Meet Great British Entrepreneur of the Year: Karen Barrett, Founder & CEO of Unbiased

Strategy & Tragedy: CEO Stories with Steph Melodia is the best business podcast for curious entrepreneurs featured in the UK's Top 20 charts for business shows.

Hosted by Stephanie Melodia, Strategy & Tragedy features candid interviews with entrepreneurs who have scaled - and failed - their businesses - sharing their lessons in entrepreneurship along the way. From Simon Squibb of "what's your dream?" internet fame to Maya Raichoora, the visualisation guru. From Matt Lerner, the GOAT of Growth, to Nina Mohanty of Bloom Money.

This is one of the best podcasts to listen to if you're looking for educational and inspirational content on Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon, YouTube or watch the clips on Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, or YouTube Shorts

In this episode, Stephanie Melodia interviews Karen Barrett, the Founder & CEO of Unbiased, the leading B2B SaaS fintech platform that connects consumers with the best professionals and products for their financial needs.

In this interview, Steph and Karen discuss...

🏆 What it was like to win the GB Entrepreneur of the Year

🏆 Transitioning from working in financial services to starting her own fintech business

🏆 Karen's entrepreneurial journey from starting Unbiased in 2009

🏆 How discovering the world of R&D tax credits was a game changer for her business (and what else she wished she knew before!)

🏆 How to actually be the outlier inc. top book recommendations

🏆 Expanding from the UK into the US

🏆 Karen's advocacy for financial inclusion and education

Watch on YouTube via the link below or keep reading for the transcript:

SM: We have to open with winning Great British Entrepreneur of 2024. Congratulations. I am honored to be sat across from Britain's best entrepreneur, and I was just checking with you before we started rolling. This isn't just a women's category. It's not a female founders thing. This is across the board. You are the best entrepreneur in the country.

KB: It was a shock. It was a lovely surprise. I had a standing ovation because it was the prize of the night, and I'd been there and won another prize for a different category that was a sort of smaller one. And, yeah, totally shocked, but it was lovely. And it's so nice to just, like, take that moment and reflect on how far you've come. I think that was the best bit for me.

And it's such a lovely community, right? All the people in that room, they've entered as well for their different categories and the same sort of, award that you're going for, so they know what you've been through, and I think that's why why they're all standing there clapping and going, yeah, good on you, and they're so supportive. So it was great. And Francesca James, who runs the, the, awards, is such a great person with such a great network. So, yeah, really happy.

SM: It's hard. You know? Why do we put ourselves through it? We all know how hard it is. And because of that I think your vibe attracts your tribe, so we're all there supporting each other. So I can imagine that feeling on the night.

Did it feel like the Oscars?

KB: It really did, it really did. And the funny thing was my colleague who was meant to have attended the awards with me hurt his leg playing children's rugby or something the day before so actually, I said to my mom, do you fancy coming to an awards ceremony? She's never done anything in her life to do with my work. She was, oh, okay then.

I've just had my hair done, she comes down, my mom there videoing away and, at work event where I've actually won the overall prize. So you couldn't have, you know, couldn't have timed it better. It was epic.

SM: Oh, I love that mama Barrett came along with you. That's so cute.

So I think what's important to mention here is that we've opened with this shiny, glitzy spotlight of you winning this award, but, of course, it wasn't an overnight success.

KB: No, far from it.

SM: You've been toiling away for many, many years, so let's rewind in your story.

You actually came from the corporate career of finance. So take us from brokering mortgages in the nineties to then launching into entrepreneurship.

KB: My first role was in a mortgage business. It was a subsidiary of Lloyds Bank, and the subsidiary is called Mortgage Express. Now the nineties had been pretty brutal for mortgages in terms of interest rates were sky high. There was sort of 15%. Lots of repossessions, they were an all time high. So when I joined Mortgage Express late 90s, that had been the environment. So it was pretty brutal. Not many products on the market, and everyone had had a pretty tough time of it.

I came into the business, and it was quite a small business, 300 people. And in 1996, they'd come out with the first ever buy to let product. So when I joined in '98 through to nearly 02/2001, they were actually going through a growth phase of really innovative mortgage products. Also, the size of the business was pretty small, like two fifty to 300, and it makes a difference, I think. It's not a huge corporate where you, you know, you can get to know people on a name to name basis.

So, actually, as an introduction to the world of work, it was really, really great because you got stuff done, and it was that embodiment of the attitude that I still love today and try and recruit for. But the world was very process driven. It was handwritten underwriting and applications. It was old world. And I was part of the team that set up the very first Internet site that they had, sort of a brochureware site. And I remember plugging it into the wall and, you know, it would dial up the ISDN, and and the site would have to load, you know, akin to sticking a cassette in, you know, and uploading a computer. It would took a long time and was difficult. So you're fast tracked to now where tech is all about serving the customer as quick as you can, and speed is of the essence matter what you're doing, and people have expectations. It was quite different back in the day where, you know, any process improvements, but Harold did a great thing.

SM: So what was the impetus for launching unbiased?

KB: So, I've had, a a career, at Mortgage Express, then I'd moved on to Santander, so some corporate environment. Understood that that wasn't my thing.

I really enjoyed being part of a smaller team and, you know, getting stuff done and not having to cut through the red tape. So I'd found a smaller business, to work in that promoted independent financial advice, and I'd worked from February to 02/2010 doing that in a marketing capacity. And I'd seen the need at that point for, you know, utilizing data to give you a sense of what could help people and tracking data better to know where you should be putting your marketing spend, etcetera. But that wasn't the role that I was in. And then a personal situation where I had my second child, and despite having worked worked in personal finance for a long time by then, I hadn't taken any of my own advice and hadn't really got good financial plans in place.

And he was born with, a heart defect, which meant he was in hospital for a long time, which then I was questioning, would I go back able to go back to work? And then if I wasn't, where where were we gonna get funding for sort of, you know, living expenses, etcetera, etcetera. So I, at that point, faced my own personal conundrum of, I've got an event that's traumatic, and I need advice. Who can help me? I want some advice.

I want to find someone that's not my mom or dad's adviser or, you know, my neighbor Sue who's got a mortgage done with someone. You know? I want something that's specific to me, and there wasn't really anything out there offering it. And I had the background and knowledge to know that I had a good chance of coming up the solution for this. So, really, it was just facing something awful like your child being really ill.

Once he got better, I was like, right. Well, I've got nothing to lose. Right? Sometimes we need to kick up the bum to get out there and do stuff. And, you know, having faced that potential awful thing happening, setting up a business and it failing didn't seem so bad.

It was just like, why why don't you try? So it was this culmination of, you know, experience of being in the sector and just personal circumstance that made me think that now is the time. Go and do it.

SM: Amazing. And look what's happened. Here we are over a decade later, and you're a great British entrepreneur of the year. Incredible. So you took the right decision. Definitely fantastic leap of faith there.

I wanna double click into this separately around kind of survivorship bias because you have launched into your first business. First time founder and had this amazing success. Before we dive into that properly, we're sticking with the impetus in getting started. You uncovered the personal problem that you've experienced yourself, and that is often the case with a lot of founders.

Like, you experienced a problem. Did you do any market validation to prove that there was a need for this beyond just yourself, or did you launch into it kind of blindly with that naivety and just sort of see how it would go?

KB: Somewhere in between. I didn't do specific research, but I had worked in the industry of of promoting the advice to consumers and understood what the barriers were, that people felt it's very expensive, and it wasn't for people like them that they imagined you'd need to live in a a mansion like Downton Abbey, right, to be in the sort of be the sort of person that has to pay for advice and get advice on your on your finances.

And, actually, the sort of macroeconomic trends at the time where the government's putting the onus of responsibility more on the individual, know, the government's not there to pay you a pension and your care home fees, etcetera, meant that more people were seeking advice. We have people coming with problems around sort of inheritance and retirement and sort of big things that they felt they didn't feel they could do on their own. And they were just concerned about what questions do I ask and what's good value for money. So I had that experience, and I also knew that people wanted, quicker solutions. And mobile phones and online websites was, you know, growing at a rate of knots at that time, and I just saw the opportunity for the two things working together.

So no massive market validation testing, just my own sort of working experience and my own personal life experience.

SM: So where do we go from zero to one? What was your MVP? What was your beta?

KB: The start was creating a database of financial advisers and then a website on which there was a little form people would fill in. And then, actually, we had outsourced the operation of printing off a list of matching advisers in that area and would post it out to people.

That was sort of the start. Then it transpired that we could surface those results on a web page, and then very quickly, you know, fast forward to today, it was creating an algorithm in about 2015 where we did this, you know, on a much more automated basis. So as with any sort of product idea, it's iteration. Then you start with something, and you get feedback, and you listen to your users and your customers and try and, you know, iterate and and develop that product further and further.

SM: And what were your growth levers in those early days? How are you promoting this little website?

KB: Digital media and PPC was one of the main things. We're in my marketing role previous to that, sort of PPC had been out in 2003, and we were very quick to jump on it, and had really established a playbook in my mind of what you do, so I transplanted that to the new business. Also, I think that we went out to product providers and said, we know you've got customers who who need advice. If you do, please send them to us. So I actually have a few too.

We're we're solving a need that they had for their customers. I think the name helped. I'm biased, because people want to feel that they're doing right by their consumers, their users. And, also, the financial advisers we had on the website were independent financial advisers so could sell products across the whole market, which moved any sort of worries or bias around product being sold, which was happening in banks and sort of building societies. So we were a very happy home for all those referrals coming in.

And at that point, we were creating a really nice basis across the whole of the Internet for people to point to us and sort of create, an authority around what we were doing Yeah. Which just helped us us grow. And, look, the growth was slow. You know? It is it was slow.

For in the first five years, it was from naught to two and a half million. You know? And it's interesting you say, yeah, first time success, etcetera. I feel today or nowadays, actually, to be a success, you have to do it quickly. Right?

And that just wasn't my experience. It was I suppose you're having a family. I didn't know about people investing in your business to scale it and grow it in the first five years. But I was very happy actually, and I actually looked back at that period, and it was high learning, you know, understanding the market and having the time to get your product right. So I feel lucky that we had that time and was yet able to put down really good stable routes, which actually I think has been, you know, unassailable in terms of competitors coming into the market and trying to knock knock us off from being the market leading brand.

We've just said, no. We know how this works. And being a marketplace business, you have to do things in in different camps. You can't just be there for your your customers who are paying you fees. You have to be there for the user and give them a great experience. And it's all those little modules of know how and experience that add up to the whole package.

SM: And it is very unfair of me actually to say first time founder. Like, go into business and have this success because, of course, it has that connotation that you have an idea in a vacuum. You go and put it out there, and, oh, look. And now I'm great British entrepreneur of the year. We're talking about a, what is it now, sixteen year journey of, exactly to your point, feedback, iteration. So how you started, I'm sure, is nowhere what it looks like today. So so unfair of me. I retract the first time founder success on that. Because it's funny actually, just on that note, I interviewed someone else who had who also had a business for a really long time, but because it had evolved and pivoted so many times within the course of, say, a decade or decade and a half, it was kinda like, I mean, I could have relaunched a business under a different name or different probably because of how much it evolved over that period of time and would be a serial entrepreneur. You know?

KB: It's a technicality. Right. It feels like I've had a different job every two years. It's size of your business is different. Focus is different. And to do different things, whether that's a bit more in the product, a bit more in the finances, bit more on the marketing side. And as a founder you gotta wear all those hats out. You gotta care for all of those areas.

So, yeah, it certainly doesn't feel like I've been in the one place, the same thing for that long at all. Of course.

SM: Are you a fan of Only Fools and Horses? Do you know about Trigger's broom? It's a random reference where he's a he's a sweep a road sweeper, and he wins this award from the council for being, like, the longest serving road sweeper of the borough or whatever it is. And, and he's like, this broom has had 12 different heads and 14 different hands. Here's a photo of it. Well, what proof do you want?

Anyway, just random parallel drawing there. So alright. Going back to 2009, getting started, your growth levers. What I'm also aware of is the context of that time, especially as you mentioned, like PPC and digital marketing because, you know, kind of the heyday back then as well.

Did you have any funding as you were getting started to help extend that runway?

KB: No. So it started with the database, and we sold subscriptions to advisers.

So we said we would market their business on our platform. We got more people coming to our our sort of unbiased because of the links that we'd built. And so they would pay us for that. It's a very simple model. Yeah.

And as I said, I wasn't really focused on growth. I was really happy running a good business. You know? We were making money. The money that we were making was small, but it was growing.

You know, and businesses can go backwards in revenue. So sometimes to stand still or to just grow incrementally is a is a fantastic achievement. Yeah. But it definitely wasn't where my head was at, and it didn't take me it took me till about 2015 to see that we have one product, and, actually, it was selling really well, and the revenues were going up. And then that was my first inkling of, oh, we could do more with this than we currently are.

SM: And what was that one product?

KB: So that was a subscription that we had. And over that time, we were delivering inquiries and leads, new new customers into the advisers on the platform, and I noticed that the amount of those leads we were delivering was growing and growing and growing, yet we haven't been monetising it because the product didn't allow for sort of the unit economics of each inquiry being sold, separately. So in 2015, we re-platformed to effectively came up with a big product update that that pulled the two apart and was a subscription to access the platform, and then there was a per unit price that you would pay if you wanted to take up an opportunity to, purchase a new client.

SM: So did you monetize essentially from day one; you were revenue generating - have you ever had any funding?

KB: Yes, we have. So in 2019, so well, the the growth story really is in 2015, I thought, oh, we could grow. And so I started thinking about that and and, went to a conference and learned about, r and d credits. And this conference, when I started investigating r and d credits, very much the people who advise on r and d credits know the type of business it's likely to be someone who's innovating, someone who's investing for the future and could need funding.

So that led me down this rabbit hole of, oh my gosh. You can get money for helping you grow your business. And, you know, I just start started looking at the growth in a different way. So fast forward on to in 2018, I hired in a COO, CFO, with the job of making sure that our financials were appeal appealing to an investor.

So in 2019, we raised 5,000,000, and then again in '21, we raised another 5,000,000 to launch into The US.

SM: Exciting. I love so much that you mentioned that conference that you attended, that you discovered R&D tax credits. And for anyone who's unaware, R&D stands for research and development. So this is support that the government give you.

Was there anything else that you've discovered along the way that you've thought, damn, that would have been bloody helpful to have known at the beginning when I was starting out?

KB: So, so much. So much. And, look, you can't look back and be regretful, but when you're starting a small business, you just don't know what you don't know. Which can also be a good thing. Right? So that's blinding.

Wouldn't do things half the time if you did know. But you can't afford any really good advice. You know? So you're trying to learn to go on the Internet, and you try and have chats with as many people as you can, but it's quite random.

SM: So we put R&D tax credits as one of the things that would have been nice to know about earlier. Let's do a top three for our listeners. Not not to be regretful, but just for anyone else at that stage in the journey. Anything else?

KB: So R&D just opened up a new world. So, yes, absolutely. Get money back. If you're innovating and spending money on development and you get the government to pay you back because that cash can then fuel further growth, absolutely look into that.

Two was I wish I'd known that you could get investment. And I know it sounds everyone listening probably will be like, oh, no. Why do you? Well, how did I go through life? Not so that. So, I would say that's number two.

And number three, I went on holiday around that time and brought a book with me called Scaling Up by Verne Harnish, and it was just a toolkit really for how you should think about growth in a manageable way.

It covers, like, people and culture, you know, the cash to feel the growth, your strategy and vision. It gives you, like, one page strategic plans where you can pull all of that together and give you, like, a template with which you can get your team members and everyone to sort of pitch in and be on the same page, not one page, but it does put you on the same page. And that was such a tool really because, I've mentored people since then and, you know, taken a much keener interest in smaller businesses growing. And I just can see people not thinking big enough, you know? They're not thinking year three, five, and 10. And what Verne Harnish in that book did said, what's your big hairy audacious goal? What's your ten year plan? You know, think big globally.

Who are you gonna help? What's your brand gonna be like? And when you start thinking that big and then work back, okay. Well, this week, month, year, I'm gonna do this, but I know where I'm going. You know?

It's the North Star or the big goal that's really motivating and helps you focus.

It was really exciting for me. I bought a copy of the book. They were really sick of me.

I was like, this week, you're gonna read these chapters. Because I was excited about getting everyone together on this journey that we we were on. And, look, it was really well-received. And although I think but now I look, oh, it's got this wrong with it and that wrong with it. At that point in time, it was just what I needed to go.

There's a whole world out there that you don't know about, and here's your pathway to it.

SM: What are maybe two more other pearls of wisdom that have stuck with you from that book? You shared this kind of BHAG, big hairy audacious goal, think big. Have you got any others?

KB: Yeah. Absolutely. Culture and people, you know, having people with the right attitude, particularly in the early days where, you know, you you can't really get anyone on board. It's like, this is my job description. I'm gonna stick to it. And if you ask me to do something else sound of it, that's a problem.

You need people who are like, "Right, I am happy to do anything. I want new stuff. I want to learn. If I don't know about it, I will go and ask people or Google it and find out, and I will have a bloody good stab at it". And and that's how we're gonna go forward.

So, you know, learning about people, and the culture aspect of it. I mean, we have four behaviours at the moment. This is probably the only diamond in the business's life that I can actually recite to you what they are. You know, be relentless, own it and get it done, share and seek input, and enjoy the journey. And it's because we talk about it, and we mark behaviours, you know, as part of quarterly reviews, and we want to act and recruit in for for those behaviours.

That was part of what Verne Harnish was talking about. The people are so important, but really made it into you have to have the same mindset. You have to have the same goals, and you're working as a team. You know? It wasn't just just people and then there's finances over here.

It's the same thing, and one fuels the other. And I think that was what was great about the book. It really, as I said, gave me a blueprint for how you make this happen, whereas I didn't know before. Like, you know, I can do good things in terms of building a brand and a and a business, but this gave me the blueprint of what is good covering off a number of bases. Love that.

And I think, yeah, god, that kept me going for three, four years, really. It really did. That was like the bible of scaling up for me.

SM: Amazing. And on the people front, it reminds me, I've actually just recently discovered a fun little kinda anecdote with Brian Chesky of Airbnb.

Apparently, he would always ask people in the final interviews, if they had one year to live, would they still take this job? And apparently, he got into so much trouble because, of course, 99% of people obviously said I'm gonna go and sit on a beach in Barbados, I'm not gonna take this job. So obviously, the vast majority of people turn it down at that stage. And so, apparently, his board members, co founders kept getting annoyed. And they're like, you can't keep asking, like, well, we keep missing this talent. And he's like, no.. And I think, honestly, most anecdotes that include Brian Chesky are a favourite of mine. But that one as well kinda speaks to that especially again in the early days, that alignment, that hunger, that energy that you really need to pull forward as a team.

Alright, so back to your story. So did we cover off anything else that you wish that you learned sooner? So there was the R&D tax credits. The book, I guess, is part of that.

KB: Yeah. There's one thing I think that's that's useful your for your listeners, and that's around communication. So I think back to what I was doing through the whole, you know, being a CEO and founder, communication. I think early on, if you understand, you need to communicate in every way possible. You need to be comfortable standing up in front of groups, one to ones, speaking to people you don't necessarily know, networking and introducing yourself, writing really good emails.

You are selling to people because you want to hire them.

You're selling to investors because you would like them to invest in you.

You're selling to a user or a consumer because you think you've got the best service and you really want them to have a better outcome at the end of the day.

And you're selling to your customers saying we've got a proposition that really adds value to what you're doing.

You know, 98% of my job is is getting everyone together and excited about what we're doing and that we're the best and that we can help you in whatever capacity that is.

And I think sometimes people have great ideas and are a bit shy about it, and, there's no real room for that.

You know, you've gotta have the courage of your conviction. And if you are shy, you know, get some media training or get some sort of confidence training and, you know, really focus in on getting that skill down early on because it will definitely pay back. You gotta pimp yourself out to the max, basically.

SM: I was having a similar conversation with someone yesterday, and what I arrived at with them was going back to you saying that that confidence in the conviction there is it's it's not about you, actually. I think a lot of people there's a lot of fear that gets in the way.

There was actually a really interesting report that showed that most people would genuinely rather die than go on stage and do public speaking. It is nerve-wracking. It really is. And I think, you know, if this is helpful, again, to listen to our feeling that there's something getting in the way is it's actually not about you.

As much as we're saying you have to pimp yourself out, if you're on a mission, if you have a business, you're doing that a disservice. If you're not going out there, if you're not showing up, with that in mind, you know, slightly easier said than done, how do you stay energised? How do you keep yourself going? Because, you know, maybe for the more introverted or even not, you know, we're just I'm an introvert.

KB: You know, I actually find it really draining talking to you right now!

SM: Yeah. That's hard work. You'll be fine. But, you know, it is it is an effort.

How do you stay energised?

KB: I don't know. I I enjoy what I do. I enjoy the evolution of the product and the team that I've built. You know, it was interesting when we were working from home, you know, the dreaded c word time. When I came back, we'd gone through a massive period of growth because we'd just raised money prior to three months prior to COVID hitting.

And when we came back in the new offices or genius of luck, I'm not sure what it was, but it enabled us to continue with our product plans. We launched four new products five months into that year, to attract different types of customers in. We were able to recruit and continue with our growth plans. When I came into the office after that and saw everyone, I was like, oh, why we created this? You know?

And there's those sort of, you know, winning great British entrepreneur coming into a really full and busy office of a, a massively growing team that we've got. These are really good, you know, you know, things that you achieve, and it's it's great. That's a pride. I also like and I I hear a lot of entrepreneurs saying this, you want to make a difference in the world. You know?

You do. You don't want someone telling you what to do and mapping out your day. And, actually, I would say that anyone that works for us really has that get up and go. I wanna be master of my own universe, whatever that is, whether you're writing content or whether you're testing or whether you're writing code. Those people have autonomy to do a really good job and come with ideas and make it happen and get the praise for it.

And I'm proud of creating, a team that works like that. And as some of the NPS scores we get or, you know, employee net promoter scores when people say, I really enjoy working with my peers.

SM: Oh, that's so lovely. Love it. Love it. Oh, I love that too. I'm so happy for you. I love and I think when you have got that those accomplishments, that sense of achievement, that pride, that's just so energising. I mean, hearing you just talking about it, it's it's so it's really excited.

Alright, so back to your timeline, your incredible growth journey, you then decided to expand out from The UK into The US.

KB: So the real growth journey started from 2018 when I made that first hire of sort of a new form c suite, whereas it had been a bit ramshackle before that, really. Some great people in, but not really buying in the experience. So gearing up to do that was about getting revenues big enough enough cash in in the bank to be able to pay some more senior people in the team. The hire of the CFO was instrumental because I hadn't raised money before, and he had.

I knew that female founders going out on their own didn't have a great rate in terms of, raising money. Those, statistics we were talking about earlier, they can be pretty miserable. I think 1.8% of funding went to women in the first half of last year. So I knew what I was facing. And so that was the start of my journey ensuring that we were equipped with the right people in the team to go out and raise that money well, which we did, find term sheets, and we, you know, got a great partner on board.

And that was really to fuel a three year growth journey. So spending, getting losses, but to grow revenue. We did that exactly as we had planned to. And so as we approached the end of that sort of three year investment cycle in the in The UK, we were doing absolutely wonderfully, and we were looking around and thinking, what other growth opportunities do we have? So we've actually spoken to some sort of counterparts in The US who are running sort of similar services to us, so lead generation, in the financial advisory space.

And talking to them, I just felt that their product wasn't as good as ours. And we did do some homework on this one. So we looked at the size of the market and, you know, etcetera, etcetera, and and the, wealth management industry is times 10, the size of The UK market. And there's lots more wealthy consumers who need advice. So it seemed like, you know, here's a market.

And out of all the growth opportunities we had, it was one of the strongest. And so we thought, right, let's raise some money, you know, not that much. 5,000,000 is not a massive raise in the big scheme of things to head over to The US and and sort of see if we can get some traction over there. We didn't do too much homework because now thinking about it, if I had, we'd have gone, no. Let's not do that.

Yes. What state? It's a big old place, and, you know, it's massive compared to The UK. What are we doing? But it's that mix of a little bit of information and just Into it.

And and thinking you're gonna give that a go. Information and intuition, isn't it? It is both. I was just thinking that as well because what launched the business in the first place was of course, you come from the industry. Obviously, it wasn't a complete shot in the dark, but I don't know. I think it's you know, market validation is a step that so many entrepreneurs do miss, but I think, like, if you're so passionate about something and your gut instinct is telling you and there are some signals. I don't know, I think the jury's still out because I think that you can still go off and find the information to answer the questions.

Research and talking to people. But, look, don't get me wrong. We didn't take all that funding and just go and splash it straight away. We set up a very quick website to start sort of getting some SEO, you know, content up there so that we could get some free traffic pointing to it. Toe dip. It's all about toe dipping to start with. We did not go over there and splash all the money that we had invested. We put up to together a site very quickly, put on one customer, and started to see if we could connect them without making it, you know, without them paying for it. So we were just proving out that we could make it work. And so, yeah, it's very softly, softly. You don't wanna spend big until you validated exactly what it is.

SM: What are the biggest surprises about expanding to The US?

KB: Oh, so, we originally thought that we were gonna be employing US people who knew about US things, and, actually, you know, the financial regimes are slightly different there in terms of the pension vehicles and investments and how they speak. Well, when push came to shove, they're very expensive in terms of the talent over there. Clearly, you know, they they get a lot of, they have to pay a lot for living expenses, etcetera, and so their salaries that they demand are significantly higher than here. And when it came to it, we just wanted to retain the control.

You know, our plan had been to take the, the playbook that we had in The UK because it was working and transplant it in its entirety to The US. And we knew that some of it would work, but some of it wouldn't work. And so I think, you know, just doing the changes around time zone differences, you know, the currency changes on the website, and really just understanding that when we got to The US, the market had already been made by the operators already in the market. So over here in The UK, we sell a subscription for access to the platform. We built out a platform actually that has data and analytics on it and marketing automation tools.

There was nothing like that in The US, but they were like, we don't need it. We've never had this. So it was a tougher sell in terms of our product. And, actually, we have made some compromises to make us our product look a lit little bit more like what is over there. But what we have retained is our exclusive one to one matching, which is unique to what we do here in The UK as well as in The US, whereas typically everyone in The US will send an inquiry three or five times.

So we just have a higher quality match, and we think it gives a better experience for both the the the consumer who's using the service and the adviser who's wanting to protect their time because they're running a business.

SM: Yeah. Amazing. Look at you, Transatlantic CEO. So exciting.

I think there's something here with, like, you know, the second mover advantage. And what I've seen through interviewing so many entrepreneurs as well is the the distinction between being so innovative that you're ahead of the curve.

The example that I often use is there are actually three mainstream objects that we use in our everyday lives now that actually existed literally centuries, before they were adopted in the mainstream. And they are the fork, as in knife fork spoon, wheels on luggage, and electric cars. These three were invented, as I said, literally hundreds of years before they were adopted mainstream.

And so innovation and entrepreneurship, these entrepreneurs are inventors, essentially. And if there isn't the market demand, market need, my background is more in marketing as well. Actually, I think that marketing can also help kinda create and push that along. You it doesn't matter how brilliant that product is. You know? It's the whole fallacy of "build it, and thell will come' - timing everything else against that.

So I think what you've what I picked up on your story here is with The US expansion is it sounds like you've really found that nice balance between the innovation, but not going so far that the consumers are it's just, like, so alien to them.

KB: Yeah. Absolutely. I think that, having the experience that we've had in The UK and then taking it to the The US and seeing how far we are from what's being offered in the market, listening to the feedback, and just moving enough to be a viable concern in The US.

We also learned that actually in The UK, we deal with SMEs and enterprise customers. Actually, in The US, it's all about the enterprise customers. You know, if you can win one of those, you sort of tick off your sales for a quarter longer sales pipeline, but it it pays off, and then you can actually plan for the future. Mhmm. So that was really nice to to learn that about The US market.

SM: Any kind of tips, tricks that you can share in terms of that B2B selling to enterprises? Because, of course, for startups, it's a long tail process. It can take months and months whether it's through procurement, going through being passed from pillar to post. Sometimes you just don't even have that runway as a start up to stay alive or logging up.

KB: So what we did was we did sell to very small businesses to start with just to get going. We built the pipeline for the larger customers.

SM: That makes sense.

KB: And they can stick with us should they want, but, actually, we are pivoting more to our product being, for larger, enterprises in The US. We still are for everyone in in The UK. But, yeah, we we probably took on an ICP or a, you know, a customer type that wasn't quite right for us just to ensure that we were practicing and doing doing something so that we could have data to learn from. So, again, it goes back to the do it before you're ready. Do it, and you will learn. If you don't do it, you're not gonna be any farther forward. And even for a business that was sort of mature, like ours in The UK, we knew that. We knew we're gonna have to be different and if it innovative in in The US.

And, also, it's interesting. We run different meeting cadences for the US team because it's it's the wild west. You know? Some days are up, some are down, things coming from left field. You're like, what is this? What is this? It's proper back to the, you know, start upris ceiling, the early days. So now it feels like we're running two businesses. One is sure that you can sort of forecast quite nicely into the future, and the other is like, who knows what's gonna happen from one week to the other.

SM: How do you feel about them, though, straddling the two roles?

KB: I love that. I mean, I think my heart is probably, you know, in that startup, new stuff, new ideas. I do love that.

SM: How do you stay hungry with that as well? I'm just wondering. Because when you're starting out-

B: Great question. So I was thinking about this, and it's interesting because my experience is really limited, actually. I haven't had a job that's any different since 02/2009. Right? And I'm hiring in really experienced, opinionated, brilliant people into my team, you know, both at C suite and heads up, etcetera, and in into the whole business, actually. They're the ones that are bringing in the experience. So I was thinking about I'm thinking, oh, who's giving me not trouble, but who gives me most challenge. Right? And he's always the last person I recruited in. You know? Because you always wanna hire the best. And they know stuff I don't know. And they're like, oh, pushing pushing our thinking and our strategy, etcetera, and testing it all the time. And it's almost like sometimes like, oh, that was really hard, but they're pushing me and they're pushing the business. And so I think that's in a roundabout way how I'm answering it. I'm skilling up the business for gaps.

That's my job, actually. It's not my job to do it all anymore. It's my job to understand what we need and to look into the future and ensure that we have what we need resource wise, money wise, talent wise into the future.

And so my role has evolved, and, actually, I fill those gaps in a different way now. Someone else will actually deal with the uncertainty of of launching into new business, and that person typically has launched into a new geography before, you know, in this industry and knows what they're doing. And that's how you, you know, derisk that sort of situation. On the hiring, obviously, that's so crucial for any scaling business. You talked before about behaviors, aka values, and getting so clear on that helps you to find the right fit.

SM: Are there any other tips you can give founders when they need to to hire? Because I know especially when you're talking about Heads or C-suite, that's a common mistake is hiring too senior when you're too early. So what, what other tips could you give us on that front with the with the hiring?

KB: So I think personally, it's interesting. I'm quite sort of, you know, pragmatic about our business, and I'm quite considered when I think, oh, look how far we've come. When you're hiring, hire for the business you're gonna be in two years. You know? You don't wanna go too far or or hiring too much from a corporate when you know that you're a sort of growing business of 50 to a hundred people. You do need to make sure there is that sort of, understanding of what resources they all have available and the ability to do their job.

How hands on is it versus how strategic is it. So you do need to get that right, but, you know, I think this has happened to me in the past where I haven't sold it enough in terms of, look, we're brilliant. We're gonna be brilliant. You're gonna be part of the team that takes us to being brilliant. You know?

I've been like, oh, I understand why they're not interested because they've done x, y, and zed or exited either this role or had a team of this many hundred people or whatever. I understand. And that's just like, no. You're the person that I need Mhmm. And just have a bit more confidence about it, really.

SM: Interesting. Yeah. You remind me also another famous story with the Monzo first hire of marketing. They brought in very senior, very accomplished, experienced marketeer who had all these huge household brand names to their CV, and it was again that same recession of, oh my god. We're so lucky to have you, all these brand name. Like, oh my god. We're really making it.

It was one of the biggest missteps that that they took at Monzo.

What ended up happening was one of the lowly interns who had been there from the early days worked their way up. They had they embodied all of those values. They rolled up their sleeves. They worked and they worked all the way up to ultimately becoming head of marketing I love that until this company took that next stage of growth.

Something I just before we kinda continue any further with your journey, there's an observation that I'm making from the outside looking in (obviously, we're collapsing again, you know, fifteen, sixteen years of your business journey) - as we zoom out, you started off talking about how the business didn't go through this huge exponential growth, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. So I'm really glad to hear you say that because I think there is so much of an emphasis on achieving unicorn status, getting Sequoia Capital backing you, etcetera, etcetera. But building a solid business that's doing well, that's growing organically, like nothing wrong with that whatsoever. The fact that there's a connotation that there would be is ridiculous in and of itself.

But then, of course, this is a whole different phase of the journey. You talked about how much that book inspired you, about thinking bigger. What was that shift for you? Why did you go from, like, "no this is good. I'm happy. I'm content. I'm making money" to this huge business that's now across the US and the UK?

KB: That's a really good question, actually. Do you know what? I think it's really simple. I had my third child in 2014. And once he was born so it's interesting. I had I've got three kids.

One, I took a year off, and then the next one was six months. And the last one, I took three months off. So as I as I've gone through my sort of family career, I'm like, I don't wanna be at home filling the dishwasher and cleaning up. So tell you. And it was I, at that point, really enjoyed, working as well as having a family, and I felt like because I'd finished sort of having my family that I could devote more time to it.

But also in hand hand in hand with that was just the realisation that we had something really good. You know? And I got really excited when I started looking, right, what's our options? And about your, you know, comments around investment, we were making money, and, actually, we were profitable to a very, very small profit, but we were not loss making. We were not revenue growth at any any cost as we've seen the investment landscape be in the last sort of five, three years ago.

It's all changed now. But it was there was huge raises going on, and it was burn that cash, and it was grow revenues and then see if you can get to profit. Exactly. Because I had, sort of bootstrapped the business for a significant amount of time, I was at a a sort of decision making point, and it was like, take some investment and supercharge this growth or continue to grow small, you know, incrementally in a small way. And, actually, it was fear of competition coming in and taking what I thought we could have, that made me choose the investment route.

And I want to bring more advice and financial confidence to people. I see there's a massive need for it, you know, cost of living crisis and interest rates and mortgage payments and just you know, it's a difficult world out there for people to manage their finances. And we had a partial answer to it. For some people wanting to go through certain decision making processes regards to their finances, we're helping them. And why wouldn't you want to do that to more you know, help more people?

So that was just you know, it's near never one thing, but it was the perfect time in my personal life in terms of, you know, family. The the choice I had at that time, it was sort of binary. You go one way or you go the other. I said, yeah.

Come on. Let's take on the challenge with this great I certainly didn't want anyone else coming and being the new unbiased as it were. I felt quite protective about, no. No. No.

This is this is ours, and we're gonna make it big and make it known that we're number one in this market, and we'll defend it.

SM: Love that. I'm so happy you took that direction, Karen. It's so exciting. And you very nicely handed me the perfect segue into my penultimate question, which was to dive a little bit more on that financial inclusion mission that you have.

So you've already talked about it a little bit. If you'd like to expand and tell us kind of where that comes from for you and, kinda where you're going on that mission.

KB: Absolutely. So, yes, unbiased connects people with financial advisers. That's sort of the mainstay in our core product, but we have a huge amount of content and information on our site.

We're here to help people think through their own finances, gather information before they take any action, tools to help them fill in little calculators or question sets to equip them to make them feel confident if they're gonna go and see an adviser for the first time because it can be a little bit worrying. And it's really about helping people along on that journey of whatever it is they're choosing to do. And because of the brand and the areas that people we are on on the Internet and PR and in the news and media, etcetera, we have that opportunity. We know that children aren't being educated enough, you know, in schools, really, about finances and credit card interest rates and mortgage payments, etcetera. So we do what we can to, you know, have content online for those teenagers or moms and dads who then pass on that information to, their kids.

And, also, I'm a woman of a certain age now, and I look around and see lots of women who didn't take control of their finances, you know, sufficiently enough. And now maybe they've gone through divorce or their partner's died, and they're like, oh my god. What am I gonna do? And I just think, everyone really should be empowered to, you know, feel that they're in control of their finances, and I think it's a massive worry for people. Yeah.

Bills, budgeting, not having longer term plans. And I love this. Like, so when I first started the business and was talking to PR media, the journalists about things, it would be, what rate is good, and what does advice cost, and how much money do I need to get advice? And, actually, it's about caring for your loved ones. If you think about any financial decision you're making, it's like, if I was to die, could a roof be kept over my my family's head?

My mom and dad are not doing too well. One of them needs to go into a care home. I want to ensure that they're in the right place for them. It comes from a place of love and wanting to care for your family. So it's quite an sort of emotional Yeah.

Impact on finances. And being aware of that just means, oh my gosh. We've got to, you know, teach people and helm them and get them to the right place. And I just think, you know, going forward, I look at the trends that are happening. Women are gonna own 60% of the wealth globally by 2027.

That's two years away through divorce, inheritance, and earning capabilities. So we've got a shift now in who is actually owning the wealth globally. And that means potentially there's opportunity for women to get better advice and better prepared. And also the industry is gonna have to change with being a female founder. I'm here for that.

That's really exciting and interesting to maintain. Oh, Karen, you're gonna be so excited. I love it. I love it. That's a statistic that I would love to see do the rounds a lot more than the one point whatever percent it is of female founders getting that funding.

I didn't never knew that. That's really interesting. Yeah. No really worthy mission. It's very, very clear purpose, very worthy, and what better reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Right? It's, I think, also, with finances, it's it affects everyone, and it's it's something that is, like I think there's such there's such a silly taboo around it. And I think there is that connotation of greed and, oh, I wanna get my and it's to your point, it's like looking after others and making sure that you're genuinely empowered. I think empowerment is such a buzzword, but financial empowerment. I view money as a tool.

What does the money enable you to do? Absolutely. You look at it in the right way. Freedom. Exactly.

SM: Karen, final traditional closing question on the show. It's called strategy and tragedy. One of the reasons is because often the best lessons come from the biggest mistakes. What's one, air quotes, tragedy that's happened to you that's taught you an unforgettable lesson?

KB: Well, we we've touched on it probably quite a bit, but I really wanna drive it home. And it's I've made some horrible hires. Okay? So I would really you know, for anyone who's listening, who's thinking about hiring into their business, be really clear on what it is because it's really difficult once you get them in. You spend a lot of time, well, getting them in the first place, training them up, and for it to not work out is really disappointing on both sides. And I'm not saying they were bad people.

They were bad for our business at that time. And it does go back to the culture, understanding what culture you are. And that's quite personal, actually. So for a long time, I didn't really feel it was personal. I was like, handing off to my right hand woman at the time going, can you do the HR piece?

Can you and she's like, but you are it. You you lead this culture. And it was like, oh, right. Okay. So what's important to me that I you know, how I treat people, how I operate, that I want others to operate in that sort of same likeness?

And it was really pinning down that. So there's two hires I've put in mind. You know, no shade on them whatsoever. It was my choice, and I wish that I had had put some more time and effort, almost like the Verne Hodge strategic plan to be successful with your, you you know, your execution of growth. This was, I need a strategic plan for people.

I need to understand what I'm hiring for, what skills, what attitudes, and what experience, and that would have saved me, yeah, some sleepless nights and all. Difficult difficult conversations. Well, I love that you've shared some really practical tips to overcome that. So we've really talked about how to make good hires, that clarity of your values, your behaviors, what matters to you, knowing what you need at the right stage in business, and also now a few a few additional tips on that front. I know how painful it can be when you do get it wrong, and it's, that's that's one of the the most common kind of answers to this as well is that's that's a pain that's felt by a lot of founders.

So word of warning to anyone that is currently hiring or they've just you've just secured some funding and you wanna go out there and and crack on. It's that saying of hire slow, fire fast, isn't it? And it's a cliche for a reason. But, look, don't be too hard on yourselves. Like, I find most founders and myself included, you do you know, you make decisions with the information you've got Yeah.

The mindset you've got at that time, and you're on a journey. You know? Absolutely. Would I do the same thing again? No.

I'd be changing lots of things. But do I regret it? No. You know? It it takes us to where we are, and and that winding journey is what makes you unique. And only you can be the founder of your brand.

KB: You live to tell the tale. Karen, absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much for coming on. The time has flown. Really hope that you've enjoyed it.

If you have, if you've learned something new or there's a practical tip that's helped you here, please do me a little favour. Hit that follow or subscribe button wherever you're listening to this. It honestly means the world to me, genuinely. I really, really do appreciate it. Doesn't cost anything.

Takes two seconds. So go away and hit it now. And I'll be seeing you next time. Episodes are weekly, every Wednesday morning. So I look forward to seeing you then.

Strategy & Tragedy: CEO Stories with Steph Melodia is the best podcast for curious entrepreneurs and ambitious founders. Learn from those a few steps ahead of you in these candid interviews of the highs and lows of scaling and failing business.

Watch the full episode here, subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music.

Thank you for listening and for supporting the show!