so that's not taken away. I'd be there if they needed me. But there are times when I've not been. Not present. Not present. I think every parent, if they're honest with themselves, would admit that as well.

8:30We've not spoken about dystology. We will in a second. But you're building this cybersecurity distributing business, dystology, which is hugely successful. and then you split and divorced from your husband. What impact does that have on your business? Oh, massive. Because... Well, both financial and practical.

8:46Hayley Roberts:Financial came, yes, because personally, financially, I lost everything in my divorce. So that's another thing that I don't think men, men will naturally say, well, let's give it all away. And, and, and yeah, and women were going, we know what, we want equality, we want equality. And so then we get divorced and go, oh my God, everything got taken from it. Yeah, it does, because that's what happens If you're successful and your other half hasn't got as much as you have, you have to share that out or give it away. And that's exactly what happened. And so, and it was bitter. It was a bitter moment.

9:18Hayley Roberts:It was horrible because it's like your child. It was my child, dystology. Your fourth child. My fourth child that I was developing and growing and nurturing and seeing people love it. And, you know, I got so much from it. And it was a sense of a real achievement as much as it has been seeing my children thrive. and um and so for someone to then not take it away but take the the the fruits of that labor away yeah that hurt that hurt um there was bitterness there real bitterness and acrimony um from both sides actually i wouldn't just say it was one-sided um and it took me a long time to get over that so yes that came after the divorce but the impact emotionally was massive and then how does that manifest itself in running a business when you go in and you walk through the front door of the business are you leaving all your residual bitterness at the door yeah oh yes I am because I'm a robot um no I I don't think anybody can right if you are an emotional person which we all are um there is no switch off switch on right if some people can do it that's amazing I certainly couldn't do it I I I tried really hard to mask how I was feeling but I wasn't in the office as much as perhaps I would have been um I wasn't um as buoyant I mean bearing in mind you build a business, a lot of it is your personality.

10:33Hayley Roberts:Our business is all about culture. It's about good service. It's about being positive. You know, these are our values in the business. So if I couldn't exhibit that, and bearing in mind, you know, we were smaller than we are now a few years ago when I went through the divorce, I was very visible. I was very tangible that I was probably not as buoyant, as upbeat, as bubbly as I always have been. So that, it was shocking. It was harmful. It was really hurtful. Yeah, it's a difficult phase that you went through. You touched upon your dad earlier in our conversation. And you love your dad. Yeah. But your dad was particularly hard on you, wasn't he?

11:09Hayley Roberts:Yeah. And I can sort of, you know, I'm very lucky with my dad, but I can really relate to some of the stuff that you said. What did your dad, what was he like? Just explain what he was like to you. My dad was very black and white, very on and off, very judgmental. He still is, he's still alive, isn't he? Yeah. You know, he and and he was very hard on himself and therefore hard on myself and my sister. And I think that we were never we never felt we were good enough ever. So in my head, the voice in the back of my head was always nothing's good enough. Nothing's good enough. You've got to keep going.

11:48Hayley Roberts:You know, even when you're succeeding, you can't. It's not good enough to sit there. I would never sit down and go, oh, my God, amazing. I'm so great because you can't be a big head. Don't be a big head, Hayley. No one likes a big head. You're one of two sisters. Yes. Right. And no brothers. No, no brothers. We were 14 months apart. My sister's older than me and she's doing amazingly well. She's a head teacher actually at a school. She's amazing. But she was more of an introvert than me. So she got knocked a bit because I was the one that would go, yeah, yeah, I'm great. Everything's fine. I'm going to show you all what's brilliant.

12:19Hayley Roberts:and she would quietly ruminate on things and probably took it a lot more to heart sometimes than I did. But I don't think it's done as much harm. And I say that with a weird 50-50 of how I feel about saying it because I don't know whether I'd be doing what I'm doing today without that voice in my head, but I've also learned to be nicer to myself about the mistakes that I've made. You talk about resilience, though, and why we need to build resilience into young people. Yeah. But your dad built resilience into you indirectly, probably. Yeah, he did. And actually, I could have turned out worse, right?

12:56Hayley Roberts:I could have turned out to be a bitter, horrible person who just beat my children with it as well. And whilst I've had a... I've tempered that with my kids, I will still say, hey, you know, you need to keep going or get some strength around. Don't sit there and lick your wounds too long because, you know, you've got a life to live and there's lots to go for. I don't think I've been as harsh with them as he was on me, certainly. But I was constantly wanting his approval. Yeah, I wonder whether or not a lot of that's a generational thing because we're a similar age, I would imagine. I'm probably much more older than you, but my dad was old school.

13:32Hayley Roberts:Yeah. And I'm a twin. Yeah. So my brother, slightly different to me, wanted to be a musician. He was really, really good. Yeah. And my dad said, get a sensible job. And it was get a trade, you know, you'll never be without work, etc., etc. But he did it for the right reasons. And both me and my brother have been reasonably successful. Yeah. But he was black and white. Yeah. There was no grey in my dad's way of thinking. What relationship did he have with your mum? My mum was the softer, nurturing side, but she would side with my dad because, you know, she knew. And I think her father was pretty black and white again.

14:08Hayley Roberts:That was the generation back again. But mum was great. She was a stay-at-home mum. She had a part-time job. She did all the things that meant she fit around us. She was a good mum. But I think she also wanted to do something for herself and never had the confidence. She's very introverted, very, very private. She was the mum you weren't? Yeah. Okay, it's interesting. Pretty much, yeah. Your first job was interesting, one of your first jobs. Obviously, you drove to being an actress, wanted to go into law. Yeah, it's got some A-levels up. Messed up your A-levels, ended up working for a toiletry business.

14:41Yes. Okay, so tell us about that.

14:42Hayley Roberts:Oh, it was brilliant. So I did the IBM graduate scheme placement or assessment day rather, assessment few days actually. And it was really good because I love being around people and we had lots of different things to do. And I love those assessment centers. But I looked at everyone who worked there and I thought, oh, they look kind of sad and a bit gray and very corporate. How old were you then? I was 21. 21. So 21 is after I graduated in business. um and I thought oh and then I went for an interview with this toiletries company that was that was developing toiletries for next for Marks and Spencer's for Sainsbury's um I thought this looks I get this I understand this I use toiletries I'm you know very excited by you know bottles and the the shape of things the color of things all that kind of good stuff I could conceptualize what it was right as a business couldn't really do that with IBM um and um and so that's why I I joined Potter and Moore, it was at the time.

15:37Hayley Roberts:And they did a lot of the toiletries of hotels. But they had a lab there developing the products. So I learned that. They had a factory to do factory startups at the age of like 22. I'd be there on a Saturday helping to start things off, developing products like the Christmas gift boxes for next. And it was great. It was really, really exciting. And I learned a lot from it. But I also had a really dictatorial female boss, weirdly, which was quite bizarre, who would swear constantly. And I thought that was quite cool. So I'd swore anyway. I mean, it's like every other word. We've only sworn once so far today.

16:13Have I? Excellent.

16:14Hayley Roberts:Oh, gosh. It's a new 2026, New Year's resolution, et cetera. And I thought, yeah, she's great. She's like telling what it is and banging the phone down and really angry and aggressive and this happens, that happens. I was like, wow, she's so cool. And then realised that perhaps not many people actually liked her. but I kind of you know take on that persona yeah that's what she'd be a real hard bitch and yeah go out there and get it yeah there you go boom that's the resolution over okay you try you mentioned early about your relationship as a mum yeah okay you had your third child 2007 yeah and you sort of realized that actually it wasn't for you you mentioned it earlier yeah 2015 you set up dystology yeah okay yeah what was the reason behind dystology what was the idea and what was the problem you were trying to fix?

17:00Hayley Roberts:So I'd worked, so when I was made redundant, actually, from a headhunting job, it was a credit crunch. So not long after, it was like 2008, just after my daughter was born. I'd gone back to work, wasn't going well, so lost that job. And I went then into, went for a job and I got a job in a cybersecurity distributor, right? So it was a huge opening then for a new industry, new area for me, it was great. Very quickly went from part-time within a few weeks to full time because I was so addicted and wanted to do so well. And I spent some time with my daughter as a baby. She was one then. And basically, it was a lot to customer service.

17:42Hayley Roberts:It was new technologies. It was, you know, how do we, we're in a supply chain for technology. How do we do better? And that's where a distributor sits. So I worked for them. They got bought by a large company. I lasted about eight months in the large company running a business unit because I didn't like to be told what to do it's very corporate got approached by a software business to run their business grew their business really nicely and then I went okay there's still a real deficit of good customer service um good care and attention to detail and technical expertise in the distribution layer um and I was always talking with my um friend who had sold the business that I'd first worked for and uh and he was like you know he had some money and I had the time and we we basically got our heads together and I said I really want to do this on my own he said great I'll back you and that's basically how it started so when you launched business in 2015 I don't know how old you were at the time but first time founder yeah when you said to your dad hey dad I'm gonna launch a business what did he say yeah I think he was quite skeptical I don't know whether it's because he didn't necessarily he would always attribute my successes to other people isn't it great that he allowed you to do this isn't it great that he did this isn't it great that he did that even isn't it great that my one of my best friend's husbands um pointed me in the direction of the recruitment website that i got the job it like it was always he it was always he was always he um but then it was always he anyway so i guess that i can't attribute that to him being sexist or whatever but it was and i thought why can't you just say wasn't it fortuitous that I managed to spot this opportunity and go for it.

19:17Hayley Roberts:Now he does. Yeah. Now he does. Because he sees the success and the... Now, if it had failed, he'd probably gone, well, that's a stupid idea, wasn't it? But maybe he didn't... Maybe he was worried that he didn't want you to fail. Maybe it was a... Yeah, I think... A counterintuitive thing. Yeah, maybe. And, yeah, maybe the stuff in his past he could have... I don't know. I don't know the psychology behind it. But he wasn't... He was like, yeah, that'd be great. And I think also I was married. It wasn't... Don't forget, you know, this wasn't me with a single parent with kids and on the bread line going, you know, but we did have a standard of living.

19:52Hayley Roberts:I was earning a huge amount of money compared to what I'd previously earned. But my husband at the time was also earning and doing well. So there was a buffer there, even though it was a huge gamble and it was, you know, we had to cut back on a lot of things. I still managed to be able to do it because I had my bills paid. Right. So it wasn't like I put everything on hold I had to you know bootstrap my whole life so so you know the hardships I'd love to go yeah it's really really tough and I was on my it wasn't that hot that's why I said that the founding bit was the easy bit everything else that comes from that this the self-deprecation the the lack of confidence the you know the the you don't have the pride in yourself that you had when you're working for somebody and doing well and and earning the money suddenly you are you are literally at at the the mercy of how well you do for for praise and accolade you don't have a boss telling you you're doing a good job are you unemployable yes massively right okay so you set up you set up astrology okay and you set up astrology yes okay 2015 um just talk about the practicalities of it did you need to you said you right there's somebody that you knew.

21:04Yes.

21:04Hayley Roberts:So it was founded in 2014. And the name is very simply Distribution Technology. Which I like. I think it's really good. And do you remember the, do you remember the, it's an ology, it's a science. Yeah. Remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maureen Lippman. Maureen Lippman, yeah. And so it is, and you know what? It kind of is, of course, everything is a science if you boil it down to brass tacks. So that was it. And then the vendor that I was working with, I then took them in to represent them, to distribute them. So they were the biggest vendor that we had. We had another vendor that was really good run rate stuff.

21:43Hayley Roberts:So we took that and that was it. So those are the two things we started with. And then everything else, we would go out and work on bringing some technologies into the business. But the fundamental thing was you had to get people who wanted to buy from you. So the technology was one thing that they wanted to buy. but also it's the why would they why would they even entertain you put you on their books and this is where the resale network which is thousands of businesses so i was sort of touting around a lot of these resellers going no no come and buy from us this is great we're a new distributor and then i was going to the vendors the software manufacturers oh yeah no no we're in you we're agile we're going to do this because i all we could evidence at that point was good customer service all i could evidence was me running around going this is amazing yeah so i was selling it It was Emperor's New Clothes a lot.

22:27Did you have an office or were you working from home?

22:29Hayley Roberts:So we had a serviced office in... We worked at a hot desk. We rented some space and had a desk in Manchester. Hired a techie and then a salesperson. So then moved to Stockport, had a serviced office in Regent's House. Yeah. That was the first proper office. And then it sort of built from there. Then we kept going up in the serviced office in Regent House. So we got bigger and bigger and bigger. and then we went to a building that my shareholder that I'd gone into business with, he owned. So we had that for a little while. Then he exited the business when we got PE and then we moved to a bigger facility in Stockport.

23:08And the practicalities of having three young children and running a business, it's not like it is now. It's not. No. What was it like then?