Entrepreneur Ellie Webb spotted a gap in the market when asked to be the designated driver. Ellie realised that there were no exciting alcohol-free options available at the venue, this got her thinking. Wanting a beverage with a little more punch, no alcohol but still grown-up, Caleño was born! As a solo female entrepreneur Ellie has come up against the ‘funding’ glass ceiling, a number of times but through research and hard work Ellie in just a few short months has managed to raise over £1 mill...
Jan 05, 2022•46 min•Season 5Ep. 48
After weathering the storm that was the rural crisis of the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, the pandemic was no problem for Corry Taylor. The founder, CEO and MD of outdoor clothing re-seller, Bradshaw Taylor, oversees 9 iconic outdoor clothing brands including Schoffel, Le Chameu, Keen and Sherpa. In this podcast Corry joins Oliver to discuss how his board helps him keep his feet on the ground and how and why he doubled down on Shoffel’s digital presence to stay ahead during the pandemic. From...
Dec 29, 2021•31 min•Ep. 47
Son of Mark Constantine founder of Lush, Simon Constantine stepped into the world of fragrance and entrepreneurialism launching ånd fragrance months before the pandemic. In this Christmas episode, Oliver Bruce asks the big question; what even is Frankincense?! Going from one of the world’s favourite cosmetic brands to launching his own start-up, Simon Constantine brings a unique approach to his perfumery, ånd fragrance, by focusing on grassroots projects, stemming from his role as Head of Ethica...
Dec 22, 2021•43 min•Ep. 46
After burning out and quitting his job due to the poor selection of employee benefits when he needed support with his mental health, Ally Fekaiki founded Juno, the company reimagining how we access support from our employers. Conscious of the seemingly accepted notion that stress, and burnout are an endemic of work, Ally set out to improve employees’ lives inside and outside of work. Replacing forced company lunches and team building torture with personalised benefits that suit the needs of indi...
Dec 15, 2021•39 min•Ep. 45
Earlier in 2021 the co-founders of Thursday (the dating app) boldly announced to LinkedIn that over the next 12 months they would take their start-up from a valuation of £0 to some £50m; brave to say the least. Where do you even start? What started as a dating app called HoneyPot, founded in an Officers’ Mess whilst Matt was serving in the British Army, is now undergoing a Series A fund for £20m (Dec 2021) - the two schoolmates (co-founders) George and Matthew have seen over 250,000 downloads in...
Dec 09, 2021•48 min•Ep. 44
How do you build what is fast becoming the nation's favourite nut butter brand? With a creative mind, dyslexia but no clear career plan, founder Pip Murray launched her business off the back of a Government Startup grant. With a love for marathons, nut butter and health, the three go hand in hand and Pip & Nut was born! Founder of Pip & Nut launched her nut butters into the relatively untouched market in the UK. Wanting to introduce people to her healthy, protein filled product was one o...
Dec 01, 2021•43 min•Ep. 43
With aspirations of becoming a dinner lady, Cathy Moseley was born into a family with very little. Poverty however didn’t stop her, Cathy forged a career in the City trading commodities. Working her way up the corporate ladder Cathy eventually decided to pack her job of 25 years in and follow her passion for food... What began as a kitchen experiment due to a diagnosis affecting her gut health turned into a flourishing healthy snack brand, Boundless Activated Snacking. Boundless produces Amazon’...
Nov 24, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 42
From a milkround to Cambridge University and now founder and CEO of one of Europe's largest energy providers, Greg Jackson of Octopus Energy knows a thing or two about disrupting a market. A 21st century energy provider, Octopus put innovation and sustainability at the forefront of everything they do to drive a faster, green and cheaper solution for their customers. It’s clearly an approach that is working, as their new market valuation of $4.6bn makes them the highest valued brand we’ve welcome...
Nov 17, 2021•56 min•Ep. 41
Closing Series 4 with a bang Oliver has hand-picked his favourite nuggets, or what he calls “the tapas of conversations” so you can recap and refresh! From making £1bn in a year to not paying the VAT. Oliver’s spoken with entrepreneurs long in the tooth and those just starting out. From S4Capital to MOMA Foods, UpTime to Tenzing, we’ve covered failures and successes across multiple industries. With ‘Season X’ launching on November 17th 2021, we kick off our new unique 52 part season with Greg Ja...
Nov 10, 2021•19 min•Season 4Ep. 40
In this episode we go deep into the revolution that’s sweeping the world, that of the Oat Milk revolution. Founded in 2006 by Tom Mercer from a stall at Waterloo East and now, over a decade on, MOMA Foods has recently won a great taste award for it’s oat milk barista edition. Tom, whose market research strategy was nothing short of ingenious, discovered 4 years after MOMA’s founding in 2010 that he had MS and incidentally lost vision in one of his eyes. This however didn’t stopped Tom from growi...
Nov 03, 2021•40 min•Season 4Ep. 39
Husband and wife duo Johnny and Pauline Paterson founded much loved brand Dr. PAWPAW in 2013 after their daughter was diagnosed with Eczema. Their main mission was to create multi-use products for use across everybody’s face and body. The brand which turnover c£5m tells Oliver how in business you can have a win-win situation, how they’re looking to scale to c£30m in the next 5 years and how opening up in the US seems like the natural next step even if they didn’t realise quite how expensive that...
Oct 27, 2021•45 min•Season 4Ep. 38
From his parents having meetings around their breakfast table, Thomas Wynne was born into the world of Insurance. In 2020 the business his parents built (Kingsbridge Insurance) sold for an aggregated total £168m in total. In 2020, mid pandemic, Thomas Wynne decided it was a good idea to fly the nest and founded Capsule with his business partner Liam. A true disruptor in the insurance world and a business less than 6 months old at the time of this podcast, Tom is on a mission to deliver better in...
Oct 20, 2021•50 min•Season 4Ep. 37
Famed for being labeled ‘England’s leading adman’ , Johnny Hornby founder of The&Partnership spoke to Oliver about how he founded and runs the now global agency. With some 1,400 staff, working on some of the globe's biggest campaigns it wasn’t all jets, whisky and red carpets. Johnny, who struggled for the first 6 months to make any sales then forgot to pay the VAT and instead bought a ping pong table. He recounts how in business the best way to learn is to “fu** it up”. Things improved for ...
Oct 13, 2021•59 min•Season 4Ep. 36
Former Scottish footballers Mark Corcoran and Steven Robb launched their clothing line Bee Inspired as a bedroom brand in 2013. From then their social presence has grown to have nearly 1 million followers on Facebook, and 250,000 on Instagram! With the likes of Lionel Messi and Craig David donning their streetwear designs, Oliver chats with the co-founders about why they exited the world of football and entered the fashion industry with just £300. Listen to this episode for lessons learned and h...
Sep 29, 2021•42 min•Season 4Ep. 35
Serial entrepreneur Jamie True set up his first business at the age of 17 turning over circa £6 million! Over the past 20 years Jamie founded a further 8 successful businesses and invested in 4 before launching his latest venture Uptime in 2020. It’s clear Jamie has an entrepreneurial spirit in his blood and, despite the ups and downs, across his multiple businesses he is on an upward trajectory. No stranger to business in the face of adversity, he has a proven track record of growing technology...
Sep 22, 2021•40 min•Season 4Ep. 34
Popcorneur, Co-Founder and Director of Joe & Sephs, Adam Sopher didn’t follow the normal route to the kitchen. With a background in corporate businesses such as Adam Smith, Company Law International, Deliotte and Dixons, founding a gourmet popcorn company was unconventional to say the least. But it was clearly a winning idea as now Joe & Sephs produce the self-proclaimed ‘best tasting popcorn in the world’ with over 50 flavours of popcorn, 10 caramel sauces and a staggering 40+ Great tas...
Sep 15, 2021•35 min•Season 4Ep. 33
Ex-professional rugby player Elliott Herrod-Taylor’s career was cut short thanks to a spider’s bite! He founded his first business UP4 Events whilst at university thanks to his love of music and juggled this alongside his degree and starting The Bunch. As the designated bill payer in his university house Elliott dealt with the frustrations of setting up contracts with utility providers and knew there was a better way! The Bunch, founded in 2017 helps students and letting agencies compile their m...
Sep 08, 2021•49 min•Season 4Ep. 32
The former Head of Marketing at Red Bull in Europe, Huib van Bockel quit his high-profile job to create a brand with purpose and an energising drink that was plant-based, low-calorie & sustainable. He shares how he got started, dealt with knock backs and his plans for the future! Over the past 20 years, Huib has worked in the fashion, television and consumer brand world. Now he is taking on the big dogs of the soft drinks world! From the belief that there was a need for an energy drink free ...
Sep 01, 2021•39 min•Season 4Ep. 31
Sir Martin Sorrell, famed for 'inventing the earn-out', taking over WPP and aggressively scaling the largest Ad Agency in the world talks to Oliver about his greatest successes and biggest regrets. Founding S4 Capital Group in 2018, Sir Martin grew a Unicorn (£1bn company) in under a year, he tells Oliver about his 'twenty squared' strategy and the future of the economy, why D&I is critical for all business and how to build, merge, manage and scale a business of the future! This episode is n...
Aug 25, 2021•35 min•Season 4Ep. 30
Series 3 saw the winning of awards, international conversations, tonnes of bloopers and even more inspiration. Join Oliver as he looks back at some of the best (and worst) takes of the last series. With the inauguration of the new studio, the winning the Business Media Podcast of the Year award and an abundance of wisdom from fascinating guests, the series has been jam-packed with energy💪 From travel to Gen Z trends, Avatars to Finance, Success Is In The Mind has seen an eclectic mix of entrepr...
Jun 16, 2021•29 min•Season 3Ep. 29
As a founding team member and Head of Avatar SDK and API at Genies, Izzy Pollak is no stranger to the technology startup world. 💥 Branded as ‘the next generation of humans’ and allowing you to create the ‘fantasy version of you’, Genies avatar creator allows you to bring your personality to the digital space. With a background in film and television production and an interest in technology, there was no one better trained than Izzy to build the emotional expression for the tech 😎 Izzy believes...
Jun 09, 2021•30 min•Season 3Ep. 28
For our charity special podcast episode, Oliver Bruce chats to Julie Kent MBE about how she is a self-proclaimed go-giver 🥰 👏 “Always giving”, Julie is the Vice Chair at the Pied Piper Appeal, a Trustee for Goals Beyond Grass and Chairman for Cheltenham Open Door 🤯 Born and bred in Gloucester and now a pillar of the Gloucestershire charitable community, she emphasises the importance of giving locally. Approaching her 60th birthday, she makes her £100,000 fundraising target for the year sound ...
Jun 02, 2021•29 min•Season 3Ep. 27
Oliver Bruce talks all things startup with Alizé Marchand, co-founder and CEO of Impresm; a marketing company specialising in helping the financial industry build solid online presence in order to engage with millennials and Gen Z in the digital age 💻 📱 Dialling in from Switzerland, Ali’s American charm began at odds with the culture she found herself in, but she quickly started to change conversations in finance and engage with sustainability in the sector 🌍 Ali realised there’s a big differ...
May 26, 2021•36 min•Season 3Ep. 26
Ann Perkins, co-founder and CEO of health snack brand Perkier, started out making healthy snack bars with co-founder Steve Turner in their kitchen to help with her gluten and dairy free diet. Jumping ship from global food brand Kraft Heinz to pursue her passion for not only tasty but ethical food, Ann saw the gap in the market and proceeded to launch Perkier into it. 🌍 💚 By managing cash carefully, Perkier turned a profit within a year and their products are now stocked in Sainsbury’s, Asda an...
May 19, 2021•27 min•Season 3Ep. 25
From being handed the reins to a business turning over £700k in 1995 and growing it in 4 years to £2.5m turnover, SLG brands (as it's now known) currently boasts a turnover of some £32m+ with over 120 staff and are currently undergoing rapid expansion into the US. 🇺🇸 Oliver sits down with Miles Dunkley owner of SLG and an entrepreneur investor himself to talk about how in 1995 he received a call from his Dad asking him to join the family firm, little did Miles know, he was being pitted against...
May 12, 2021•34 min•Season 3Ep. 24
Now a Forbes 30 Under 30 alumni and one of 5 children from a migrant family, Jay had a rebellious start to life whilst at school. The born salesman, Jay sold Beats by Dr Dre to his peers for a small markup, however, It was with the support of his mother and this natural ability to sell that saw Jay and his business partner found Imagen Insights, a business harnessing the power of Generation Z to shape, influence and build the brands of tomorrow. 🧠 🚀 Despite not originally fitting the mould of ...
May 05, 2021•34 min•Season 3Ep. 23
From hiding behind her desk in an operational role, to backing out last minute on a move to Frankfurt, redundancy and entering the male dominated tech world, Lorrin White is a trailblazer! 🔥 Despite texting being her only knowledge of mobiles, over the last 20 years, she has risen through the business to become the CEO of Bamboo Technologies. As well as her role as CEO, Lorrin is a female leader, mentor, local enterprise board member and NED! 💪 She's now diversifying even more with Business in...
Apr 28, 2021•40 min•Season 3Ep. 22
Having left a comfortable career with a management consultancy business Jay and his co-founder Henry decided it was a good idea to start a last minute travel business in the height of a pandemic.💪 As management consultants Jay's background is analytical, number driven, metric orientated and process led. This analytical and detailed approach however is the backbone to this startup. Jay and Henry each invested £5,000 before undergoing a bootstrap round. Staze which is still under 18 months old is...
Apr 21, 2021•29 min•Season 3Ep. 21
Sophia Proctor who in a former life worked in PR for British Airways before being made redundant just before the 2020 pandemic used her redundancy payoff to change her life forever. 🚀 Sophia conceptualised, designed, manufactured and started to distribute her innovative children's mealtime toy at the hight of a global pandemic using entirely UK manufacturers. With a wealth of knowledge in the PR world for a global brand Sophia's business and startup experience consisted of little more than a bo...
Apr 14, 2021•29 min•Season 3Ep. 20
A PinPoint Media podcast production https://pinpoint-media.global/
Jan 27, 2021•31 min•Season 2Ep. 19
