Welcome to the Jazz Shapers Podcast from Mishcon de Reya. What you are about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM, however, the music has been cut due to rights issues.
Elliot Moss
Welcome, it’s the brand new season of Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, I’m very pleased you’ve joined me. Jazz Shapers is where I bring you to the pioneers, the risk takers and problem solvers shaping the business world together with the musicians shaping the worlds of jazz, soul and blues as well. My guest today kicking off the season in fine fashion is Louise Hill – I’ve been stalking her for a while, nicely of course - Founder of Go Henry, the money app helping kids learn to earn, save, spend and invest and all my children have used it through the years, all four of them. Realising her children were downloading music on iTunes without understanding its value, Louise started sharing the iTunes invoices with them and deducting the cost from their pocket money – tough love – when friends told her horror stories of their children’s online shopping through Ebay and gaming platforms, Louise with a small founding team, two fellow parents from school, set out a way to improve children’s financial literacy. To give them the joy of independence whilst shopping more safely online. With the backing of Visa, Go Henry, named after its first child customer was launched in 2012 with the pre-paid debit card and money management app going on to break an equity crowd funding world record as well. We’ll be talking about that shortly. And having acquired French teen banking app, Pixpay, Go Henry was itself acquired by Acorns, a US based savings and investing start-up in 2023.
My guest today is Louise Hill, the Founder of Go Henry which is famous in my house. It is though. I’m not even kidding, um, it’s, it’s a bit of a godsend.
Louise Hill
Well thank you, that was the aim when I very first set it up was really to solve my personal problem, that sounds very weird doesn’t it, at home but, um, to solve the fact that my kids were spending all my money on iTunes and, and the more parents I spoke to, the more parents were having similar problems. Basically kids, where they’d given them access to, um, services with the parent’s credit card attached and kids were shopping online and spending money without a care in the world and, and definitely not understanding that money has to be earnt before it can be spent, not understanding the value of money and bizarrely when we started to look around there was nothing out there, you know, in the world there was nothing out that let parents give children access to money in, in a safe way with, with limits that worked for the parents and for the child.
Elliot Moss
I get that intellectually and obviously we all as parents and as adults, we look at things and go, well that’s not right, we should fix that. What made you actually, what motivated you to actually do something about it? It surprises me often when I meet people sitting, I am very lucky to meet lots of people who do amazing things but I go, but why did you bother?
Louise Hill
Because I love a challenge. I, I love a challenge, um, I’ve been asked over the years what makes somebody an entrepreneur or what makes them jump off the edge and start a business and, and if I think back to growing up I’ve always been doing that sort of thing, you know, I used to bake cakes and sell them at school. My brother and I, I grew up in Lowestoft on the East Coast and my brother and I used to make kites when we were in the sixth form and sell them on the beach to the holidaymakers, um, and then I came to university in London, I made clothes and sold them. At one point in my career I set up an ecom business with, uh, an ex-colleague.
Elliot Moss
Manners.
Louise Hill
Yes Manners.
Elliot Moss
Yeah I read about Manners
Louise Hill
Yeah you have done your research.
Elliot Moss
I read about Manners. Apparently. Sometimes. Sometimes it happens. Suddenly they go mention Manners 1998.
Louise Hill
Yeah, yeah 1998.
Elliot Moss
Sold in 2002.
Louise Hill
Whilst very pregnant with my first child, um, so I used to make my business partner go into the rooms to pitch for investment first.
Elliot Moss
Good old sexism eh!
Louise Hill
Yeah, hide, hide behind her as she walked in and, uh, and obviously and then say, yeah I am pregnant but I do still have a brain.
Elliot Moss
But all those things are, is the buzz the fixing of it, is the buzz the making of it, is the buzz, where does the buzz lie? For Louise?
Louise Hill
It’s solving problems, building things. I, I think that’s, that’s what’s driven me for a long time, um, my, I’ll give you an example, my, my ex-husband sometimes when we’d be, let’s say we were stood in a café somewhere and the queue system was messed up and he’d just look across at me and, and sort of glare and I’d say, what?
Elliot Moss
Here we go.
Louise Hill
And yeah, he’d be like, I can hear your brain working and I’m like, yes but if they put the cake things over there and the, yeah it, it’s, I guess it’s just part of who I am. I, I like to solve a problem, I like to build things, I love building teams and that was something I’d been lucky enough to do earlier in my career and you can really make things happen.
Elliot Moss
So this jumping off a cliff thing and the way that the world views generally jumping off cliffs which is that it’s dangerous and risky. Not for you, tell me a bit why jumping off a cliff is more of a calculated risk take than it is something crazy?
Louise Hill
Yeah I think if you’re, so for one, it wasn’t my first business.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Louise Hill
I, I’d had a, um, home shopping ecommerce business from 1998 to 2002. For two, I was confident that I could see a way to make this work and I guess I’ve always been up for taking a calculated risk and it’s interesting, you know, thinking back to why and why some people do that and some people don’t, my parents were very, very good; my dad in particular when we were growing up, there were three of us, um, three siblings in the family, he would always say, what’s the worst that can happen. Whatever hair brained scheme we came to him with, whether we were kids or a little bit older, he would say, well yeah, try it, what’s the worst that can happen.
Elliot Moss
And why do you think he was like that? What, what, because he wasn’t an entrepreneur?
Louise Hill
No he wasn’t, no, worked for the same company from office boy when he started…
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Louise Hill
…to, uh, ended up as managing director. Did, did well for himself.
Elliot Moss
Calm, calm man?
Louise Hill
A very calm man but understood how business worked and believed in I suppose people seizing an opportunity and having a go. And, um, as a result I talk a lot about having a go and that’s where the Go in Go Henry comes from.
Elliot Moss
Oh okay. I just thought it meant like you could propel your children forward but no, it’s, it’s a bit bigger than that.
Louise Hill
Mm.
Elliot Moss
And when you were growing up because again, I’ve, I’ve read that you had a pretty, you talked about a regular nice family upbringing?
Louise Hill
Absolutely, yes.
Elliot Moss
Sometimes people talk about, and I’ve met, if I was a psychologist I’d be very wealthy at this point, because I go I’ve met lots of people who’ve got father complexes, lots of people who’ve had very difficult siblings, lots of people with really heavy stuff, who fight against the system, quote unquote,..
Louise Hill
Yes.
Elliot Moss
…but you didn’t. You didn’t have any of that?
Louise Hill
No, really happy childhood, um, really supportive parents and…
Elliot Moss
So it’s genetic is it? Do you think?
Louise Hill
I don’t, I don’t know.
Elliot Moss
No.
Louise Hill
I don’t know. It, it works for me, it’s something I thrive on.
Elliot Moss
Mm.
Louise Hill
You know I, I could even look now and, uh, I’m 62 now and so I think it’s another one of those dividing points in your life. I, I have lots of friends who are retiring and disappearing off to play golf or go travelling or whatever and some of them say to me, you know, are you going to slow down. No way, I’m having way too much fun, I’m learning new stuff every day. I, I thrive on that and I suppose that’s part of also what drives you to try something new.
Elliot Moss
Yeah. But 13/14 years ago you set this business up with a couple of other people who…
Louise Hill
Yep.
Elliot Moss
…left the business quite quickly afterwards.
Louise Hill
Yes.
Elliot Moss
And was that, I mean, was it clear that idea was nice but execution very different thing? Is that kind of what happened in those situations?
Louise Hill
Um, do you know two, two different reasons. One, uh, one of the guys that I started the company with left immediately we raised the, what I now know is called pre-seed funding. So the money we needed to start the business. Wasn’t interested in getting involved in delivering it and doing it. I guess we always knew he, he would leave at that point. The other one stayed for 2-2½ years and then, you know, we were still, uh, a small business, we were still struggling to keep the funding coming in the door so that we could grow the business. That was quite stressful. We were not able to pay ourselves a lot of money and he and his family needed to go back to a more comfortable corporate existence. We’re still on very good terms.
Elliot Moss
Yes.
Louise Hill
Um, he left then. Um, I sometimes joke I’m the only man left standing, um, as the only female founder out of the three of us.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Louise Hill
But yeah.
Elliot Moss
But that’s where it’s at. And, and on that, is it, has it been lonely? Or were you very quick to surround yourself with fabulous people?
Louise Hill
Uh, no, no its, no not lonely. It, it’s, um, that’s something that’s talked about a lot I think in the entrepreneur journey but if I look at the difference from 14 years ago when I started the business to now, and all the networks that there are out there to support entrepreneurs, and the understanding of both the psychology and the support networks that are needed, there’s so much more available now. No, I, I, you know, set out to hire in people who knew all the stuff that I didn’t know, because I don’t come from a banking background, uh, or financial services. I don’t come from a background where I knew how to go and find funding and all those sort of things but hired in some brilliant people and they did know those things and, and we worked together as a team.
Elliot Moss
And do you think actually that worked for you? I mean, given it was the natural thing that you were, you had kind of agency to do those things without being… because sometimes people say, I loved having co-founders around me and actually what you’re saying is it was okay being the person who had to make the decisions?
Louise Hill
Yes absolutely, yeah it really was because I like working with teams. I like, I said that earlier, I like building teams and if you really to use the buzz word, empower those individuals to do what they’re good at and take the decisions that they are the experts in, then you propel your business faster, um, you support yourself in, in doing that as well.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Louise Hill
And, um, you have colleagues to lean on.
Elliot Moss
I’m going to pick up on Single Points of Failure as well in a bit because I really liked that when Louise Hill is my Business Shaper, she knows what I am talking about, you will soon. She is the founder of Go Henry and she’s going to be with me for a while longer so don’t go anywhere. She’s coming back in a couple of minutes. Right now though we’re going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Innovation Series which you can find on all the major podcast platforms. Business Founders share their practical advice and industry insights for those of you thinking about starting your very own thing. In this clip we hear from Ethan Fraenkel, Co-Founder and CEO of Prograd, a UK fintech platform aiming to empower GenZ to earn side income and improve their financial future.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast, and you can hear this very programme again if you pop ‘Jazz Shapers’ into your podcast platform of choice. My guest today is Louise Hill, Founder of Go Henry, the money app and pre-paid debit card aiming to improve children’s financial literacy. I mentioned, I think it’s called Single Points of Failure and I read it and thought that’s kind of cool. Just explain what that is?
Louise Hill
Single Points of Failure, it’s a solution to a problem that I realised I’d created without realising it. Um…
Elliot Moss
Until you realised it?
Louise Hill
Yeah and there were a lot of realises in that sentence weren’t there. Um, so probably about, I’m trying to think how many years ago. It’s probably 7 or 8 years ago now we got to a point where we were growing really, really quickly, uh, we were hiring a lot of new people. I was probably feeling slightly smug, thought I’d delegated well, you know, I talked earlier about empowering teams and letting the smart people you’ve hired take the decisions. I thought I’d done that fairly well but I suddenly realised I was completely under water. I was absolutely drowning, even if I was working, um, still trying to clear emails at midnight, you know, up again the next morning. I was not keeping on top of what I was trying to do and trying to work out why. What was going wrong, was it just the workload and what I realised was although I’d kind of delegated authority and, and the heads of all the teams were taking the decisions. Too many people had to come to me to, it could be something as stupid as get the log in to a system we were using or ask who the key person was at, um, one of our critical partners or why we did something. And that was taking a huge amount of time. And so I, I’ve always loved the concept of a campaign. I think if you give something a name and sort of give it almost a physical presence, you get far more attention paid to it so rather than just saying, oh we need to do this better, set up a campaign called Single Points of Failure and somebody asked me the other day, did we build software, no it was, I think at the time it was an Excel spreadsheet. It is now a Google spreadsheet. Um, but literally asked every team to write down on the spreadsheet all the things where only one person in the company knew how to do it. And it’s amazing how many of those there were. It’s embarrassing how many of them have my name against them. So yeah, that was the Single Points of Failure campaign. My name appeared on it more than anybody else’s but actually great discipline to have gone through to beef up the resilience of the business and, um, we set about trying to solve all of those, make sure there were at least two people who could log into everything.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Louise Hill
The, um, the joke I’ve made a couple of times is, one we failed on and that is our BT Corporate log in is still my email address, um, although somebody else might know the password to that particular one now.
Elliot Moss
Hopefully.
Louise Hill
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
But, but that’s actually, it’s, it’s kind of, it’s dealing intentionally with the challenge of growing.
Louise Hill
Yes, yeah it is and, and, you know, when you are growing at huge pace.
Elliot Moss
Yeah, you, you can’t stop because you’re so busy growing that things, the thing almost lags behind, the systems and the process is…
Louise Hill
And, and finding the time to step back and say, okay what’s going right? Great leave it alone.
Elliot Moss
And you did that yourself though because often people bring in consultants, they bring in third parties, there’s someone from another…
Louise Hill
Yeah, we…
Elliot Moss
…you just…
Louise Hill
…yeah we were not at a stage where we had enough money to do that.
Elliot Moss
No.
Louise Hill
Um, frankly, you know, we were still pouring every penny that we had into acquisition and growth and, and improving the product, improving the services that we were offering. So, uh, no that was a home schooled.
Elliot Moss
Single Points of Success, it becomes now. Well done, that’s my new name for your campaign, Louise is my Business Shaper, my pioneering, innovating – she’s laughing – person, well you did invent the category, I mean truthfully. Go Henry did not exist, it’s really hard to start something anew. Just cast your mind back. How did you even cross that Rubicon of getting people to believe that this was going to be a trustworthy thing?
Louise Hill
Do you know in the really early days in terms of getting belief from people, it came down to did they have kids or not. It, there was a really clear divide, you know, if I was talking to potential investors and they didn’t have kids, often the response was, well why an earth would an 8 year old need a debit card. And then you’d turn to somebody else who had an 8 year old and a 10 year old and they’re like, oh my god let me tell you why they need a debit card…
Elliot Moss
Yeah, yeah.
Louise Hill
…because, yeah, so, you know, it, it really did boil down to that.
Elliot Moss
I mean the consumer world though, how about them because surely again you’re, you’re, even though there’s a problem, someone might say, yeah hold on a minute I don’t know if I want to give my kid a credit card?
Louise Hill
Yep, no it, it…
Elliot Moss
Debit card.
Louise Hill
…was I think one of the challenges of being first in the category is, is you have this nano second of a person’s attention and you’ve got to tell them not only what you are but why they need you because they’re not already familiar with the concept and therefore why the need is there. And, and that was really challenging.
Elliot Moss
How did, how did you do that because again…
Louise Hill
We tried everything. Tried all sorts of things.
Elliot Moss
Right.
Louise Hill
Um, you know, going, going through schools, um, I spent and the team spent a ridiculous amount of time standing in places where parents were with their kids. That might be a, um a football tournament or a, a, the front of a cinema complex or a Saturday morning in a shopping mall.
Elliot Moss
Was there a silver bullet? Did anything work better than…
Louise Hill
Those things didn’t work at all no.
Elliot Moss
What did work?
Louise Hill
Guess what when parents are out with their kids, they want to spend time with their kids, they definitely didn’t want to talk to us about…
Elliot Moss
Leave me alone. And so what, what was the thing that you think that, that convinced people?
Louise Hill
Initially, um, Facebook. Social media helped us start to get, uh, an audience and then the power of advocacy. So literally one parent telling another parent, telling another parent, uh, that this was working for them and, and to this day, you know, we, we now, we refer to it as advocacy. We obviously have a refer a friend scheme where one parent can refer another family and, and we give a bonus to each family if the new family subscribes. But when we talk to customers who haven’t come in on one of those refer a friend promo codes, and ask them how they heard about us, it is incredible how often it’s another parent told them.
Elliot Moss
Okay.
Louise Hill
Or, or the kid came home from school saying that three other children in the class had, have got a Go Henry card and can they have one.
Elliot Moss
It’s really interesting isn’t it, so it’s not sort of the traditional advertising route at all.
Louise Hill
No, no.
Elliot Moss
Proper, proper person to person advocacy, a real belief. And at the same time though, because I, I just thinking about your mission which we will talk more about around financial education for kids. Sometimes there’s a show not tell thing that works much better. The showing of this is to actually give a kid a debit card and talk to them about money rather than explaining why it’s important they should think about money. Has that been your way through this?
Louise Hill
Yeah, I think fundamental to it. Um, from day one I was adamant that the way to learn about money was by doing, learning by doing. The, the analogy I’ve used hundreds of times is, it’s a life skill so it’s a bit like swimming and you can teach a child the theory of swimming but they’re never going to learn to swim until they get into the water and actually try it for themselves and money’s the same. You can teach the theory but until you have some money and you use it and you go through that process of understanding once it’s gone it’s gone, there’s so many old sayings that have come into play here; money doesn’t grow on trees, you have to earn it before you can spend it.
Elliot Moss
Such a shame it’s not true though. I mean I would really like a tree. If, Louise for your next business if you could make that...
Louise Hill
A tree that grows money. I’ll work on it.
Elliot Moss
Final chat and the tree that grows money coming up from my Business Shaper, it’s Louise Hill, she’s the Founder of Go Henry and she’ll be back and we’ve also got some Jalen Ngonda for you too, that’s in just a moment, don’t go anywhere.
I’m with Louise for a little while longer. Louise Hill, Founder of Go Henry. We’ve talked a lot about business. I’ve talked a lot about it, you’ve done the usual, I mean, I say you’ve done the usual, you’ve done the unusual, created a new category, built it, um, sold it as it were. You’re transitioning, you’ve transitioned out of a, from a role where you were hands on…
Louise Hill
Yep.
Elliot Moss
…every minute of the day to an exec chair and founder, kind of proper founder, or found at large role which must be brilliant but also the space to focus on the passion that’s informed this which is financial literacy for kids. Just give me a sense of where we are at as a country in terms of our, um, policies?
Louise Hill
So in terms of where the UK is when it compares itself to other nations, people always said to me as I was building Go Henry, I can’t believe they don’t teach this stuff in school. And, you know, it is mind-blowing that we were not teaching this stuff in school, uh, it’s such a fundamental life skill and so about five years ago we decided, our mission statement for many years has been to make every kid smart with money. Very aware we’re a paid for service, it’s a subscription service and therefore we’re never going to reach every kid in the UK so what’s the best place to reach them? School. You know, you’ll never get 100% of children but you’ll get probably 98% of children if something is compulsory and taught in school. So, again with no knowledge of public affairs or how to approach Government.
Elliot Moss
It hasn’t stopped you before.
Louise Hill
Um, but I was going to say, why would that be a bother, um, we set about trying to talk to politicians, talk to policy makers, um…
Elliot Moss
How did you do that although joking aside, what did you, what’s the first step when you don’t know about public affairs and there is a way of doing things. How did you engage, do you remember?
Louise Hill
Hire a public affairs consultant to…
Elliot Moss
Oh simple right. It wasn’t you…
Louise Hill
…advise.
Elliot Moss
Right okay.
Louise Hill
Um, because we, I really didn’t have a clue and then I think one of the things that gave us great strength in doing that is of course we had a huge amount of data…
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Louise Hill
…in terms of how children are using money in the UK. How different ages are using money and how a lot of the behavioural nudges and education and our money missions which are little in app gamified money lesson, that are built in to the Go Henry app. How all of those change behaviour because obviously we can see how it changes behaviour and how kids use money differently as they go through that process and we were able to supply all of that to Government.
Elliot Moss
How long ago did you start engaging Government?
Louise Hill
We started five years ago.
Elliot Moss
Okay.
Louise Hill
Um, we were obviously, um, sort of in the lead up to the change from the Conservative to the Labour Government, we felt it was fairly obvious that was going to happen so we started engaging with, um, the Labour, um, MPs and, and policy makers, the shadow policy makers and, um, shortly after, we, we gave evidence to the, there was an education select committee set up to investigation financial education in schools. We were invited to give evidence, I think as only one of two commercial organisations that were invited to give evidence to that, uh, committee. They came out with a fabulous report that really reinforced a lot of the things we were asking for and then as the new Government came into post, we started working with them and lobbying there and basically talking to anyone who would listen and they set up a curriculum and assessment review. Which we also gave evidence to. Gave them all of our data.
Elliot Moss
It’s a short road isn’t it?
Louise Hill
No, it’s not a short road, um, but, uh, the most amazing result because we set up campaigns, I’ve missed all of that out. We set up lobbying campaigns.
Elliot Moss
I can’t imagine, there’s a lot of work.
Louise Hill
Caught, worked with a lot of organisations, charities that, that work in this space and in November last year, fantastic news that the curriculum and assessment review report was issued and the Government endorsed the report which is the important bit because that means the report will actually be put into place and financial education is going to be made a mandatory part of the school curriculum starting in primary schools, which was a major thrust of our campaign because it really is important financial habits are set not just begun, but set incredibly young. So it’s really important to get in at primary school. So that was fantastic news.
Elliot Moss
And that starts September, uh, September 2028?
Louise Hill
It starts in September 2028.
Elliot Moss
Yep.
Louise Hill
So we have obviously now moved into looking to work with the Department for Education to support, uh, whatever information data we can give them to really make sure that when this goes into the curriculum it’s done in an impactful way, in a way that children want to learn. We set up a kid’s financial education advisory board where some of our Go Henry kids, uh, are happy to speak to policy makers and lobby themselves for what they want to learn in school and why it’s important to them. And we’ve also recently released all of the videos for our money missions, which are the in app gamified lessons. Released that on YouTube free of charge so that any family or school or child in the UK can access those and kick off the learning themselves.
Elliot Moss
Just, just imagine if you’d have been focussed, I mean really, what could you have achieved. It’s extraordinary isn’t it because we started talking and it’s been, it’s been brilliant to chat to you, um, we’re going to draw things to a close but Go Henry is one thing, it’s a commercial endeavour but underpinning it was always this thing of, hold on a minute kids really ought to know how to work with money, behave with money.
Louise Hill
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
And here we are now, you’ve manifested and in 2028 something magical happens and it’s brilliant that you’ve done well commercially but I’m sure as you get older you’ll go, that’s the thing.
Louise Hill
Yeah, already that’s the thing that counts.
Elliot Moss
It’s been fabulous talking to you, a real privilege, thank you Louise. Um, just before I let you disappear to go and do more things I’m sure, probably by lunchtime, uh, what’s your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Louise Hill
It is Midnight Rambler from the Rolling Stones. When I was, gosh 13 or 14 and, uh, in my bedroom in Lowestoft, uh, a friend introduced me to the Rolling Stones and, uh, I got really into their very, very early stuff that was very heavily blues influenced and really, really loved it. And Midnight Rambler was one of those records that I played on the old vinyl discs on repeat, many, many times.
Elliot Moss
Midnight Rambler from the Rolling Stones, the song choice of my Business Shaper today, Louise Hill. She talked about trying everything, when you’re not sure how to solve a problem, just try a bunch of stuff and see what happens. She talked about the power of advocacy, what emerged from all those different things that she tried was actually that advocacy of one parent to another was the key. What could it be for your business? She talked about Single Points of Failure which I absolutely loved and I don’t think I’ve heard that on the programme in all these years. Find out what’s going wrong, identify it and then do something about it. And this point about learning by doing and not just by theory and the sense that that is how children learn but also juxtaposed with this incredible change to the education system that we are about to see where we are actually going to be teaching hopefully in very practical ways, what financial literacy and what financial education really looks like for the next generation of people, i.e. our children. Great stuff. That’s it from Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You’ll find hundreds of more guests available for you to listen to in our archive. To find out more just search ‘Jazz Shapers’ in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.