Jen Atkinson: The self-belief gap holding female founders back

0:00Welcome everyone to the latest episode of the Naked Founder podcast, a business podcast where nothing is hidden. Our guest today is Jen Atkinson, founder and executive chair at TravelScene. Jen made a name at ITC Travel Group at the age of 48, decided to become a first time founder when she launched TravelScene and she's not looked back. She's already grown it to a turnover of more than 20 million, but is targeting 100 million in two years time. It's fair to say that Jen's had to endure her fair share of challenges along the way, including losing millions of pounds as a result of COVID and also raising two young children on her own.

0:34Welcome, Jen Atkinson.

0:35Jen Atkinson:Great to be here, Chris. Good to see you. It's good to see you too, Jen. We always start every 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? I think I had a romanticised idea that it was going to be exciting and dynamic because I'd run an established business. But what they didn't tell me is just how hard it is, just how hard the small stuff is when you haven't got a team and an infrastructure behind you. We're going to talk and do a deep dive into founding a business. But, you know, would you do it again?

1:09If you could turn back the clock, would you found a business at the age of 48, given what you know now?

1:14Jen Atkinson:Are you giving my age away already? This is a bit cheeky. Would I do it again? I mean, I think it's always easy to have hindsight, isn't it? I would probably do it differently. We started it from zero and built up from that. I would probably have bought into a business. One of the things I think you can talk about where a lot of people can't talk about is you went into a business, ITC. You grew it to a real scale and then you exited and then you founded a business. so what's the difference between founding a business that you don't own and you're not invested in the same way to founding a business and putting everything on the line it's it's hugely different I mean I did feel my old business was mine but I didn't start it that is that is the truth and I think something I'm sort of knowing about my character is um I probably don't think things through fully enough so I've just got a dog bear with me with this parallel okay and everybody told me I said I'm getting a dog and they went have you done your research I went how hard can it be how can it hard can it be to have a dog can I just tell you it's really really hard having a dog okay listen and the point is when I started a business I was like I know about business I know how to raise money I know how to recruit people all of those things I felt I can do that but actually doing it versus the the power of the vision of I think I can do it are two entirely different things.

2:42Okay. I can't let the question go unasked. What's the name of your dog? Bertie. Bertie.

2:49Jen Atkinson:We're like the Kardashians in our house, Billy Bell and Bertie. It's funny you used to say that because we've got three cats now. We had four. Bertie, Bee and Betty were the first. So you're the Chorley Kardashians. Absolutely. But then we named the fourth one Matilda as well. Cats are a responsibility, but a dog is a big bind. What breed is it? It's a sort of fluffy designer mongrel. Right, okay, okay. And you've got to walk it twice a day? It's really, really tying. Anyway, the reason I draw this parallel is having a dog is like starting a new business. You don't know how tying and challenging and draining it's going to be until you're in it.

3:29Jen Atkinson:And when you're in it, and if you're like me, you don't want to let anything go. You can't give up. So the stakes get higher and higher. The dog walks get longer and longer. You see where I'm going with this? Would you say you're impulsive? Very. So if you get an idea, you just go with it. Exactly. And I think that's the characteristic of many entrepreneurs. And I suppose, you know, when my kids ask me what I do for a living, I say I'm an entrepreneur. But actually, in reality, I feel like I had a lot to prove because I didn't found my old business. I led it, but I didn't come up with the idea.

4:04Jen Atkinson:Whereas the idea for Travel Scene, the funding, how we've done it is entirely down to me. And I passionately believe in my own really good ideas, Chris. I mean, why wouldn't I? But you've been successful. But also, I think in terms of entrepreneurs and founders generally, and I sort of can see this in myself, is if I have an idea, I cannot let it go. The older I get, the more I do my due diligence and try and, you know, prove why it can't work. And if I can't prove it, why it can't work, like this podcast, for example, I think there's a need for this podcast. which is slightly different and slightly more honest as well.

4:42Let me take you back to your decision to found Travel Scene. I only refer to the fact that you were 48 when you launched a business because a lot of people think you have to be 23 to launch a business. And you had the experience of what you did at ITC. Okay, at the time, newly divorced, single mum, had some bruising experiences as a result of COVID, which we'll touch upon as well. A million reasons not to launch a business. Why did you do it?

5:06Jen Atkinson:um a because i believed in my really good idea um i really passionately believed there was a gap for what we wanted to do which was a social led community in travel so um the second is i did dilly dally and being a non-exec and investing in other businesses and what i realized is having spent the vast majority of my career in one sector that was my area of expertise not fashion not restaurants, not any of those things. I knew how to make money and what created value in the sector I worked in for a long time. And I suppose the third thing is I believe that living purposefully equates living happily.

5:49Jen Atkinson:And I could not be bored. I could not retire, even though I probably could have. I needed a purpose to get me up. And I believe that if you know I was in a relatively small alumni of women that had scaled a business and sold it to private equity I think somebody told me there's only a hundred women that have done that in the UK which is a shocking stat in itself but then to do it to be you know have what happened to me and do it again at 50 as a single parent I think what a story to tell for other women so to give them the grit the confidence that it is possible and i don't really don't feel like age is a barrier i mean i've said it before i think probably to you i feel better at 50 than i did at 40 i mean are you just about to tell me i look better at 50 you absolutely do can i say that in today's i'm not sure but you just haven't thank you very much i received the compliment i mean one of the things is there's a phrase that you know people regret the things they don't do not the things that they do you know so i would rather make a mistake than spend my life sitting on the edges looking at what I might have done.

6:54You mentioned a statistic, something called Super Scalers, where the only 80 women in the UK have founded a business that scaled to 50 million turnover as well.

7:02Jen Atkinson:Yeah, it's that. So it's a minority. It's a big, big, big, big minority as well. So you launched a business. Just explain the social media element to it, because that's the USP, isn't it? Yeah, completely. So I think what I was pretty traditional in terms of my media consumption up until the pandemic, you know, I'd read a newspaper. I was that person that would read a newspaper and buy a magazine and be influenced by those mediums. But when we were all locked down, I really fell in love with Instagram as a media and it provided a real sense of connection when there was no connection. And equally, I got irritated by Instagram from a travel perspective.

7:40Jen Atkinson:It was inauthentic. It was vanilla, a lot of the content. And I thought, well, I am my market. You know, most people that book holidays at the luxury side is female. It's over 40. and I know what I like to consume. So could I engage with a community of like-minded people through Instagram predominantly? So that was the basis. That's the kind of marketing platform, if you like. So to withdraw the heroin of PPC and Google AdWords and all the stuff that the travel industry is addicted to and looking at a way of building an organic community and then targeting ads to that community and selling holidays based on a platform of buy and build of travel businesses that we've invested in and bought.

8:25Jen Atkinson:And we started with relatively small investments because that was all we could afford at the time. And like with anything, this is the model of private equity. You buy something small, then you lend against that. You buy something slightly bigger, which is what we've done. So it's a combination of organic investment and buy and build. You've got 20 million turnover in no time. So let me take you back to your childhood. You're from Leeds, lived in a semi-detached house. Your mum is Austrian, Ziggy. Your dad was an academic. They met on holiday. Not the obvious pairing, I think most people would say.

8:58One of your brothers is Jürgen Mayer, former CEO of Siemens. Very successful, you know, family in terms of what you and your brothers eventually did with your lives as well. Do you think you were always destined to found your own business?

9:11Jen Atkinson:If you ask my dad, he wanted me to be a teacher or work in the public sector. He's nice and secure. He was really risk averse, really disciplined, really lived life safe, which I found utterly boring. My mum, on the other hand, was incredibly brave, incredibly spontaneous and just backed me to do anything. And I think from a young age, I realised I probably inherited more of her genes in the non-academic sense than my dad's. And I found myself at school, I was sort of average, if I'm honest, I sort of scraped through. But I always daydreamed about doing my own thing. And even in the early days, I was kind of plotting business ideas of where my mum worked.

9:53Jen Atkinson:I was like, that would make a great shopping mall when shopping malls weren't a thing. So, yeah, I mean, I think it was a combination of my mum's feisty, foreign belief of always kind of taking a risk. And actually, where my dad's qualities have served me well is if you are going to be an entrepreneur, You know, you do need to be disciplined. You need to understand the risks before you fully jump in. No, and I can, I've never met your mum, but I can almost see that certain, you know, that sort of freedom, that freedom of spirit as well. Your big break came when you joined ITC Travel and you met your mentor, Drew Foster.

10:33And he really took you under his wing, didn't he? He was one of the pioneers of luxury travel. What influenced Drew? He sadly died. have on your career?

10:42Jen Atkinson:It's huge. I think there's been a few pivotal relationships in my life. And what they've both taught me is that actually I need relatively little, but I do need somebody behind me to give me belief. And I think, you know, coming back to why go again, I think, you know, one of the reasons that women particularly struggle in the world of scaling up businesses investment is that self-belief that they can ask for 10 million and get 15 million, as opposed to ask for five and get one. So in all of my career, I've been very, very lucky at very pivotal moments to have somebody that's just kind of given me a nudge and gone, we back you.

11:23Jen Atkinson:And Drew was one of those main people. He just said, I believe you can do this, Jen. And that was enough to mobilise me. So is the moral of the story, if you don't ask, you don't get? I think so. And I think females tend to struggle with asking in a way that men don't. You know, obviously I've done a fair amount of fundraising recently and it's pretty tough. Not only do you have to ask, you then have to justify and you have to soul search in a way perhaps that, you know, that's uncomfortable. And I think there's just an intrinsic confidence in men that women really do question themselves a lot more and that I include myself in that.

12:02I think men, most men would admit privately they question themselves more than I admit, you know, publicly. You started at ITC Travel as a marketing manager. You became COO and then Drew took a punt on you and he made you the CEO, which was a big gamble. One of the first things you did is make 40 people redundant because the business wasn't as profitable as it should have been.

12:24Jen Atkinson:It's going to make me popular, isn't it? Absolutely, absolutely. But that was a big decision to make for an inexperienced CEO. And the result was you turned the business around from being a 40 million turnover business to a 90 million pound turnover business as well. So have you been somebody who's been able to make tough decisions? Is that in your DNA? I think I can. In fact, I know I can. And I won't do anything I won't do myself. So if we're going to make redundancies, I won't hide behind the HR manager and let her make the redundancies. I will do it myself. So yes, I can have a difficult conversation.

12:58Jen Atkinson:I think a lot of people in business do shy away from difficult conversations. I mean, we don't wake up on a Monday going, oh, I'm looking forward to all the difficult conversations I can have this week. But I'm brave in that regard. And I think probably what characterizes me and most people that set something up is courage. And I am both personally courageous with my own self-reflection, but courageous in terms of difficult decisions and taking risks. I could look through your career and we've known each other for a few years. and if you've had a fork in a road and you've had easy life, hard life, I could guarantee I could follow your track because it would always be the hard option.

13:38Jen Atkinson:Well, you're right and sometimes I go, what kind of sociopath am I? You know, I don't need this shit. Sorry, there, I swore already. But it's back to your view of regret and I, you know, I take my kids to the Trafford Centre and I just look around and I go, these are people walking around the Trafford Centre who've lost the will to live, full of regret and remorse of the things they didn't do and the chances they didn't take. And I don't want to be that person. I'd rather fail dramatically than not give something a go. Your dad died here before last, and my dad died two years ago. And, you know, we were in the hospital for the last three days of his life, and he was 87 when dad died.

14:18And I looked at him and I thought to myself, dad has zero regrets. You know, at some time in his life, he's made what some people might consider to be a selfish option, you know, But he's always done what he wanted to do. So at the end of his life, he had zero regrets. And I always think to myself, at the end of his life, he didn't look back with any regrets as well. It doesn't mean to say it's carte blanche to be selfish, but it just sort of taught me that he joined the Merchant Navy at a really young age. He travelled the world. He lived in America. He worked on the Queen Mary for five years.

14:48He got married at 33, which was relatively late. But it sort of taught me that he didn't have any regrets. And I think regrets is a really corrosive feeling.

14:55Jen Atkinson:I think you're right. I mean, what I have learned, certainly in this last couple of years, starting the new business, is there is no mistakes. There's just lessons. And better those lessons and take that reflection than be bitter and regretful. And I think what I've tried to reframe, and let me be really clear, I've done things in my career that I probably look back on and go, wish I hadn't done that. Wish I hadn't said that. But actually, it taught me a lesson or it's I've done it differently next time. And I think that's what's made me enjoy the process of setting up a business is is there is no such thing as failure.

15:39Jen Atkinson:There's just decisions that weren't the ones that got you to where you wanted to be. And you can't rewrite history and a mistake is not a mistake. It's a learning, but you just learn from it for the next time. when you were at ITC like I say you grew it from 40 million to 90 million even though you didn't found the business you were successful you were the main reason for its success and a five million pound profit as well um then North Edge came in they invested uh in ITC you took half the money off the table you know we de-risked yourself which is which is what anybody would do in the same situation rolled the rest in and then along came COVID and effectively your multi-million amount of money that you rolled in was worth nothing overnight.

16:23Jen Atkinson:Yeah. What was that like? Do you know what? I didn't give it much thought. I know that sounds almost extraordinary. And just coming back to the, yes, I did make it successful, but so did the team around me. You know, it wasn't just me. So I think I was going through a really difficult personal time. You know, my marriage was falling apart and I couldn't save it. And I think I read somewhere that business people or entrepreneurs, they think that everything can be saved. I could not understand how I could not make my marriage work. And, you know, my ex who sadly passed away last year, you know, it was just something I couldn't change.

17:01Jen Atkinson:And I was so involved in that, that actually the work side of it and the wipeout side of it, it just didn't seem as important. And kids were really little. I was trying to homeschool, which I was utterly terrible. I completely sacked myself as a parent, just as an aside. And I have realized one of the motivations to go back to business is in my romantic view of the world. And we were going to do arts and crafts and, you know, do all this lovely stuff as a family unit. And I was utterly crap. You know, my kids are way happier when I'm working because I'm a better parent. So in answer to your question, I think I probably look back now and go, God, I didn't think that through.

17:46Jen Atkinson:or didn't grieve that in a way that perhaps most people would. Do you? I know a lot of successful female entrepreneurs who were divorced. Is there a reason for that? Well, I think it's probably. I mean, there's got to be. I think my experience, and obviously it's not true for everybody, is you can't be all things. You can't be a brilliant entrepreneur, perfect wife, a perfect mother, et cetera, et cetera. and you know I got accused very recently actually of being a big character and I'm like well why would I diminish my light for somebody else's insecurity and I think typically what I've learned is big female characters are quite difficult for men to live with and you know that distraction of not being a homemaker I know a lot of super successful women equally who are really happily married so it's a generalization but certainly that was my experience and it's a shame you know if I turn but you know we can ruminate all day long you know was it my big career that dissolved the marriage who knows nobody knows um but it does seem to be collateral damage to a lot of high profile female entrepreneurs yeah I think you are a big character but I think that I don't say that as a criticism I think you know you are you know when you're in the room your personality fills that room as well but i would say i am as well um i also think there's an element of front about it you know we all have a front um talking about 2020 right that was your annas horoblos you know if you were doing a queen speech at the end of the year that would have been front and center of what you had spoken about she mentioned you separated from your husband um covid happened you lost a lot of the money that he had all the money had tied up in itc when um you could have hidden under a stone, decided to launch Travel Scene.

19:39Was that because, and this is a thing that we've heard before, that you were unemployable. You literally couldn't work for anybody else.

19:46Jen Atkinson:Well, it would seem that way. I mean, coming back to the big character, I'm proud of that. I think I'm more reflective than a lot of people. I do think about things quite deeply. um but i think what what was clear to me is sitting as a non-exec might be a point in the future but at 50 the young age of 48 49 i felt like i had more in me than that and then at the thought of going to get a job and being employed under an organization having run something pretty much on my own for a very very long time it just felt almost impossible so then you get the option of well what then am I going to go work in a charity sector or am I going to set up a tea shop when I'm crap at making tea and I'm not very good I was never a good waitress so it leaves you limited options and I knew back to my earlier point I wanted purpose so that's kind of and I knew the sector and you know I wanted to do it in a in a in a graceful way nobody admires somebody that just tries and nicks the best part of their old world I wanted to do something that was different that you know played to my strengths etc so so that's where it left me but you know I'm definitely a team player I definitely get a lot out of working with people but I definitely could not work in a PLC as an employee in inverted commas.

21:17I think you can be a team player and work and you know be an entrepreneur founder and work for yourself as well I don't think the two you know can't coexist um a lot of people have told you over the years jen you've got adhd

21:31Jen Atkinson:you've never bothered with a diagnosis no well i think we've all got a bit of something haven't we you know i'm going through this with my son at the moment um and i'm i'm i'm sort of confused as to what to do i think see i'm a child of the 70s and 80s and there was no such thing as a diagnosis back then you were just naughty or fidgety um I choose to use it as a superpower you know I'm ultimately focused I see the big picture I have a vision I sound like that I have a dream um but equally it holds me back I was sat in a meeting the other day and I was having to read some legal documents and I turned around to one of my colleagues and I said I literally you cannot read the words on this email.

22:18Jen Atkinson:I can't read. I can't force myself to read that email. Because it was boring. It was just so dry and it was so long. And I just kept reading the first three lines and going, I'm going to make a cup of tea. I just could not force myself to do it, which is so weird. Because normally as a disciplined person, I would just force myself to read it. So I think I'm lucky as a founder that I can put people around me that can cover my bases and can do the detail and the operational stuff. They always say, you know, like, surround yourself by people who are cleverer than you. I find that I'm a much more effective learner through listening than I am reading.

22:58So I can read a book and I can read a page in a book and at the end of the page I can, because I've literally not bought into it, I can't remember anything about the page. And yet I listen to something when I'm driving, whilst driving, and I can remember everything about it. So you have to work out what works for you. Exactly. You've spoken very honestly about having imposter syndrome. You've spoken about the menopause, which I think a lot of female founders are being much more open about it. But you were like a bit of a forerunner for that as well. Do you think female founders tend to be more open than their male counterparts?

23:33And is that a good thing or a bad thing?