When Andy Aitken and Josh Mihill first met aged 11, singing together in their secondary-school choir, neither imagined they would one day be pitching a mobile network to the Dragons; let alone walking away with two famous, heavyweight investors and a significant boon to their business.
More than a decade ago a catch-up reunion in a London pub sparked the idea that would become Honest Mobile: a challenger network that is aiming to deliver simplicity, transparency and sustainability in an industry many consumers love to hate.
Speaking to GB News, the duo discussed their business journey, facing the Dragons and what young entrepreneurs in Britain should be doing to make waves.
“We’d known each other since our first day of secondary school,” Andy said. “Same class, some of the same A-levels. We even sang in the choir together. After school we went our separate ways: Josh into startups, me into accountancy at Deloitte.”
The Honest Mobile co-founders discussed their business journey with GB News
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The pair reconnected in 2018 while Josh was briefly back in London and Andy had just returned from California. What began as a casual catch-up quickly turned into a business brainstorm — fuelled by Andy’s frustration with switching mobile providers.
“I’d had a really painful experience trying to switch networks,” Andy explains. “We got chatting about how awful mobile networks were, and how excited people had been by disruptor brands like Monzo. We thought: why can’t a mobile network feel like that?”
That question became Honest Mobile. The company was founded at the end of 2018, but the early years were anything but glamorous. The pair bootstrapped the business from their bedrooms, building the technology and trying to convince customers — and investors — to trust an unknown brand.
“In 2019 we were just thrilled that the tech worked,” Andy added. “I built the backend, Josh made it look good. Our first SIMs were these plastic purple things — we literally scratched the paint off them to make them look branded.”
By early 2020, Honest had investment lined up. However, the pandemic look set to pull the rug from under them.
The pair secured a £160k investment from two Dragons
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“Covid was the make-or-break moment,” Josh explained. “The investment fell through and suddenly potential investors vanished. We were doing everything ourselves just to keep the business alive.”
That meant founders answering customer support tickets at all hours: even during Andy’s stag do. “It was chaotic,” Andy admits. “But we kept going.”
The turning point came at the end of 2020, when Honest finally closed its funding round. That cash injection allowed the founders to move out of their bedrooms, hire a team and properly scale the business.
By the time Honest filmed its appearance on BBC One’s Dragon’s Den, the company had around 8,000 customers, more than 20 employees and just over £1million in turnover. After the securing funding from two Dragons, the pair has over 50,000 customers and raised £6million in total.
Preparation for Dragons’ Den was relentless. “We did endless mock pitches,” Andy says. “We grilled ourselves on every question we thought the Dragons might ask, and split topics based on who would answer best.”
The pair also made sure their infrastructure, from finances to tech, could withstand intense scrutiny from the business moguls.
“You can speak to a hundred investors before one finally says yes,” Josh says. “But Dragons’ Den is different. It’s like high-risk dynamite: it’ll either explode in your face or propel you forward at record speed.”
Andy recalled that that the pair “completely lost track of time” as filming took many hours. Peter Jones went in hard, questioning whether 8,000 customers was enough. But Honest held its ground — and the pressure paid off. Deborah Meaden made the first offer, followed by Steven Bartlett.
“Getting Deborah was a huge moment,” Josh says. “She really quizzed us on sustainability, so her backing validated that we genuinely are doing right by the planet.”
Andy and Josh secured funding from Stephen Bartlett and Deborah Meaden
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Steven’s involvement brought a different kind of firepower. “He’s a master of customer acquisition,” Andy says. “He believed in Honest’s potential to scale.” The immediate reaction when the episode aired was, in the founders’ words, “wild”.
During the on-air bidding war, both men were offered half of their £110,000 investment request for 1.5 per cent of the company by Ms Meaden. Mr Bartlett offered them three per cent for the entirety of company. All partners settled on the businessmen handing over 4.5 per cent to both Dragons for a £160,000 investment.
“We went from 22 people on our website to 100,000 the moment the episode aired,” Josh recalls. “We sold more SIMs that night than in the first few years of the business combined.”
Behind the scenes, it was controlled chaos but Honest was ready. Andy said: “The infrastructure held, and the team just went into overdrive.” Growing Honest has not been about doing everything at once. If anything, the biggest lesson has been focus.
“The most important decisions are deciding what not to do,” Josh says. “Earlier this year we shut down our B2B arm to double down on Smart SIM for consumers.”
Leadership, they add, is just as critical. “Showing up with energy really matters,” Andy says. “Even when you’re exhausted at home with young kids, the team feels your mood. Enthusiasm is infectious.”
With more than 60,000 UK customers now onboard, Honest is looking beyond Britain. “Smart SIM has global appeal,” Josh says. “It’s a back-up eSIM with unbeatable signal and free roaming.”
The company has already launched a US waitlist and is exploring further international rollouts, alongside new features designed to improve connectivity across hundreds of networks worldwide.
