Tech entrepreneur Steven Bartlett was born in Botswana in 1992 to a Nigerian mother and an English father and found fame as the youngest-ever Dragon in the Den.
He describes his mother as the 鈥榟ardest working person鈥� he has ever encountered and his father as one of the 鈥榤ost loving and caring man鈥� he knows.
Bartlett grew up on Plymouth and attended Plymstock School, where he quickly showed his entrepreneurial flare.
He鈥檚 spoken of his tough childhood, which didn鈥檛 involve birthdays or Christmases.
鈥淢y parents had no money,鈥� he reflected. 鈥淚鈥檇 be lucky to get a card. I came to realise fairly quickly that if I was going to have stuff in my life, it was going to be down to me.鈥�
Writing on LinkedIn he said: 鈥淢y Dad worked a full time job late into the evening and when his work was done, he would go and join my Mum at her job in a small, hot, fast-paced restaurant kitchen until the early hours of the morning.
鈥淭hey came home when I was asleep and went to work when I was asleep. When my mum left the restaurant, she opened a corner shop called KJS and would work all day and all night.
鈥淪he would end up sleeping in the back room of the corner shop on a bag of rice because local kids would break in, steal things and vandalise the shop because she was pretty much the only black women in the area.鈥�
Bartlett, now a multi-millionaire, added: 鈥淭he older I鈥檝e gotten, the more I鈥檝e realised that they were my biggest professional inspirations and influence – not because they gave me profound advice like some parents do, but because they set a profound example without needing to say a word.鈥�
In 2010 Bartlett enrolled on a business management course at Manchester Metropolitan University at the age of 18 but famously dropped out to pursue a career in business.
One of his early business ventures was Wallpark, which was where students from the same cities could connect and share everything from advertising to selling old textbooks.
His big break came in 2014 when he joined forces with Dominic McGregor to launch Manchester-based social media marketing agency Social Chain after identifying how social media could connect an audience with a brand.
During the company鈥檚 meteoric rise, Bartlett was the public face and McGregor was the hard-working but low-profile COO of the business.
Rarely pictured without his trademark black baseball cap, his social media accounts pictured him catching planes to New York, dining with clients in LA and speaking to budding entrepreneurs.
He used to capture details of his exciting life in video blogs 鈥� or vlogs.
Tellingly he identified the power of podcasts as a platform for storytelling.
In 2016 Bartlett boldly predicted Social Chain could be a 鈥榖illion-pound鈥� company but the unicorn valuation never materialised.
Steven Bartlett during his Social Chain days
Controversy was never far away and Social Chain was criticised for plagiarising content for the company鈥檚 hugely popular social media pages.
Bartlett openly admitted to reusing content from Twitter, Tumblr and Reddit but said it was a two-way street as their content was also plagiarised.
In October 2019, Social Chain merged with German-based Lumaland AG to form The Social Chain AG and list on XETRA and the D眉sseldorf Stock Exchange.听听听
Less than a year later it was announced that Bartlett and McGregor were exiting the business completely.听However, eyebrows were raised in 2023 when it was revealed Brave Bison had acquired the entire issued share capital of Social Chain Limited for an initial bargain price of 拢7.7m.
The revelation prompted a story in听The Times听headlined 鈥榃hy Steven Bartlett is not the tycoon he claimed鈥�, in which he was accused of 鈥榤isdirection and half-truths鈥�.
Bartlett took to LinkedIn to explain that at the time of his departure, Social Chain Group was generating in excess of $300m in revenues and would go on to reach a valuation of $600m+ on the stock market.
The controversy did nothing to slow down Bartlett鈥檚 meteoric rise, which saw him 听start his hit podcast Diary of a CEO in 2017 and launch his best-selling book 鈥楬appy Sexy Millionaire鈥� in 2021.
Also in 2021 he co-founded marketing, media and investment company Flight Group before becoming the youngest Dragon in the Den at the age of 28 in Series 19.
鈥淚鈥檝e been watching Dragons鈥� Den since I was 12 years old,” he gushed at the time. “It was my first window into the real world of business and investing.鈥澨�
Dragons’ Den – Steven Bartlett, Touker Suleyman, Deborah Meaden, Sara Davies, Peter Jones. (Credit: BBC)
During his time on the show so far, Bartlett has invested in companies including Planthood, The Little Loop and听Little鈥檚 Coffee.
You can see all of听Bartlett鈥檚 investments during his time on the show here.
However in 2024, Bartlett started making the sort of headlines he probably wished he hadn鈥檛.
One in听The New Statesman read 鈥楽teven Bartlett鈥檚 empire of bluff鈥� and the closing line was particularly cruel.
鈥淗e鈥檚 a door-to-door salesman flogging not a product, but a way of being 鈥� a used car dealer for the soul,鈥� wrote journalist Clive Martin. 听鈥淗e is the voice of a generation, but not necessarily the voice we鈥檒l choose to remember in years to come.鈥�
Bartlett, who featured in two adverts for brands Huel and Zoe, saw them banned after Advertising Standards Authority said they were misleading.
In December 2024, a BBC investigation claimed guests on his Diary of a CEO podcast were making an average of 14 harmful health claims on each episode.
Bartlett didn鈥檛 comment on the allegations specifically but his company Flight Studio hit back by saying the show offered guests 鈥榝reedom of expression鈥�.
Today Bartlett鈥檚 wealth is estimated to be between 拢50m-拢70m and the 32-year-old has more than 10 million followers across LinkedIn; Instagram; TikTok; and X.
He rarely posts personal information, preferring instead to promote his Diary of a CEO podcast.
Bartlett is in huge demand as a public speaker and recently interviewed Umar Kamani as part of PrettyLittleThing鈥檚 high profile relaunch.