How She Built a £16M Business in a Category Nobody Wanted to Talk About | Founder of JUDE episode artwork

EPISODE · Jun 2, 2026 · 1H 5M

How She Built a £16M Business in a Category Nobody Wanted to Talk About | Founder of JUDE

from What It Takes with Olly Fawcett · host Olly Fawcett

Peony Li built Jude, a women's bladder health brand, in a category that almost nobody would fund, talk about, or believe in. Two years after appearing on Dragon's Den, she's doing £16 million in revenue and growing.In this episode, Peony talks about growing up in Hong Kong with entrepreneur parents she rarely saw, moving to the UK alone at 15, leaving investment banking because her intellectual curiosity was being suffocated, and how distributing 6 million pieces of PPE from her living room gave her the startup capital for Jude.Chapters0:00 Growing up in Hong Kong4:05 Why she hated entrepreneurship and then followed it anyway7:05 Investment banking: intellectually suffocating in six months9:38 The mother community that got 10,000 members immediately11:15 Founders Factory and learning to observe13:06 Feeling like a failure for the first time14:33 PPE: 6 million pieces from her living room18:15 Overcoming challenges is a privilege18:30 The inception of Jude: standing in a Boots aisle22:05 Why she pivoted from pads to supplements23:08 The Austrian pumpkin seed and the Harvard professor27:29 How she funded the early growth30:33 Pitching 100 investors36:32 The hard year before Dragon's Den40:13 The content that improved acquisition cost by 40%46:03 Why she hustled her way onto Dragon's Den54:39 10x growth in 24 months 56:21 The biggest driver of growth 57:03 Team, people and personal leadership shift1:00:01 The vision: a global generational household brand1:03:20 What it takes to build JudeFollow Olly: https://www.instagram.com/olly.303/https://www.tiktok.com/@ollyfawcett303?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pchttps://www.linkedin.com/in/olly-fawcett-668566177/Get frequent behind the scenes updates from Olly: https://whatittakes.kit.com/51cd36dc35Follow Peony:https://www.linkedin.com/in/peonyli/https://www.wearejude.com/ecommerce/products/bladder-care-supplements-ppc?utm_source=google&utm_coupon=PPC20&tw_source=google&tw_adid=797298311884&tw_campaign=23562158549&tw_kwdid=kwd-1883578752614&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23562158549&gbraid=0AAAAAoRTlsGydo1cUDo6jv6rA7aXbVTSt&gclid=Cj0KCQjw_vnQBhCxARIsADcZyxIH_CX73-G9bGzZxmK47J2Ep3cN_HfK204shkfU1CF5wSPcVWjccAgaAq1aEALw_wcB

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How She Built a £16M Business in a Category Nobody Wanted to Talk About | Founder of JUDE

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