Startup with Piers Linney

"I was being hounded by the producers at the BBC. I went to the Virgin Fast Track event, Richard Branson was on stage asking 'Who wants to come on a safari with me'? So I said 'why not?'.

He then said 'for this much money' and I thought 'God, I can buy a Porsche' for that. Everyone was sat there saying 'don't do it Piers', but I put my hand up.

I ended up at at Sir Richard's private game reserve in Ulusaba in the Kruger national park in South Africa, which is basically like a bond lair...

My phone kept ringing and these producers kept calling and asking 'Are you going to join Dragon's Den or not?' Richard saw me sat there puzzling over this and asked, 'Are you alright'? I replied 'No', and he said 'do you want to chat'?. We had a corona together and I told him the story and he said 'Screw it, Just Do it'.

He actually said that.

He said I would get on a plane for a good TV spot. He said 'Right, let's ring them up', and I said 'ok, I'll do that', and he said 'No - Now' and he made me ring them and I said 'I'm in'.

So that's how I ended up on TV.

Then he just wandered off and left me."

Welcome to #151 with Piers Linney , the first repeat guest on the show, and also our headline speaker at this October 17th's Entreprenur Summit in Bournemouth.

You can join us this autumn either by buying a ticket, or by entering my competition to win tickets and hang out with us for the day, come out to dinner, the after party and shoot some content too. All you need to do is leave a review about the show, screenshot it and email alex@screwitjustdoit.org - good luck!

I chatted to Piers for this episode in front of a live audience in London with the 72 founders of Antler's UK cohort - the global startup generator and early stage vc which is enabling the world's most brilliant and determined people to build global businesses from the ground up.

I'm also honoured to be an advisor for Antler - have a listen to episode #137 with Antler founder Magnus Grimeland for more information on what Antler are doing.

This is one great interview with Piers, one of my favourites in the two years. He's been up to a lot since I last spoke to him. A #1 business podcast with Nat West plus he's got a brand new course, Startup with Piers Linney. You can find out full details here - just use SCREWIT20 to get 20% off until the end of August 2019.

This was a really enjoyable chat, with a golden nugget of wisdom every time I asked Piers a question. I'll cut straight to my introduction of Piers in front of our live audience.

Let's Startup!