"I think that if you feel like you're learning everyday, bringing in more and more amazing people, then I really do believe that if you get amazing people together, and you can create an environment where they can be really high-performing, I really do believe that you can achieve anything." I met up with Callum Negus-Fancey from Verve who dropped out of school at 16 to set up his first business, 'Let's Go Crazy' - a dance events company for teenagers. After his younger brother also dropped out ...
Oct 03, 2018•32 min•Season 1Ep. 89
"Make sure you're building the business for the right reasons. If you're building a business in the hope that you'll make a lot of money, that is not the right reason. That is a side-effect of when you build a successful business. You're not going to do the right thing if you're building it to make a lot of money. For your customers or your employees. So think about building it for the right reasons." Thousand Eyes is one fo those hot, successful startups that you've probably never heard of with...
Sep 26, 2018•43 min•Season 1Ep. 88
"It took two years. The whole journey from thinking about it, doing a full-time job and then changing to a part-time job, and spending all my savings on paying rent. All whilst building up this business. And then I was really panicing as I didn't have enough clients, and didn't know what I was going to do...but everything fell into place and it's now working really well." On today's show I speak to Christine Michaelis. Christine is a German entrepreneur, living and working in England, currently ...
Sep 19, 2018•38 min•Season 1Ep. 87
"The poverty premium is real. Lower income workers can often pay more than everyone else, despite struggling to make ends meet. At Wagestream we give people access to their earned income when they need it, without the need for employers to alter their usual payroll frequency." Peter Briffett wants to re-establish the link between work and financial reward, a link often broken in monthly pay cycles. Launching fintech startup Wagestream with 25 employers, he believes that this can have a significa...
Sep 12, 2018•32 min•Season 1Ep. 86
"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...
Sep 05, 2018•38 min•Season 1Ep. 85
It's only the second solo episode that i've ever recorded in 84 episodes! But something got me fired up and so here you go :) I've been thinking a lot about the difference between thriving and just surviving. It's a massive difference. But something that only needs small daily, weekly and monthly changes to turn things around. I can personally relate to this, and wanted to record an episode where I break this down for you. It's honestly not as hard as you think. It all comes down to having a str...
Aug 29, 2018•46 min•Season 2Ep. 84
"If you've got something unique and believe it's genuinely different to the other stuff that's out there, you just need to believe that wholeheartedly, and tell as many people as you can". On today's show I welcome Sara Collinge from Clarity, an International Communications Agency with offices in London, New York, Berlin and now San Francisco. A number of guests from this show have passed through the doors of Clarity including Freeagent's Ed Molyneux, Vasiliki Petrou from Unilever Prestige and D...
Aug 22, 2018•34 min•Season 1Ep. 83
"I think I was always influenced by the freedom of being able to do what you want, which was how I grew up. My parents just always said you can do anything if you pick something you like. Make that your job and you'll always be happy. That's all I ever grew up with". Harley Moon Kemp left school at 16 when, after discovering photography, she initially shot celebrities for free to get noticed. Shooting people like Paul Weller & Liam Gallagher might leave you starstruck. But when your father i...
Aug 15, 2018•35 min•Season 1Ep. 82
"We've grown by 1200% already in 2018 and this is the opportunity when you can really sky-rocket the brand and enter into a lot of markets with the kind of growth trajectory that we're on. So by not investing in the channels that you need to be investing in , in these type of moments, then you end up losing opportunities, you end up losing the ability to leverage this to the fullness of its ability. So that's the kind of challenge where we're at this moment. Hence why there is a need for us to t...
Aug 08, 2018•38 min•Season 1Ep. 81
"I sat down and did some thinking and thought that feeling that i've had since I was a kid. I now understand what that is. It is that I want to stand on my own. I want to take that accountability and I want to take control of something that's going to change the world." I welcome Rob Moncrieff, founder of MotionLab-Bags . The culmination of a ten year journey, Rob has just launched his business on Kickstarter: https://kck.st/2AsyPcK On today's show I find out what in Rob's background propelled h...
Aug 01, 2018•49 min•Season 1Ep. 80
Jim Cregan joins me to talk about how he went from British building site to Australia and back again. In the process he launched his own brand of Iced Coffee having not been able to find it in the UK on his return from OZ. You can now get Jimmysicedcoffee in Tescos, Sainsbuys, Waitrose, Selfridges and even in Animal's clothing shops. We talk brand building through University tastings, his Ride Club, Cinema Club and festivals. Let's StartUp!
Jul 24, 2018•31 min•Season 1Ep. 79
"So what happened was that I was making these amazing contacts and making all this content about them, but there wasn't a natural home for it. So I did some research and put together a pitch to the two Managing Directors and I had this idea for Startups Magazine. They were really fantastic and took a leap of faith with me and they just said run it for a year and see what could happen...and here we are." On today's show I welcome Daisy Stapley-Bunten from Startups magazine. An interesting questio...
Jul 18, 2018•33 min•Season 1Ep. 78
"To be an entrepreneur you kind of have to like being punched in the face and overcoming these adversities... because you will get them every single day." On today's show I welcome Rob Thorp form Vite who's founded one of the leading Nootropic brands in the UK. Rob comes form a background in foreign exchange trading. He had an entrepreneurial scratch to itch and decided to do just that by leaving to set up his own business. He decided to look at competitors, their reviews and looked at different...
Jul 11, 2018•39 min•Season 1Ep. 77
" When I had my son I thought I would spend a year gazing into his eyes and being a real earth-mother. Very quickly it didn't go to plan and I ended with an emergency caesarian, I couldn't breastfeed and I felt like a real failure to be honest. I was also massively sleep-deprived and I couldn't imagine having the same career and because TV was incredibly sociable and was about going out for drinks. But I was in a different place now." Erin Thomas Wong, created the Making Mumpreneurs online commu...
Jul 04, 2018•37 min•Season 1Ep. 77
"So I was in New York at the time filming & Ed phoned me up..and it was our first big one...and you could walk into the shops and see your own brand there on the shelves...& that was so significant at that time as we would have had another two or three months...before we went bust." I talk to the founders of Candy Kittens about their health conscious sweets that aren't just for kids. Candy Kittens was an idea that Made In Chelsea star Jamie Laing originally had but, after meeting entrepr...
Jun 27, 2018•46 min•Season 1Ep. 76
This week I'm super-proud to announce the first ever #screwitjustdoit 'StartUp & Scale' Summit on October 13th, 2018 Held over one full day at This WorkSpace, Ted Baker founder Ray Kelvin's will speak at his 1st co-working space, along with a host of other successful entrepreneurs who have featured on the podcast and at our 'live' events. Head over to 🚀 https://bit.ly/2JDgVIv🚀 to find out more...and enter the code 'startup' to get 20% off if you use it in the next 48 hours💥 This week I sp...
Jun 20, 2018•45 min•Season 1Ep. 75
It has been an insane year for Amber Venz Box. In the course of 12 months, her online-shopping app, LIKEtoKNOW.it has drummed up more traffic than Pinterest, Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter did in the same length of time... A few years earlier Amber and her boyfriend now husband, Baxter Box, had revolutionized the fashion world when they figured out how to do the near impossible: easily monetize the content of fashion blogs. Amber Venz Box, the Co-Founder of both rewardStyle and LIKEtoKNOW.it , has ...
Jun 13, 2018•40 min•Season 1Ep. 74
On this week's show I speak to Vasiliki Petrou, Group CEO and Executive Vice President of Unilever Prestige, the premium division of Unilever Personal Care and home to eight differentiated brands across luxury skincare and hair care, including Dermalogica , Murad , REN , Kate Somerville , Living Proof and Hourglass Cosmetics . With more than 25 years in the industry, Vasiliki champions authentic, innovative and purpose-driven brands that drive social change and offer truly progressive products, ...
Jun 08, 2018•42 min•Season 1Ep. 73
I believe how you start and end your day really matters. Since starting this show just over a year ago, I've gotten a lot of questions from listeners about what my morning routine, daily habits and routines look like. So, I decided to record my first solo episode answering this exact question. Between this podcast and the 'live' #screwitjustdoit events, I've interviewed well over a hundred and fifty successful entrepreneurs now. In those interviews I've found that some of the commonalities that ...
May 30, 2018•31 min•Season 1Ep. 72
"Privacy is an inate right of every human being in the world. It's not something we're going to give away." Mark Weinstein is the Founder and CEO of MeWe, the Next-Gen Social Network known as the "anti-Facebook." Mark is world renown as a leading privacy advocate and one of the visionary inventors of social networking. He is ranked one of the "Top 8 Minds in Online Privacy," and was named “Privacy by Design Ambassador” by The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada. Mark's articl...
May 23, 2018•49 min•Season 1Ep. 71
"I remember when I wrote my business plan for crowdcube and I think I said that we would be a £3 million brand in 5 years time and in our second year we beat that... and suddenly the goalposts moved". Pippa Murray, founder of Pip & Nut is #screwitjustdoit's most popular podcast - as chosen by YOU! You can find out the Top 5 by visiting our Facebook page here: Pippa is the founder of wholesome nut butter brand Pip & Nut which she founded in 2015 with a startup loan in which she has rejuve...
May 16, 2018•45 min•Season 1Ep. 70
"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...
May 09, 2018•50 min•Season 1Ep. 69
"We were literally in a position where we couldn't pay people for nine months. That test really shows you who's there to support you. They don't need to...they can chase down their money and decide they don't want to make your products anymore. We were open with the team to where we were in the business. And that was the best thing really...just be open and honest and try your best to pull through it" On today's show I welcome Suzie Walker, nutritionist and founder of The Primal Pantry. Suzie te...
May 02, 2018•43 min•Season 1Ep. 68
"Well our mission is to make hosting hassle-free for everyone and that's something that we're going to strive for and keep going. I'm not sure what success looks like but once we live in a world that's really easy to share and put your property on airbnb and booking.com and Expedia, then I think it's mission accomplished." Welcome to James Jenkins-Yates fom Airsorted. Airsorted provide airbnb hosts with a 24 hour hassle-free hosting platform, that basically amalgamates and services guest booking...
Apr 25, 2018•31 min•Season 1Ep. 67
"That's what you've got to do as an entrepreneur. You've got to see what other people haven't seen sometimes. You won't get it right all the time but boy, when you get that punt right, it's just fantastic And it's the best feeling in the world when you can pull that off." I welcome Kris Gumbrell, co-founder of Brewhouse & Kitchen, recently named best pub chain and best pub to work for at the Publican Awards. Kris is a fellow Cardiffian exiled to Bournemouth like myself. His brand is a really...
Apr 19, 2018•44 min•Season 1Ep. 66
"Probably one of the best things that happenend to me in my life is that I got diagnosed with Stage IV melanoma cancer. It was a big health scare, I didn't know if I would be around in a year, and I asked myself if I was gone in a year and I don't have longer to live, what do I really want to do" On today's show I welcome Sean Greeley, CEO and founder of NPE Coaching. When you're 26 and you hear a doctor on the other end of the line say "I don't mean to scare you but it's stage IV melanoma cance...
Apr 11, 2018•42 min•Season 1Ep. 65
"I think it was the tipping point where we saw, after running the company for some years, trying to reach out to people all the time and trying to engage these people. It's quite painful and it's a lot of energy that you have to give. It's then quite the opposite, people reach out to you and they want to work with you because what you do is meaningful and you really see the difference in your company. Your days are not the same days at all, it's much more exciting because you feel you are bridgi...
Apr 04, 2018•36 min•Season 1Ep. 64
"Running a startup is a rollercoaster, and there are constant up and downs. I think that the most important thing in those ups and downs as a person is identify when you're down and just telling youeself that this is something temporal. Eventually you hit the bottom. And then you go back up. As long as you are aware that at the bottom you can only go up, and ou will go up eventually..you can probably overcome everything." I welcome Dror Ginzberg founder of Wochit. Dror has over 25 years of exper...
Mar 28, 2018•40 min•Season 1Ep. 63
"...And when the government announced the smart meter rollout it was crucially the customers who owned that data. Not the energy suppliers, not the district network operators, that to me was a massive opportunity to say 'well hang on a second'. In a market where consumers feel more disempowered than any other market, all of a sudden they own the one asset that the industry needs to operate. That has to be a tool to rebalance the market." On today's show I welcome Jane Lucy, founder of energy dis...
Mar 21, 2018•34 min•Season 1Ep. 62
"It's cool to be a foodie now. Whereas it used to be a very niche thing, all over now..whether it's pop-up food markets or open kitchen restaurants... food on TV, and in the real world, is a kind of cool space to be in." Join Jamie Spafford 'live' on March 28th in Bournemouth: Just visit the Eventbrite page for StartUpU. And on this week's show I speak to Jamie, Ben, Mike and Barry who launched SORTED food in 2010 after finishing university. The Wall Street Journal calls their show "food porn me...
Mar 14, 2018•42 min•Season 1Ep. 61
