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What actually determines whether a business scales or stalls? Emma Sinclair MBE on becoming the youngest person ever to float a company on the London Stock Exchange, why 98.2% of venture capital never reaches women, and how to raise money when the institutions won't back you!

Emma Sinclair MBE is a serial entrepreneur and technology founder who took a company public at 29, making her the youngest person ever to do so on the London Stock Exchange. She is the co-founder of a global B2B software company serving some of the world's largest employers, has raised around £25m to date, and has just launched Be My Angel, a campaign to turn ordinary savers into angel investors.

She explains:

• Why the structure you raise money through shapes everything your business can become
• Why only 1.8% of venture capital goes to women, and why the fix has to come from the bottom up
• Why crowdfunding isn't just for consumer brands, and how any small business can use it

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:01:13 Taking A Company Public At 29
• 00:02:18 The Game That Taught Her Money
• 00:03:40 Trading Student Loans At University
• 00:06:00 Why Learning Business Is Easier Than Ever
• 00:07:27 Working From 16 And Where The Work Ethic Came From
• 00:08:16 Why Her Family Believed In Owning Something
• 00:10:17 What A Cash Shell Actually Is
• 00:11:39 When 20% Of The Funding Disappeared Overnight
• 00:12:19 The Jobs That Built Her Resilience
• 00:13:29 Writing 12 Letters To 12 Banks
• 00:15:41 Why Rejection Makes Better Business Owners
• 00:17:12 Does Work Ethic Decide Success?
• 00:18:09 The Cost Of Working All The Time
• 00:19:32 The Reality Of Female Entrepreneurship
• 00:20:47 Why Only 1.8% Of Funding Reaches Women
• 00:22:37 Launching Be My Angel
• 00:24:45 Why She's Crowdfunding Part Of Her Raise
• 00:25:48 Crowdfunding Explained Simply
• 00:26:41 Why Women Invest Differently To Men
• 00:28:53 How Small Businesses Can Use The Crowd
• 00:31:21 Why Every Founder Needs A Tribe
• 00:33:27 The Highs And Lows Nobody Sees
• 00:34:43 Outro

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What happens to businesses that wait too long to adopt AI? Piers Linney explains why the gap between businesses using AI and those ignoring it is growing fast, how to automate the work eating up your time, and why being late to this shift could make it almost impossible to catch up.

Piers Linney is a former Dragon on Dragons' Den, serial entrepreneur, investor and co-founder of Implement AI. He has built, invested in and sold businesses across technology, telecoms and cloud infrastructure, and previously served on the board of the British Business Bank.

He explains:

• Why you should stop thinking about AI and start thinking about automation
• How businesses can replace hours of admin, prospecting and customer service with AI
• Why small businesses now have the tools to compete with much larger companies
• Why businesses that delay adopting AI risk falling further and further behind
• How AI can transform customer engagement, sales and personalised marketing

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro

• 00:01:11 Piers Linney's Journey Into Business

• 00:03:03 The First Business He Started At 13

• 00:06:05 Why Every Entrepreneur Needs To Learn Sales

• 00:08:06 From Lawyer And Banker To Entrepreneur

• 00:11:13 The Reality Of Building Your First Business

• 00:13:01 Learning Through Failure

• 00:14:24 Why You Should Play To Your Strengths

• 00:16:37 Building And Losing Millions In Tech

• 00:18:37 How Piers Ended Up On Dragons' Den

• 00:23:18 Why Successful People Should Give Back

• 00:26:12 Ads

• 00:27:19 What Dragons' Den Is Really Like

• 00:29:00 Piers' Best Dragons' Den Investment

• 00:30:23 How To Use Your Personal Brand Properly

• 00:31:18 Inside The British Business Bank During Covid

• 00:33:40 Why Piers Is Going All In On AI

• 00:34:02 The Jobs AI Is Already Changing

• 00:36:34 How Implement AI Helps Businesses Automate

• 00:36:53 Stop Thinking AI. Think Automation.

• 00:38:01 The ROI Of Replacing Manual Work With AI

• 00:38:44 The AI Tools Every Business Owner Should Start Using

• 00:40:55 Why Fear Of AI Could Be Fatal For Businesses

• 00:42:04 Why Businesses That Wait May Never Catch Up

• 00:43:05 Understanding Exponential Change

• 00:43:42 How To Stay On Top Of AI

• 00:44:31 Creating AI Avatars In Different Languages

• 00:45:50 Why AI Gives Small Businesses A Huge Opportunity

• 00:46:12 Why Big Companies Are Investing Millions Into AI

• 00:47:02 The Future Of Hyper-Personalised Marketing

• 00:47:50 Outro

Even More Value:

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What would you do if I gave you £1 million to invest in your business? Sarah Willingham explains why your answer to that one question tells her whether your business can scale, why making yourself redundant is the real goal, and how she built a £40m business the hard way before learning the smart way!

Sarah Willingham is a serial entrepreneur and investor who has built, bought and scaled consumer businesses for over two decades. She grew Bombay Bicycle Club into the UK's largest chain of Indian restaurants, having earlier opened sites internationally for Planet Hollywood and run international development at Pizza Express. She was an investor on BBC's Dragons' Den across two series, and co-founded the bar group Nightcap - home to brands including The London Cocktail Club and Dirty Martini — with her husband and business partner Michael Toxvaerd. She's also a personal business mentor to Adam.

She explains:

• Why the answer to "what would you do with £1 million?" exposes whether your model is actually replicable
• Why making yourself redundant, not working harder, is the real definition of success
• Why you probably don't need investment - you need to go and sell something

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:01:33 Sarah's Unlikely Route Into Business
• 00:04:02 The Paris Pub Job That Changed Everything
• 00:06:20 Learning The Business Of Hospitality
• 00:07:15 The Year That Taught Her Everything
• 00:09:22 "Sarah The Small From Stoke"
• 00:10:10 Building The UK's Largest Indian Restaurant Chain
• 00:11:12 The Hardest Part Of Business And Family
• 00:12:26 Why Doing Both At Once Makes You Mediocre
• 00:14:10 Diarising Your Downtime
• 00:16:40 Life Path Over Career Path
• 00:18:13 Why Holidays Are Business Critical
• 00:20:00 Adam's First Debrief With Sarah
• 00:21:12 Breaking The Addiction To Your Business
• 00:22:09 The Pie Chart Exercise
• 00:24:48 Everything Has A Relative Value
• 00:26:03 Adam's Biggest Constraint Was Himself
• 00:27:31 How To Replicate Yourself
• 00:28:36 Why Great Teams Aren't An Accident
• 00:30:06 Why Grit Isn't The Answer, Models Are
• 00:30:55 Making Yourself Redundant Is The Goal
• 00:32:10 Building £40M A Year The Hard Way
• 00:33:02 Ads
• 00:33:23 Do You Have A Supportive Partner?
• 00:34:29 Working With Michael: Staying In Your Lanes
• 00:36:43 The Decisions He Talked Her Out Of
• 00:37:27 Dragons' Den Vs A Year Travelling
• 00:39:08 Why You Have To Do Two Series
• 00:40:10 Walking Away To Keep A Promise
• 00:41:38 The Fork In The Road: Fame Or Family
• 00:43:51 Why Nothing Changes Without Action
• 00:44:34 How To Assess Your Downside
• 00:45:18 Why Fear Is Something To Relish
• 00:46:56 Decision Paralysis And The Investment Trap
• 00:48:30 You Can't Scale On Your Own
• 00:49:32 The Problem With Hustle Culture
• 00:50:12 Learning What You Don't Know
• 00:51:08 The £1 Million Question
• 00:52:24 Defining Your Business Model
• 00:53:53 Draw Your Model On Paper
• 00:54:18 Outro

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Why do you know exactly what you should be doing, and still not do it? Dr Julie Smith breaks down the psychology of procrastination, fear and self-sabotage, and reveals how she went from an NHS psychologist to building a mental health platform with millions of followers and a Sunday Times #1 bestseller.

Dr Julie Smith is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist who spent a decade in the NHS before building one of the world's largest mental health education platforms, reaching an audience of over 10 million people across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. She is the Sunday Times #1 bestselling author of Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, which has sold nearly 2 million copies and was the UK's top-selling nonfiction book of 2022.

She explains:

• Why the fear you feel before doing something new is just your brain's stress response, and how to work with it instead of against it
• Why she's never once used a call to action, and how giving everything away for free built a following of millions
• The real psychological reason behind procrastination, and the simple weekly framework she uses to beat it

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:02:06 Leaving The NHS To Build A Private Practice
• 00:05:07 The First Viral TikTok Video
• 00:06:34 Fear Of What Colleagues Would Think
• 00:09:29 Overcoming Fear Of Being On Camera
• 00:11:25 Understanding The Stress Response
• 00:12:38 Building A Healthy Relationship With Failure
• 00:14:22 How Lockdown Accelerated Her Content Growth
• 00:16:27 Getting A Book Deal
• 00:18:29 Becoming The UK's Top-Selling Nonfiction Author Of 2022
• 00:21:52 Handling Fame And Millions Of Followers
• 00:24:11 Her Content Creation Process With Husband Matt
• 00:29:04 When A Video Goes Viral For The Wrong Reasons
• 00:31:19 You Don't Have To Go Viral To Build A Business
• 00:32:42 The Unsustainable Early Years Of Content Creation
• 00:34:35 Raising Entrepreneurial Kids
• 00:39:19 Making An Unsexy Topic Engaging
• 00:40:05 The Power Of A Visual Hook
• 00:45:06 Why Content Creation Is Harder Than It Looks
• 00:47:09 Why She Never Uses A Call To Action
• 00:51:37 Using A Teleprompter Without Losing Personality
• 00:54:23 Overcoming Fear When Starting A Business
• 00:56:37 Why Word Of Mouth Still Works
• 00:57:31 A Step-By-Step Framework For Facing Fear
• 00:59:57 Handling Unsupportive Family And Friends
• 01:03:36 Beating Procrastination
• 01:07:03 Closing Thoughts

Even More Value:

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Can you imagine buying a failing business for £1 and turning it into a £70 million retail brand? Well, that's exactly what Touker Suleyman did, not once but several times, and on this episode he shares the deals, the disasters and the hard-won lessons behind building a genuine retail empire!

Touker Suleyman is a British retail entrepreneur and investor on BBC's Dragon's Den, and the chairman of retail brands including Hawes & Curtis, Ghost and Finery. Starting out as a trainee accountant before moving into fashion manufacturing, he went on to employ thousands of people across factories in Turkey, Bulgaria and Georgia, and has spent over 50 years building, buying and turning around businesses.

He explains:

1. Why he lost everything to fraud in his twenties, and the due diligence lesson that saved his career
2. Why basket value is the single biggest thing that makes or breaks a retail business
3. Why you should never give a bank a personal guarantee

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:01:25 Touker's Immigrant Background And Early Life
• 00:02:52 Starting In Fashion By Accident
• 00:03:19 First Job As An Article Clerk
• 00:04:22 Getting Involved In Public Companies
• 00:05:04 The Fraud That Cost Him Everything
• 00:06:22 The Power Of Due Diligence
• 00:07:14 Bouncing Back From Losing Everything
• 00:09:32 Moving Into Turkish Manufacturing
• 00:10:36 Employing Thousands Across Three Countries
• 00:11:07 The Ralph Lauren Opportunity
• 00:11:50 Buying Hawes & Curtis For £1
• 00:12:50 Scaling From One Store To A Retail Empire
• 00:14:23 Building Ghost, Finery And Other Brands
• 00:15:09 The Turkish Billionaire Who Changed His Career
• 00:19:47 Bringing Jobs And Dignity To Bulgaria And Georgia
• 00:22:57 The Ghost Perfume Standoff With Procter & Gamble
• 00:29:43 What To Look At Before Buying A Business
• 00:30:15 The Claire's Deal And Why It Failed
• 00:31:12 How To Increase Your Basket Value
• 00:32:20 The Retail Brands Touker Admires
• 00:34:40 Solving Low Basket Value In Real Businesses
• 00:36:30 The Traits Touker Looks For In Dragons' Den
• 00:38:18 How He Became A Dragon
• 00:40:36 The Best Part Of Being On Dragons' Den
• 00:42:16 The Framework For Turning A Business Around
• 00:44:46 Why Trust Beats Being A Hard Boss
• 00:45:11 Business Lessons You Can Only Learn From Experience
• 00:45:46 Always Challenge Your Invoices And Never Trust One Quote
• 00:47:00 Why You Should Never Give A Bank A Personal Guarantee
• 00:48:02 Using Supplier Terms Instead Of A Bank Loan
• 00:49:37 Ads

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Learn how to build a 7 Figure SCALE plan that runs WITHOUT you: SCALE

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What happens when your business is growing, but your health is going backwards? Alex Neilan explains why your business can't outperform your health, how to build more energy without going all-or-nothing, what successful entrepreneurs get wrong about looking after themselves, and why you either make time for your health or eventually make time for illness.

Alex Neilan is a weight loss expert and entrepreneur who has built one of Europe's biggest sustainable weight loss community, with more than 100,000 members, and has helped over 4,500 women lose weight and keep it off. After starting his own weight loss journey at 15 stone, he went on to study the subject to master's level before building a hugely successful online coaching business.

They explain:

• Why being "too busy" to look after your health is one of the biggest mistakes successful entrepreneurs make
• Why all-or-nothing thinking destroys consistency with your health, diet and training
• Why better health, sleep and energy can directly improve your leadership, productivity and business performance

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:00:56 Alex Neilan's 15-Stone Weight Loss Journey
• 00:03:45 Building A Business From Rejection
• 00:05:24 £36,000 In Debt And His Lowest Point
• 00:07:13 Taking His Personal Training Business Online
• 00:08:52 Why Alex Was Charging Too Little
• 00:09:35 Why You Need To Charge Your Worth
• 00:09:57 Why Conversations Grow Businesses
• 00:11:10 Taking Conversations Online
• 00:12:20 Hire People Who Know More Than You
• 00:13:24 Building A 100,000+ Person Community
• 00:15:36 Why People Struggle To Lose Weight
• 00:16:15 The All-Or-Nothing Trap
• 00:17:33 Stop Eating For Weight Loss And Start Eating For Performance
• 00:18:33 How Health Impacts Your Energy And Business
• 00:19:48 Finding Your Reason To Get Healthy
• 00:20:30 The "Me First" Approach
• 00:23:33 The Beliefs That Stop People Taking Action
• 00:25:29 Make Time For Your Health Or Make Time For Illness
• 00:26:24 Why We Trivialise Our Health
• 00:27:04 Why "Eat Less, Move More" Isn't Enough
• 00:28:31 Why So Many Women Put Themselves Last
• 00:29:17 The Three Choices You Have With Your Health
• 00:30:48 The Health Risks People Don't Think About
• 00:31:51 The Story That Changed Alex's Approach
• 00:33:08 Alex's View On Weight Loss Injections
• 00:35:42 What Sustainable Weight Loss Actually Looks Like
• 00:37:42 Three Simple Behaviour Changes You Can Make
• 00:39:42 Simple Food Swaps That Make Dieting Easier
• 00:40:35 The 80/20 Rule For Hunger
• 00:41:34 Health And Business Performance Quickfire
• 00:42:21 The Biggest Health Mistake Entrepreneurs Make
• 00:43:44 How Business Owners Should Think About Long-Term Health
• 00:44:14 Business Growth Quickfire
• 00:45:06 Alex's Number One Strategy Lesson
• 00:45:34 His Best Branding Advice
• 00:46:39 The Marketing Lesson Every Business Owner Needs
• 00:47:33 Alex's Best Sales Advice
• 00:47:56 His Biggest Operational Lesson
• 00:48:17 Who Would Alex Hire As CEO?
• 00:49:11 Where To Find Alex

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What does it really take to build a company that no longer needs you? Andrew Hulbert reveals how he went from starting in his bedroom to £50 million in turnover, more than 500 employees and an £100 million exit, and why the hardest part was learning to stop being the centre of everything!

Andrew Hulbert is an entrepreneur who built and exited a property services business over ten years. After growing the company through major contracts with brands including Bulgari Hotel, Yahoo!, Twitter, Candy Crush and London Zoo, he invested £1 million into a new leadership team, stepped away from the day-to-day operation and sold the business in November 2023.

He explains:

• Why working harder eventually becomes the very thing stopping your business from scaling
• How one trusted relationship helped him win his first major contract and create unstoppable momentum
• Why he invested £1 million into leadership, temporarily flattened profit and built a company that could run without him

Chapters
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:26 Who Is Andrew Hulbert?
00:01:26 The Superpower Behind His Success
00:03:48 Where His Determination Came From
00:07:06 From Intern To Operations Director
00:08:18 How To Become Indispensable At Work
00:10:45 His Advice For Young People Starting Their Careers
00:12:19 Why Networking Still Beats Selling
00:13:51 Build The Room You Want To Be In
00:15:15 The Moment He Decided To Start His Own Business
00:18:05 How He Reached A £1.5M Run Rate In Year One
00:19:12 The Truth About "Starting With Nothing"
00:20:06 Finding The First Customer Who Changes Everything
00:21:58 How One Contract Created Momentum
00:22:36 The Deal That Grew The Business 300% In One Day
00:24:25 The Biggest Challenges In The Early Years
00:25:37 What To Do When Clients Say You're Too Small
00:27:47 How To Make Rejection Irrelevant
00:28:55 Why Every Business Needs A Memorable Hook
00:30:11 How Donuts Helped Win Major Clients
00:32:06 Why Sales Is About Thoughtfulness
00:34:26 Ads
00:35:12 When Andrew Started Planning His Exit
00:36:12 Building A Leadership Team That Could Replace Him
00:36:47 Why He Accepted Flat EBITDA To Scale
00:38:12 The Moment The Business Stopped Depending On Him
00:39:16 Selling The Business In Four Weeks
00:39:54 How His Team Shared £15M From The Exit
00:41:48 Why None Of His Senior Leaders Left
00:44:29 The Reality Of Working 100-Hour Weeks
00:46:49 The Personal Cost Of Building The Business
00:47:38 How Much Is Enough?
00:48:14 How Founders Can Start Replacing Themselves
00:49:46 The Warning Signs Of Burnout
00:50:44 Andrew's Three Rules For Entrepreneurs
00:53:28 Quick Fire: Strategy, Brand, Marketing, Sales And Operations
00:54:29 How To Build Authority Through The Media
00:55:10 Find Your Donuts
00:55:47 Treat People How They Want To Be Treated
00:57:19 Build Processes Before You Need Them
00:58:36 Where To Find Andrew

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Learn how to build a 7 Figure SCALE plan that runs WITHOUT you: SCALE UP

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