Screw It, Just Do It | Alex Chisnall Chats With Ray Kelvin, Richard Reed, Steven Bartlett & Others Every Week. Alex Chisnall:

"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 differ

"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 s

"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

"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. W

“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 provid

" 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.

"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 tool

"Hey, I was a part-time mermaid, I’ve been to Australia, come home and now I make this iced coffee that I’m really proud of. Do you want to come on this journey with us?"  Join Jim and our sold-out 'live' audience in Bournemouth as he recounts his journey, as well as providing tips on how to grow your brand and how to pitch to buyers for your product/service. Fresh from pitching his iconic drinks brand, Jimmys Iced Coffee to the Co-Op in Manchester, Jim jumped in his car and drove 4.5 hours back to Bournemouth to speak to our audience of entrepreneurs and start-ups on 'How to Start a Drinks Business'. An entertaining and informative evening unfolded...    

"I suffered a pretty heavy burnout...anti-depressents, the whole thing. On the outside it probably looked like I was on top of the world, but deep down I was working 16 hours a day, living on coffee, wasn't working out, wasn't eating well..I ended up hiring eight people..to remove myself from the business." Chris Ducker is a serial entrepreneur who moved from London to the Philippines seventeen years ago and now owns and operates three businesses employing 450 people including a recruitment consultancy, call centre and co-workign space to support local startups. He managed to remove himself from the day to day running of these businesses and now helps entrepreneurs like you and rebuild successful businesses around their personal brand. He's worked with well-known entrepreneurs such as Pat Flynn, Gary Vaynerchuk, John Lee Dumas and John Jantsch. I'm also joined by John Auckland who is the founder of Tribe First, a crowdfunding support agency that works with startups both nationally and internationally, helping

"...I would go up on stage and I would trip and my nose would bleed... and then people would throw tomatoes at me..or even worse, potatoes, and then I would wake up in a ditch somewhere..naked". Pat Flynn has been called "the crash test dummy of online business" and in this interview you'll find out why. Forbes named him as one of the most transparent leaders in business  and the New York Times profiled him as a case study in smart online business building. He has a top-ranked business podcast with over 34 million downloads, a best-selling book "Will it fly?" and a number of successful seven figure businesses. Pat is well known globally as a global thought leader in the areas of online entrepreneurship, digital marketing and lifestyle business. We talk about how he overcame becoming redundant and found his own path and true passion in helping others build successful online businesses. We also speak to Seb Francis, co-founder of startup Titus Learning, and one of Richard Branson's self-appointed Virgin StartUp

"Work hard..any idea that you have can be come a reality just by sharing it and getting people inspired". Conker Spirit are at the forefront of the Gin Revolution. Founder Rupert Holloway talk us through his journey from self confessed "miserable surveyor" to happy head conkerer. Rupert has taken Conker Spirit from a one band foraging, distilling and marketing to building a team with his best friend and getting their gin stocked everywhere from farm shops to Fortnum and Masons.  Also on this episode I speak to David Humston, Virgin StartUp's youngest entrepreneur when at just 18, Virgin StartUp funded Viewpoint Videos who create personal action videos for extreme sports for customers of experience days. David talks about the challenges a young entrepreneur faces in being taken seriously and how he has used Virgin StartUp funding to grow his business to the point where one of his videos with a multiple world record holder received millions of downloads on Youtube. Here are their stories

"I can't accept failure. I can't have it. I will not accept failure..I'm not scared. I'm not frightened and I'm not going to fail". So spoke Ted Baker founder Ray Kelvin in the 2nd part to my live Q and A with him. Ray tells the story of how he started with one shop in Glasgow. He brings us right up to date with Ted Baker currently valued at £1.6 Billion, as well as his latest ventures. These include investing £80 million into the UK's number 1 Hilton hotel which he owns as well as launching This WorkSpace, his co-working vision set to rival We Work.  During the course of the interview he covers a lot of ground including the Grenfell fire tragedy, how stressful he finds it living in London as well as the importance of fishing... having a work life balance before finally offering opportunities to a student, a tailor and a model in the audience to work for Ted Baker. 

On today's show I'm joined by the billionaire founder of Ted Baker, Ray Kelvin cbe I hosted a 'live' Q & A with Ray at a sold out www.thiswork.space in Bournemouth at Ray's first brand new co-working space, set to rival We Work. We started with a question direct from Richard Branson on Necker Island and continued for over two hours. I have therefore divided the show into two parts. In Part 1 Ray tells us how he still works every saturday in a Ted Baker store, and still doesn't even own a computer! The self-titled "boy done good" goes on to share insights including how he built Ted Baker without any formal advertising based on "common sense", hugging (!) and his four 'P's': People, product, passion and profit. You don't want to miss any of this, it's pure gold dust. And as Ray says, anyone late at Ted Baker has to do press-ups..so get listening now!

Ollie Forsyth is the 'dyslexic entrepreneur'. Ollie first demonstrated his entrepreneurial traits at the age of just six years old when he started charging his parents 20p for making them tea and coffee..and again for refills. He formed his first business at the age of just 13, and despite being diagnosed with dyslexia, has gone on to form a number of companies, including launching The Budding Entrepreneur's Club in 2016 in the Shard with Levi Roots among others. Ollie talks to me about the importance of having a mentor, surrounding yourself with the right team as well as the future plans he has for The Budding Entrepreneurs Club. We also speak to Virgin StartUp Ambassador Darcy Ida from Idapod, who talks to us about her photo booths business and their uses..including attending an increasing number of funerals....

Jim Cregan joins me to talk about how he went from British building site to Australia and back again. In the process launching his own brand of Iced Coffee after not being able to find it in the UK when he came back from OZ. You can now get Jimmysicedcoffee in Tescos, Sainsbuys, Waitrose, Selfridges and even in Animal's clothing shops. We talk brand building through University tastings, his Ride Club, Cinema Club and festivals.   Also on todays show are sisters and Virgin StartUp ambassadors Michaela and Lois Wilson, who talk about their edible art business, Saint Aymes. We talk building a brand that transcends genres - whilst I eat their amazing chocolate that really does look too good to eat...

John Lee Dumas went from serving as a a US Army Officer in Iraq to generating over $10m in under 5 years. JLD has interviewed nearly 2,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs: from Gary Vaynerchuk to Tony Robbins, Tim Ferris and Seth Godin. He joins me on todays show to talk about the lessons he has taken from these interviews and has implemented in his own business - one of the world's top-ranked business podcasts offering free courses in webinars, podcasting and funnel-building. He also gives his top tips on increasing productivity, discipline and focus. Also joining me on todays show is Virgin StartUp ambassador Tom Birbeck from Arc Marine who is on a mission to increase awareness of ocean conservation. Arc Marine specialise in generating marine habitats by crowdfunding projects through marine-friendly artificial reefs - a subject close to Necker Island-living Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson

Vin has launched two websites that got to over a million visitors a month, got into the Techstars accelerator, was voted best talk at SXSW V2V 2016. His debut book/course "Secret Sauce: A step-by-step guide to growth hacking" has raised hundreds of thousands via crowdfunding and he joins us on todays show to tell us how he is able to grow early-stage companies through a combination of rapid social media growth, guerrilla community management tactics, and growth hacks which have seen companies go from zero to thousands of signups/followers/users virtually overnight. I'm also joined by Rob Manley who recently appeared on Dragon's Den and secured investment from Deborah Meaden for his glow in the dark t-shirts.

Steven Bartlett, the founder of Europe's fastest growing social media agency, Social Chain, joins me on todays show. Steven left University after just one lecture and has since gone on to create an agency built on harnessing social media influencers on social media platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and LinkedIn. With Social Chain under two years old, with a mentor in Gary Vaynerchuk and offices in London, Manchester, New York and Munich, he's certainly going places fast. We're also joined by William Ferriera, recent Virgin StartUp business of the month with the creative agency he co-founded, Unbxd, who like Steven set up his agency after quitting University. Seems to be a theme developing here...