The man who championed the idea for fresh, chilled soup in the UK and co-created an entirely new food category is turning his attention to the state of entrepreneurship globally. A tall feat? You bet. But he has the experience to match his ambition.
The Irish serial entrepreneur who co-launched New Covent Garden Soup in the late eighties and sold it for multimillions, followed by healthy toddler food brand, Little Dish, which he exited in 2017, also for multimillions, (not to mention he’s a startup investor and mentor), is looking to influence entrepreneurship on a global scale with the “Stapleton Academy”, an English language learning platform to help create some 1 million entrepreneurs by 2030.
The latest story began in 2017, when, after selling Little Dish, he was at a loss. Based in Germany, yet travelling frequently, he decided that setting up a fourth venture (there is a third venture in Stapleton’s history, but more on that later) wasn’t the right option.
A conversation with his PR agent changed everything, and made him see that his past successes as well as failures could be useful to others. “I started to realise there was some benefit in relaying and explaining my story,” he explains. “I also realised it would be a great way to leverage the skill set, experience and knowledge that I have, to help other entrepreneurs.”
Stapleton was doing a plethora of things in the meantime; he sat on boards, did advisory work for businesses, helped set up a VC fund and had a chairman role at a vertical farm business. In short, all the things that successful and driven entrepreneurs do to keep themselves busy. “Over that time, this thing kept eating away at me,” says Stapleton of the academy idea.
By 2025, the Stapleton Academy took form, which leverages experiences, stories, examples, anecdotes and lessons from his entrepreneurial past to help would-be and existing entrepreneurs.
The Stapleton Academy – entrepreneurship as education
Topics covered at the academy include the arguably softer-skill side of mindset and motivation, like “learning from adversity and how not to take setbacks personally,” to more concrete business practices like raising investment or building a brand.
Would-be and existing entrepreneurs can expect practical and vocational content delivered by Stapleton himself, plus selected guest subject matter experts. In addition, one-to-one sessions analyse business pain-points and provide solutions and other support. “It’s targeted at anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur and hasn’t had the courage or the opportunity to know where to start or what it’s really like to set up their own business”, he says. “It’s also suitable for those who have taken the plunge but now find themselves in a rut and can’t grow.”
“The one who wings it the best is the one who wins out. So figure it out on the run. I went to business school at night to help me figure out a lot of the technical stuff. But I would have loved to have someone like me now to learn from, when I was starting out.”
But the academy isn’t just for entrepreneurs, it’s also for entrepreneurial thinkers working in the corporate world who can benefit from lessons on intrapreneurship – also known as harnessing entrepreneurial ways of thinking in corporate organisations.
The academy, Stapleton explains, is less business school and more school of life. “Experience can complement theory,” he states. “But I think we’re far too focused on the theory. Many business schools take a theoretical approach, and I’m convinced you need a bit of that. I went to business school myself, so I’m not knocking it. But what’s often missing is the practical ways of doing things, the difficulties with doing them well and what success is really about.”
While Stapleton makes clear he’s not trying to take the place of an MBA or an equivalent, he does believe his new venture has come at the right time: “Individuals are looking for more business advice – both practical and vocational,” he says. “I’m very much focused on providing this type of benefit.” This includes cutting through the glamourised view of entrepreneurship often seen on social media, where only the highlights and success stories are shown.
“I want to break that bubble and to say that’s not what it’s really about. Entrepreneurship is about recognising and mitigating risk and about being comfortable with uncertainty. I want to emphasise the key role that resilience plays. I also want to position authenticity more centrally. Equally, I want to explain the role of failure in business generally and in entrepreneurship specifically. I made a huge number of mistakes. My entire second business didn’t work. I think only by making mistakes, by being open to learning from failure, do you push your boundaries and understand where they may exist in the first place.”
One of Stapleton’s key learnings from his first three businesses is the power of authenticity. While many budding entrepreneurs look to role models who’ve made it and try to be like them, in his view, this is the first mistake. “There’s a huge danger in that because they were successful usually because they were being themselves and leveraging their personalities,” he explains.
Authenticity in entrepreneurship
“You need to find a way to be yourself,” he adds. “People listen to you when you’re authentic. People follow you when you’re authentic. People become more authentic when they see you being authentic – it’s like you’ve permitted them to be authentic just by being yourself. It means letting your personality shine so you can be yourself. And that’s a very liberating, very powerful place to find yourself. Because then your whole team can become engaged in solving business problems and achieving opportunities as they’ve forgotten about who else they’re trying to be and what impression they are trying to make on somebody.”
Consequently, Stapleton believes that an authentic approach means you can get more stuff done in a business. “You don’t have to deal with problems and interruptions all the time; you can be more focused”, he explains. “A lot of times, you don’t get to focus because people are distracted. They tend to spend time and effort in figuring out stuff like “what’s my place here”? All sorts of distracting stuff happens which gets in the way of being focused. When you’re authentic, all this distraction just falls away, and you focus on, “right, what’s the issue here and how do we solve it”. Effectively, it’s much simpler.”
“You’re fearful of making a mistake. I understand this. Sometimes it’s fear of the unknown – I’m not prepared for this – so I’ll leave it to someone who knows what they are doing.”
Entrepreneurship, Stapleton acknowledges, can be an intimidating place to hang your hat, especially when you’re worrying about “what people are thinking” – especially when you don’t know the answer to a problem. His advice is not to worry about it too much, because they don’t either. “Everybody’s winging it,” he claims. “The one who wings it the best is the one who wins out. So figure it out on the run. I went to business school at night to help me figure out a lot of the technical stuff. But I would have loved to have someone like me now to learn from, when I was starting out.”
The Stapleton Academy’s goal of creating 1m entrepreneurs by 2030 is an impressive-sounding mission statement. But is it too ambitious? Stapleton thinks he has time, plus the benefits of entrepreneurship are too great, in his opinion, to deny. “I’m a great believer in entrepreneurship being a great liberator,” he confirms.
Growing the number of entrepreneurs
Stapleton, who has exited two businesses and influenced many more via mentorship and angel investing, knows its benefits firsthand. “Entrepreneurship can be tough, and it does require sacrifices,” he admits. “But successful entrepreneurs reach heights which are difficult to achieve in any other walk of life.”
He also thinks it is not at all presumptuous to believe that entrepreneurship could be the lifeline Gen Z needs to help them learn resilience through business. “Customers don’t lie,” he reflects. “Investors don’t wait, and the market won’t babysit you. But you can take ownership and deliver real change. You can turn promise into reality, and on your terms. How cool is that?”
As the academy is online, people can join from anywhere around the world, which is relevant, Stapleton explains, because so many of the topics are universal: “If you feel you are pushing water uphill, that’s ‘cos you are doing something that’s never been done before. You’re swimming against the tide, uprooting trees and crashing through walls, and all the while, you are constantly being told you’re going to fail.”
He is hopeful the academy can put a dent in the entrepreneurship deficit among young people. A UK small business report from 2025 found that despite 60% of young people wanting to start their own business, only 16% actually do. “I think it’s mostly down to fear,” he reflects.
“You’re fearful of making a mistake. I understand this. Sometimes it’s fear of the unknown – I’m not prepared for this – so I’ll leave it to someone who knows what they are doing. A lot of this can be about timing and opportunity, and a lot of it is about agency and just getting on with it. I think a lot of people don’t know how to get started, which is why I’m saying it’s perfectly normal to be fearful. Uncertainty can make you think again – a lot of the time, it can make you think too much. Often, the secret to success is just getting started.”
As we wrap up, it seems appropriate to get Germany-based Stapleton to reflect on the state of UK politics and its impact on business, especially since two of his biggest ventures, New Covent Garden Soup and Little Dish, were founded and based here.
UK tax, wealth generation and government
For someone who no longer lives in the UK, Stapleton is rather positive about the country as a place for business. “It’s actually quite difficult to start a business here,” he says of Germany.
Stapleton credits the “entrepreneurial culture” spearheaded by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, which, in his view, has “lasted quite well.” He also calls the EIS and SEIS incentives, which offer tax reliefs to investors in qualifying UK startups, “fantastic” and thinks other countries could follow our lead.
However, he does have one serious complaint: the state of our electoral system. “If we had a proportional representation system, you’d get better representation of different interest groups in government – and in all governments. Coalition government forces consensus, and you’d of course have to find a realistic way to make everything work.”
Stapleton is pro-tax, but the right kind of tax: “Simply taxing the rich elements of society to pay the poorer elements is such a crazy thing to do. In effect, you want more rich people to generate more wealth and increase the tax take. My approach is to really drive business, fuel the economy, encourage wealth generation and ensure as much of that wealth as possible is distributed throughout society. This can be achieved really effectively through the adoption of entrepreneurship and its values. But of course, we need to have a political will in place that makes sure that happens.”
Well, John Stapleton may not be our prime minister. But if it grows, his academy could well influence the landscape of global entrepreneurship in a way that many politicians could only dream of.
For more information about Stapleton’s approach to entrepreneurship, click here to access his newsletter, which includes a deeper dive into the topics covered in his academy.
