From dropout to CEO: the 'Happy Sexy Millionaire' tells his story

Steven Bartlett was just 23 years old when he became a millionaire having started the social media marketing agency Social Chain in his bedroom. He left the business in 2020 and it’s now valued at around €350m, with his personal wealth estimated to be in the region of €60m.

He went on to write his bestselling book, Happy Sexy Millionaire, appear as the youngest dragon on the BBC television series Dragon’s Den and now hosts Europe’s number one podcast on Spotify, The Diary of a CEO.

The son of a Nigerian mother and British father, Bartlett struggled at school. He was expelled but went off to university where he thought “things would be different”. He dropped out after one lecture. “My parents very much sort of disowned me because wasn't following the conventional path my brothers and sisters had followed in going to university. And I went through some hard times in that journey,” he told Euronews.

He says that his passion for business was never properly recognised throughout his formative years. “I could have got there faster if I had a higher degree of conviction, and the infrastructure around me, when I was 16, had noticed… But the system isn't designed to do that and systems heavily dictate outcomes,” he says.

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