Clare McGee is the co-founder of AwakenHub and Awaken Angels — organisations focused on supporting female founders and helping more women get involved in investing and entrepreneurship. Awaken Angels is the first all female investment syndicate. 

Only 2% of global investment goes into female-founded startups, and Clare and her team want to close the gap. 

She joined Cathy to talk about the journey of a female founder, all things investment, and her upcoming Sheventures summit.  

The content of this podcast is for information purposes and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation of any investment product.

This is In Good Company, the Belfast Telegraph’s new business and lifestyle podcast, hosted by Cathy Martin.  
Each week, Cathy will go behind the scenes with the people building our biggest businesses — the founders, the risk-takers, the ones making it happen. We’re talking wins, risks, near-misses… the moments that nearly broke them, and the ones that made them. 

In Good Company with Cathy Martin

“People think you have to be a millionaire”: What is angel investing?


Serial entrepreneur Mark Dowds has built million-dollar companies, worked across Belfast, Toronto and Silicon Valley, and backed startups that went on to become global giants. 

But when he reflects on the moments that have really shaped him, it’s not the successes he points to — it’s the failures and personal challenges, from building a product years before the market was ready, to being diagnosed with cancer in the early years of his current business.  

Driven by wanting to make a difference in the world, Mark founded Responsible — a company focused on reducing waste in the fashion industry.

He joined Cathy to talk about balancing life and business, learning from failure, and what risks are really necessary to grow a business.

“I owed about half a million that I didn’t have”: What business risks are worth it?

Brendan McDowell is the founder and CEO of BPerfect Cosmetics - one of Northern Ireland’s biggest beauty success stories. He started BPerfect in 2012 with just £500 and a small eyebrow stall in the Kennedy Centre in Belfast. 

In 2017, Brendan turned down a Dragons’ Den investment of €80,000 at the same time he was trying to get his brand in the shops. He joined Cathy to talk about about how he grew his company from a stall to what it is today, his top tips for entrepeneurship and balancing a business with over 400 staff with family.

How BPerfect’s Brendan McDowell went from a £500 stall to a multi-million pound beauty giant 

Jordan Graham is a Belfast-based entrepreneur who ‘accidentally’ built one of Ireland’s most recognisable food marketing agencies. He launched Sugar Snap in February 2023 after the startup he was working in collapsed - since then, the agency has attracted clients like Belfast favourites Juice Jar and Orto Pizzabars.

Graham suffered from shingles due to extreme burnout as he was working as a full-time marketing manager in one of Northern Ireland's fastest-growing food and beverage brands while studying for his degree.

“People think you have to be a millionaire”: What is angel investing?

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