Screw It Just DO It with Alex Chisnall

" Here's thirty day's recipes...breakfast, lunch, dinner. Buy this food, follow this food...and do you know what? People just wouldn't bloody do it! Well...if I did it for you would you do it? Well of course they said yes - I just didn't want my clients to fail." Award-winning businesswoman Barbara Cox founded Nutrichef from her kitchen table in 2004 before selling it eleven years later in 2015. Barbara grew Nutrichef from a local to a national operation providing healthy, nutritious meals delivered direct to your door before it became popular. Since then she has worked with a number of lifestyle brands as well as bringing out her own recipe book, Rainbow Recipes. I also speak to Sam Lehane and Diana Muendo from M.Y.O, an art gym for your creative muscles. M.Y.O is an arts and crafts startup for adults where M.Y.O stands for Make Your Own.

" We had no exit plan. In fact we didn't even know the phrase exit strategy. We were three guys who wanted to set up a smoothie business and we had a hope that it would be successful but an assumption that it wouldn't, but we got started anyway...and it just grew and grew and grew. I think to be honest no-one was more surprised than we were really. " In this week's show I speak to Richard Reed who co-founded Innocent Drinks in 1999 and 15 years later sold to Coca Cola for north of $500 million. JamJar Investments was then founded 48 hours later with his innocent co-founders to offer funding options for the next generation of entrepreneurs. In part two I speak to Macrebur's founder Toby McCartney winner of Virgin's 2016 Voom competition who are turning waste plastics into new roads. They recently tried to raise £500,000 in 60 days through crowdfunding with Seedrs and received over £1.5 million in just 9 days, including investment from a certain Sir Andy Murray as one of those investors.

"No-one at school had ever given me the attention and, needless to say, it was pretty miserable. I didn't enjoy school and I didn't enjoy being a teenager because of it...when you feel worthless when you're going to school just being that bad...its an awful feeling." I speak to Doug McMaster about how he dropped out of school at 16, overcoming both undiagnosed dyslexia and a lack of education to begin a food pilgrimage that culminated in him launching Silo in Brighton: Britain's first zero waste restaurant rated the third coolest place to eat in the UK by The Times. But before that I speak to The Snaffling Pig's Nick Coleman, winner of Virgin's Foodpreneur 2017, celebrating the UK's best new food and drink business. Back in 2010 Nick founded Medical Supermarket with his business partner Udhi Silva. Udhi then bet Nick that to see if they could set up another business for just £500. They eventually started The Snaffling Pig in 2014 with just the £500 selling premium pork scratching snacks in a variety of different flavours. With co-founder Andy Allen now onboard within two years they were turning over £1 million, had appeared on ITV's This Morning with an advent calendar and have now secured investment from Moonpig's Nick Jenkins on the BBC TV's Dragon's Den.

"We built it, we uploaded it to the App store and we were charging for it. So from day one we thought we've spent a ton of time on this, this is amazing, it's got so much value to it...and guess what? We sold like two. Where's the amazing story of when you make millions overnight? On this week's podcast I speak to Matt Doyle about his startup, Launchcloud. Matt first met Richard Branson as staff at an event where Richard launched his autobiography. Whilst getting a copy of the book signed, Matt said to Richard that he was deliberating whether to leave his job and set up his business.  After speaking with Richard he opened the book he had just signed for him and under the signature Richard had written: "Just do it". But before we get to Matt, I speak to Josh Winterton who overcame the loss of his mentor and his tech startup after a chance meeting in his native Australia changed the path of his life. The meeting was with Ted Baker founder Ray Kelvin and Josh, at just 25 years of age now heads up the UK's most stylish co-working space, coming to a town near you in the UK.

"We both saw this as an opportunity to really build something exceptional and I think we thought from day one up to today that this has the opportunity to be absolutely massive." This week I speak to Seedrs co-founder Jeff Lynn who's mantra is "Equity Crowdfunding done properly". With offices in five European countries and high profile investors like Andy Murray and Richard Branson, Jeff believes crowdfunding offers fantastic opportunities for both investors and private companies looking for investment. What started as a University project has now resulted in over £230 million of investment in over 500 companies - and all that in under five years. I also speak to Jess Titcumb, founder of Twisted Halo drinks who, having just been stocked in 200 Morrison's supermarkets, is looking for investment through crowdfunding. Coming from an entrepreneurial family, Jess had gone from studying classics at St. Andrews University to launching her own drinks brand with a friend from university as co-founder. Initially things didn't go as planned so Jess trusted her gut by relaunching and rebranding on her own with Twisted Halo.

"It's cool to be a foodie now. Whereas it used to be a very niche thing, all over now..whether it's pop-up food markets or open kitchen restaurants... food on TV, and in the real world, is a kind of cool space to be in." On this week's show I speak to Ben, Jamie, Mike and Barry who launched SORTED food in 2010 after finishing university.  The Wall Street Journal calls their show "food porn meets social media" whilst The Independent calls them "the food equivalent of Instagram or Spotify". They describe their own show as a "mix of food, recipes, video and banter". With over TWO million social followers including Barrack Obama and David Cameron, and ELEVEN million downloads per month, I spoke with the guys to find out how they became the world's most engaged cooking channel - that's also inspiring a younger generation to think more about what they eat. Also on today's show I speak to Raise Bakery's Jeremy Jacobs. I spoke with Jeremy on how he took voluntary redundancy to help his mum launch a family business. With his dad onboard they went from strength to strength, at one time supplying Virgin Atlantic Airways with over four million cupcakes.  It hasn't always been a smooth ride but it's all been invaluable in bringing the family closer together and in giving back to the startup community through Jeremy's voluntary work as a Virgin StartUp mentor and 'entrepreneur in residence at Brighton & Hove's City College.  

“When you’re 32 and getting home at five in the morning, having dealt with police and then a fight outside the club at 3am, you think there must be a better way.”  After a decade in the nightclub business hosting events from Barbados to Bournmeouth, serial entrepreneur Josh Simons has found a better way and is celebrating four years with the Chicken and Blues restaurant chain he co-founded with business partner Steve Crawford. As a teenager Josh played golf for England, but with his family's business in the hospitality sector it wasn't long before he decided that his future lay in business and not sport. If you ever wondered what it would be like to open a restaurant then listen to Josh who warns of the pitfalls as well as the rewards. FYB stands for 'Follow Your Bliss' and that's pretty much what Jason and Dani have done. With both having travelled over 250,000 miles each year racking up airmiles on business they encountered a number of problems. FYB's smart technology incorporated into travel luggage provides solutions for business travellers. With features including wireless phone charging, fingerprint recognition locks and bluetooth capability they have got you covered. I caught up with Jason before the launch of their kickstarter campaign, and then report back on how it went...  

" I will be bitterly disappointed if I retire or die doing what I currently do for a living" That  realisation was all the incentive that Conker Spirit founder Rupert Holloway needed to quit his job and launch his own business. As Rupert says, "There has never been a better time for you to do your own thing, learn new things, follow your passion or launch your own business". Join us and our 'live' sold out audience to hear Rupert's story on how he quit his safe career as a chartered surveyor to become Dorset's first gin distiller.

"We started with a problem. With how it is. And we created a vision of how it should be. And I think if everybody did that around something they cared about then the world would be a very different place." Ruth Anslow is on a mission to create a new type of supermarket chain with Hisbe - How It Should Be. And Claire Timbrell is also on a mission to change how groups of people socialise with her escape room - The MacGuffin project. First up is Ruth, who with her sister Amy Anslow, had a dream of how a supermarket should be. They built their brand Hisbe three years before opening their first store in Brighton, with the final £20,000 coming from Gordon Roddick of The Body Shop. They're a social enterprise on a mission to build a different kind of supermarket by putting customers, suppliers and employees first. They prioritise small, local producers and brands that trade responsibly. Ruth tells me how they did it and how, with demand from Birmingham to Bournemouth,  they plan to scale the business across the UK. In my second interview, Claire Timbrell tells me how, when she was training for a triathlon with her partner Gareth Quinlan, and abstaining from alcohol, they decided that there was a severe lack of leisure facilities for adults other than eating and drinking establishments. They then set out on a mission to change how groups of people socialise. After a false start when they lost their first venue to a foul waste flood, they secured angel investment, and opened their escape room - The MacGuffin Project. I went along to find out more - and tried to escape...

"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 covered 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. Black Milk Cereals founders Andy Young and Olly Turner describe their business as an 'experience cafe', combining decadent treats whilst giving their customers all of the tools to share their experiences. When I tell you that one of their classics, the Easter Treat, is half a cadburys cream egg, topped off with cookie crisp, krave, nesquick, topped off with homemade brownie and covered in chocolate milk..you may start to picture their indulgent treats. With over 30,000 followers on Instagram alone they have plenty of happy customers to share their custom creations. Andy and Olly tell me the secrets to their rapid growth and future plans.