Dez Derry’s story is one of resilience, ambition and the power of dreaming big.
He’s the latest guest in the final episode of season one of The Naked Founder podcast – and his remarkable story is arguably the most inspirational one yet.
Born into a traditional Indian family in Walsall in 1982, Derry suffered years of physical abuse before he and his two younger brothers were adopted together by a loving white family.
Derry went on to become a successful entrepreneur, launching the digital marketing consultancy that evolved into customer acquisition specialist Blume and grew to £30m turnover.
He told The Naked Founder podcast: “On paper I should not be sat here today. For me having dreams (and) visualising dreams have been the things that got me through the dark times and have been the things that have given me the resilience. I’ve never been academic. I’ve always been someone that has visualised and dreamed about goals.”
But selling the business and retiring at 40 brought an unexpected challenge.
Despite dismissing warnings that he would lose his sense of purpose and identity after exiting, Derry admits that was exactly what happened.
He recalled: “People said to me before I exited ‘you’re going to lose purpose and identity’ and quite frankly I thought ‘that’s bullsh*t, that’s not the case at all’ but it was and it took a bit of time.
“I pivoted from founder to investor. I made a bunch of investments in high growth companies and SMEs.”
His investments have included luxury travel experience firm LeBlanq and social-first travel company TravelSeen.
His life changed when he used his experiences of the care system to become an ambassador for Adoption Matters and Foster Care Matters.
As well as speaking extensively to the media about his own experiences, he stepped in to provide a car for Afghan refugee Adnan Miakhel, who starred in Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams, to help him pursue his cricketing ambitions.
Derry credited his adoptive parents for his success and spoke of his devastation at joining his family at his father’s hospital bedside when he died on Boxing Day 2025.
The hospital room normally only allowed two visitors at a time but was crammed with 25 family members across multiple generations.
“The nurses were fantastic,” he said. “They could see we had different coloured skin. It was like ‘wow, there’s so much love in this family’. We were all there for each other.”
Derry’s closing advice on The Naked Founder podcast to other entrepreneurs was to dare to dream.
“Don’t be afraid to dream, regardless of your background and what people might think about your ambitions and aspirations,” he said.
“Turn those dreams into a vision board and have it to remind yourself and visualise of what you want your life to look like and what you want to do.”
The Naked Founder podcast is sponsored by Financielle – The Home of Money for Women – and produced by Dan Brown of Renowned.
You can listen to the latest episode here
· If you’d like to sponsor episodes in season two of The Naked Founder podcast, email Chris.Maguire@BusinessCloud.co.uk