How To Start Up by FF&M · 2026-05-19 · 47 min
According to the Office for National Statistics, only around four in ten UK businesses live to see their fifth birthday. And for most of the ones that do make it, the bottleneck isn’t the market - it’s the founder. Our guest today learned that the hard way. Thea Brook spent over a decade as a CFO scaling startups into the tens of millions, built her own restaurants and product brands, and then ran the conventional playbook of working harder and growing faster straight into burnout and a brain haemorrhage. She rebuilt from scratch, and founded CALMM - now giving more than 250 founder-led businesses senior leadership brains on tap across strategy, ops, marketing, people and finance. Her blunt lesson: the skills that got you here are rarely the ones that get you past here.
How (& why) to build a second business with Laura Butler-Madden, GROVE England44 / 100How to turn waste > revenue & family founder farming, Le Prunier's Jacqueline TaylorHow to pivot in your mid-life, Jo Glynn-Smith, The Ascent AssociatesHow to overcome founder loneliness, with Emmie Faust, founder of Female Founders RiseHow to grow a brand with intent, Izipizi: Charles Brun