Entrepreneurial Spotlight: Building Flexa | Founder-Led Growth & Value Creation
Tuesday, 3 February 2026
At Bluebox, a mid-market corporate finance advisory firm in London, we work closely with founders building high-quality businesses and thinking about long-term value creation, whether that’s scaling for growth or preparing for a future business sale or exit.
Flexa is a great example of a founder-led company identifying a broken market and building a genuinely differentiated solution. Founded by Molly Johnson-Jones (CEO)andMaurice O’Brien, Flexa has grown from a simple whiteboard idea into a respected platform helping employers communicate authentic Employee Value Propositions and enabling candidates to make better-informed decisions.
In this Entrepreneurial Spotlight, Maurice shares the origins of Flexa, the key moments in its journey, and the strategic choices that have shaped its evolution — offering valuable insight for founders across the UK mid-market.
Q1) Let’s start at the beginning! What inspired you both to launch Flexa, and what was your shared vision when you started out?
MOB: The Flexa story began with a whiteboard.
I was leaving my corporate role at a FTSE100 business, and had seen how well a strong employer brand could attract and retain great talent, particularly if the Employee Value Prop was based around what target talent really wanted (e.g. flexibility, autonomy, rapid development, etc).
I spoke about this with Molly and highlighted how asymmetrical the information in the job hunting process had become, with very little insight for candidates about what it was actually like to work somewhere (with the exception of flawed models such as GlassDoor).
Molly, on the other hand, desperately needed that kind of information, as she was struggling with an autoimmune disease that restricted her mobility. “Welcome to my world”, in her words.
This mutual feeling that the employment market was broken led us to the nub of the idea for what would eventually become Flexa.
The nub became reality when Molly bought me a whiteboard for our flat, and we started to sketch out the idea in full.
Q2) You’ve built Flexa into a growing and respected business. What would you say have been some of the most defining moments of that journey so far?
MOB: There have been a lot of pivotal moments over the last 6-7 years, but a few stand out.
Firstly, finding our co-founder and CTO, Tim, on Angel List. We were incredibly lucky to find Tim, who is one of the most talented people you could ever come across.
Secondly, raising our seed round in 2022 (led by the great folks at Ada Ventures). Access to additional capital allowed us to scale up the team with new talent, as well as to significantly ramp up our marketing efforts.
Thirdly, and most recently, the launch of our Employer Brand Operating System (EBOS), which allows our clients to not only appeal to aligned talent, but also to see – in real time – what the key components of an EVP look like for their target talent markets. Harnessing our billions of data points to build out a completely fresh and unique product has been game changing.
Q3) As founders, how do you approach major decisions together, and how has that partnership evolved as the business has grown?
MOB: Largely speaking, we tend to separate “church and state” when it comes to decisions, with Molly looking after Sales, myself looking after Finance / Ops / Legal, and Tim looking after Tech. This approach gives us a reasonably clear delineation of responsibilities.
That said, there are of course some big strategic topics that require all founders to get together around the table and chat through our plans. This is actually one of the most enjoyable aspects of being a founder.
Q4) What have been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced while building Flexa, and how did you work through them as a team?
MOB: One thing that the team has dealt with exceptionally is the challenge of an ever-changing landscape.
When we first launched Flexa, our focus was purely on flexibility, and our commercial model was that of a pure job board. Over time, we’ve evolved with market demand and have now passed through a number of iterations of the product.
Our initial switch was to move up the marketing funnel, focusing on employer brand and awareness rather than a transactional job board proposition. Later, we expanded beyond just flexibility and into all areas of EVP (culture, reward, mission, etc), which opened up opportunities to work with a large number of household names (e.g. Mars, Airbus, Microsoft, Vodafone, SAP, etc).
More recently, we have evolved once more, adding the data-led EBOS to our product suite, which has landed extremely well with clients and prospects.
Q5) What advice would you give to other founders or business partners who are at an early stage of their entrepreneurial journey?
MOB: To borrow Molly’s favourite piece of advice: “don’t listen to anyone, until everyone is telling you the same thing. At that point, you’re either a genius or you’re wrong… and chances are it’s the latter”.
It’s your business and you know best – despite what one hundred people will want to tell you. However, if those one hundred people are all saying the same thing… listen!
Q6) How do you think about the future of Flexa, and what excites you most about what’s ahead?
MOB: It’s really exciting to see how the company is developing into a player in the HR Data space. We have established ourselves well in the employer brand area (especially in the UK), but the data space is a whole new universe for us, and a very exciting one.
Our strong feeling is that it’s a poorly served market right now (a lot of the HR / workforce data out there is weak or, frankly, invented) and there is no one providing good quality data around the wants / needs / demands of talent and how that varies by geo / demographic / role type and so on.
We have proprietary data that is unavailable elsewhere in the market, and we can serve this in a very user friendly way. The large majority of our recently onboarded clients have opted to buy our data solution, via the Employer Brand Operating System.
Q7) Looking back so far, what achievement with Flexa are you most proud of, and what do you hope the long-term legacy of the brand will be?
MOB: From an achievement perspective, I’m most proud of the team and culture we have at Flexa. It’s so hard to hire well and get culture right… we certainly haven’t always nailed this, but I believe we’re in a very good spot now.
From a legacy perspective, I would love for Flexa to become a household name in our key markets, and to help millions of people to find their next great employer.
Quick Fire Questions
- What’s at the top of each of your bucket lists?
Molly and I have a long-term aim of running a home / charity for elderly dogs. Sadly that won’t happen while the demands of Flexa are still in place!
- If you could instantly acquire one new skill, what would it be?
I’m a deeply impractical person – would love to be great at flatpack, DIY, etc!
- Where’s your favourite place you’ve ever visited?
Very tough question…. On balance, probably Canada (BC and Alberta, in particular), where Molly and I went on honeymoon.
Honourable mentions to Grenada / Carriacou (a return holiday favourite of ours), New Zealand, Argentina, Slovenia and, of course, Ireland!
- If you could meet anyone, past or present, who would it be and why?
I’m not fussed about celebrities (past or present). I’d actually like to meet my own grandparents, most of whom died before I was born.
