Distract: Peter Watson

There are plenty of metaphors out there for running your own business, the most apt in Maddy’s case being that a startup journey is like riding a rollercoaster... From being in a dark place battling mental health and being pulled through it by 20 other new-parents in a facebook group, to today in 2021 growing that very same group into a nationwide community of over 7,500 parents. Her journey started in a tiny village just outside of Andover called Overwallop...

How to find a co-founder? A question that a high percent of entrepreneurs will ask themselves if not all of them. Unless...you are Hugo and Digby of Feast It. Best friends from childhood, roommates and then business owners.  Feast It has raised over £4m since inception in 2016 and has been utilising tech to transform the events industry over the past 5 years. And then COVID 19 changed Hugo’s and Feast It’s life overnight. However, Hugo’s story really does start right from the beginning….

The idea for Tonic Health had been brewing away in Sunna’s mind for over a decade before he finally managed to turn his idea into reality. With his own experience of being sick 3 to 4 times a winter, Sunna did his research and found that the products available were only suppressing symptoms rather than resolving them. He decided that their had to be a better product available - so he built one himself - Tonic Health Sunna is on a mission to change the way the world looks at their immune system and takes care of their health. From an early age he explored entrepreneurship, at 16, he was earning himself £200 per week running a business utilising ebay...

Julia Kessler grew up in East Germany and became independent from an early age and at the age of 16 moved to Munich to start her adult life. Over the course of her career Julia made many large steps forward at every opportunity. After a decade of building her career to the height of leading supply chains and operations for powerhouses like Intuit and Blackberry Julia looked to explore a new challenge. ‍ At the end of 2014, Julia co-founded Nix & Kix with Kerstin Robinson. A friendship founded on a chance meeting but a professional match made in heaven. Leaving their well paid corporate jobs behind them they started out on the journey to challenging the giants of the food and beverage market. ‍ Nix & Kix in 2021 can be found in supermarkets and shops UK wide in places such as Waitrose, Wagamama, Nandos, Tesco, BP, Sainsbury’s and WH Smiths.

Finn Lagun was 2 years old when a restaurant reviewer questioned why a toddler was running around a Newcastle restaurant. The restaurant was Finn’s father's and this was just the start of Finn’s love for food that would in 2017 put Finn on a path to leading one of the highest growth startups in the UK. ‍ During the years before this, Finn dabbled with startup and corporate life in an attempt to find a fit that would spark the fire within him to have fun, enjoy and smile. Finn found this fulfilled in parts during his career but a chance meeting with Alex and Chris set him along a journey that was a match made in heaven. ‍ In 2017, Pasta Evangelists, an Italian recipe box company selling premium pasta dishes was created. Millions of filled bellies later, Barilla group in 2021 acquired a majority stake for a reported figure of £40m.

Aged 19, starting your university life and being given life changing news is unimaginable for most. Suleman Sacranie was told he was going to have severe changes to his life to the point that may become fatal at any moment.  ‍ Suleman started the GP Service in 2014 on the back of selling his previous business and from the knowledge of having his own problems with getting the right prescriptions to his local pharmacy.  Today, Suleman has grown and scaled the GP Service year on year to at the forefront of online health services in the UK and is valued at over £40m today.

If you ever listened to, watched or saw first hand co-founders working together whether they are friends, in a relationship or family members - most stories end or have intervals with fights and fallings out.  Katie Buckett & Alex Pearmain have worked together in their careers together and now have build OneFifty Consultancy together. A multi-award winning marketing consultancy, which finds itself in an ever-changing battle with internal an external challenges - that both Alex and Katie overcome successfully. Alex and Katie started OneFifty in 2016 and today in 2021 celebrate their 5 year anniversary which is the half way point to a 10 year commitment that they made to one another to work alongside and build OneFifty. Both Alex and Katie put their own impressive careers behind them and use their collective mindset to grow OneFifty - together.

Many of us have been a part of a feedback loop at work - and how hard it is to actually stay on top of regular feedback from your team if you are a founder. Howamigoing has been filling this gap since 2018. In a time where it’s harder than ever to get 360 feedback from employees Howamigoing is at the forefront of offering the solution for companies of all sizes.  ‍ Kim pushed herself out of her comfort zone time and time again, where at times filled with self doubt and anxiety in an ambition to enjoy life and be the best she could possibly be in her field.  Today, her and her co-founder lead the way in the changing we provide feedback and improve productivity and wellbeing in the workspace.

Over the last decade the supplement space has changed massively for active people - from severe bad press to making an impressive comeback.  For Joe Welstead, he grew up in the South of France, swimming to a high standard that would lead him to compete at one of the highest world stages - the Commonwealth Games.  ‍ Solving a personal problem when becoming an entrepreneur is a common occurrence and this is exactly what happened for Joe in 2015. From leaving the sports career behind to being the innovators and game changers in the nootropic space, Joe and co-founder Charlie have built their startup to a multi-award winning product business that appears in many high-street locations such as Holland and Barrett.

As a serial entrepreneur, Peter Watson has worked with some of the most iconic brands of the 21st century. From a small city in the North of England in Lincoln, Peter has built his agency Distract. When Peter was a young boy, he lost his mother and after a family upheaval landing him in Cambridge he saw first hand the tribulations of running a business from his father.  From influencer marketing, to starting his own agency whilst at University, Peter found that his own mindset was the biggest asset to him creating a successful business.