Sam talks with Nigel Eccles about his new company Flick. A companion app for sports fans who want to watch a game while chatting online with likeminded fans and friends.

Nigel talks about how Flick has raised £4m and was growing nicely until Covid-19 put a stop to all live sports. He believes Flick will return to growth once live sports like football return. In fact with stadium bans it could see ever greater demand for Flick as fans try to recreate the stadium atmosphere while at home.

Prior to Flick, Nigel, his wife and three engineers started Hubdub that soon pivoted into FanDuel. Nigel recalls how a WebMission to Silicon Valley in 2008 helped Fanduel grow. Some of the other companies that joined them included edocr, huddle, skimlinks, mydeo, WAYN and TrustedPlaces.

Nigel talks about how FanDuel went on to raise $450m+ and experienced hyper-growth in customer acquisition. Sadly the story did not end up with Nigel and his wife growing a Unicorn, selling it and riding off into the sunset. Nigel talks at length about how the Private Equity company engineered to remove him, the executive team and all the staff who held ordinary shares from benefiting from their growth and success. In fact they ended up with zero while the board that consisted of the PE Equity partners engineered it to make themselves millions.

The story does not end there. Nigel and 90 of his original staff have filed a class action suit against the PE company. We await the outcome.