How Hard Can It Be?

December 19th 2025

A reflection from the Founders Fables’ roundtable event

Sitting in a room of some of the North East’s key business founders is a real privilege, and one that very few can experience without joining that elite crew themselves. However, being surrounded by leaders from across sectors, each at different stages of their growth journeys, and all displaying vast array of battlescars from growing their businesses in a Chatham House Rules setting; what is perfectly clear is what binds them together…

Passion.

It’s a word that is often thrown around – sometimes too often – when talking about starting and growing businesses. “The team are passionate”, “the region is driven by its passion” etc – but what is truly comes down to is this. The single, unifying factor of the business leaders in this room was genuine, undiluted passion for their own crafts. From digital, to consultancy, PR and brand to funding and business development, and change and transformation – the mix of Founders were unified in a single mission for one morning; to discuss their own voyage, steering their ship to where they are today, and what they have learned along the way.

Lively conversation easily flowed between Founders as we also challenged the key characteristics of business leaders - are there particular traits that can predispose someone to being a successful leader? Simply put, from this room – yes, there are.
• Passion
• Humility
• Agility
• Adaptability
• Thirst for knowledge and
• Tenacity and grit

Passion – you have to love what you do, really love it. Founding and growing a business can’t be done successfully without being ‘all in’ for your offering.

Humility – you need to surround yourself with people and strategies that can support your goals, champion you when you need it most and keep your focus when it wanders. But being consciously aware of the vulnerability you will likely also feel as a Founder is key. Drawing on personal experiences, the delegates discussed their ways to avoid burnout, what they did to support their vision and also, what they thought they had to sacrifice at the time to get to where they are today.

Agility – constantly needing to move, physically and metaphorically! Many of the Founders find respite in physical activity or constantly ‘being on the go’ to help give them clarity for their business practices, but also allowing themselves time to learn new skills beyond their core functions too.
Thirst for Knowledge – staying relevant, learning and growing is an absolute cornerstone for this Founders group. With many agreeing that if they had free time “to spare”, they’d fill it with doing something else! Reading, investing, embedding skills to help continue their journey in whatever way it presents itself to them. These founders rarely binge-watch Netflix to regenerate, they keep going and learning.

Adaptability – you need to be able to adapt, evolve and be agile at all times. Standing still is not an option for a successful Founder – but adapting during this movement is vital too. Statements like “Get used to being uncomfortable” were bandied around to emphasise this point, articulating the human response to change as sometimes challenging!

And tenacity and grit…

As businesses based or born in the Norh East, the Founders are perhaps predetermined to be full of that charming cliché of a phrase. We are known for our grit in this region, renowned for just getting back up and trying again. But here, in this room, it’s never been more apparent.

Hearing the stories of the Founders, their challenges, their successes – it allows you to see that at the heart of it all, these Founders are human. They are real and they are driving our communities forward in a myriad of ways that perhaps is forgotten sometimes. Distracted by the new ‘next best thing’, what we can often overlook is the experience and skills that have gotten businesses to where they are – who started it all, who is leading the way and who is setting the right example for the next generation too. So, whether you can identify yourself in the traits of a founder, or you’re tenacious enough to try anyway – what we can say is that we need more people like these who are committed to growing the opportunities for all.

One Founder even stated, afterall… “how hard can it be?”. Well, whilst it cannot quantified categorically, what we do know now is that it can actually be very hard, but ultimately incredibly rewarding too.