Scaling with Taste and Humanity | Michelle Kennedy (Founder of Peanut)

In this episode of The Business of Creativity, John sits down with Michelle Kennedy, the pioneering founder and CEO of Peanut. From her early days navigating late-night completions as a corporate M&A lawyer to helping shape massive social tech platforms like Badoo and Bumble, Michelle has spent her career understanding exactly where people find value. When she became a mother in 2013, she experienced firsthand the deep isolation and vulnerability that can come with a major life transition. Realising there was a massive gap in the market for an authentic network built specifically for women, she launched Peanut in 2017—a platform that has since connected millions of women globally across fertility, pregnancy, motherhood, and beyond. Tune in as Michelle and John discuss why starting a business is fundamentally a creative act, the shocking reality of venture capital funding for female-led businesses, the difference between being data-informed versus data-driven, and why old-school storytelling and intuition ("taste") beat pure tech algorithms every single time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices