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Sam Smith's IPO Experience and Why She Founded Superscalers · Low to Grow

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Sam Smith was the first female stockbroker of the City
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investment. Firm, my choir master actually,
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he was in the city and I said I'll get your day's work
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experience in the Commodity Exchange.
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But as I walked in aged 17, you know my little suit, feeling all
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excited, they started barking, like literally like dog barking.
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As I walked in I looked back to that and think Oh my God, they
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all had these little boxes with lots of pastry girls and naked
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pictures stuck up on the walls. She built and scowled.
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Thin cap into a leading investment firm for over 24
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years before leading it to IPO. As for CEO?
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Even though I've IPO to business, I say to people I
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still have all these insecurities.
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I was not good enough. I don't value myself properly,
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you know. Should I be at the seat at this
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table? What also really stood out to me
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is actually Sam's true belief that inclusivity and culture are
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three drivers of both profit and growth for a company.
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Quick note before we start, if you have enjoyed this podcast
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and want to support our incredible.
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Guests. Please follow Low to Grow
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podcast on Instagram and TikTok. Welcome to Low to Grow, the
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podcast transforming life's toughest moments into
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opportunity. For growth.
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I'm Annie, A Forbes Under 30 Technology founder whose
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entrepreneurship journey ran parallel to a mental health
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awakening. In every episode, I sit down
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with inspiring individuals and delve into how they managed to
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turn their personal or professional challenges into
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opportunities for growth. If you're facing uncertainty in
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your life, feeling down or simply need a kick of
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inspiration to keep moving forward, this is your space for
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the honest and uplifting conversations that you will want
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to hear. Hit follow so you never miss an
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episode and let's dive in. Sam is now the Co founder of
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Super Scalers working hands on with ambitious scale ups and she
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is also a huge champion of underrepresented founders in the
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UK. Sam, it's such a pleasure to
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have you on Below to Grow podcast.
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Who do you want to be listening to our conversation today?
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So I think it's it's probably useful for any entrepreneur
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that's starting out, any entrepreneur that's scaling, any
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entrepreneur that wants to really super scale and probably
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particularly any entrepreneur that's feeling a bit stuck or
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needs a bit of encouragement and really wants to think a bit
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bigger. How would you describe where
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your journey started? Got it started, you know,
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because it has my career journey.
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I'd done three years accountancy so I was at KPMG for three years
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and studying to be a qualified charged accountant, which I got
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my exams and I left the day I qualified and I was going to go
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to a big corporate bank and I decided that wasn't for me.
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Something happened and that that made my decision and I started
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working for a private wealth manager that just wanted to set
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up this new department to do corporate finance and 24.
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Everyone thought I was mentor. I thought it was worth taking
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the risk. I didn't even think it was a
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risk to be honest. I thought it was a risk doing
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something I didn't want to do and I set about working out how
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you set up a corporate finance department.
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I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know how to do a
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corporate finance deal. I just learned and gradually
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that decision meant we built that division out.
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We built it took something quite significant to 3,000,000
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turnover and then I bought that division out became thin cap
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eight years later and then built it to be the largest investment
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bank for growth companies in the UK.
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So no idea what I was doing at the start, no idea that I was an
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entrepreneur or no idea I was going to build something.
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It just happened, you know, by keep growing and keep getting to
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the next stage and that was my 24 year history.
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Wow, you make it sound so smooth.
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But I'm sure that there were a lot of challenges.
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So manoeuvres. It's definitely, definitely not
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smooth. No, definitely not smooth.
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But I think all us entrepreneurs are extremely positive.
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So even when something is going really badly wrong, you sort of
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see the positives. And actually I'm, I'm a great
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one for thinking whatever happened, happened for a reason.
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I've got a great quote, which I love is, you know, you need one
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door to close before another one opens.
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And that's always my philosophy. When something's going really
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wrong, you're really, really, really struggling that that's
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the opportunity that something else is about to happen.
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And if you keep that mindset, I think you see the things that
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are about to open and then you never look back.
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I like that. It's similar to that saying of
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you have to leave something behind in order to welcome in
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something else. And I think that's very true.
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Sophie, Even Sam, early on in your career, was there one
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particular opportunity that you remembered losing or really, you
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know, feeling bad about losing, which then actually ushered in a
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new opportunity about setting on the track to do what you have
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been able to do and achieve? So losing, I mean, I, I don't
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frame things like this in my head.
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So when I go back, I said, God, what, what do we, you know,
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every single client loss, every time something went wrong, I
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would feel that very painfully. Every single member of staff
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that I lost, I would feel it very painfully.
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I'd try and fight for them. And, and I think all those
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losses, you know, you feel it because building a business is
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in your DNA. And it was very personal and I
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took everything very personally. And I think one of the lessons I
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learned when I had a very good chairman who would say, look,
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this, these things are going to happen.
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Losses, some failure is what comes with growth.
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You have to lose to win. You know, you can't just always
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be winning. And actually you just learn to
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deal with the losses and they become smaller and you stick to
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the vision and you just learn to accept that loss and failure and
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things not working is just part of, you know, growing forward.
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So there's probably a few major things that have happened that,
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you know, are really my lowest points.
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But you know, in terms of losses, I don't, I don't see
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them like that. I think that's a very positive
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mindset to have and also very true to a lot of entrepreneurs
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via know as well. In most times when you're at
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your lowest, who did you lean on to get you through that?
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OK. So, you know, the lowest point I
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think was one year in where I actually had a great maternity
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leave. You know, I, the beginning was
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like, this is amazing. My daughter's sleeping, I had a
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maternity nurse, I was working 3/4 of the time.
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I was really, really happy and things were going very well.
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And the problem started for me when she was about 6 months old
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when I was back in the office full time, feeling quite guilty
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about not doing the dinners I was doing before, feeling like
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everyone expected me to be exactly the same CEO as before.
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So challenging that at the same time, at six months old, my
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daughter got very ill, went into hospital, lost a lot of her
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birth weight and suddenly I didn't have a good sleeping
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baby. I'd lost all my support that I'd
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had during my maternity leave to mean I could work and have if at
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home all the time. And suddenly I was like, oh, we
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both got ill. We both got a bad parasite
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illness and was I was sleeping probably 2 hours a night looking
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after her working. The whole thing became awful and
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consistently my 2 hours a night turned into you know, I was
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falling over in the road. I just couldn't function anymore
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and I had to go to the Doctor Who's like you, you have to be
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in bed for two weeks. So went off, went to bed for two
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weeks, still was working because my brain was still working, but
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I had no energy to eat more down the stairs for two weeks because
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I was so tired. And I think what that tells you
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is look, there's, there are a few things going on.
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One is you feel so guilty, your life's completely turned around
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and you need to fit into a new box.
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You've lost your whole identity. Things are coming in from all
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angles. There's lots of things to
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process while you don't have any time to process it.
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So I think the big thing for me and the thing I did then and
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then the learning I've taken ongoing is you need help, you
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know, you, you have to ask for help and I'm rubbish asking for
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help. So for me, I tried everything.
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I tried every single approach to alternative staff, life coaches,
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yoga, everything. And the two things with the
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transformational for me, one, I went to this amazing yoga
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teacher who did life coaching yoga at the same time and I
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can't even quite explain it. And she tried to think about how
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you train your thoughts. And this was at the point where
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I was thinking the only way out is to sell the business because
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I can't do this. I can't do this any longer.
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By the end of one hour. And I only went to see her for
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the first time the hour before the end of the hour, she said OK
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and managed to get my brain so slightly calmer to say, do you
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want to sell your business? And I instrument no said OK, so
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everything else is noise. Your brain when you're
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overwhelmed, your brain is sending you thoughts that are
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super unhelpful. If your answer's no anything
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else that comes into your head that's like, can I do this?
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Can I sell the business? What am I going to do if I sell
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the business, What happens? You're in that state.
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She managed to just close that thought of do I want to sell the
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business? No, I don't.
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OK, so how do I solve my problem?
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And but almost instantly all the noise to do with what happens if
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I have to sell the business was gone.
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So that was one thing like calming your brain down.
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Then I went to see Geeta, who's now my coach and has been since
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then, like 10 years ago. And I actually went to see her
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about something completely different.
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And what we realized at the end of this was, OK, you don't want
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to sell the business and you don't need to go on a weight
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loss program to feel better. What you need is how are you
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going to function well building a business, being a mom and not
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driving yourself into the ground.
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And I remember at the end of the hour with her, she promised me,
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she said, look, I will if you're on this coaching program, I will
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help you work less hours, that you'll be more productive and
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you'll make more money. And I thought very unlikely
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eater, but you know, if I feel a little bit better, I'll give it
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a go. And a year later, honestly, I
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was working less hours, but I was achieving more.
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I was more strategic, I was more productive, I was happier.
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And I just did not believe that was possible.
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So I think for me it's finding what works for you, but it has
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to be someone else supporting you.
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Coaches I think are amazing. I think other alternative, you
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know, forms of help and support to help you through it, which
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can be ongoing or one off are massively important.
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And then once you're through the really tough times and realizing
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that they're always going to come, they're always going to be
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those times when your brain is telling you no, no, no, you
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can't do it. You've got to find those
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thoughts, get the clarity, and then build in a schedule where
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you can always find that clarity and space.
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So when my thinking goes off, it's because I'm too
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overwhelmed, I'm too stressed, I'm too busy, and I've got no
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clarity of thought. So then I lose all sense of what
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I'm doing to get back to that focus of OK, what's right,
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what's wrong? Should I be here?
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Should I not? Should I ask for this?
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Should I do not do this? Am I going the right direction?
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I have to find the moments of clarity.
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And through that next two years, I found what worked for me, for
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clarity. And that's not the same for
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everybody, but I found where I find calmness.
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I found the, the things that trigger me to go into this cycle
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of overwhelm. I started to learn when the
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triggers are hitting. And I've got some funny stories
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about, you know, how I, how I notice when that's happening
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now. But I now do notice and I then
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get the support and help when I know that I'm going down that
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process or when something is going to get tough and I ask for
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the help. Thank you very much for sharing
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that. Sam, You were the first female
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CEO of a City stock breaking firm.
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And I believe from some of my peers who are working in
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corporate finance or in the city at the moment that there's still
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a gender parity to be reached. How do you say that that has
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evolved over the course of your career?
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Well, if you think about when I start, you know, God in the
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early days. So when I first did my work
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experience, which was when I got hooked on the city, I was 17, I
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went to a state school. So you have no contacts.
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And I managed to find some who was my choir master.
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Actually, I was in the choir and he was in the city and I said
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I'll get your day's work experience in the Commodity
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Exchange. So I went up to see him, went
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across to the Commodity Exchange and you know, it was I, I
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thought it was amazing. But as I walked in, age 17, you
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know, my little suit, feeling all excited, I walked into
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everything. It was open out cry then, so
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everyone's shouting prices everywhere.
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There was one woman in the whole place.
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Everyone else was male. They all had these little boxes
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with lots of pastry girls and naked pictures stuck up on the
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walls. And as I walked in, they started
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barking like literally like a like dog barking.
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As I walked in, I looked back to that and think, Oh my God, so
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much has changed since then. That would not happen.
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But then back then, did it put me off?
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No. Did I think it was a bit odd?
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Not really. I think I just thought, oh God,
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this is, you know, this is fine. How do I make the most of this?
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They were very nice people. You just have had to get on with
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it and join in and join in the fun.
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And I almost be part of the boys club.
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That's how it was back then. So if I think that's how it
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started, God, you know, how how has it moved on it massively,
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massively. But then I look at other things
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where I look at how power runs right at top level, how
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governments run, how regulated it, where, where decisions are
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made. That is still predominantly done
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by white men, you know, generally from a privileged
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background. So there is a lot of work to do
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where power lies, where all the decisions are made in terms of
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getting more representation across the board from
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particularly, you know I went to state school, particularly from
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state school backgrounds, particularly for women
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particularly just different ways of thinking.
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So you avoid this group think and I think banking and
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financial services is one of the sectors that has moved on lease
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into more representative views, less group think.
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So I think they do lots of things, but they pay lip service
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to a lot of it. And I I don't see serious change
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in leadership around culture, where culture is really driving
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what I think is important to avoid Freethink.
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I'm picking on the point that you mentioned about culture when
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I was doing some research into you, I know so all your
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achievements. What really struck out to me was
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actually you mentioning that it was inclusive culture and staff
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ownership that really were were the drivers of Think Caps
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success for someone who LED that company as the CEO.
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What does inclusive culture actually look like in practice
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on a business? Is scaling quite fast and also
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under a lot of pressure? So for us, you know when we
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started, so you know, those early days when I was building,
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it was just me and a small team. So we didn't think about
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culture. We were just doing it in the way
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we wanted to do it and I wanted to do it differently.
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When we did the buyout, by that point we were 3,000,000 turnover
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and we had about 25 staff. So at that point we were
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separate. We called ourselves think out.
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We had a separate identity. I became CEO, so I went from
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running a team to running the whole thing, being the CEO.
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And then you start thinking, OK, right.
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Well, how, how is this actually working out this, you know,
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culture thing? And back 20 years ago when we
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did that, culture wasn't a word. It wasn't, it wasn't something
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people were used to. They didn't talk about it.
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There were no culture consultants.
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There were books on culture. There was a nothing.
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So we didn't use the word culture.
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We would just talk about work, valuing people, how we wanted to
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structure you, how decisions are made, how we wanted ownership to
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work, how we wanted openness to feel.
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What was really great about that is you didn't have to write.
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Write. What's our culture?
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Let's write it down. It wasn't like that.
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So we just started to do what felt absolutely right, which
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was, well, if you've got the happiest people in your team, if
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they love coming to work, if they love what they do, if
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they're driven by something more than money.
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So they're driven by helping these companies grow our
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stratum. I was helping ambitious
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companies grow. So we wanted people who cared
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about the businesses that they saw when they raise money for
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them, they're actually creating employment, They're creating tax
17:00
revenue, they're creating jobs. You know that it's, it's a
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really important thing to do. You're helping society.
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We just looked at it completely from a different way.
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We would just want people to be happy.
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Happy staff means they're more productive, they join the
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vision, they're included in the vision.
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So everything that I worked on for the next 20 years was how
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can I make people the happiest they can be at work and how can
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I use that to help the companies that we want to advise grow.
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And that resulted in profits. Culture just morphed into
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something that I now call inclusive culture.
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But it was just around what we felt was right, how we should
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treat people. And our goal was to be, you
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know, a different sort of bank. We wanted to be an investment
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bank that treated people well, that listened to people that
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didn't hire a fire, that wasn't full of testosterone, where
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people came to work because they cared about something more than
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money. And that's where it came from.
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And that's why I think culture comes from top, and it comes
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from someone's belief in how they want to work.
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And if you start writing down too much and you're based on the
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detail, you lose the heart of what you're trying to create.
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I love that. Thank you for sharing.
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On the morning of the IPO of Think App, what was going
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through your mind, the IPO that was actually linked to an
18:27
acquisition of another company. So I felt like there must have
18:30
been a lot going on in the background and I'm really
18:33
curious to understand how you felt on that day.
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Well, it was a tough IPO because the time we decided to do it,
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December 2018, is always tough to IPO.
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It's not a good idea to buy a business and IPO at the same
18:46
time. 1 conditional on the other, but we were doing that as
18:49
well. But the market was very, very
18:51
difficult. So it was the time when the
18:53
government was losing MP's left, right and center and the
18:57
government was collapsing. So most people were pulling
19:00
their IPO's. So we were at a point, we had
19:02
this deadline of the 5th of December.
19:04
We'd had that planned that day from the start and we were
19:08
organizing everything around that date.
19:10
And then the market was getting worse and it was more difficult
19:13
to raise the money. And at many points, why are we
19:16
going to get this done? So by the time we'd actually
19:19
done it, I was so tired, just relieved that we'd raise the
19:24
money. We've done the deal.
19:25
It was six months of absolute brutal work, particularly the
19:30
last two weeks when everything's going on.
19:32
I didn't think about it too much until the morning I walked in to
19:36
the Stock Exchange and, you know, you're just like, oh God,
19:40
everyone's here. We've acquired the business,
19:42
We've spoken to the team. We're all going to go to the
19:44
stock market and we're going to watch our, you know, share price
19:47
come up on the the big screen. And when I walked in, you know,
19:51
you're just like, thank God we did it.
19:54
Thank you. It's just relief and you're
19:57
exhausted. I walked in and you see your
19:59
business's name flash up. Everything's branded your
20:04
colours, everything's about your firm.
20:07
And I walk in and see it and I've walked into the Stock
20:09
Exchange many times to see other people's IPO.
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But when it's yours, I actually started to get, and I'm not a
20:15
Cryer, I started to get very choked up.
20:18
And I think that's, you know, you just take those split
20:21
seconds of going, this is 20 years of work.
20:24
We are actually IPO ING ourselves.
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We're actually like, when listed you, that's a big deal.
20:30
And it was so emotional, way more emotional than I thought
20:34
and a much bigger event than I thought in my working career and
20:38
probably one of the proudest moments of my entire life just
20:42
seeing the fact that we got there.
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The other thing, it was my daughter's nativity in about an
20:48
hour's time after that, and I had to rush because I'd missed
20:51
the previous years. So that was all I had a
20:53
motorcycle outside to get on to get to her nativity in time.
20:57
So, you know, it was also a weird day of, right, OK, let's
21:03
get this IPO done and let's, let's get to the nativity as
21:06
well. But it was a hugely proud day.
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And it makes you realize, yeah, how an IPO, just such a major
21:15
event in a corporate life. It's so beautiful how you were
21:19
able to make in time to go to your daughter's nativity players
21:22
one minute to. Spare, one minute to spare and
21:26
that's why it was an amazing stage.
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It's like I've appeared my business, I've celebrated that
21:31
you get there at half seven, the market opens at 8:00 and I was
21:33
straight on a motorcycle, straight to my daughter's
21:36
running in, in all my work suits and get to the front row and she
21:41
walked in. She was actually first, she was
21:43
a little sheep walking on 1st and I probably had less than a
21:46
minute to spare. But you're like, I've actually
21:50
done both. I've IPA my business and I've
21:52
got to my daughter's nativity and I can't really decide which
21:57
is the better feeling. But the best feeling was the
22:00
fact that I did base and I made both work and that can that can
22:05
fit together. It was it was a bonkers day.
22:09
That's incredible and I'm with you.
22:11
I think it's the fact that you managed to do both that's pretty
22:14
impressive. At the same time of you building
22:16
your company for the, you know, over 2 decades, you also had
22:19
commitments to your family, to your children as well.
22:22
I'm not going to ask about balancing work and family, but
22:25
how did you find it personally in terms of giving different
22:28
parts of yourself to work honestly to your family?
22:32
Oh, it's a mate. It's a major struggle.
22:34
You know, when I have my daughter, which was 2014, the
22:39
first two years were rough. You know, I was working very
22:42
hard trying to get back to normal.
22:44
And I was actually the first female in our office to have a
22:47
baby. So I was trying to write the
22:48
maternity policy while my bulb were telling me I was
22:51
conflicted. It's like what there's no, no
22:54
man had a baby then in their family.
22:56
It was, it was completely bizarre.
22:58
So I'm trying to set the role model standard while going
23:01
through myself for the first time.
23:03
And it was very different to how I expected it to be.
23:07
And I realized I think then that balance is different for
23:11
everybody. There isn't really a balance
23:13
thing. What I think we find as women is
23:17
there are moments in your journey at the early stages of
23:21
having a baby definitely, but then later and later with age of
23:25
parents here, when you have these responsibilities, they
23:28
come in small windows of time. But whenever your window is
23:33
where you need support, you need your corporate employer to
23:37
support you. And that is very much a one to
23:41
one case. You might have an I'll child,
23:43
you might have a child that sleeps from day one.
23:45
Now you don't know what it's going to be like and you just
23:49
need to support someone through it.
23:52
And I have moments where probably 3 or 4 moments where I
23:55
thought I can't do this anymore, I can't, I can't do everything.
23:59
I'm broken. Particularly after sort of year
24:02
1 was the work probably the lowest, lowest point and you get
24:06
help, you get through it. But I think there was a real
24:11
sense of, to me, I'm feeling so guilty that I'm not doing what I
24:14
was doing before. But on the other side, I am the
24:18
role model here. If I don't do it and take on the
24:23
criticism and take on the guilt, and you know, if I don't do make
24:28
this work in a way that is going to work for other people, how is
24:32
anyone else going to do this? What I struggle with the most is
24:37
not just finding the balance, but being able to live the
24:40
balance and still feel like you're a good boss and still
24:45
feel like you're a good mom. What I call the guilt threshold
24:48
is trying to manage your own guilt threshold.
24:50
So you can do your job and you can look after your daughter
24:54
well, but do it in a way that you just don't feel guilty when
24:58
other people aren't doing it. That's quite tough.
25:02
From what I'm hearing, Sam, it sounds as though one of the
25:05
things that got you through those times was actually your
25:08
desire to pave the way so that women who come after you are
25:12
able to follow a good example and have the support that you
25:16
had really thought to have set up for them.
25:19
How are you teaching your daughter?
25:21
To lean into. Her own clarity of thought.
25:25
My daughter appears to be the expert in chilling out and
25:30
relaxing, and I've learned probably more from her than
25:34
she's learned from me. A couple of years ago when she
25:37
got diagnosed with dyslexia, and as I was doing all the work with
25:41
her, it's like this is looking familiar.
25:45
And then I realized I was dyslexic and, and then
25:49
everything falls into place. What is fantastic is when you
25:53
realize that you're just, let's say you've got ADHD, you've, you
25:56
know, you think in a completely different way to other people
25:59
and you understand it. Things piece together.
26:03
But what she has automatically done is managed to switch off
26:07
from that. At school, she was doing a few
26:09
clubs. That was a bit overwhelming for
26:11
her. We cut all her outside clubs
26:14
apart from 1:00 and she just has that still time for some reason.
26:19
It's, it's worked for her that she finds a lot of space to just
26:25
do nothing and to think. And that's made me relax and try
26:30
and do nothing and, you know, not be in that doing, doing,
26:34
doing mode. Actually just be in the present
26:38
nothing, nothing mode. In a funny way, I've learned way
26:43
more from her in that and I'm probably much more conscious now
26:47
of oh God, you know, she's, she needs to see me calm.
26:51
And when I'm out of whack, she's out of whack.
26:53
And if I'm feeling discombobulated and a bit upset,
26:57
her behaviour goes a bit strange.
26:59
You realize actually the Turin tandem, when I'm calm, she's
27:03
calm. When she's calm, I'm calm.
27:04
Both of our calmness levels really impact each other, which
27:10
helps us to focus on being calm. And now it's my my greatest
27:15
strength to remain calm at all times when that wasn't always
27:20
the case. That's a superpower.
27:23
And I also think it's so beautiful how you described it,
27:25
how a person's peaceful state can really radiate and affect
27:30
the people that they love and the family around them as well.
27:33
How do you feel that becoming a mother has affected your
27:38
leadership style as a CEO? I don't think it's changed my
27:41
leadership style because I think I've always had a very, very
27:44
clearview of how I want to lead and which is doing it my way.
27:49
And I've become more authentic to me, which is something I've
27:51
had to grow and learn. But what has been great about
27:55
being a mum, and as I said about being coached with Geeta, is
27:58
because you've got lots of things going on, you have to be
28:01
focused. So I've become, as a business
28:04
has grown and I've become a mum, more focused on what's critical,
28:08
better at saying no to things, better at boundaries, better at
28:12
working on the things that only I can do and delegating
28:16
everything else, more organized, more productive with my time,
28:20
not faffing around wasting time. And I think that's what being a
28:25
mum and having to do a lot of things and manage things, it
28:29
helps you to prioritize what matters.
28:32
There's no way I would be as good a CEO as I am now, or as
28:36
good a leader if I wasn't a mum, I don't think.
28:40
And now you're the Co founder of Super Scalers and you work with
28:43
a lot of high growth, high potential businesses in the UK.
28:46
How did that come about? Because you know, from an
28:50
outsider's perspective, you are someone who led a financial
28:54
company to an IPO. Why did you choose to start with
28:57
Super Scalers and work with other growing founders?
29:01
So I think it's from my experience.
29:03
I spent 24 years building a business, you know, I had no
29:06
background in building a business.
29:07
My mum was a nurse, my dad was a computer engineer.
29:10
I went to state school. I had very ordinary childhood.
29:13
I didn't have any network whatsoever.
29:15
So when I got into the city, I dread the first question of Oh
29:19
my God, what's your dad do? Where did you go to school?
29:21
Like you don't fit in. I built the business from a
29:25
place of not feeling like I'm worth very much not feeling my
29:29
value, you know, trying to do it because I'm, I really wanted to
29:33
focus on my mission, but never feeling like I was probably good
29:36
enough for as good as other people because it wasn't the
29:39
same. And so by the time I got to the
29:42
end, I started to feel like, OK, I've got this now I've built
29:46
this business, it's gone over 50 million revenue with IPO.
29:49
This is good. And finally people were taking
29:52
you seriously. So I was very keen that in a
29:58
building business of size, it not only helps you make more
30:01
impact, it helps you get your voice heard and gets you taken
30:05
seriously. So that was some part of it.
30:10
And on leaving, when I wanted to do lots of different things and
30:13
champion entrepreneurship, championing the voice of the
30:16
underrepresented founder, what I found very quickly was do you
30:21
know what the the one way I could really help change the way
30:25
decisions are made and change what power and influence looks
30:28
like is helping underrepresented families build big businesses.
30:33
Because that's how we get a seat at the table and that's what I
30:39
can actually help do. We set up the Super scalers.
30:42
It was a mission firstly to find out how many women in the UK
30:45
ever built business plus 50 million.
30:47
That took two years to find the data.
30:50
It was 80 women a year ago. It's now 144 women, so it's
30:55
growing really, really sharply, but it's still a low number.
31:00
What we're doing with the Super scalers is to get a community
31:03
together of aspiring super scalers that are at 1,000,000
31:06
turnover to 50 who want to be at that 50 million plus level.
31:10
And we are giving them the playbook to super scale.
31:13
So we are helping them work out how they can scale, how they can
31:18
do it quickly and quicker than I did it and basically saying
31:22
look, what did we want when we were scaling and we had no
31:25
network and no one to talk to and not know what we were doing
31:28
and not believe in ourselves or just carry on doing it.
31:32
What would we have wanted when we were scaling?
31:34
What could have helped? What could have put something
31:36
around us to say you could do it quicker?
31:38
What would have helped us avoid the pitfalls?
31:40
This is the community that we would have wanted when we were
31:43
scaling. So it's very exciting.
31:45
You know, there is a playbook, we've written the playbook.
31:47
Now we're getting the courses ready which are going to be
31:50
launched in March. Super Scalers is a community
31:54
that people can join if you're over £1,000,000 revenue and
31:58
building a business. And we just want to showcase as
32:02
many founders as possible that are scaling, that have been
32:06
there and done it to encourage the next group that are coming
32:10
through. So then we can change the system
32:12
because we know what they need, we know that they're doing it
32:15
differently and we can start to make a real difference.
32:18
It's a mission driven project. What did you learn about
32:21
yourself over the course of creating this community and
32:25
working with your group of founders?
32:27
And I'm a great self-awareness person.
32:30
I think self-awareness is the most important thing to building
32:32
a business and being an entrepreneur.
32:34
You've got to work out what you're good at, what you're not
32:36
good at. And you've got to be willing to,
32:38
you know, find find things that are going to help you work on
32:41
the things you're not good at. So every year I find something
32:44
that pushes me out my comfort zone.
32:45
Every year I find a bit of me that I didn't know before and
32:49
that I need to work on that. That's why Coach is so important
32:52
that I've got really good at building a business.
32:54
I'm really good at all the things that technical about
32:58
building a business, how to scale.
33:00
What I hadn't done during that time was work on me.
33:04
And suddenly when you're not running a business and you're
33:07
just you and you're going on boards and you're just selling
33:10
you and Superscalers is just me selling me like I can help you
33:14
build a business, Those insecurities pop up all over
33:18
again. So even though I'm scared to big
33:20
business, even though I've appeared a business, I say to
33:23
people, I still have all these insecurities that I was not good
33:26
enough. I don't value myself properly,
33:29
You know, should I be at the seat at this table?
33:31
Can I actually coach this course?
33:32
Oh my God, what people going to think of me?
33:34
So I've had to go through again all these things and peel the
33:38
layers back again and go right now I need to do the work on
33:42
myself. And I've realized if I'd done
33:45
that work while I was building Fincap, Oh my God, I could have
33:50
done way more than I ever did with it.
33:53
I could have done things so differently, so much faster if
33:57
I'd worked on myself and overcome some of those things
34:01
that I'm only just dealing with age 50.
34:05
So, you know, it's a, it's a work in progress and, and I love
34:09
that about, you know, life that you, you're constantly finding
34:13
out new things. But it makes me more passionate
34:16
to help female founders, particularly and
34:19
underrepresented founders from different backgrounds that don't
34:21
feel the system is working with them, to just feel more
34:25
confident, to value themselves more, to realize that everybody
34:30
who's up there that you see running these big businesses and
34:32
you think is not like you, is just like you.
34:35
And you're no different. And I think it's taken me this
34:38
long to work that out because I'm finally meeting them.
34:42
And I go, oh, you're a CEO for FTSE 100 company.
34:46
You're no more impressive than my entrepreneurial friend who's
34:50
just got 2 million revenue. And for some reason in my head,
34:54
I thought that was not the case for so many years.
34:58
And the more people I can get to believe that, the more I can get
35:03
them to value themselves and to to believe that they can build
35:08
to create more businesses for people to start the ecosystem of
35:12
investment so they can give back know to create more communities,
35:16
to create more role models for girls at school, to see building
35:20
big. The things I'm learning now are
35:22
probably most useful to the work I'm doing to help super scalers
35:26
grow. I find it really refreshing to
35:29
hear you say very honestly about how you still experienced in
35:33
process syndrome even after having IPO to business.
35:37
It seems like the work that you are doing with the Super scalers
35:40
community and of course ISM. I found this, it's your part in
35:43
setting about systematic change so that there can be more
35:47
successful women entrepreneurs in the UK.
35:49
And I just wanted to say thank you for doing that, Sam, It's
35:52
been a pleasure to have you on the Low to Grow podcast.
35:55
Let me end by asking you our podcast staple, which is what is
35:59
one thing that you believe will allow more people to have better
36:02
mental health? Well.
36:05
If I've only got one, OK, So I think the best piece of advice
36:09
I've ever had for my mental health is, and it's very
36:12
personal to me, but when you use the word should in your head,
36:17
will you say it out loud, that probably indicates you're under
36:20
pressure and you might not be doing the thing you want to do.
36:24
So whether it's I'm saying to myself, I should be at that
36:26
event for Aoife, I should be going to this dinner because all
36:31
my clients are there. I should be working harder.
36:34
I should be here. As soon as I hear that word
36:37
should it starts ringing alarm bells now.
36:40
OK, No, this is this is an expectation of me.
36:44
It's a pressure. It's not what I want.
36:47
The should thing has to be the alarm bell that you probably
36:50
shouldn't be doing what you're thinking in your head.
36:54
So that should word. It's like noting when you say I
36:57
should is a real red flag. And I have to add, getting a
37:01
coach, getting regular check insurance is is just
37:05
transformation of mental health. And there are really good ways
37:09
to do that now. And we're actually launching
37:11
something with super scalers for early stage founders very cost
37:14
effectively where they can get access to good coaching because
37:18
I, I believe that is a game changer.
37:21
So that's two things. Sorry, I've got 1 cheeky in as
37:24
an extra. Please don't apologize, you will
37:26
not be an entrepreneur if you didn't try to over deliver.
37:30
What a wonderful piece of action went.
37:32
Advice about noting when we are telling ourselves that we should
37:36
be doing something, and we've been really taking a space to
37:38
delve into why we think that we should be doing it, and also
37:41
just assessing critically does actually matter.
37:44
With what I want to. Do does actually align with what
37:46
I want to do with myself right now.
37:48
So thank you very much, Sam. It's been such a pleasure.
37:51
Thank you for listening. You excited for the next
37:54
episode. Follow Load to Grow podcast on
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