Why did you start Blaze?

"I first patented the technology for Blaze while I was at university in 2011, but I didn’t think that I would be the one to bring it to market. I graduated and decided to learn to code and build a tech company. One evening, I had a eureka, 'kick up the ass' moment after I realized my bike had been stolen. I went to the police station and learned there that a young lad from Moo.com had been killed on his bike. I got so upset, thinking to myself that I had designed a solution to this problem, and why wasn’t I doing work on it? Two months later, I launched Blaze on Kickstarter, and it was one of the first successfully funded campaigns in the U.K."

How do you hope Blaze will get more women into cycling?

"My team is primarily women. We’ve found that most of our girlfriends are worried about their personal safety on bikes. With Blaze, we want to encourage more people to get on bikes, and we want to make it more accessible for everyone. So by making biking safer, we hope more women will jump on!"

What’s one thing you’ve learned about running a business that you wish you’d known when you started?

"There’s no right way of doing things; you just need to get on it with it and use the best available information. I spent my first year panicking about doing things 'the right way' and ended up learning everything I really needed to know on the go."

What’s the best piece of business advice you’ve received?

"Find a problem that you really understand, and solve that problem."

Who inspires you?

"My mum — she was a very savvy, hard-working businesswoman with the instincts of a bloodhound. She taught me that you don’t get anything if you don’t ask for it."