Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter & Chris Donnelly

Have you seen your household food waste increase exponentially during the pandemic? You’re not alone. “Food waste in homes is more under scrutiny now than ever because people are not used to cooking at home, seven days a week. It's the perfect storm for trying to figure out your cooking schedule and using everything and that definitely produces food waste, at least initially until you've found your equilibrium.”Chatting all things food waste on this episode of Secret Leaders are two entrepreneurial power houses beating the same drum, but tackling the global issue of food waste from different angles. We have Saasha Celestial-One, COO and co-founder of food sharing platform Olio who has featured on the podcast before (her episode is in the links section) and Hjalmar Ståhlberg Nordegren, CEO and co-founder at Karma. Hjalmar is a Swedish medical doctor turned entrepreneur. Together they’re both seeking a solution to the $1.2 trillion food waste problem.Join us as we discuss what’s been happening with the food waste problem during the pandemic, as well as what we can all do within our own communities to help tackle this unsustainable issue (one third to 40% of all food is wasted globally), as well as how to create a business that both monetises food waste and builds communities. “Find a co-founder or co-founders who are 100% obsessed with your mission and recruit for mission. So we always recruit for mission first, you can train people and upskill people, but you can't train passion and mission alignment.”We chat about: Impact of COVID-19 on food waste Breakdown in food charitable chains The recession and the food waste issue Earth overshoot day Building communities through food waste Starting an impact company Links: https://www.secretleaders.com/saasha-celestial-one https://www.overshootday.org/ --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

With the world now confronting issues of race, and more specifically, Black Lives Matter, we felt it right to bring on an award winning science journalist, author and broadcaster and the first ever guest we've had that is not an entrepreneur of a wildly successful company. Angela Saini may not have the battle scars, nor learned the painful lessons that you, our audience, have become accustomed to hearing on Secret Leaders, but what she has to say might be even more pertinent for you.We felt it was time to bring in an expert speaker on the topic of racism, so that we and other leaders can think about racism more deeply. “When we're arguing with racists, these aren't just intellectual arguments we're having, these are about belief. White supremacy is not just a kind of scientific belief, as it is for some scientific racists out there. It's like a religion. It's a fundamental faith in the idea that some groups of people are naturally better than other groups of people.”Angela was destined to be an engineer until a chance encounter as an intern on the London Underground set her on her current path - as a journalist who covers science. “We might think of it [race] as a biological quantity. But the race categories we use are social categories, not genetic categories. They're not born out in genetics. They were defined very arbitrarily, around the Enlightenment period and onwards by Western philosophers and naturalists in very vague ways.”Which is why science around racism can get confusing, resulting in scientific misinformation.So if you’re wondering what you can do to bring about change in your company, real change, not just an expression of solidarity, this is one insightful episode you don’t want to miss. “When you're thinking about bias and prejudice, before you start pointing the finger at others, and we know that there are plenty of fingers that could be pointed, just start with yourself, try and recognise the bias within yourself.”We chat about: Why science is a murky world The grandmother hypothesis Debunking COVID related racial myths  Why you shouldn’t argue with racists on Twitter Recognising the bias within yourself Links: Superior: The Return of Race Science Inferior: The true power of women and the science that shows it --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

If you think now’s not a great time to start up a business, take this advice from seasoned entrepreneur Sach Kukadia: “There is never a good time to start anything, particularly a startup. There's always a list of reasons as to why you shouldn't do it. And the older you get, the more that list grows. If you're going to start anything, whether it's a start up or do something, you need to just do it now. Because it'll only ever get harder.”Wise words from someone who’s never earned any money he hasn’t made himself. Behind Sach Kukadia’s glittering facade is a dogged determination to succeed, but his metric for success has changed considerably over the years. In this latest episode of Secret Leaders, Sach shares his journey with Secret Sales, from startup through to sale, to buying it back, to selling it again. And he is brutally honest. Because not every successful startup stays that way. Sach doesn’t hold back and shares some of the behind the scenes facts you never normally hear about in the complicated journey of building a personal empire. “There's a bunch of things in my journey that have caused me to lose sleep and become a bad human being. I was convinced for 10 years that I was going to be able to retire. And when that didn’t happen it took me a little while to realise that this is life and things happen to you, you just have to get over it and you've got to find a way to continue hustling, and it wasn't that we didn't make money, it’s just the quantities were significantly different.”And if you’re an entrepreneur, you need to hear Sach’s story. We chat about: The idea behind Secret Sales and the business model that inspired it The Secret Sales journey The impact of Brexit on the sale of Secret Sales How business deals happen in the real world Rebalancing his life post Secret Sales The lesson of greed for his future businesses Links:https://resident.ly/london/--SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Learning to be happy is hard enough. Learning to be happy in the middle of a pandemic should be nigh on impossible. Not so, according to Mo Gawdat, former Chief Business Officer of Google [X], serial entrepreneur and author of “Solve for Happy: Engineering Your Path to Joy” (2017). Mo’s famous for bringing Google to 4 billion new users, but that’s not all he’s done. Throughout his career he’s also co-founded over 25 businesses (7 still survive today). He starts businesses that fascinate him, making sure none of them have a conflict of interest with his ‘full time’ job (first at IBM, then Microsoft and latterly at Google), coming up with a new idea every year or two.His book, “Solve for Happy: Engineering Your Path to Joy” (2017) was the result of 12 years researching the topic of happiness. Mo even created an algorithm and a repeatable well engineered model to reach a state of uninterrupted happiness regardless of the circumstances of life. “Happiness is not found outside you, you were born happy. Our default setting as humans is happy. But we grow out of happiness; we grow out of happiness because there are external influences that make us unhappy.”A lot of what Mo learned about happiness came from his experiences with entrepreneurship; born from the understanding that entrepreneurs are not only aware that things can go wrong, but they expect them to go wrong. Regardless of whether you’re an entrepreneur or not, if you’re wondering how you can find happiness again, post-COVID, this is an enlightening episode you don’t want to miss. We chat about: Why a business partner is more important than the business The impact of Solve For Happy Happiness is predictive Consumerism is destroying our planet Comparing COVID to Tetris Links:Action for happiness--SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

From salty sea dog to captain of BrewDog in the space of a year. James Watt is the founder of the rocket ship brewery and brand known as BrewDog. Now valued at over $1 billion, this incredible startup began life in co-founder Martin Dickie’s mum’s garage. “No one wanted to buy our beer. Everyone told us to make beer with less flavour, with less bitterness, with less hops, that our labels looked stupid, like nobody wanted to know and we were working almost 24/7, sleeping on sacks of malt on the floor, filling bottles by hand, doing deliveries out of the back of my beat up Volkswagen car, and just going absolutely nowhere.”But it took a meeting with Michael Jackson (no, not that one), a punt at Tesco and playing two high street banks off against each other to give them the kickstart they needed.Today, BrewDog are well known for their rebellious marketing tactics and have recruited a clan of investors known as equity punks, raising £80 million through a range of clever crowdfunding campaigns. But how have they handled the COVID-19 pandemic? What have they done to ensure the nation’s thirst remains quenched - and how the hell have they produced and distributed over 250,000 units of hand sanitizer (free) to the NHS and charities? All the while operating the brewery AND adhering to social distancing measures? If you’re an entrepreneur, James has one piece of advice for you: “The only logical thing that my useless advice could be is don't listen to advice, which would also apply to this advice just now.”We chat about: From rebellious child, to quitting law, to making beer Overcoming the first disastrous year Fanvestors - advocate ambassadors AKA equity punk investors Developing the next generation of leaders from within the company The importance of culture fit when hiring Managing BrewDog through the pandemic Links: Book - The hard thing about hard things - Ben Horowitz App - Hop Drop --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

It's a tough time for many businesses right now, but one sector in particular is thriving - the world of delicious food delivered to your doorstep. Unlike the vast majority of businesses, these companies are growing exponentially, because of the lockdown.“Literally overnight, it's [Covid-19] essentially forced consumers who have never bought one grocery shop online to go, ‘Well, I might as well try this because there's queues around the block for my supermarket, which has got nothing in it, and every restaurant in the land is closed. So let me give it a go’.”If you’re an entrepreneur wondering how your food business is going to survive the pandemic, then you need to listen to this episode with the founders of two brilliant brands, Mindful Chef and allplants. Mindful Chef was founded by three school friends out of their tiny apartment in 2015 and now makes 5 million meals a year. allplants on the other hand was launched by brothers JP and Alex in 2017, and have already served 1 million plus meals and recently launched Europe's largest dedicated plant based kitchen. With names like Sir Andy Murray and Victoria Pendleton thrown around, and nuggets such as ‘frozen is the most neglected technology in the UK’, this episode is jam packed full of information that all aspiring foodie entrepreneurs need to take note of.We chat about: The positive impact of Covid-19 on the food industry How to increase volume of production while ensuring employees are social distancing Issues of sourcing new suppliers to meet demand How to manage overnight growth Maintaining the culture of the company with so many new employees --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

If you’ve been caught out raising money for your startup during this complicated time, then you’ve come to the right place - you’re in good company. In this episode of Secret Leaders we’ve pinned down VC extraordinaire, Fred Destin who is primed to answer not just our questions, but your questions too. Why should you take advice from Fred? Because he’s the founder of Stride.VC, a £100 million seed stage fund focused on operating in London and Paris. Before starting Stride, Fred was a general partner at Excel and of the 17 investments he led, 10 have exited and 4 are active value drivers, including 5 companies in excess of $1 billion in value - these include Zoopla, Deliveroo and PillPack. His portfolio has a total enterprise value of more than £10 billion, and he generated in excess of £700 million in exit value to investors. All of which makes Fred someone worth listening to if you’re wondering what the hell you’re going to do for money now that the world seems to have shut down.  Because if there’s one thing we all need right now, it’s someone who is able to give us a direct and honest account of where the funding environment is at today.“By the way, when we raised Stride, we talked to 420 investors, and we had 1,000 meetings. So I know fundraising for startups is painful, but I mean, I honestly have pitched the same story probably 800 times over”.We chat about: The reason he’s not investing in new startups currently Revenue based financing The role of VCs and venture capital during a global crisis Likely sources of finance going forward Growth plans for startups experiencing short term rocketing of demand Where founders should be conserving or spending capital Links:http://stride.vc/--SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Today’s guest is someone we’ve had on the show before, in fact, he kicked off season 4 for us. So don’t be confused and think we’ve got our seasons muddled up. We thought we’d invite Cal Henderson back onto the podcast because his company, Slack, is one of only a few companies that aren’t in a tailspin currently. They’re facing an entirely different dilemma - they’re scrambling to keep up with demand, what with the majority of the world now in self-isolation and having to work from home (WFH). “One of the challenges of remote work for folks has always been the boundary between being at work and not being at work. And that's, you know, that's one thing when it's individuals, and [another] when it’s an entire company in one go.”If you’re wanting to hear the story of how Slack started, take a listen here, because we don’t rehash it in this episode. Instead we talk with Cal about Slack’s sudden increase in user numbers, how they’ve responded to the crisis as a global company (they have employees and offices around the world), as well as what decisions they are making with regards the platform and its new features, as well as offering advice to listeners about productivity and how to work productively, when WFH. So if you’re taking five minutes out from juggling your kids and your day job, this episode might be the very tonic you need to get you back into the WFH headspace. “In many ways as a company, we were built for this kind of thing. Like, we didn't start Slack because we thought there'd be some kind of global pandemic that forced people to work from home.”We chat about: Slacks features that enable greater productivity Tracking the impact of the virus around the world How Slack enables distributed work Looking after your mental health when isolated The importance of great internal communications when WFH Links: https://www.yourheights.com/ @stewart --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

If you’re wondering how on earth you’re going to hold down a full time job while working from home AND educating your kids for the foreseeable future, then you need to listen to Koru Kids founder Rachel Carrell and Tech Will Save Us co-founder Bethany Koby. “Lower [your] impossible expectations. It is not possible to work full time and also homeschool kids full time, at the same time. It's just not possible. And just don't listen to anyone who implies that it is. We are working really hard to come up with new services to help people make one plus one somehow equal three.”Koru Kids, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, was building a whole new childcare system, recruiting, training, matching and managing over 1,000 nannies in London every single day. Having had to pivot hard, Rachel explains the impact that coronavirus has had on her business and how she has taken nannying online. Tech Will Save Us co-founder Bethany has created a play led home learning system focusing on creativity and technology, delivering fun and learning advantages to 4-12 year olds. Bethany explains how they had the foresight to switch their attention towards their digital channels last year, which so far has saved their bacon. So if you’re a founder wondering how to turn this current situation to your advantage, download and listen to this episode.“We need to make sure we get through this as strong as possible, because this will put us in an even stronger position in the next six months, to hopefully really raise our strategic round, with even better metrics and with even better evidence of the necessity of the product, and the kind of joy and efficacy that the product is actually bringing to families.”We chat about: How Covid-19 has impacted their investment and distribution channels Why the whole childcare system needs an overhaul Why innovation is key to pivoting and ultimately survival The spotlight on the ed-tech space  Why you need to create rhythms to suit your family --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Ali Parsa and Dr Rangan Chatterjee discuss the predicted health impacts of the coronavirus, the effects of shutting down society on mental health, and the surge in healthcare delivery through Babylon during the pandemic. They also explore the impact of the pandemic on businesses and financial security, offering advice for leaders and founders facing challenges.