What a journey it's been... and there's more to come

I was born on December 18, 1967 to Ron and Lydie Bolton – their second child after my sister Michele.

Little did I know the ups and downs that were to come when this picture was taken of me at the age of around two.

I'd already experienced a fair amount by this point, however, including moving to and living in South Africa while my dad played professional football.

My mum is French and was a hairdresser, while my dad was a successful professional footballer for Durban City in South Africa between 1969 and 1970.

His first professional club was AFC Bournemouth between 1958 and 1965, before he moved to Ipswich Town and played there until 1967.

Before moving to Durban, he had a second spell at AFC Bournemouth between 1967 and 1969.

Sadly, I was never good enough to reach his level, which I found hard at the time, as following in his footsteps was my dream.

I left school with no qualifications which I now know was a direct result of my ADHD.

As well as the lack of qualifications, I also had very little confidence or self-belief.

However, my ADHD is also my superpower and gives me incredible hyperfocus and many other abilities that have served me well in business.

At 17, I dropped out of college after just three months, but then a profound thing happened to me.

A friend of my mum took a chance on me and gave me a job as a apprentice outdoor pursuits instructor at a centre in Dorset.

I didn't know at the time, but she paid my wages out of her own money because she saw potential in me that I couldn't yet see in myself. 

Ten years after starting as an apprentice outdoor pursuits instructor, I set up my first business alongside a partner – Ropes Course Developments – which grew rapidly to build ropes adventure courses for companies like Center Parcs.

By 1998, we were doing incredibly well, with a second business called Vision Development Training, and I was driving around in a convertible BMW. My friends took great joy in dubbing me ‘Billionaire Bolton’. 

By 2001, though, both businesses had gone under  – a result of both 9/11 and the Foot & Mouth crisis – and I was selling my family home to avoid bankruptcy.

It was what I now call the 'best worst experience of my life' and I learned quickly.

Through two business failures, I'd learned the value of appreciating assets – the hard way.

In 2005, and inspired by the American sitcom Friends (no, honestly!), I started investing in profitable co-living properties around Bournemouth where I live.

By 2007, the business model I created for this type of investment had grown to become a franchise and by 2020 when I exited the business, it had changed the lives of more than 400 franchisees, who had collectively purchased more than £400m in property.

In 2017, I joined forces with Tash Courtenay-Smith to set up the e-commerce digital marketing agency Bolt Digital.

Bolt Digital has worked with some of the biggest brands in e-commerce and helped revolutionise the D2C marketing space for businesses like Absolute Collagen and Bacardi.

Tash, like me, is hugely passionate about mentoring and giving back and as well as her other business The Notting Hill Company, she is behind the incredibly successful business education platform Biz Kids, which provides free entrepreneurship lessons to hundreds of children in the UK.

Bolt Angels is the business I was born to lead and all my experiences to date have led to what I'm doing right now.

We provide consultancy, capital and connections to businesses that make a positive and lasting impression on the world.

To date, we've had some amazing results from our investments, including a 42x return on an investment in digital analytics platform Triple Whale.

And our work with mental health platform JAAQ isn't just a brilliant investment, but is something that is changing people's lives in the here and now.