This week, Emma Campbell and Helen Wingrove-Sanders welcome Jess Knights - illustrator, workshop facilitator, and founder of a thriving freelance creative business in Bristol.

Jess takes us to Southend Seafront on a typically overcast Essex day - seaweed, mud, the faint thrill of borrowed ID and the King Blues at Chinneries. From there, the conversation travels through Camberwell College of Art, a marketing career she never planned, a pandemic pivot, and a diagnosis that changed everything.

No one in her family was creative. Nobody modelled that path. She built it anyway.

This is an episode about what happens when you stop explaining your no, stop outsourcing your belief to other people, and commit - properly, quietly, stubbornly - to yourself.

WHAT WE COVER IN THIS EPISODE:

- How Jess got into Camberwell College of Art with what she called a 'humble portfolio' - and what she said in the interview that she thinks sealed it
- Why she took a marketing job after art school, and how that turned out to be the best thing she ever did
- The pandemic, a redundancy, and the decision to go fully freelance as an illustrator
- Working with Forestry England, National Trails, Coeliac UK, the NHS and the Department of Health
- Running PIP - the Illustrators Meetup for Bristol - and how she went from member to organiser
- Her ADHD diagnosis and what it taught her about burnout, boundaries, and saying no
- Why she believes creativity is the canary in the coal mine - it goes quiet first when you're running on empty
- Her seasonal ingredients calendars, foraging illustrations, and why personal projects are not a nice-to-have
- Her dream client - and the all-encompassing museum or heritage project she has been quietly building towards
- Her C-word: Commitment - and why she chose it over creativity, community, and every other obvious option

JESS KNIGHTS
https://www.jessknights.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/jessknights_creative/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jess-knights-creative-bristol/

ABOUT THREE FOUNDERS WALK INTO A...
Hosted by Emma Campbell (The Coaching Point) and Helen Wingrove-Sanders (HFBAC - Hiring For and Building Awesome Companies).
Each week, one of us invites a founder onto the show - and the other one knows absolutely nothing about them. The guest tells us where we've walked into. That's the three founders, and that's the show.
New episodes every Friday.
Subscribe so you don't miss an episode.

EMMA CAMPBELL
Founder of The Coaching Point.
Website: TheCPoint.co.uk

HELEN WINGROVE-SANDERS
Hiring For and Building Awesome Companies. Helping bootstrapped, founder-led companies hire the right people using Chemistry First methodology.
The Hiring Clinic (Cohort: June 2026): https://hfbac.com/hiring-clinic/
Newsletter for Founders: https://hfbac.kit.com/newsletter-sign-up

Three Founders Walk Into A... is hosted by Helen Wingrove-Sanders (HFBAC) and Emma Campbell (The Coaching Point).

New episode every week.

Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

This week, Balve Baines, presenter, moderator, and founder of Purple Square AI, takes us somewhere that doesn't exist. Not yet, anyway.

Imagine landing after a long haul flight and stepping into a hotel lobby with a prohibition bar, crackling fireplace, and a woman in the most comfortable chair you've ever seen. Painted in vivid detail and delivered like he's already been there.

Balve has built three businesses. The first dissolved when life got in the way.

The second got him sued.

The third, Purple Square, was born in a pub at Christmas 2024 when a friend in hospitality said something so colourfully honest about repetitive guest questions that he couldn't stop thinking about it.

In this episode Balve talks about the moment a BBC station manager gave him a shot because he'd done his homework.
About the best ideas being born in pubs. About why he nearly burned out working 17 or 18 hour days alone, in a bubble, not noticing until the dots connected. About AI in hospitality, what it can and can't replace, and why trust takes years to build and seconds to break.

Balve's C word? Coastal. After a very long deliberation and the entire dictionary. It tells you everything.

🎙️ Hosted by Helen Wingrove-Sanders (HFBAC) and Emma Campbell (The C Point)
🔗 Find Balve: purplesquareai.com
🔗 Find Helen: hfbac.com
🔗 Find Emma: thecpoint.co.uk

#founders #entrepreneurship #startup #founderstory #podcast #bootstrapped #hospitality #AI

Three Founders Walk Into A... is hosted by Helen Wingrove-Sanders (HFBAC) and Emma Campbell (The Coaching Point).

New episode every week.

Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

This week, Rachael Naylor - award-winning entrepreneur, voice actor, and CEO of Elements Demos - takes us to The Whalers bar in Venice Beach, Los Angeles. Post-surf margaritas, a stunning sunset, and one of the most honest founder conversations we've had.

Rachel built the Voice Over Network over ten years into a globally recognised business - then closed it in 2025. Not because it failed. Because it was working, and it was quietly breaking her.

In this episode, Rachel talks about the moment on Venice Beach in 2020 when she felt something bad was coming. About building a business that nearly killed her. About losing the vision in her left eye on Friday the 13th, 2018 - the day her MS made her stop for the first time.

About the difference between turnover and profit, between doing more and doing better.

And about the courage it took to walk away from her baby and start again with a simpler model, less stress, and more money.

Three Founders Walk Into A... is hosted by Helen Wingrove-Sanders (HFBAC) and Emma Campbell (The Coaching Point).

New episode every week.

Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.