Juliet Barratt co-founded Grenade and sold it to Mondelez, but the exit wasn't the win every founder thinks it is. This is the real story.

Most founders building toward an exit picture the same scene: the wire hits, the celebration starts, and life finally rewards the years of grind. Juliet Barratt lived that exact moment in 2021 and what actually happened bears almost no resemblance to the fantasy.

In this episode of Built Not Born in Business, Juliet sits down with Chris and Helen to tell the full Grenade story. From a failed teaching career and a chance meeting in a Birmingham bar, to building a sports nutrition brand around a plastic grenade-shaped container that no one knew where to put on a supermarket shelf. From driving a tank down Oxford Street as guerrilla marketing, to landing the protein bar product that turned a niche sports brand into a household name. From bootstrapping with no investment to taking on private equity in 2014, again in 2017, and finally selling to Mondelez in 2021.

But the moment the deal closed is where the story gets honest. Juliet describes the lawyer ringing her the Monday morning after the sale to ask whether the money had hit her bank and she hadn't even looked. The sale was never about the money. It was about handing over a business she'd lived, breathed, slept, and built her entire identity around for eleven years. The week leading up to completion was, in her words, horrendous. She compares the due diligence process to someone kicking holes in your baby. And the months afterward forced her to confront something no founder plans for: who you are when the thing you built isn't yours anymore.

This is a conversation every founder thinking about an exit needs to hear before they get there. Juliet covers what really matters when choosing investors, why she and her husband co-founded the business without it killing the marriage, why she now turns down most second-business opportunities, and what she wishes someone had told her about life after the sale.

It is honest, unfiltered, and the kind of founder story that gets sanitised everywhere else.

What happens when the hosts of Built Not Born in Business get put in the hot seat on their own show?

In this special episode, returning guests Andrew Hulbert (founder of Pareto) and Kim Antoniou (founder of Auris Tech and Fonetti) turn the tables on Chris and Helen, the married couple behind Two Krakens and Thread & Pixel.

Honest questions about how two people build two businesses, raise a family and somehow stay married through all of it.

Chris and Helen open up about how they met on a drunken night out in Birmingham, the leap from side hustle to full-time entrepreneurship and the real reason they launched a video production company with Netflix-approved cameras. They talk about what frustrates them most in the film and workwear industries with the lack of trust, the "that'll do" mentality and businesses spending money on content that actively damages their brand.

But the conversation goes deeper than business. Helen shares the tension between entrepreneurial ambition and mum guilt, leaving work at 2:45 every day for the school run and the resentment that can quietly build when both partners are pulled in different directions. Chris talks about the loneliness of wanting to create something meaningful in film, a documentary built around history and hope and not yet knowing what that story looks like.

Andrew and Kim push them on what success really means, and the answer surprises even Chris and Helen. It's no longer about being the biggest. It's about being the best at what they do, protecting the life they've built and making film that makes people feel something.

If you've ever worked with your partner, juggled parenting with entrepreneurship, or wondered what goes on behind the cameras at a podcast studio, this is the episode.

What happens when someone spends fifteen years in live television, reporting on 9/11 as it unfolded, delivering the news of Princess Diana's death, navigating pressure cooker newsrooms at the BBC and ITV and then walks into the world of business?

Arti Halai didn't just change careers. She carried something with her that most entrepreneurs spend years trying to build: the ability to earn trust from total strangers in seconds.

In this episode of Built Not Born In Business Podcast, Chris and Helen sit down with the former BBC and ITV Central News presenter turned business communication expert, author and speaker who has co-founded and exited three companies.

Arti opens up about what really goes on behind the newsroom desk when devastating global events hit, why the most powerful communication tool isn't your words. It's your pause. And the childhood roots that quietly shape who we become as leaders.

From her unconventional CV that looked like a magazine to building a testimonial-led reputation in a crowded market, Arti shares her philosophy on trust, preparation and why reading children's storybooks out loud might be the single best thing you can do for your business presence.

Chris and Helen dig into their own experience of handling mistakes head-on, the underrated power of psychological safety in teams and why the word "entrepreneur" might be the most overused title in business today.

Arti delivers a masterclass in communication, presence and leadership that will challenge how you think about everything from team culture to public speaking.

This is a conversation packed with hard-won wisdom from someone who has delivered news to millions, built and exited businesses, studied happiness at Harvard and still believes the most important thing in business is deceptively simple: say what you mean and mean what you say.

Whether you run a team of two or two hundred, this episode will change how you communicate, how you lead and how you think about the trust your business is really built on.

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