With no money and rent overdue, I found myself staring at a garden that lacked even a basic fence to divide my landlord’s property from the one next door

That was the first time I negotiated my way out of a problem I couldn’t afford—and it wouldn’t be the last.

Looking back, that moment taught me something I still rely on as a founder: when my back’s against the wall, I come out fighting. I don’t freeze. I don’t fold. I find a way. And as I’ve come to learn, if you’re going to build something from scratch—whether it’s a business, a team, or a whole new path—that mindset matters more than anything.

But my story doesn’t begin in that garden. It begins years earlier, in a small town in the southwest of England, with a swimming pool and a 15-year-old kid who just wanted to play water polo.

The First Startup: Poolside

I was obsessed with swimming. I swam for my town, then my county, and I played water polo for the adult men’s team—even as a teenager. It wasn’t just a sport to me. It was identity. It was purpose. It was energy. But there was one problem: my school didn’t have a water polo team. So I decided to change that.

At 15 years old, I approached the headmistress. She was a formidable woman, known for her sharp temper, and I was terrified. It felt like dragons den. I didn’t just want to start a casual after-school club—I wanted proper pool time, budget for travel, and support with equipment. I was asking for real backing. And I was nervous. Very nervous.

Nerves had always been part of my story. Between the ages of five and ten, I struggled with alopecia and incontinence—physical symptoms of deep anxiety that I now believe stemmed from my biological father walking out when I was just two years old. He vanished from my life without a word, only to reappear when I was sixteen.

So there I was, sitting outside the headmistress’s office, palms sweating, cheeks flushed, trying not to fall apart. All I could think was: don’t wet your pants. But somewhere in that panic, another voice cut through—one I’d heard since I was small. My grandad used to say to me, “Ben, you can do anything you put your mind to.” Those words had always stuck with me, but in that moment, they rang louder than ever. I didn’t want to be the scared kid anymore. I didn’t want to back away. I wanted my water polo team—and I wasn’t going to let fear stop me from getting it.

So I stood up, walked in, and gave my pitch. And to my complete surprise, she said yes.

That was it. I became the coach, the recruiter, the organiser. We ran mixed training sessions, scraped together what gear we could, entered a tournament—and came dead last. But it didn’t matter. We existed. I’d created something that hadn’t been there before. I saw a gap, believed there was demand, and stepped in to fill it.

Looking back now, that was my first real entrepreneurial moment. I didn’t have the language for it then—but the instinct was already there: see the opportunity, rally the people, build the thing. Create. Lead. Learn. And still today, whenever I’m deep in something difficult—when I hit a wall, or need that extra push—I hear my grandad’s voice again: “You can do anything you put your mind to.” He was right. That belief has carried me through more than he probably ever realised.

The Classroom Doesn’t Measure Everything

When I moved into sixth form, the UK equivalent of college for students aged 16 to 18, I wasn’t exactly academic gold. I wasn’t a straight-A student—not even close. My grades were mostly Cs, with the occasional B or D thrown in. I failed English but somehow passed French, which even I found confusing at the time. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realised I was dyslexic, which explained a lot in hindsight. As they say, the struggle was real.

But the thing is, it wasn’t that I didn’t care. I wasn’t disinterested in learning—I just hadn’t found enough subjects that sparked anything in me. I needed something practical, something alive, something that felt like it mattered. That spark came when I was thirteen. That’s when we started studying business—and from that moment, everything shifted.

Business just made sense to me. The case studies, the decisions, the dynamics—I saw not just how it worked, but how I could fit into it. I could picture myself in that world. I didn’t just enjoy it, I was good at it. It was my best subject, all the way through to completing my advanced GNVQ qualification in business. And from that very first lesson, I had a vision in my head. I could see myself wearing a sharp suit, carrying a leather briefcase, walking into big meetings, doing deals, and earning £30,000 a year before I turned 30. That was the number I picked. It sounded ambitious at the time, but also somehow achievable. It gave me something concrete to chase.

I remember telling my parents about my goal. My stepdad was supportive—encouraging, proud, happy to see I had a plan. My mum, on the other hand, played it differently. She gave me a look that suggested she didn’t quite believe I could do it. At first, I thought she genuinely doubted me, and maybe part of her did. But the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve come to realise something important about my mum: she’s clever. Very clever. She knows exactly how to push my buttons. She knows that the moment she tells me I can’t do something, I become absolutely fixated on proving her wrong.

And that’s exactly what I did.

We’ll come back to that dynamic in future parts of this story—because it comes up again, and again, and again in different forms. But for now, what matters is this: that vision of the suit, the briefcase, the meetings, the money—it became my north star. A guiding image I held onto even when things weren’t going to plan.

But having a vision and making it real are two very different things. And soon enough, I was about to learn that the hard way.

The Bricklayer’s Ultimatum

By the time I was approaching my final exams at seventeen, things weren’t looking good. I still loved business—it remained the one subject I truly connected with—but I was easily distracted, coasting through school without putting in the work I needed to secure a place at university. I had the vision, but not the discipline. Not yet.

Then one afternoon, my mum came home holding an application form. It was for a bricklaying course. She handed it to me without much ceremony and said, “If you don’t pass your exams, you’ll stay here and train on the tools.” It was classic her—direct, no sugar-coating, and completely serious. And to be fair, it wasn’t a bad backup plan. I actually liked manual labour. It was in my blood. My family had always worked on building sites, and from a young age, I’d joined them—tarmacking roads, laying bricks, cutting grass, helping build houses. There’s a real sense of pride that comes from a hard day’s work, from seeing something physical you helped create. Even now, I still enjoy being on site when the opportunity comes up. But I knew, deep down, that life wasn’t for me. I didn’t want to stay at home. I didn’t want to work the same jobs as everyone else around me. I wanted the suit. The briefcase. The salary. The meetings. The vision I’d been chasing since I was thirteen. There was absolutely no way I was going to give that up—and my mum knew it. She’d played me like a fiddle, and I fell for it. She knew exactly how to get me moving. That form was never meant to be a genuine option—it was a challenge. A provocation. She lit the fire, and I responded exactly as she knew I would. I buckled down, found the focus I’d been missing, and got to work. I earned my advanced GNVQ in business, got accepted into university, and moved out—one step closer to becoming the person I’d always pictured.

Fences, Sheds, and Grit Under Pressure

University was, in many ways, a dream come true. I made lifelong friends, discovered the freedom of living away from home, threw myself into rugby, and finally got to study business full-time—the subject I’d loved since I was thirteen. It felt like my world was opening up, and for the first time, I could feel myself becoming the person I’d always wanted to be.

But like a lot of students, money was tight. I picked up labouring jobs when I could, pulled pints in local bars, and scraped together just enough to get by. It wasn’t glamorous, but I enjoyed the hustle. There was pride in earning, even if it was only enough to cover a few bills.

My first rental was a house directly opposite a prison. Not exactly your typical student digs. At night, I could hear the inmates shouting, sometimes screaming—just absolute madness echoing across the street. For a first home away from home, it was quite an experience. Strange as it sounds, it toughened me up. You got used to the noise, and you learned quickly that comfort was something you had to build for yourself.

Then, at the end of the final term of my first year at university, I ran out of money completely. Rent was due, and I had nothing—no savings, no safety net, just a deadline looming over me. I knew getting another part-time shift wasn’t going to solve it in time. So, I knocked on my landlord’s door and told him the truth. I couldn’t pay, but I had an idea. “There’s no fence in the back garden,” I said. “If you provide the tools and materials, I’ll build one. We square the rent that way.”

To my surprise, he agreed. It was something he’d been meaning to sort out anyway. I brought in a mate, and over a weekend, we put it up—nothing fancy, but sturdy and clean. He got his fence. I stayed in the house. We both walked away happy.

Two years later, it happened again. Different house, same problem. I’d run out of money. This time, it was a shed—weather-beaten, flaking paint, clearly neglected. I pitched again. “Let me fix it up—strip it back, repaint it, tidy the garden while I’m at it. We’re square.”

Another yes. Another borrowed set of tools. Another weekend spent sanding, painting, and making something decent out of a shed that had seen better days. It was another small win carved out of a tough situation. And sure, I could have called my parents and asked for help with the rent. But deep down, I knew how that conversation would go—and there was no way I was inviting another bricklaying application back into my life. Not a chance. This was on me. I had to step up, take responsibility, and figure it out on my own. I had to man up and get it done. And somewhere in the middle of all that scraping, sweating, and problem-solving, I learned something about myself that I’ve carried ever since:

When my back’s against the wall, I don’t fold. I come out fighting. I get creative. I get practical. I move. I make things happen. I find a way.

That instinct—the grit to solve problems with whatever tools you’ve got—is what being a founder demands. Over and over again. The problems may change shape: a client goes cold, funding falls through, a competitor comes out of nowhere, a policy changes overnight. But the core challenge stays the same. You either freeze—or you figure it out. The resilience I earned in those university gardens is the same resilience I rely on today. It wasn’t something I learned in a lecture theatre. It was something I earned—with splinters in my fingers and paint on my jeans. One fence. One shed. One yes at a time.

Why This Matters

Those fence-and-shed negotiations weren’t just about surviving university. They were foundational. They were about spotting a need, building trust, proposing a deal, and delivering value.

That’s startup life.

Founders face this pressure all the time. The unexpected hits hard—a lost customer, a cash shortfall, a political shift, a new competitor, a recession. You think you’re one step away from smooth sailing, and suddenly you’re on fire again.

What separates founders who make it from those who don’t isn’t their idea or their pitch deck. It’s their grit. Their resolve under pressure. Their ability to find a way forward when it seems like no path exists.

Those student deals taught me that. And it’s a lesson I return to, over and over again.

Looking Back to Look Forward

Now, with 43 years behind me, a fintech AI startup serving some of the world’s largest banks, and a coaching business, I don’t look back on those early moments as just memories—I see them as building blocks.

They taught me that if something doesn’t exist, you can build it.

That you don’t need perfect grades to chase bold ideas.

That when the pressure’s on, I’ll always find a way through.

None of that came from textbooks or theory. It came from lived experience—messy, imperfect, and deeply human. The same kind of experience founders face every day. And now, I get to help them navigate those moments—with clarity, confidence, and just enough fight to keep pushing forward.

Coming up in Part 2: My first proper business, and the lessons I had to learn the hard way. Stay tuned.

If you’re a founder—or thinking of becoming one—and you want someone in your corner who’s lived it, book a discovery call. I’d love to help you build your version of the water polo team.