Motorway: How to combine the best of bootstrapped and VC-backed thinking in one startup, with Co-Founder & CEO Tom Leathes

One of the extraordinary things about the startup ecosystem is the kind of company that gets celebrated. Most of the time, they don’t make money. They bounce from one funding round to the next, and only a tiny % eventually make it. They’re the kinds of businesses that would’ve made our grandparents shake their heads. Today’s guest, Tom Leathes, the Co-Founder and CEO of used car marketplace Motorway, is different. The first few companies he built were bootstrapped, profitable and he sold them for more money. Which is basically how business worked for centuries. But then Tom found himself leading a VC-backed startup and things didn’t go so well. It was the first time he and his Co-Founders had failed. So after that experience they re-set and they’ve come back fighting with another VC-backed business, Motorway, which was just valued at over a billion pounds. Find out about the key learnings that have made him successful - and lead to a different outcome for Motorway. -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices