Happy Monday!
Welcome back to Founders Feature, a weekly newsletter all about the journeys of young startup founders.
For this week's edition, I interviewed Edward Ashton Johnson, Founder of Clic and current CEO of Foundrs, both communities for entrepreneurs, based in the UK.
If you think someone else should read this too, feel free to let them know!
If you're reading this outside your inbox, subscribe to receive future editions directly:
Here’s what Foundrs is all about:
🏠 The Basics
The Problem:
Being a founder can be very lonely, even if you have a co-founder. As a founder, you often have to put on a brave face to all stakeholders in your company, your employees, and your investors. A lot of founders struggle to find a support system to help them navigate through the difficulties of founding a startup.
The Solution:
Foundrs provides experiences and opportunities for people to build compassionate connections between founders, with a great focus on well-being, mental health, shared experiences and knowledge.
The Team:
I was the solo founder of Clic, and at Foundrs I act largely on my own as the CEO. I have the two original founders Rob and Dan, who are on the Board, and a previous community manager, Luke, with whom I have a weekly board meeting.
🚀 The Journey
How did you come up with your startup/solution?
I came up with the idea for Clic in October 2020. At this point in time, I was living in Spain, running a digital marketing agency for early-stage startups. I was pretty lonely and felt like I was missing the necessary support network, despite being part of an entrepreneurial accelerator. After a few months of actively networking, I decided the best way to maintain all of those new relationships was to have as many people in the same place at the same time. So, I started building this small community, starting with 15 of my close friends, who I thought could add value to one another. We started doing workshops and over time expanded to a second group. I started posting about Clic on Linkedin, which led to an explosion of interest. At the time, I had also started working full-time at L'Oreal but knew very early on that the job wasn't for me.
Also around the same time, I applied for the CEO position at Foundrs, which is very similar to what I had started building at Clic, since a mentor of mine had made me aware of the job opening. The job offer then got taken down again, and 4 months later after posting about leaving L'oreal on Linkedin, one of the founders of Foundrs got in touch with me again about the position. I ended up getting the job and putting Clic temporarily on hold, with the intention of bringing people from Clic over to Foundrs. Clic is now a virtual employee engagement and development workshop consultant focusing on large corporates.
Why is this the right time for this problem to be solved?
Founders were lonely before the pandemic, and are more susceptible to mental health challenges than the average person, due to the amount of stress and pressure that they are under. Couple this existing problem with the fact that everything was suddenly remote, the degree of support and connection of already lonely founders really plummeted. People were craving connection, support, and meaningful interactions even more.
The remote working trend induced through Covid, has made us realise and rethink the future of work, how we live, and interact with people, so it will be an ongoing issue to address.
What is a recent success you are proud of?
We recently ran a retreat for founders in Wales with around 50 people. These long weekend retreats are really the pinnacle of the Foundrs experience, and they are just incredible to take part in. The event went very smoothly, and given my previous experience in event management, I know that nothing ever goes smoothly when organising an event. So, that was really a nice surprise!
What is a recent challenge you have faced?
The top two challenges that stand out are being lonely myself, struggling with being a solo founder, and balancing short-run execution and long-run planning. When you make a long-run plan, you're trying to predict what is going to happen, and you're almost always wrong. The easiest way to find out how to be less wrong next time is to just execute and do something. Finding that balance is difficult.
What do you wish you knew before you started and is there anything you would have done differently in hindsight?
I started a lot of companies for the sake of starting companies, and I would jump into things quite quickly and execute straight away. In hindsight, it would have been better to plan a little longer and analyse why I wanted to start a certain company and what would be best suited to me personally. So, learning how to properly reflect, and be more self-aware would certainly have been helpful.
🧠 The Lessons
What is the best advice you have been given recently?
Seek and learn to accept difficult feedback.
Recent difficult feedback I received was around the opportunity cost of doing multiple things at once, as opposed to putting all your efforts into a single thing. It's important to double down on one thing rather than spread yourself too thinly.
What advice would you give to other young founders?
Try and reflect on yourself and what you love and what you want first, before jumping into founding. A lot of the time it really isn't fun. Elon Musk describes it as: "Building a startup is like chewing glass while staring into the abyss."
So, make sure to analyse why you want to start a company before you do, and gain some perspective. That being said, the fun parts are absolutely amazing, and make all the difficult times worthwhile.
What is the biggest lesson you have learned so far?
The more work you put into yourself, the better equipped you are to serve other people. You can't give as much from a half full cup.
✨ The Inspiration
Who inspires you?
Rob and Dan, the chairmen of Foundrs. Also Peter, my advisor, he's incredible. Peter's wife is also fantastic - she's a coach. And all the members of the Foundrs community, because there are some incredibly impressive people in that group.
What book do you think everyone should read?
How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie
Principles - Ray Dalio