Justine Roberts
CEO, Mumsnet
Building a grassroots community of 10 million users from scratch, turning a profit, tackling the trolls… and being the modern election platform of choice
Justine Roberts is co-founder and CEO of Mumsnet. In this in-depth interview, she reveals how a disastrous family holiday led to her founding a platform which now has 10 million users and 120 million monthly visits; why a funding round scuppered by the dot-com crash gave them the chance to grow ‘something real’ – a genuine grassroots community, built from the ground up; reveals the shocking severity of troll attacks, including the sending of an armed SWAT team to her house; tackles critics claiming that Mumsnet forums are ‘nasty’; and suggests that Trump would be an ideal webchat guest – in spite of community objections.