Curious Leadership with Dominic Monkhouse – Details, episodes & analysis

Fundraising playbooks often skip the messy middle. This one doesn’t.

In this panel episode, three founder–CEOs who actually closed rounds in the last year unpack how fundraising in the UK really works - from brutal pre‑seed rejections to Series A droughts, and everything in between.

They break down the tactics that moved term sheets, the traps that wasted weeks, and how to run a tight process: negotiating with leverage, surviving due diligence, and choosing investors you’ll still want to text when the wheels wobble.

We get into ARR “magic numbers”, family offices, co‑leads, board control, and why capital = time - so if you’re going to raise, spend it to move faster.

What You’ll Learn -

• Running a process: staged “sexy → deep” data rooms, deadlines, partner‑first intros, FOMO at events like SaaStock.
• Numbers that matter: why $5m and $10m ARR are real gates for many funds; how fund size dictates your exit math.
• Investor fit: difference between US vs EU/UK funds, VCTs, growth equity, family offices - and what each expects from you.
• Negotiation & leverage: controlling access, not sending the deck without a meeting, co‑lead trade‑offs, when to push back.
• Due diligence without burnout: what to prepare, what to outsource, and why you still need extra hands even if you’re “organised”.
• People and pace: raising to move faster (recruiters, senior hires), opening in the US, and hiring outside London.



About the Guests -

Jo Saxby- Co‑Founder, Spruce

Software for heat‑pump installers; accelerating decarbonisation of buildings. Latest raise £3m+; ARR moved from hundreds of £k to ~£1m run‑rate by Christmas. Pre‑empted round, sequencing, and pitching smarter.

Paul Archer - CEO & Founder, Duel

Enterprise brand‑advocacy platform powering growth via passionate fans for top fashion/beauty/retail brands. Recently raised $16m; ~$4m ARR at raise, targeting $10m ARR near term. Co‑lead lessons, NYC expansion, beachhead strategy.

John Readman - Founder & CEO, ASK BOSCO®

AI marketing & e‑commerce analytics. Raised £4.1m from a VCT; ~£3m ARR. Four‑day week with full pay/benefits; board structuring before the round; due‑diligence war stories and wins.

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Follow Dominic on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse 

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Aytekin Tank - founder & CEO of Jotform, host of the AI Agents Podcast, and bestselling author of Automate Your Busywork - shares how he grew Jotform from a developer’s pain point into a 700‑person automation company serving 35M+ users. He explains why Jotform chose to replace itself with AI before someone else did, how users steered them from “AI that fills forms” to AI customer‑service agents, and why AI is the fourth tech revolution after PC, internet, and mobile. His north star: build tools that make people’s lives easier and give them time back.

What You’ll Learn -

• Why “disrupt yourself with AI” is a defensible strategy for leaders
• Jotform’s evolution: Forms → Sign (e‑sign), Apps (no‑code mobile apps), Tables, workflows
• Real support gains from AI agents (resolution rate jumps, faster response times, redeploying humans to higher‑value work)
• Practical channels working today: Gmail drafts, Instagram DMs, web chat, presentation agents
• Leadership lessons: fix the bottleneck, ship MVPs, learn from customers, scale with curiosity

Book Recommendations -

Creative Selection - Ken Kocienda

The Goal - Eliyahu Goldratt

No Man’s Land - Doug Tatum

About Aytekin Tank -

Founder & CEO of Jotform (2006 → 35M+ users). Host of the AI Agents Podcast. Bestselling author and regular contributor to Medium, Fast Company, and Entrepreneur. Began as a software developer in New York automating repetitive web forms - sparked the idea for Jotform. Expanded the platform with Jotform Sign, Jotform Apps, and Jotform AI Agents that help users complete forms, answer questions, and get instant, on‑brand support.

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James Dawson and Richard Doherty are seasoned professionals from the fintech and financial services industries, each bringing decades of expertise to their respective fields.

James Dawson, founder of Humble Technology, has over 21 years of experience in fintech. His career has been dedicated to addressing and overcoming the challenges fintech startups face in sales. James believes that many fintechs fail not due to a lack of funding but because they rely too heavily on relationship-driven sales rather than employing proven, science-backed methodologies. As a former Head of Europe at OpenFin, a leader in desktop interoperability, James successfully built high-performing teams and developed his own sales techniques. To share his strategic insights, James created the Fintech Sales FastTrack programme - a framework designed to help startups establish predictable and scalable revenue systems. In addition to his fintech achievements, James also owns Humble Grape, a wine bar and merchant that imports high-quality wines from 600 small vineyards across 22 countries, exemplifying his entrepreneurial versatility.

Richard Doherty, meanwhile, leads the technology practice for Asset & Wealth Management at Publicis Sapient, a prominent consultancy in financial services and digital business transformation. With over 20 years of experience in technology and financial services, Richard specialises in helping firms align their technological initiatives with business strategies. His expertise lies in implementing large-scale technological changes, including system overhauls, data transformations, and technology-focused innovations. Richard advises business leaders on building future-ready operating models that leverage technology to drive innovation, generate revenue, cut costs, and mitigate risks. By collaborating with both business and technology stakeholders, Richard fosters alignment that enables firms to ensure sustainable and expedited transformation in highly competitive markets.

Together, James and Richard exemplify leadership and innovation in their fields, uniting expertise in sales strategy, technology, and enterprise transformation to shape the future of fintech and financial services.

In this episode, Dominic explores methodologies used by founder-led sales to scalable sales operations. Learning that in the early stages of business development, a relentless focus on an initial product offering is essential. For example, for Amazon it was books and for Google it was search functionalities - even though their objective was expansion and market domination.

With James and Richard emphasising the importance of aligning sales strategies with marketing efforts, they encourage leaders to nurture a growth-oriented mindset among sales personnel. Hear their insights on the complexities of building successful sales engines that can withstand the rigours of today's competitive landscape.

Discover

Business Growth and Focus: Successful companies often start by focusing on a single, straightforward offering before expanding into larger and more complex operations. This focus is essential in the early stages to build a sustainable foundation.

Sales Transition Challenges: Transitioning from founder-led sales to scalable, enterprise-level sales processes is a significant challenge for businesses, especially in the fintech sector. It requires a particular skill set and mindset to scale sales effectively from small to large operations.

Collaborative Expertise: Leveraging the collaboration of industry experts with diverse professional backgrounds, such as consulting and financial services, can help scale businesses by addressing complex challenges and driving transformation.

The Importance of...

How do you manage your metrics around innovation? How much investment do you need to put into innovation as a mature business? How do you give people the time and structure needed to innovate in your business? This week we asked one of the most influential strategy and innovation experts to come back to The Melting Pot to answer these and some other questions about innovation. 

Founder and CEO of Strategyzer, Alex Osterwalder reckons that seven out of ten projects that you start within your business need to be killed. And maybe one in ten of your innovation projects is a go, but you're going to need to build a portfolio of maybe 50 live projects that are at any one time to get enough innovation going in your business to make a material change, to get a return on your investment. He also introduced us to the concept of AKIs (Aspirations and Key Insights) – as opposed to Objectives and Key Results – for innovation teams not to produce results, but key insights to understand whether they should kill, iterate or scale a product.

Fantastic conversation with Alex. If you’re in the innovation arena, this is a must-listen for you. 

Download and listen to learn more.

On today’s podcast: 

• What’s the ideal innovation team
• How and when to kill your innovation ‘zombie projects’
• How to ‘fail faster’ in innovation
• Getting the best ROI
• AKIs (Aspirations and Key Insights) vs OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)

Follow Alex Osterwalder:

Strategizer website

LinkedIn

Twitter - @alexosterwalder

High Impact Tools for Teams

The Invincible Company

Testing Business Ideas

Book recommendations: 

The Courage To Be Disliked

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This week we learned from the inventor of the Outcome-Driven-Innovation (ODI) process, Tony Ulwick. Tony developed this process and, in 1999, he described it to Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator's Dilemma. Although Clayton loved it, he didn’t like the idea of customers having a process, so he called it Jobs-To-Be-Done. Every customer has a job to be done, so what we can do is innovate around solutions to help them get that job done. 

What’s the job your customer is trying to get done? And how do you measure success? In this episode, Tony guides us through the process that innovators need to answer those questions, and he shares some interesting case studies of how he’s helped different firms understand what jobs their customers were trying to get done, and how to identify their unmet needs. 

A fascinating conversation with Tony.

Download and listen to learn more.

On today’s podcast: 

• The Jobs-To-Be-Done Theory
• How can you define a need
• The cases of Bosch and Conagra
• How your customers measure success
• Understanding the job that your customer is trying to get done

Follow Tony Ulwick:

Website

LinkedIn

Jobs To Be Done - Book and Audiobook

Book recommendations: 

What Customers Want

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Is there any fractured relationship in your team? Many teams have people with dysfunctional relationships that show up in different ways. Often people find it difficult to solve problems. Somehow we find ourselves with a breach of trust, breach of contract, or competence. We believe one of our colleagues isn't competent, and it grows like an inverted pearl in an oyster or stone in your shoe. When this happens, people move away from those relationships or change companies. But if a business is a team sport, it's like taking the field to play football with only nine players against the opposition because some people on your team have a dysfunctional relationship.

This week we talked with and learned from Doug Bouey, a coaching and facilitation veteran, recognised by Vistage/ TEC. His newest book, Fixing Fractures, creates a sure path to peace of mind and a quiet heart. Like Dominic, Doug holds a Gazelle’s (now Scaling Up) International qualification. He’s a master coach and, as part of his Vistage Chair life, Doug came across a facilitation technique to fix fractured relationships in business and life. So, he wrote his book Fixing Fractures, to help teams or individuals overcome these breaches of trust and help them build a high-performing team. 

In this episode, Doug guides us through his technique to help teams have these types of conversations and overcome this issue in their relationship. He explains the different levels or ‘gates’ of trust and how he helps individuals in businesses get to the bottom of their problems and what are the ‘Magic Five’ that need to be present during these ‘healing’ conversations.

Download and listen to learn more.

On today’s podcast: 

• Fixing Fractures
• How to fix dysfunctional relationships
• Understanding the breaches of trust in teams
• Team building workshops
• The Magic Five

Follow Doug Bouey:

Website

LinkedIn

Fixing Fractures

Book recommendations:

Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott

Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone

The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr

The Status Game by Will Storr

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Why do we do the things we do? How did COVID truly affect our behaviour? Will our ability to empathise and connect with others ever fully recover? In a world of constant change and uncertainty, Dr Helena Boschi, a psychologist specialised in applied neuroscience, offers insight into how our brains are wired to react and cope and helps us make some sense of why we do what we do.

In this episode, Dr Helena Boschi discusses why we do what we do, which is also the title of her book. She also talked about feedback, why we are doing it, and what the real impact is. She gives some interesting tips on how to do it, how it works, and how the brain absorbs the feedback we give people. We also learned about the entrepreneur’s brain and what drives them, the effect of COVID on our empathy and much more. 

Download and listen to learn more.

On today’s podcast: 

• “Every child is an artist”
• Why we do what we do
• The Impact of COVID on our brains
• Why it’s so difficult to change our beliefs
• Something is wrong with feedback

Follow Dr Helena Boschi:

LinkedIn

Why We Do What We Do

Book recommendations:

One of the things that Helena recommends to the listeners is to read as much as they can and talk to everybody, “because everybody has got something to teach us”.

In particular, she truly enjoys the work of these authors: 

David Eagleman

Robert Sapolsky

Dan Ariely

Daniel Kahneman

Simon Sinek

Mathew Syed

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Are you struggling to achieve successful digital transformation despite continuous training and collaboration? Find out how to unlock agile decision-making with the military-inspired command by negation technique and improve employee engagement with immersive training programs - all while boosting manufacturing efficiency through SAP systems.

Marty Groover offers a unique perspective on the future of manufacturing. Drawing from his experience as a retired Navy officer and working in the manufacturing sector at Caterpillar, he has developed a deep understanding of the importance of technology integration and employee training. Now a partner and CTO at C5MI, Marty is dedicated to helping companies adopt Industry 4.0 technologies, creating smarter systems and more efficient processes. If you are a manufacturing leader, you will undoubtedly benefit from his insights, experience, and passion for innovation.

In this episode, Marty explains how you can boost manufacturing efficiency by harnessing the power of SAP systems, and how to drive digital transformation in your workplace. Marty is an advocate for creating a culture of learning, so he discusses how you can cultivate effective leadership and change management in your manufacturing operations, and unleash agile decision-making with the military-inspired command by negation technique.

A fantastic conversation with Marty.

Download and listen to learn more.

On today’s podcast: 

• Transforming the manufacturing operations through strategic SAP
• Bringing military systems to manufacturing
• Using real-time tracking to improve efficiency
• Creating a thriving learning culture by encouraging knowledge-sharing and regular upskilling
• Overcoming the problem of working in silos in business

Follow Marty Groover:

Website

LinkedIn

Speed of Advance

Book recommendations:

Relentless by Tim Grover

Winning by Tim Grover

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink

You Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

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This week on The Melting Pot, we learned from Eric Maisel, creativity coach and trainer of creativity coaches. He writes the ‘Rethinking The Mental Health’ blog for Psychology Today, which has more than three million views, and he’s the lead editor for the Ethics International Press Critical Psychology and Critical Psychiatry series. Eric is also the author of more than 50 books covering the areas of creativity, life, purpose, meaning, and mental health.

Once upon a time, in a world filled with rules and orthodoxies, Eric discovered the power of self-forgiveness, purpose, and creativity. Growing up in a neighbourhood where the aftermath of World War II still lingered, he was instilled with the idea of being a resistance fighter against societal norms at a young age. This spirit of opposition led him to question the status quo and seek out his own life purposes. He faced the challenges of being a smart individual in a society that often sought to silence voices like his. Through this struggle, Eric learned the importance of embracing one's individuality and passions. Over time, he developed into a creativity coach, guiding artists and entrepreneurs on their journeys to self-discovery and success.

In this episode, Eric talks about one of his books, Redesign Your Mind, and cognitive therapy, and how it works on your thoughts. In his book, Eric proposes a methodology for changing your thoughts or replacing them with something else. He also about entrepreneurs and how he coaches them, as well as artists, who he thinks share many things but are also very different. He shares some tips about how to get in flow, his thoughts about burnout, and how to live a better life and lower your anxiety. 

Download and listen to learn more.

On today’s podcast: 

• Being smart in a non-smart world
• Why are people burnt out?
• The creative power of sleep
• The trances of working
• How to redesign your mind

Follow Eric Maisel:

Website

LinkedIn

Redesign Your Mind

Why Smart Teens Hurt

Book recommendations:

Eric has always felt that he is in the existential tradition, a specific philosophical and literary tradition. If you have lost your understanding of that, or have never encountered it, he recommends that you read the books by Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Camus, Orwell, and Kafka.

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How would you define meaningful work? And your team? If you're struggling to find the right words, our guest on The Melting Pot this week has various ideas to help you. How can you expect your team to do meaningful work if you can't define it? Here's a hint: it might not be about what you need to do, but what you should stop doing.   

This week we learned from Lisa Bodell. Lisa is a best-selling author and, CEO and founder of FutureThink, a business focused on helping companies simplify how they work to make space for driving growth and innovation. This has been Lisa's passion for over twenty years, and she is all about taking a provocative approach to challenge our assumptions every day. 

In this episode, Lisa and Dominic talk about how to get people to do more of the right things, building culture –specifically, how to cut the crap and stop stupid rules. She also asks what makes meaningful work, which she often finds leaders can't articulate clearly. Lisa shares a few of the 'killing' exercises she uses with leaders to help them start investing their time and drive innovation. 

Download and listen to learn more.

On today's podcast: 

• Driving change in our lives and at work
• Becoming 'unbossed'
• Doing more valuable work by simplifying things
• The barriers to innovation
• How to 'Kill Your Company'

Follow Lisa Bodell:

Website

LinkedIn

Kill The Company

Why Simple Wins

Book recommendations: 

The Artist Way

The Art of Gathering

A More Beautiful Question

The Curious Advantage

Think Again 

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