Screw It Just DO It with Alex Chisnall

" 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 community for mothers starting and running businesses around family life. Having children has inspired a new generation of mums to start their own businesses.  The Making Mumpreneurs online community is designed to support and empower mums running their own business. Founder Erin Thomas Wong formerly worked in TV production, but once her son was born, Erin set up a number of businesses from home including Ealing Mums in Business and Pitter Patter Hub, a hub for parents and carers with young children and babies. She was awarded a Mumpreneur UK Top 100 award in 2015, but moved to Abu Dhabi, where the idea of Making Mumpreneurs was born. Erin says that; “I launched Making Mumpreneurs because I wanted to create a global online community to connect mums in business and help to support them on their entrepreneurial journey. The internet clearly makes starting a business around family life possible. Being able to work from anywhere, at any time, gives parents the flexibility they desire. For Erin, having an online business means that she can reach more mumpreneurs and support them with masterclasses, expert advice, support and camaraderie all from the comfort of their own home with her Cocoon member club. This is ideal if you are a mum looking after children and can't get out to networking events. I explore the parent entrepreneur with Erin... Let's StartUp!

"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 entrepreneur Ed Williams they pivoted from sweet shops to packets of sweets, and after five years are stocked everywhere from Top Shop to Tesco's. We cover everything from how they grew their brand through social media and the Candy Kittens army, through to how it's better to be an entrepreneur working for yourself - than building someone else's dream.

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 speak to Radh Vyas, founder of 'The Flash Pack. A lacklustre group holiday of her own was Radha’s inspiration. She was single, in her early 30s and wanted to experience the authentic Cambodia. So she booked a group tour. It was there she realised the 30s-40s niche was “there for the taking” – and the Flash Pack was born. And when a selfie on top of a the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil went viral weeks before the 2014 football World Cup, it was the boost that launched Radha Vyas’ start-up. The image was soon all over the worldwide press and got over 100 million views. Radha had the opportunity she needed to reach her audience. I caught up wuth her to find out how she did it... Let's StartUp!

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 created two platforms that have not only shifted our behavior as consumers but have also disrupted an entire industry. Her idea that brewed in a coffee shop and grew in a tiny apartment has exploded into a multi-national business with 250+ employees across eight offices around the world.   In 2011 Amber, who had just started her blog VENZEDITS.com, and her boyfriend at the time (now husband) Baxter Box, co-founded RewardStyle to provide a way for bloggers to monetize their shopping referrals, similar to personal stylists. Fast forward to today, and rewardStyle has 20,000 content creators monetizing their influence and 4,000 global retailers marketing directly to this generation’s social media shopper. RewardStyle is now the dominant source of mobile referral traffic for some of the most successful retail brands in the world. Not to mention, LIKEtoKNOW.it, the platform she co-founded in 2014 that this year alone will be responsible for $300 million in purchases by consumers from LIKEtoKNOW.it influencers. She's done all of this whilst juggling being a mother of two children, with another due later this year. I wanted to know how she did it! Let's StartUp!

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, and is passionate about supporting female entrepreneurs. Fluent in four languages, Vasiliki holds an MBA from Columbia Business School in NYC and a Master’s degree in English and Communications from University of Texas. Vasiliki is a Fulbright Scholar, recipient of the Kellogg Foundation Fellowship recognising female leaders, and current Chairwoman of CEW UK, the leading beauty industry association. There's an intro for you! Vasiliki's role with Unilver's is to help the brands they acquire reach their full potential and is something she is very proud of.  Unilever's aim to is to keep the founders of the businesses they acquire with them, so they can harness their expertise to help shape the future of their business. With that in mind, I thought she would make a great guest. I wasn't wrong. Let's StartUp!

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 these successful entrepreneurs share are in their success habits, rituals and routines. I had some of my own from my health and fitness background, as well as from avidly reading everyone from Tim Ferris to Tony Robbins. I try to take one thing away from each interview and try implementing it in my life. A lot of those success habits, rituals and routines have now become my success habits, rituals and routines. I'm certainly not saying that what I do is perfect, but I'd like to share my learnings with you, and hope it adds some value and improves your business and personal life.  I 100% beleive that when I'm consistent with my success habits, rituals and routines I see improvements in all aspects of my life. And when I'm not consistent, anxiety and overwhelm kick-in. I hope you enjoy my first solo episode. Let's StartUp!    

"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 articles about privacy and social media have appeared in The Mirror (UK), HuffPo, USA Today, InfoSecurity Magazine, Dark Reading, The Nation, and many others. He’s often quoted on MarketWatch and has appeared on PBS, FOX News, and CNN. Mark has been a featured speaker and social media/privacy expert on the stage at many conferences around the globe, most recently at EY’s Strategic Growth Forum and at the KNOW Identity Conference. He has also spoken at the 16th Annual Privacy and Security Conference, Global Security Conference, GMIC New York, Security BSides Vancouver, and at Customer Experience Asia. Mark received his BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz; and his MBA from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA. He resides in Los Angeles. Mark joined me from L.A. and we talked about Facebook being a data company and not a social network, helping your kids navigate through the social media minefield, taking the road less travelled... and learning to forgive yourself. Let's StartUp!

"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 rejuvenated the humble peanut butters of the high street and she's also a previous Virign Foodpreneur winner. Pippa started with a £10,000 startup loan from her kitchen table and used that to rent to use a commercial kitchen and sold her first products in London markets at the weekends whlst working part-time as a theatre producer. Fast forward to 2018 and she's turning over £3 million, is stocked in every supermarket in the UK and has just raised £1 million to fuel future growth. Let's StartUp!

"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 pretty profound moment at the start of an eighteen hour bus journey. I was thirty minutes in going "No, no, no. I haven't done anything of any significance that's going to make a difference in the world. If I died tomorrow no-one's going to remember me. I've not left the world in a bette place and that really struck me hard. Whilst everyone else was asleep on the bus I was bolt upright thinking about my life about what I need to do to make changes." So #screwitjustdoit is one year old. To mark the occasion and celebrate the success I have selfishly picked my favouite interview of the last 12 months. Ridiculously hard choice, but I did it. And now I want you to do the same. Message me @alexchisnall on twitter, linkedin or email alex@startupu.co.uk and let me know your favourite. I'd really like to know and would mean a lot. You may have in fact missed this episode which went out just a few days before Chiristmas when I spoke to Cemal Ezel, founder of social enterprise Change Please. Cemal was crowned Lloyds Bank Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 and has a story that really resonates with me, especially as i've been reflecting back on 2017-2018. Change Please essentially uses coffee to tackle homelessness by training homeless people to become baristas and providing a London living wage job, housing, a bank account, therapy and support. Selling coffee across London through mobile vans, Change Please coffee is now being stocked in Sainsbury's supermarkets nationwide and with locations in New York and San Francisco after a chance encounter on Richard Branson's Necker Island the future is one of hope and promise. Cemal and I talk about the rocking chair test, regular reviewing and celebrating, networking..plus rocketships and parachutes..stay with us on that one..   Let's StartUp!

"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 tells it like it is. This is the archetypal startup roller coaster ride. Suzie started from her kitchen table in 2013 when looking at some healthy snacks for her two year old daughter Grace. Based on her research she'd decided to raise her on a diet free from grains, refined sugars and oils. But she was struggling to find on the go snacks that weren't full of carbohydrate or sugar. Her nutrition clients were having the same prblems, so she tried some recipes at home blending dates with nuts and coconut, and both her clients and daughter loved them. So much so, that she thought there may be a product there. Thus, The Primal Pantry was born. She now has a global business turning over £3million and exporting to over 26 countries as well as being stocked in all the major Uk supermarkets. Let's StartUp!