Frankie James will tell you, without flinching, that most of the successful founders she meets are making it up as they go. She'd know, through Ideas Fest, the business festival and awards programme she co-founded, she's spent years putting those founders on stage and getting them to drop the act. What began as an alternative to the soulless webinars every events company ran during the pandemic became one of the few places in business where the highlight reel comes down and people talk honestly about how hard it really is.

This conversation goes back to the beginning. The first festival, when she sat on a hill in the pouring rain watching for cars, not knowing whether a single person would turn up, until more than a thousand did. It covers how she landed serious speakers when nobody knew her name, why she believes trust has no shortcut no matter who tries to sell you one, and the lesson that nearly ended everything: when the world went back to normal, almost her entire team walked out and the business came close to folding. Instead of hiding it, she picked up the phone to ten people more successful than her, then told the people who'd already bought tickets the honest truth about where things stood. What they did next is the part most founders get completely wrong.

Along the way she gets into the things founders rarely say out loud, the loneliness, the self-doubt, the weekend that stops being a weekend, and the quiet question of whether chasing the next thing actually makes anyone happier. If you're building something and secretly wondering whether everyone else knows something you don't, Frankie's answer is simple and oddly freeing: they don't. This is an episode for any founder who's tired of the bravado and wants the honest version instead.