Josh Littlejohn of Social Bite details his mental health struggles

"When we started Social Bite I was quite obsessed with it," he said. "I would wake up thinking about it and go to bed dreaming of it; it was an all-consuming passion but that's unsustainable.

"I wasn't seeing my family enough or making time for friends and it was a bit tunnel vision."

The pressure took a toll on his mental health and he began having panic attacks, ending up in A&E several times.

"It was a really scary experience and you think you're going to die," he added. The now 36-year-old was prescribed Valium and cognitive behavioural therapy and started exercising for the sake of his mental and physical health - he also learned to delegate.

Littlejohn, who founded Social Bite in 2012 with his former business partner Alice Thompson, is now the recipient of five honorary doctorates, an MBE, a Robert Burns Humanitarian Award, and is listed in Debrett's as one of the most influential people in the UK.

Social Bite started on Rose Street in the New Town and began to employ people with homelessness backgrounds after a man named Josh Hart, a Big Issue seller, came in to ask for a job.

Littlejohn and Thompson, who left the company in 2020, also hired two brothers, Pete and Joe, who thrived in the cafe but lost their homelessness accommodation.

Working in Social Bite became untenable because they had nowhere to shower and so Littlejohn invited them to live with him, one on each sofa in his living room.

"It was meant to be for two weeks but they were there for over a year," Littlejohn said, "and then another employee moved in, so you can imagine the chaos of that.

"It didn't seem strange at the time but looking back, you've got no balance at all."

As Social Bite has grown, so too has the staff base and Littlejohn says he is far more able to find balance in his life now he has "far more talented people than me" working with him.

Getting married a few years ago and becoming a dad 11 months ago have also helped to refocus his priorities.

During lockdown, in the down time afforded by the pandemic, Littlejohn wrote a book - Paying It Forward - about both his own personal experiences and the founding of a social enterprise.

When he left university, he said, he was motivated politically and by social issues but also had an entrepreneurial drive - perhaps thanks to his millionaire parents Simon and Heather - he wasn't sure how to satisfy.

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It was reading a book by the Bangladeshi social entrepreneur Muhammad Yunus that inspired him to combine his ethical position and his business spirit.

He said: "I had just left university and at that time I had never heard of the term social enterprise, there was no cultural reference point for trying to create a business with a social mission, the only purpose of a business was to create profit.

"Reading that book lit a fire within me when I learned that idea and felt a real sense of alignment."

As well as a hope that the book will inspire other people in the business sector to harness their more altruistic motivations and tackle social issues, Littlejohn said the book will be a nice thing for his son to read when he is old enough.

In a PR coup, Littlejohn managed to lure Hollywood A-listers George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio to support Social Bite in its early days and he's at the same trick with the new book: its endorsements so far come from Bob Geldof, Irvine Welsh, Martin Compston and Helen Mirren, to name just a handful.

That first cafe on Rose Street has now become a string of coffee shops - the latest being on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow - as well as a village to house homeless people and fundraising sleep outs in 52 cities around the world.

Social Bite has also raised more than £25 million for charity.

The success hasn't come without its challenges, however. When it was first announced that Social Bite would build a homelessness village in Edinburgh there were ample naysayers who predicted it would become a run down ghetto. "The status quo of homelessness accommodation in Edinburgh was so bad, God-awful hostels with bed bugs and piss stained mattresses and no support, and people were really spiralling and their mental health was plummeting.

"That was the other option so we knew for a fact it would have been literally impossible to do anything worse.

"We just tried to stay true to our vision and that was one of the projects I am really proud of."

The Social Bite Village, which gives housing but also practical supports, has helped around 100 people into permanent accommodation and there are plans to build two more villages.

Littlejohn said: "One of my favourite things to do is go down there. It's a thriving little community with garden wars going on between some of the houses with little ponds and gnomes and really impressive gardens."

While trying to maintain a politically neutral stance, Littlejohn is scathing of what he sees as a long running failure to adequately tackle homelessness in Scotland - and, in particular, the missed opportunity post-pandemic.

He said: "The vast majority of homelessness accommodation is run by private landlords so it's this very strange profit-making niche where these unscrupulous private landlords are literally profiting from human misery and vast quantities of council budget gets swallowed up for the provision of these private sector accommodations and it just feels a waste.

"It's not that difficult, it's just providing decent support and a nice roof over someone's head.

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"It could easily be funded within existing budgets but it's the vulnerable people who really suffer.

"It was dealt with in the pandemic as a public health issue and that gave it a sense of urgency because it affected everybody the political will was there and the funding was there and every rough sleepers throughout the UK was brought indoors.

"So that goes to show you that when the political will is there then some radical things can happen."

In 2018, with money raised from the Big Sleepout project where fundraisers sleep outdoors overnight, Social Bite lobbied the Scottish Government successfully to part-fund a housing first model.

The social enterprise commissioned research to look at ways other countries were tackling homelessness and noticed a marked decrease in the statistics in Finland where the housing first model is used.

Previously, homeless people would have to show they were "tenancy-ready" by tackling mental health problems and other issues before being granted housing, but that left vulnerable people in temporary accommodation.

Social Bite put £2.3 million towards the scheme and persuaded landlords in five cities across Scotland to pledge 830 one bedroom flats.

The Scottish Government then committed to £6.5m - and the scheme has helped 1000 people and changed local authority policy.

Littlejohn said: "We realised that we have to do the entrepreneurial bit, mobilise and try to persuade local authorities to come alongside us, rather than standing on the sidelines and commissioning a study.

"You need to understand your place in the world and where you fit, there are loads of larger charities doing lobbying and we don't need to duplicate that. We need to be the innovators and the challengers and the entrepreneurial thinkers."

The Herald is speaking to Littlejohn in the new Sauchiehall Street cafe, which is next door to a Cafe Nero and a stone's throw from a Pret a Manger.

It has been fitted out to be "by far the best we have done" because of the nearby commercial competitors and it is currently running employment programmes to give homeless people work.

For 90 minutes each morning and afternoon the cafe is open to both homeless people and the paying public, which sees it attract around 100 homeless people each day.

On a Tuesday the cafe closes entirely to provide hot meals to homeless people.

Initially, Social Bite cafes were open at all times to paying customers and homeless people but Littlejohn had to adapt the model when it became clear that the paying customers were unhappy sharing the space.

This might seem offensive but Littlejohn is pragmatic about the challenges of balancing commercial and social elements of the enterprise.

He said: "It doesn't frustrate me at all, it's just the nature of these things and what we are trying to do is pretty unique and unusual.

As long as we exist we will always have challenges in balancing those two tensions.

"Homeless people come in and get that sense of dignity at being alongside paying customers in a main stream high street cafe environment and there's something important about that.

"Really delicate balance that has tensions but it's really rewarding when you get that right."

Staff can be part-barista and part-social worker so there is now an in-house counsellor who supports workers with any mental health issues or stresses.

It was not, he adds, his idea but is an important addition for Littlejohn given his own mental health challenges.

On his arm, Littlejohn has a tattoo he from a trip to Thailand five years ago, which reads "There is no them and us, there is only us," a fitting summary of his outlook on life.

His mum, however, was unimpressed.

"That's very good," she told him, "But could you not have just got it on a t shirt?"

It's a reassuring end note: you can be a successful entrepreneur, multiple-award winner and the darling of the stars - but still get a row from your mum.