Thought Leadership

5-Minutes With: Jack Thorogood

5-Minutes With is an interview series where business leaders from Endeavor Bulgaria’s network share their personal experiences, advice, and lessons learned.

Meet Jack Thorogood, a fintech entrepreneur on a mission to simplify global work. With over a decade of experience in software development and remote team management, Jack has founded multiple successful ventures, including InPlayer and NOVP, before launching Native Teams—a platform designed to streamline payments, employment, and compliance for global professionals.

In this conversation, Jack reflects on the biggest myth about entrepreneurship, the advice he gives aspiring founders, and why listening to his wife might just be the best business strategy.

What is a surprising fact about Endeavor?

The global nature of Endeavor – and the consistent decency of their members, irrespective of country –  was a surprising fact about the organisation!

As a bonus fact, their choice of venue and location for events is also second to none. The next time I visited Miami after attending with Endeavor for sure I picked the same hotel they’d chosen!

 

Entrepreneurship can be a rollercoaster—what’s your go-to method for staying grounded during tough times?

I’d actually say that staying grounded during the great times is more important. In the tough times you’re already on the floor.
For both good times and bad periods I think that ensuring I spend the time with my family over weekends (the working week always means a lot of travel) is really important; it’s more important than work.
Listening to my wife is also highly beneficial in good times and bad, for obvious reasons (!) and also for insight. She knows relatively little about my business, but she knows a lot about me and will have a word if she thinks I’m pushing myself too far or getting too big for my boots!
I’m also a big fan of exercise for making bad things feel not quite so negative – every difficult day looks better after an hour working out – and I’ll take a couple of beers to relax a little.  On rare occasions more than a couple of beers is also a good prescription to make sure I don’t end up taking myself too seriously.  Feeling like an idiot for the hangover and/or night before is always a good reminder that we’re not as smart as sometimes we think we are!

 

What’s one myth about entrepreneurship that needs to be debunked?

That there are shortcuts and quick ways to win. There aren’t and all the stories where we hear about an ‘overnight success’ normally skip over the years of hard slog that came before it!

 

What’s one book, podcast, or resource you’re currently reading or listening to that you’d recommend to others?

I always recommend the SaaStr podcast for those in the software space. It’s very insightful due to the quality of the guest speakers and interviewers. The 20VC podcast is also very good (Harry Stebbings used to host SaaStr, back in the day) but the host has become a little pleased with himself now he’s made it big!

 

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to aspiring entrepreneurs?

You’ll get out what you put in. I know that’s not necessarily inspiring, but there is a direct correlation between hard work and effort, and success.  It’s not a given – sometimes you’re just not in the right place at the right time – but more than anything, this is reality.