The idea for flatfair came about when I was facing an all-too-common problem. As my previous tenancy was coming to an end and my next was about to begin, I found myself having to pull together a deposit for the new landlord before the previous one had been returned to me.

When we started TripActions, we put the user first, working to solve all of the pains of business travel that we experienced ourselves as road warriors. From frustrating booking tools that lagged far behind consumer sites to feeling left stranded when a delay or missed connection occurred, business travel was a pain. And not just for travellers; for enterprises as well. With so many employees going “rogue” to find the best deals and book travel to meet their individual needs, organizations suffered from a lack of visibility and control over their travel spend.

In 2015, sat in a restaurant in SoHo, a group of my friends couldn’t contain their mirth. “You’re building a platform for government… innovators? Isn’t that an oxymoron?!” They weren’t alone in their scepticism. Trust in government has been in freefall for years, and stereotypes abound. The crusty bureaucrat, gleefully encircling our lives with rules and red tape, or the duplicitous politician, sneaking around Westminster and expensing new bathtubs. Across the pond, government is portrayed as House of Cards, or as one entertaining podcast host has it “the plot of House of Cards with the cast of Veep.” The tech industry has hardly helped matters by violating user data and enabling the spread of targeted misinformation about people, politics and policies.

Improvements in technology and the internet of things (IoT) are transforming the way energy is being generated, used and traded. With countries across the world committing to ambitious carbon reduction targets and the cost of renewable technologies reducing, we are seeing the energy landscape evolve at pace.

We’re living through a time of unprecedented demand on the care workforce in the UK. Across the country, 10% of all healthcare shifts are filled by temporary workers and the way they are managed – by expensive and inefficient recruitment agencies – is bleeding billions of pounds out of the system.

There was there no simple, chic and affordable way to buy flowers online.

I was buying my clothes on Net-a-Porter, my groceries on Ocado and everything else on Amazon, yet I was still schlepping to the Covent Garden flower market to buy flowers to avoid paying Chelsea florist prices.

We’re at a crossroads when it comes to traditional healthcare across Europe. In a world of an ageing population and rising costs, healthcare systems are at a breaking point. Barriers are put in people’s way and stop them from getting the support they need, be that financial barriers, lack of knowledge or even time pressures.