Every guest on this podcast talks about looking after yourself and your sleep when starting a business so I was keen to speak to someone who has first hand experience in losing it, how to get it back & making a business from it too. Hayley Dawes spent years designing beautiful, calming homes for other people. She couldn't find a moment of that calm for herself. A mother of four and a long-time entrepreneur, Hayley battled chronic insomnia that began to affect every part of her...
Jul 14
31 min
Laura Butler-Madden is an award-winning interior designer with 14 years of expertise restoring and transforming period properties. Laura hasn't left her design career. She's simply added a second one. For anyone starting a business, this may feel like a lot given how many hats you’re already wearing, so I was keen to chat to her about why and how she decided to do this. Keep listening to hear a practical guide on how to build a second career alongside your first. Laura's advice: Just b...
Jun 30
36 min
Most founders start with an idea & go looking for an ingredient. The Taylor sisters started with the ingredient and had to build everything else around it. Their family has farmed plums in Northern California for four generations. For most of that time, the plum pits were just waste. Le Prunier turned them into the hero ingredient of an organic, luxury skincare line that now sits in goop, Anthropologie, Neiman Marcus & Bloomingdales. Allison came in from fashion and brand development,...
Jun 16
28 min
Jo Glynn-Smith is a coach & specialises in leadership growth, career transition and personal transformation, working with people to navigate change. Alongside her coaching practice she hosts The Midlife Entrepreneur podcast, which explores the shift from corporate life into entrepreneurship, so is perfectly placed to guide us through how to pivot in mid-life & address how listeners might honestly assess whether they are ready to do the same. Keep listening to hear a practical gu...
Jun 2
40 min
According to the Office for National Statistics, only around four in ten UK businesses live to see their fifth birthday. And for most of the ones that do make it, the bottleneck isn’t the market - it’s the founder. Our guest today learned that the hard way. Thea Brook spent over a decade as a CFO scaling startups into the tens of millions, built her own restaurants and product brands, and then ran the conventional playbook of working harder and growing faster straight into burnout and a...
May 19
46 min
In this episode I'm joined by Emmie Faust, serial entrepreneur, investor in over 30 women-founded businesses & founder of Female Founders Rise, the 11,000-strong UK community supporting female entrepreneurs. Emmie is also the author of the newly published RISE Report, the largest independent study of female entrepreneurship in the UK & this is the first time she's sharing its findings on a podcast. We talk about why she built Female Founders Rise after a post-COVID breakdown, wh...
May 5
28 min
Charles Brun, co-founder of IZIPIZI, talks about how to start a brand from a simple idea and grow it into a global consumer business without losing sight of the initial values. This episode is about spotting overlooked opportunities, building a brand around design and accessibility and scaling internationally while staying true to the original idea. Keep listening to hear how IZIPIZI turned an everyday functional product into a global lifestyle brand - and what founders can learn about how to...
Apr 21
38 min
Nick Croft-Simon, is the co-founder & CEO of White Rabbit, the UK’s largest gluten free pizza brand & the No.1 contributor to growth in the category. But this is a conversation about more than pizza. It’s about how to build a truly consumer-led business. From building their own gluten free bakery to making the controversial data-led decision to introduce meat SKUs after starting as veggie and vegan this episode is about ownership, agility and listening hard when your cust...
Apr 7
29 min
In this episode Dan Cray, founder & CEO of PHIZZ, talks about how to scale without losing your North Star, stay focussed and go global. After raising capital, PHIZZ had the opportunity to go broad early. New markets, new use cases and major international interest created momentum - but also complexity. Dan shares how chasing too many opportunities diluted focus, and why returning to a laser focus became the foundation for faster and more sustainable growth. This episode is a lesson in tim...
Mar 24
30 min
Samantha Cusick is one of the most recognisable voices in hair & uses podcasting to deepen brand trust, create community, as well as accidentally open doors commercially & position herself as an authority in a crowded market. In this episode, we unpack what podcasting really does for you as an entrepreneur once the mic is live: how it supports the brand, drives opportunity, builds long-term equity & ultimately makes you feel less lonely as a founder. Keep listening to hear ...
Mar 10
47 min
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