"It was at that moment that I realised that a buyer and seller had a need, and that the current operators in that market weren't fulfilling that need, for whatever reason. It really got me thinking about the secondary ticket market...and I actually stumbled across this £3 Billion opportunity. Twenty-Four year old tech entrepreneur Luke Massie sold his first business aged just 17 for £96,000. Having invested £50,000 of that in his next startup, Vibe Tickets is now valued at over £6,000,000. With ...
Mar 10, 2018•53 min•Season 1Ep. 60
"I went to Manchster Met to study business management and I didn't register, but went down to where I thought my lecture was meant to be. I sat in the room for about half an hour and got very, very bored. I was convinced I was in the wrong room and I never went back. I went back to my halls of residence and I went down to the University and dropped out." Steven Bartlett, Co-Founder of Social Chain. See Steven Bartlett's Social Chain co-founder 'live' in Manchester on March 21st 2018 here:http://...
Mar 07, 2018•30 min•Season 1Ep. 59
"I think I had done what I wanted to do out of that. I didn't feel like I needed to prove myself in anythig so I think I could take more risks. It didn't really matter in a personal sense at that time. It matters enormously to me now but in that sense it was a bit of an experiement and if it didn't work then there was plenty of consulting out there, etc..it gave me some freedom to think about it in that way." On today's show I welcome Ed Molyneux, founder of Freeagent. Microbusinesses constitute...
Mar 06, 2018•41 min•Season 1Ep. 58
"Finance was the last thing I ever thought I'd get involved with. I was at college doing 'A' levels, got very bored and then got kicked out of college". On todays show I welcome Luke Davis, founder of IW Capital. Luke has taken the unusual step of going from Ibiza nightclub promoter to stockbroker, to private investment house. Given a large number of the show's listeners are entrepreneurs, startups and scale-ups I thought it would be really interesting to get someone from the investment side of ...
Feb 28, 2018•26 min•Season 1Ep. 57
"When we set out on this road we we'ren't looking for a product . It was very much a 'how do we make this simpler, how do we bring something new to watchmaking. Is there something we can explore at the fundamental process of how the human interacts with the chronometer". On today's show I welcome the founders of Swiss Reimagined - the Singularity watch - Stephen Mansfield and Daniel Bluncschi. Stephen and Daniel started with the idea of a patented one-hand time-piece, which was originally writte...
Feb 24, 2018•42 min•Season 1Ep. 56
"For me I was just done making money for other people. I'm a good sales and marketing pro, that's what I've always done. So I was making this guy a ton of money and I was doing ok out of it, but I could have been doing a whole lot better - if i'd been focused in on doing my own thing. So that's exactly what I did and I never looked back, ever. Ever". On today's show I welcome back one of the most popular guests of 2017, Chris Ducker. Chris is a serial entrepreneur, business mentor, blogger, podc...
Feb 20, 2018•42 min•Season 1Ep. 55
"When you really get far away from a problem, whether it's physically or mentally, you can see things really clearly. It just occured to me that I was bashing my head against this wall. The doors just weren't opening. I was trying to do this law thing and actually, I wanted to spend my life doing what I enjoyed the most, which was cooking. And I kind of in that instant made a decision that I wanted to do something in food, and I didn't know exactly what it was going to be. I didn't know if I wan...
Feb 17, 2018•46 min•Season 1Ep. 54
"Our target consumer is 18-40 year olds who are beginning to read more and more about what they're eating and drinking. And maybe they're tired of what's happening in politics with fake news and alternative facts and not knowing what is true anymore. We have that strong tone of voice and what we're seeing is people get that and feel that. They're reading about nutrition and becoming fans of what we do and the movement we're trying to be a part of." I speak to Hugh Thomas, Co-founder of Ugly Drin...
Feb 14, 2018•39 min•Season 1Ep. 53
"Originally he tried to get me for gross misconduct for starting up a rival business, but my contract was an older contract, so it didn't have that clause in it. So in the end I got put on gardening leave for a month and and had to make ends month. It was rough but it was the best thing that could have happened. It was rough, really rough for a few months. I was really worried for a while... Charles Richer from Love Beer is a great example of knowing what you want, and going out and making it ha...
Feb 10, 2018•28 min•Season 1Ep. 52
"I didn't really understand anything about business, so I just researched the concept and how money flowed around the world and thought this could be interesting. I went home to my wife and said 'I think I really want to resign and create this money-swapping thing'. She said 'ok, I believe in you, let's do it'. Then I told her we had to sell the house." Jared was a currency trader who thought that there must be a cheaper way to get your travel money rather having to queue at a desk at an airport...
Feb 07, 2018•39 min•Season 1Ep. 51
"The scales were tipping, so I was doing more artwork and becoming more and more disengaged with a career in medicine. But then I broke my leg one winter and I couldn't stand up to paint anymore. So I had to change to painting watercolours and I sat down and painted, put it online...and it went viral." On today's landmark 50th episode I welcome Laloa's Liz Murray. We helped her start out with a Virgin StartUp loan and mentoring so it's apt that she's my interview on my 50th show. She had a lifel...
Feb 03, 2018•40 min•Season 1Ep. 50
" A lot of people within the industry, friends, family and wider, thought we were just crazy. So we were going to launch a business with 14 people, we weren't going to have any call centres, we weren't going to have any shops, we were going to be online only, and our members will do all the stuff, like get more members to join, will help with member queries... And people just didn't think it could work." On today's show I welcome Tom Rainsford, co-founder and brand director of telecommunications...
Jan 31, 2018•34 min•Season 1Ep. 49
"We've just brought out a documentary with two fighters from the area we're from south London, he's got a fight coming up in two weeks time at the O2. We filmed a documentary about him two years ago and we never released it. Its almost like we had the eye to see that he was going to be successful one day..We literally completed it this week." On this week's show I welcome Josh, Patrick and Jerry, otherwise known as JPJ Media, a young London startup founded by three cousins. Since pooling their s...
Jan 27, 2018•36 min•Season 1Ep. 48
"It was selling slower than we thought, only because we were still only letting tech businesses in. So we had recruiters turn up, agencies, and we told them we couldn't accommodate them because we were focused on creating an atmosphere for tech businesses. And that was hard to do when available funds in the bank were at one point two thousand pounds and we had quite a lot of bills to pay..and that's available funds..we were deep into overdraft." On today's show I speak to David Galsworthy, co-fo...
Jan 24, 2018•31 min•Season 1Ep. 47
"The scariest bit is committing to it. Once you've done that each day is fine. People think it's this terrifying thing but if you didn't have a job for two months you'd manage. And after two months if it wasn't going that well you can apply for normal jobs...or if it is going well, take each day as it comes." On today's show I welcome Tom Putnam, co-founder of beeline, a startup making a smart navigation system for urban cyclists alongside a community platform to enable people to share and inspi...
Jan 20, 2018•34 min•Season 1Ep. 46
"So that is absolutely the right thing to do...that is what we have refused to do each and every time. Partly because we're foolish and partly because we like a challenge. But also because it doesn't feel like the most effective way to test the market proposition. So you're much less likely to succeed if you don't have probably 50% of whatever your target is pre-agreed upfront. If you don't have all your backers lined up which we didn't you'll probably fail." On today's show I welcome the duo be...
Jan 17, 2018•37 min•Season 1Ep. 45
"It was fairly difficult. It was more difficult to retain our first customers than get them onboard. Acquiring the first few customers wasn't a big thing. It was retaining them and stopping the churn rate them. It was one of our downfalls at the start, we didn't onboard them fully. We didn't have our customer support in place. What we quickly understood was that getting customers was isn't as hard as retaining them." On today's episode of StartUp Saturday I welcome Dominic Chapman, co-founder of...
Jan 13, 2018•28 min•Season 1Ep. 45
'I wanted to become a millionaire so I could help a lot of people. But then I realised that I could use my knowledge to build something, and as it scales, it can create impact. If I can make money in the process then I can invest in other young entrepreneurs and their ideas as people have been doing with me. I would like to give back to society, not only with the product but with knowledge and capital. I think this way, if everything goes well, I can achieve it." On today's show I welcome Marco ...
Jan 10, 2018•35 min•Season 1Ep. 44
"It's been absolutely brilliant. I've had the best year. If you'd have asked me if I'd be in this position last year I'd have said absolutely not and I feel very lucky. I have worked incredibly hard over the last 12 months but we went into the Liberty store a few weeks ago..and it's a nice journey to be on at the moment." Happy New Year! on today's show I welcome Hayley Measures from Born Nouli - Greek for 'being born fearless". Hayley initially supplied base layers to the British ski and snowbo...
Jan 06, 2018•35 min•Season 1Ep. 43
"We're in this stage where you have no money again. And we've had the same problem twelve times. We've run out of money every single time we've done it. I wish someone had turned around to me at some point and gone 'listen, process, absorb'. Just listen to people. At the end of the day everybody turned round to me and said you're going to run out of cash...and I said 'no, no, no we're not going to run out of cash at all'. And..we ran out of cash. We ran out of cash three times until I realised t...
Jan 03, 2018•29 min•Season 1Ep. 42
I hope you had an awesome Christmas and are looking forward to an amazing new year. I interview Alessandra Sollberg founder of Evermore Health who are revolutionising the functional nutrition space that leverage personalisation. Alessandra grew up speaking 6 languages and got into the nutrition space after teaching windsurfing and snowboarding. After graduating from Oxford University she spent time in startups before spending time as an investor with private equity and venture capital firms. She...
Dec 30, 2017•23 min•Season 1Ep. 41
"So with Jonno and I, there was a very clear moment I can remember when I said, 'If we're gonna go ahead and do this...when it's on, it's on...'And we made that clear decision that we're dedicating the next years of our lives to doing this and that's what we did. We quit our jobs and we were all in." I speak to Tim Fung, founder of Airtasker, an online marketplace that allows people to outsource tasks and errands to people in their local community. Airtasker was founded in 2012 in Australia, now...
Dec 27, 2017•28 min•Season 1Ep. 40
"At the start of this bus journey this american traveller sat next to me and asked me what I did. I explained I wasn't too happy with my job and he basically said something that changed my life. He said if you're not happy you should do the rocking chair test. Essentially this is to imagine sitting in your rocking chair at the age of 90 and thinking about your legacy in the world, who you have helped, have you left the world in a better place, who's going to remember you, and for why. That was a...
Dec 23, 2017•46 min•Season 1Ep. 39
"I think it's an unwritten rule really. For me, I could cash in on who I've worked with over the last ten years and I could really go to town with it, but you lose that long-term credibility. I think people wouldn't call you and want to work with you if they knew you were that sort of person. And that's definitely something we've shied away from." Former rugby player and personal trainer Tom Oliver is the founder of Tom Oliver Nutrition which sells fish oil supplements made from caviar and which...
Dec 20, 2017•42 min•Season 1Ep. 38
"To be completely transparent with you, we had made the decision...we opened in Boston - and it didn't work out. It didn't work out for us because we weren't well enough funded, and we didn't have the core systems in place to run a two location business." Nikolay is the founder of Taylor and Hart, an award-winning online jeweller for custom engagement rings who have over 2,000 happy customers and have generated over £2.5 million. Now - would you like to increase your average order by 50% or more...
Dec 16, 2017•41 min•Season 1Ep. 37
"I just felt that I'm not an entrepreneur. I'm struggling. Everything I do is a juggling act. Entrepreneurs focus on their business and they are a success, where I'm thinking, I'm not a success at anything". On today's show I speak to Tara Howard, who left school at sixteen to go on to become a commercial airline pilot and mum of four. She is now the founder of The Venus Awards which recognises and celebrates the successes of business women throughout the UK. What started as a one-off awards cer...
Dec 13, 2017•34 min•Season 1Ep. 36
"That was an explicit decision at the beginning that I took which was...start with information...start with media, and start with giving it away for free. So that will allow me to build up a massive audience, and then work out what needs to be sold and what needs to be provided." Bosh! are the fastest growing plant-based online food brand. In 18 months they have amassed over 1.5 million followers and their videos have reached over 1 billion people. Henry Firth and Ian Theasby met in school aged ...
Dec 09, 2017•33 min•Season 1Ep. 35
"I guess you need that little bit of a kick to really make that leap, and for me that came in a bit of serendipity. I went back home and told my mum the idea...my dad died when I was sixteen...and she reminded me that the last present he had bought me was a popcorn machine. " On today show I welcome Propercorn founder Cassandra Stavrou who quit her high flying ad agency job to move back in with her mother and started experimenting with flavours, for what has turned out to be one of the fastest g...
Dec 06, 2017•37 min•Season 1Ep. 34
"When I said to them 'What's your favourite flavour of your noodles', one of the brothers looked at me with a sly grin, smirked, and said 'we don't eat our own noodles Damien'. I said, 'why wouldn't you eat your own noodles?' And he said, 'If you knew what we put in our noodles, you wouldn't either". Damien Lee has just conquered cancer - for the second time. And all whilst building a team of over 20 people and raising millions of pounds to build an award-winning, premium, no-nasty, gluten-free ...
Dec 02, 2017•39 min•Season 1Ep. 33
"We had a hundred people come. They'd all paid £50 directly into my bank account. And at the point that they paid me, they didn't know where they were going to eat food, what food they were going to eat and by that point we just created this momentum that we were able to generate. And out of these people none of these were my friends. We generated a hundred real customers through social media, a little website, some branding, and some listings in some magazines." Stuart Langley and Frederick Bol...
Nov 29, 2017•33 min•Season 1Ep. 32
