BOOTSTRAPPERS BUSINESS ACADEMY · The First Breakfast
This Breakfast has happened
Cambridge, 14 September 2026 — how it went.
Seventy-seven female founders, one room at The Glasshouse, and £27M of combined annual revenue on the stage.
The first public naming of The Bootstrap Bargain™. This is what the morning looked like — and what the women in it said afterwards.
77founders in the room£27Mcombined annual revenue on stage9.7/10would recommend it100%would come again5superscalers on stage
The Morning, In Pictures
Inside the room at The Glasshouse.
Seventy-seven founders, Cambridge, 14 September 2026. Click any photograph to see it full size.
The Room
Who Was On Stage.
Five women. Different stages, different paths — all past the point the room was building toward.
Host
Geeta Sidhu-Robb
Founder, Seven Rungs · Growth Advisor
Geeta Sidhu-Robb is a CEO Growth Advisor and founder of Bootstrappers’ Business Academy, the structured growth programme for women building companies without venture capital. She created and hosts The Bootstrappers’ Breakfasts™️, the UK’s first national platform for female founders reaching their first £1M on their own cashflow. She built her own first company, Nosh Detox, without outside capital. Her coaching clients include Sam Smith, the founder who grew finnCap from £1m turnover a year to £1m a week and listed it on the LSE in 2018, and Mia Drennan, who founded GLAS Agencies with £6,000 and closed a partial exit at around $1.8B in January 2026, thirteen months into working with Geeta. She founded the WCorp certification, holds five Entrepreneur and Businesswoman of the Year awards, and spoke at TEDxBerlin on how healthcare systems fail Black and brown mothers.
Keynote
Victoria Johnson
Keynote Speaker
Victoria Johnson is the founder and CEO of VET.CT. After graduating from Bristol Veterinary School, she worked as a general vet before becoming a Specialist in Veterinary Diagnostic Imaging in 2003. Victoria founded VET.CT in 2009 to provide remote radiology reporting to veterinary teams around the world. She has grown the company into an innovative veterinary teleradiology, consultancy and education company with a global team of more than 280 people. The unique combination of cutting-edge technology and a strong sense of shared purpose, culture and values, results in the consistent delivery of trusted knowledge, support and reassurance to veterinary teams in 27 countries. VET.CT became a B Corp in 2025. The company is currently focusing efforts on deploying its considerable data assets to improve access to radiology services. Victoria strongly advocates for the responsible development and deployment of artificial intelligence in veterinary medicine to benefit animal health and welfare.
Victoria lives in Cambridge, UK with her two children and far too many pets.
Local Host & Panellist
Francesca Hodgson
Cambridge Local Host
As an exited fintech founder who has raised millions in equity investment, Francesca is passionate about entrepreneurship education and the particular value of a bootstrapped venture. She is Programme Director of SPARK at King's, one of the only intensive incubator programmes in Cambridge, delivered and funded through King's Entrepreneurship Lab at King's College, Cambridge. Her work sits at the point where ambition meets operational reality: she runs programmes that get founders from idea to traction, advises on growth and commercial strategy through Ambition Ventures, and coaches founders and investors with ambition aligned to early-stage ventures
Panellist
Sarah-Jane Butler
Founder & CEO of Farringford Legal
Sarah-Jane is an award-winning lawyer and serial entrepreneur. In September 2021, she and her fellow directors launched Farringford Legal to fill a gap they had spotted: a law firm offering SMEs exceptional, personalised service at a price that reflected their budgets.
She began her qualified career in debt and equity markets at Linklaters, later broadening into employment and commercial law. Her earlier roles spanned Freshfields, Goldman Sachs and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (formerly Berwin Leighton Paisner).
In 2011, Sarah-Jane founded Working Life Solutions, which supported professional women in the workplace for more than a decade. Running an SME of her own showed her that, while the SME community is close-knit, ambitious growth is hard to achieve, with services to SMEs often overpriced or poor quality — and support for female founders in particular was lacking.
Today she is a passionate advocate for female founders, campaigning for the support their businesses need to grow. Her recognition includes 2026 Businesswoman of the Year, 2024 SME Businesswoman of the Year and WeAreTheCity Rising Star Champion, alongside an EY Entrepreneur of the Year nomination. She is also an active alumna of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme.
Panellist
Debbie Zaman
CEO of With
Debbie is the CEO of With, the award-winning PR agency she founded prior to selling it in 2023. Over the 16 years of running the business Debbie has managed the reputations of hundreds of global technology companies and their leaders. Debbie initiated the company’s programme of free media training for women leaders which has trained well over 1500 women for free, and led on transformation programmes for the company from culture to AI. Debbie is now also an NED for other marketing services businesses and an investor in a range of female-founded tech companies.
From the Room
What Founders Said Afterwards
In their own words, from the feedback we received in the days after the morning.
“Much higher impact than I expected! I met a group of fabulous women, made great new connections, and came away feeling that it really is possible to succeed.”
Founder · Cambridge Breakfast
“Very energising. Meeting a fellow founder who has had a very similar rollercoaster to me was validating. I feel less alone.”
Deirdre Cijffers · Founder & CEO, All In Images
“So much good advice was shared. Real stories, real people!”
Founder · Cambridge Breakfast
“Great insights and honest advice from the panel.”
Founder · Cambridge Breakfast
9.7/10
would recommend to a fellow founder
100%
would come to another Breakfast
What This Was
The Room for Women Building Differently.
The Bootstrappers’ Breakfasts™ is a national series for female founders building their first £1M without external investment — sitting in front of women who have done it, past £1M, past £5M, past £200M.
Cambridge was the first. Seventy-seven founders in the room, and superscalers on the stage whose businesses have generated £27M in combined annual revenue without giving away control.
No pitching. No networking theatre. Just women who have built, talking to women who are building.
|
1.3%
of UK VC reaches all-female teams
|
£27M
combined annual revenue on the stage
|
77
founders in the Cambridge room
|
How the Morning Ran
| 8:30 | Arrival & breakfast Coffee, food, time to settle in |
| 9:00 | Welcome Geeta Sidhu-Robb opened the room |
| 9:15 | Keynote Victoria Johnson |
| 9:45 | Panel conversation Hosted by Francesca Hodgson |
| 10:15 | Open floor Questions and conversation |
| 10:30 | Close |
The Framework on Stage
The Bootstrap Bargain™
Every Breakfast names a trade most female founders have been making without realising. It is not a punishment — it is the bargain most women would make again, even when they made it without knowing.
Cambridge is where we named it for the first time, in a room, out loud.
SEE THE NEXT BREAKFASTThe Cost You Pay
Slower scale
Harder cashflow
Less external leverage
Slow press, slow recognition
The Return You Collect
Sovereignty
Higher margin
A life that fits a body
A founder still operational at 55
Cambridge Has Been And Gone
The next rooms are Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Both on 4 November 2026, both free. Edinburgh in the morning at the RBS Accelerator Hub, Glasgow in the afternoon at Atera Spa.
Bristol, Lisbon, Brussels and Hamburg follow. Same rule everywhere: no pitching, no networking theatre, real numbers said out loud.
