How to Build a Business That Scales: Louise Hill on Growing GoHenry at Virgin StartUp Changemakers

At our latest Changemaker event at Virgin HQ, we were joined by Louise Hill, co-founder and COO of GoHenry, for a candid conversation about what it really takes to build a business that lasts.

Today, GoHenry supports more than one million customers across the UK and US, helping children develop money management skills through a digital-first experience. But Louise's story didn't begin in financial services. It began with a parenting problem she simply couldn't ignore.

From validating an idea around the kitchen table to pitching more than 100 investors, Louise shared the realities of building a company that challenged convention and scaled with purpose.

The problem you can't unsee

The idea for GoHenry started at home.

Louise's children had been given iPod Nanos and access to her iTunes account. Before long, they were buying music using her linked credit card, spending far more than the pocket money they received each week.

As she spoke to other parents, she realised her family wasn't alone.

One child had spent hundreds of pounds buying accessories in an online game. Another had unknowingly bought a full-sized car on eBay instead of a toy model.

The stories were funny in hindsight, but they revealed a much bigger problem.

Parents had embraced online shopping and digital payments, but children were still learning about money with coins and notes. There was no safe way for them to understand how digital spending worked.

Louise, alongside two other parents from her children's school, began meeting every week to explore whether there was a business hidden inside that problem.

Fresh eyes can be your biggest advantage

One of the questions centred on confidence. How do you enter an industry when you have no experience in it?

Louise's answer was refreshing.

She didn't see her lack of banking experience as a weakness. She saw it as an advantage.

Coming from e-commerce, rather than financial services, meant she questioned assumptions that others simply accepted.

When people told her children couldn't have debit cards, her instinct wasn't to accept the answer. It was to ask why.

At GoHenry, that mindset became part of the company's culture.

If someone says something can't be done, Louise encourages her team to ask to see the regulation or policy that actually says so.

More often than not, the assumption turns out to be exactly that: an assumption.

Building for scale from day one

One of Louise's strongest pieces of advice for founders was to think about scale far earlier than feels necessary.

She had learned this lesson from a previous e-commerce business that ultimately had to be sold because it hadn't been built to grow.

Determined not to repeat that mistake, GoHenry was designed with scale in mind from the very beginning.

That meant choosing technology partners capable of supporting future growth, even when smaller, cheaper alternatives existed.

It also meant resisting short-term decisions that could create expensive problems later.

Louise explained that rebuilding your infrastructure once you've found product-market fit is rarely something investors want to fund.

A mission bigger than the product

GoHenry was never just about prepaid cards.

From early on, the company adopted a mission that still guides it today: making every kid smart with money.

Louise explained that one word in particular mattered.

Every.

As a subscription business, she knew GoHenry alone could never reach every child. That prompted a bigger question.

If the mission was genuine, how could they make an impact beyond their own customers?

The answer was campaigning for financial education to become part of the national curriculum.

Not everyone supported the idea. Some questioned why a commercial business would spend time lobbying government instead of focusing purely on growth. But Louise believed the two ambitions strengthened each other.

Years later, the UK Government announced that financial education would become part of the curriculum from primary school, beginning in 2028. For Louise, it was proof that commercial success and meaningful impact do not have to exist separately.

Building a company people want to be part of

The conversation also explored culture.

Louise spoke passionately about the privilege founders have to shape the kind of company they want to build.

For GoHenry, that meant creating a workplace that reflected the families it served - school pick-ups go in calendars without apology.

And this flexibility isn't reserved only for parents. Whether it's collecting children, walking the dog or making time for a yoga class, the expectation is simple: treat people like adults.

That culture extends into hiring.

Technical skills matter, but so does believing in the company's mission.

For Louise, people who genuinely care about the problem are the people who help solve it.

When investors say no

Louise was candid about fundraising.

GoHenry's growth wasn't built on one successful pitch.

At one stage, the team pitched to 103 investment funds while raising capital to expand into the US. Not one agreed to lead the round.

Eventually, after travelling to the United States, they secured the funding they needed.

Looking back, Louise encouraged founders not to mistake rejection for failure. Sometimes, you're simply speaking to the wrong audience. Early in GoHenry's journey, investors who had children immediately recognised the problem the business was solving. Those without children often struggled to understand the need.

Finding people who truly understand your customer can make all the difference.

Final Thoughts: What Founders Can Learn

Louise's story is a reminder that great businesses rarely begin with groundbreaking technology.

They begin with an everyday problem that someone refuses to ignore.

Key takeaways for founders:

• Look for problems you can't stop thinking about.

• Don't let a lack of industry experience stop you asking difficult questions.

• Build for scale earlier than you think you need to.

• Stay true to your mission, even when commercial pressures push you elsewhere.

• Keep asking until you find the people who understand your vision.

• Above all, if you believe in what you're building, just keep going.

Join Our Next Changemakers Event

Changemakers takes place every month at Virgin HQ and is free to attend.

If you want to hear honest conversations with founders, connect with other entrepreneurs and learn from people building businesses with purpose, join the Virgin StartUp Community and stay updated on upcoming events.

- Written by Nina Evangeli, Virgin StartUp