How Robin Skidmore mastered company enlargement and the go out technique – then got here again to do it once more

In the debut episode of Exit Right, The Drum’s new podcast about company exits and the emotional, monetary and existential demanding situations they convey, host Mike Silver chats to Robin Skidmore, perfect referred to as the founding father of Epiphany (offered in 2014) and now Journey Further. But this isn’t simply any other “how I built it” yarn. It’s a candid dialog about possibility, reinvention and what occurs when the inbox in the end is going silent.

“I was pretty sure I could go and get another job,” Skidmore tells Silver. “The desire to run a business was just too strong for me to ignore. I didn’t believe there was too much to risk.”

It’s that urge for food for possibility that’s outlined Skidmore’s occupation, from a car-washing scheme as a 12-year-old on a Leeds housing property to turning down a senior position and a loan to co-found Epiphany and to opening Journey Further’s New York administrative center himself when nobody else would transfer. But what makes this episode compelling isn’t simply the chronology of his ventures; it’s the emotional honesty round what it prices.

Skidmore remembers the day he left Epiphany: “I didn’t think beforehand that it would affect me too much, but it was really emotional. There were a few tears.” After a decade of nonstop enlargement, what adopted used to be silence. No conferences. No metrics. Just a child, a passport and 6 months circling the globe.

That time, he says, helped him understand he didn’t need to be a passive investor. “I wanted to be more involved with the team. I wanted to be all-in on something bigger.”

It’s this pivot – from founder to angel, then again to founder – that provides the podcast its core rigidity. Optionality, as Silver places it, isn’t at all times a present. And for Skidmore, it intended finding that his first company go out wasn’t an finishing – it used to be a convention run for one thing extra bold, extra international and extra planned.

Now, with Journey Further receiving numerous pastime from PE corporations and networks alike, Skidmore hints {that a} 2d bankruptcy might be drawing to a detailed. But he’s now not dashing. “There aren’t too many performance shops of our sort of size and capability left as independents now,” he says. “So I think we’re naturally getting some interest.”

Whether you’re an company founder eyeing your personal go out or simply focused on what occurs after the confetti settles, this episode provides an extraordinary, fair window into what comes subsequent – and why founders so steadily finally end up going once more.

Listen to the overall episode now on The Drum’s podcasts hub or anyplace you get your podcasts.