A Flat Capped and hairy David “Wolverine” Johnson, the UK Editor of Maddyness, calls in from the wilds of the Berkshire countryside, to tell us all about the joys of lockdown and how he swapped life in Harlesden for a lovely barn “doer-upper”. As well as home DIY & a fondness for electrical wiring, David updates us on the progress the leading Tech publication has come so far, including the recent launch of their new Podcast called “The Voice”, where the first series focuses on the joys of Sex-Tech!
Providing some context, Maddyness launched 10 years ago in France and its goal is to provide useful information for founders. They are the leading online media for Start-Ups in France and David joined in September 2019 to launch the UK edition of Maddyness.
Here the site aims to bring together the UK Start-up ecosystem, trying to do things in a differentiated way to other Online Tech publications. The site has had a brand re-fresh recently, to become more like a digital broadsheet and David predicts that 2021 will be the year of Greentech, with Agritech in France, in particular, really capturing his eye. He prefers for Maddyness UK to focus on the whole European ecosystem but plans to grow their local reach through offices in several European locations.
In conclusion, we have a really fascinating chat which also touches upon the number of start-ups created in Europe, starting a business in Covid-19 times, the world of VC, which is a sexier world than he thought it was and how hard and stressful it’s been to hire people during the lockdown.
Finally, as a shout out – David says: “If you are founder, just get in touch directly with David with an angle, through the social media”…
