The ideaSpace Podcast with Ewan Kirk
20th April 2026
What happens after you build, scale and sell a start-up - and how does the experience change the way you think about entrepreneurship?
Matthew Cleevely returns to the ideaSpace Podcast four and a half years after his first appearance, when he was still building 10to8. Since then, he has exited the company and gone on to work with, advise and invest in other founders. He's also written The Founder’s Map - Volume One: Building the Machine, bringing together the lessons he's learned along the way.
In this conversation, Matthew and Ben explore the realities of life after an exit, why so much startup advice can be misleading, and the uncomfortable role that luck and survivor bias can play in the stories we tell about successful founders.
They also dig into some of the less glamorous, but hugely important parts of building a startup: boards and governance, hiring, company culture, documentation and putting the right foundations in place early.
Matthew talks candidly about the mistakes he made building 10to8, including a culture that became toxic, the experience of running out of money, and the “phantom stress” that remained even after selling the company.
They also discuss the importance of founder communities, why Matthew describes ideaSpace as a “platform, foundation and lifeboat”, and finish with the simple question: what does it actually mean to be a successful founder?
Be sure to listen to this candid conversation about the bits of entrepreneurship that don't always make it into the public success stories.
You can order The Founder's Map - Volume 1 here and find out more about him here.
