Your guide to building a social media community from the founder of LadBible

We discuss personal branding, building engaged online communities and how leaders can create workplaces that truly support neurodivergent talent

Alex Partridge was one of the people who changed the world of social media. From building social media behemoths to shaping the awareness of ADHD, his journey is one of resilience, determination and inspiration.

In the early 2010s, he created, designed and wrote a Facebook page called UniLad while he was a student at Oxford Brookes University. His decision to drop out paid off as he built it and sister brand LadBible into one of the world’s most popular social news and entertainment internet companies, with a following of 40 million across the globe.

However, after selling LadBible in 2012, he lost control of UniLad the following year. Partridge won an appeal after a four-year legal battle, but it fuelled an alcohol dependency and severe bouts of anxiety.

While it was a risk to leave university (there was no model that showed a ‘silly little Facebook page’, as Partridge calls it, could become a viable business), Partridge is partial to thinking differently. At age 34, he received an ADHD diagnosis, which changed the course of his life again. Two years on, he has penned a book and hosts the ADHD Chatter Podcast.

We caught up with Partridge to discuss building social media communities, the most important thing to remember when building a personal brand, creating a productive work environment for all – and much more.

What led you to start your podcast, ADHD Chatter?

When I got diagnosed, I Googled ADHD and it came up with: struggle with focus, struggle with disorganisation, struggle with focus and attention. It was all about the struggles. Without discounting those, because they definitely are there, from my experience ADHD can also be creativity, entrepreneurialism, pattern recognition, calm in a crisis, being able to zoom out and see the bigger picture and spot details that other people miss.

So I started the podcast to share my experience and bring on other people who could share their stories. From celebrities to world-leading psychiatrists, I wanted to talk to as many people as I could to really create a more balanced narrative around what it actually means to live with ADHD.