My biggest takeaway from this conversation: the best businesses should make the people building them better too. At Ideas Fest I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Michael Acton Smith and Simon Salter about how to build businesses that make you better. What I loved most was hearing where Calm and DIRTEA actually came from. Both businesses started with something deeply personal: stress, burnout, curiosity and a search for something that genuinely helped. Michael Acton Smith talked about building Calm when investors thought paying for meditation sounded ridiculous. Simon Salter shared how his own experience of burnout brought him back to functional mushrooms and the ideas that became DIRTEA. Different journeys, but a similar lesson: Some of the best businesses are built by solving something you have lived yourself. We also talked a lot about the founder behind the business. Simon spoke brilliantly about community, and the importance of having a few really good people around you when things get hard. Michael talked about learning to respond rather than react, and something brilliantly simple that I loved: leaving his phone on airplane mode until he is out of the house and has a coffee in hand. Create before you consume. That went right to the heart of why we created the JD&Co Founder Recovery Zone at IdeasFest. We spend our lives helping founders build better teams and stronger businesses, but I care just as much about what happens to the person building them. More capacity. More support. More space to think. More time doing the things only they can do. We finished by talking about AI and the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is everywhere. Wisdom, judgement, lived experience, relationships and being deeply human are becoming even more valuable. I have huge admiration for both of these founders and what they have built. They were open, funny, thoughtful and incredibly generous with what they shared, and I’m very proud to call them friends. Thank you both Michael Acton Smith Simon Salter
Love this idea. A business should help the founder grow too, not leave them completely drained by the process. Jo Dalton
Jo Dalton 👏 👏
Great insight, Jo. I particularly like the idea that the business should make the people building it better as well. In long-term leadership, the environment around a business can be just as important as the business itself—especially when strong relationships, reflection, and the ability to respond rather than react become part of the culture.
This part is so true, Jo “Some of the best businesses are built by solving something you have lived yourself.” I spend 4 decades building small businesses and watching others get stuck. I lived the challenges and pain of getting a small business going, first hand. I don’t think I could have put the amount of energy and passion I have over the last 4 years into what is now The Lockgate Method, if I had not lived those challenges myself for so long.
That part about responding rather than reacting is a good one.
This part really resonated with me “ some of the best businesses are built by solving something you have lived yourself” There are some great people doing some incredible things out there 🙏🏻
Good people doing good things!
3 great legendary people!
Was a great chat!
Jo Dalton, thank you for the stage.and thank you Frankie James for an epic experience! Through building and creating, I’ve come to understand that part of living a quality life is learning to close the gap between idea and execution. I really believe most ideas don’t die from being bad ideas. They die in the distance between thinking about them and actually doing something about them. I know this because Andrew Salter and I had a very simple idea. If people understood what we had come to understand about mushrooms, and how these incredible things from nature could help people rise above burnout, manage stress and feel more like themselves again, then maybe the world could be a touch better for it :)