Screw It Just DO It with Alex Chisnall

"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 of school they joined forces to set up Verve.  Today Verve now has over 250 staff, with offices in London, LA, Vegas, Austin, Texas. It's raised $35million in venture capital funding and they've just acquired a student venture capital company for $25million. Rapid Growth!! Lets StartUp!

"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 an unusual and not very Silicon-Valley like history.  Mohit and his co-founder Ricardo Oliveira founded Thousand Eyes in 2010 and built a $300 million startup from discarded computers and an almost secret source of seed money. Mohit originally started his journey in India where he began his studies, before moving to the US where he met up with Ricardo at UCLA. He never had an intention to start his own business, but life has a habit of taking you on unexpected journeys, and before long he and Ricardo set up Thousand Eyes. Fast-forward to 2018 and their clients include Twitter and Ebay, employ well over 130 staff and double stheir revenue annually. They've had VC's trip over themselves to invest but they initially resisted. We talk about the power of broke and the focusing power that gives you, finding your first customers by solving problems and raising equity to scale - not just to survive. Let's StartUp!

"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 organising the first European start-up festival in Italy. She's also a marketing and creative startup coach who's published five books, created a number of courses all of which are based on helping individuals who want to know how to start and grow a business, and also to market that business successfully. Christine has grown her business successfully primarily through networking. If the thought of meeting complete strangers and talking about yourself and your business fills you with absolute dread then stay tuned for Christine's tips on how to get out from behind the laptop, meet like-minded people and see your business growth explode. Let's StartUp! 

"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 significant impact on people’s behaviour with companies already reporting increases in employee retention, productivity and job applications as a result of offering Wagestream as an employee benefit. Co-Founded by Portman Wills and Peter Briffett, former COO of YPlan and CEO of LivingSocial UK, the company raised over £4m in funding from the world’s leading technology and social impact investors. Backers include Village, a global VC backed by leading entrepreneurs, including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, as well as QED Investors, the London Mayor’s Co-Investment Fund. The launch follows news last week that leading payday lender Wonga went into administration on Thursday, 30th August. I caught up with Peter to find out more. Let's StartUp!  

"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 ceremony back in 2009 is a ten region operation having now launched in London - and with international aspirations.  Tara will be speaking at October's StartUp & Scale Summit along with 16 other speakers. To see our full line-up go to: https://bit.ly/2Owx28y We talk empowering women, men, children... and about changing people's lives.

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 strategy. We can all have a goal. But how are we going to get there. It's very rarely a straight line from A to B. But if we keep our end goal in sight, plan how we're going to get there, and make small adjustments as we review our progress, we'll get there. Hope you find this one super useful. And if you'd like to get uber-focused on strategy and finding out what it takes to go from StartUp to Scale-up, join me and my 17 speakers on October 13th for our very first 'StartUp & Scale' Summit  Let's startup.

"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 David Galsworthy from Techspace. Other clients include brands such as Fidor, Outbrain and Transferwise.  Part of Sara's remit is to oversee Clarity's international portfolio of fast-graowing tech startups and scale-ups.  Having recently atteending a one-day PR course I found it really beneficial personally and therefore thought it would be massively beneficial for you to hear from a PR expert like Sara and hear the different ways a startup or scale-up can promote what they do. Without the need for a big budget. Add that's what I did. Let's StartUp!

"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 is Spandau Ballet Star Martin Kemp, and your mother is Shirlie Kemp, one half of 1980's pop duo Pepsi and Shirlie, that's not the case. Fast forward & despite Instagram making everyone think they were a professional photographer, Harley launched her own photographic agency. I caught up wth her to find out how she started out. Let's StartUp!

"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 take on some serious investment to really sky-rocket this opportunity that we've been given." Welcome to Episode 81 of Screw it, Just Do it. On today's show I welcome Kris Ingham, founder of Rejuvenation Water. Rejuvenation water is a functional water enriched with amino acids. Launched in the UK in 2016 it's one of the fastest-growing drinks brands in the UK He originally came up with the concept ten years ago after discovering th ebenefits of amino acids whilst at Uni. After creating the drink and shifting it to a commercial scale, he launched Rejuvenation Water in three different flavours. It's been one rapid ride so far so... Let's StartUp!

"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 him to leave his secure career with Shell to instead launch this product. Rob also talks us through his Ten Steps to "Designing, Creating and Selling Your Product", which in his case was his motion-lab bag which he describes as 'the most innovative product in the world'.