Curious Business: The B2B Growth Podcast

What if the businesses that survive a crisis aren't the ones with the best plans but the ones who've already lived through the toughest days they could face? In this episode, Nick Drage tells me about business wargaming - rehearsal, role-play and the surprisingly serious business of play.
A toolbox borrowed from military history and modern games that create structured experiments. Teams step into scenarios, play out mergers from the target's point of view, or simulate cyberattacks to see how they might make decisions on the fly.
Listen to hear how the boardroom becomes a battlefield: leaders wrestle with the instinct to ‘pull the plug’ during an attack, internal teams are asked to play the hacker, and simulations demonstrate that real life rarely behaves like a textbook drill. Nick seeks to provoke hard conversations that prepare us to be better in the moment. From cyber red-team work to the simple, humane lesson of having a will, he explains why being prepared isn’t negative or morbid; it’s caring for the future.
Listen to this episode if you want to find out:
Why this kind of play is serious
What a preparing for cybersecurity is like a fire drill - but the fire fights back
Why the most useful thing leaders can do with an acquisition target is pretend to be them
How making it "safe-to-fail" lets people make catastrophic mistakes on purpose, before it matters
Why VCs almost never stress-test founders the way a good war game would — but they should
What making a will has to do with surviving a cyberattack
Links:
Nick Drage / Path Dependence:https://www.pathdependence.co.uk/about/
The Handbook of Cyber War Games by John Curry & Nick Dragehttps://amzn.to/4yYi0yS (Affiliate Link)
Random: How to Thrive in an Unpredictable World by Matt Ballentine & Nick Dragehttps://securityblendbooks.com/products/random
UK Resilience Academy white paper, "Wargaming in a Resilience Context"https://ukresilienceacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/UKRA-Wargaming-Insight-Paper.pdf
Stone Paper Scissors:https://www.stonepaperscissors.co.uk/
Chapters:
0:00:49 — What is a business war game (and why the name is wrong)
0:04:53 — The master question: how a session actually gets built
0:09:15 — The fire drill where the fire fights back
0:10:45 — Giving your own staff permission to be evil
0:12:08 — The pen-test that made him unpopular in the office
0:13:11 — What separates a real war game from a strategy away-day
0:17:06 — Playing the enemy: what happens when leaders role-play a takeover
0:19:32 — Designing for disagreement, on purpose
0:21:06 — What his father's death taught him about planning and preparation
0:25:21 — Should VCs war-game founders before they invest?
0:28:45 — How to try this yourself, on a small scale
--Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. Listen to more episode via https://pod.link/1783648578.My name is Stephen Morris and I help you start a fire in your marketing and pipeline. Like to know more? Book a discovery call:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visit:www.curiousbusiness.co.uk.

Are you finding it harder and harder to cut through the marketing noise? More channels. More content. More options. How can businesses stand out and connect with people who need their help? What’s certain is that it’s no time to be timid when it comes to brand strategy.
Tara Cloak is Strategy Director at HB, a 25-year-old independent B2B marketing and creative agency working with clients including Microsoft, CBRE and Grant Thornton. She came to brand strategy through design, driven by a conviction that creative work without strategic intent doesn't have meaning. When a former marketing director colleague told her that design was just "colouring in", she set out to combine the magic and logic in everything she does.
In this conversation, Tara draws on HB's own recent rebrand - trying to escape the pigeonhole of their own success. She argues that the most important brand work happens long before and long after the guidelines are handed over. If you're a leader, marketer or entrepreneur rethinking your brand strategy and trying to stand out, this episode is for you.
Listen to this episode to learn:
Why "I need a new website" is almost never the real problem
What Veuve Clicquot reveals about the most dangerous decision in any rebrand
Why a ‘big reveal’ is usually the wrong approach to internal alignment
Brand results may take years to show up in tracking data, so what are the early signals to look for?
The one question to ask at your next board meeting that tells you whether your brand is in good health
Links:
HB: https://uk-hb.com/
Connect with Tara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taracloak/
Chapters:
0:00:59 - From ‘colouring in’ to brand strategy
0:07:07 - The Driving Idea: what guidelines can't do
0:09:01 - When your people are your brand - and why that's a risk
0:12:08 - Logic and magic: what the research process actually looks like
0:13:52 - Why you should talk to your client's clients
0:18:22 - Why clients rebrand - and whether they should
0:21:55 - Familiarity breeds contempt
0:23:47 - The hidden work: change management
0:26:14 - Limit the ta-da moments
0:29:03 - AI and the end of production value
0:31:37 - What makes a rebrand meaningful
0:32:08 - Rebranding the rebranders: did it work?
0:33:17 - The metric Tara actually trusts
0:35:36 - Brands live in brains
0:36:31 - The boardroom test
--Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. Listen to more episode via https://pod.link/1783648578.My name is Stephen Morris and I help you start a fire in your marketing and pipeline. Like to know more? Book a discovery call:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visit:www.curiousbusiness.co.uk.

Is what you're building actually connected to who you are? And would you know if it wasn't? Nish Sharma knew. He had the banking career, the best car, the best house, four holidays a year - and a question he couldn't shake: what am I actually doing? 
The answer arrived at his grandmother's funeral. In the grief that followed, he found a 100-year-old family story nobody had ever finished: a bootlegger great-grandfather who started an alcohol enterprise with a Scottish army officer in 1940. Nish decided to finish it — in Edinburgh, with a Scottish gin and rum that carries both worlds in, and on, the bottle.
What followed was anything but straightforward. Near-bankruptcy. A wall of silence from UK retailers despite offering to pay for the shelf space himself. He survived a heart attack and put it in an email to a buyer who kept saying no. He chased one contract for five years and felt flat when it finally landed.The private jet he always dreamed of? There's a model one on his desk. Now he drives a van.
Listen to this episode to find out:
What he actually wrote in an email to a buyer who'd repeatedly rejected him
How a bootlegger, a Scottish army officer, Indian passport holograms and the Gaelic word for tea ended up encoded in his bottles
Why angel investors who demand revenue proof before investing have got it backwards
Why his philosophy is "it has not worked, it is working just now" and what it means if you're building for the long term
What shaking hands with seven or eight billionaires taught him about wealth, success and what you actually need
Connect with Nish:
Rutland Square: https://www.rutlandsquarespirits.com/
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nishantsharma08/
Chapters:
00:55 — The business, the products, the team02:25 — "Who am I?" Assam, Punjab, Edinburgh04:59 — Banking: paid the bills, didn't serve a purpose07:13 — Four businesses that failed before this one08:44 — "It has not worked, it is working now"10:43 — What a decade in banking actually gave him14:15 — The global palate argument16:41 — The shelf space offer retailers turned down18:08 — The funeral and the 100-year legacy19:28 — "Stories live forever. Products don't."20:03 — The bottle: passports, tartan, 1940 and 202023:13 — Near-bankruptcy and the angel paradox25:14 — Why Scotch whisky is a generational business26:36 — How tech broke investor psychology27:07 — The bigger plan30:57 — "Elon Musk is going to Mars. I'm just building on Earth."31:31 — The van, the model jet, the payroll34:53 — The one thing he'd do differently
--Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. Listen to more episode via https://pod.link/1783648578.My name is Stephen Morris and I help you start a fire in your marketing and pipeline. Like to know more? Book a discovery call:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visit:www.curiousbusiness.co.uk.

What exactly is an entrepreneur in residence, and why would one of the UK’s largest food distributors deliberately plant a founder inside its business? What experience do you need, what is the host looking to achieve, and what do you actually do day-to-day?
In this episode of Curious Business, Stephen Morris sits down with Andrew Allen, a founder who built, bootstrapped and burned out through two food startups, and now bridges the gap between founder insights and enterprise strategy. Discover how a single advocate inside a large distributor joins dots, shapes go-to-market decisions, and reveals what actually works in B2B relationships when you're embedded in the system.
Whether you’re a founder trying to find growth, a leader pondering how to keep your organisation curious and creative, or simply fascinated by how big food can be a force for change, this episode explores how entrepreneurial thinking can influence the levers of scale.
Listen to this episode to find out:
Why getting your margin structure right on day one guarantees your product never sells
What "low barriers and high hurdles" really costs a founder 
What an entrepreneur in residence actually does all day
Why "what's in it for me?" is a stupid question in a startup but a completely valid one inside a corporate
The one-seat-one-vote system that lets a risk-averse business place more bets on new products and suppliers 
The overlooked kind of waste that Andrew says is bleeding food startups dry — and the two-hours-a-week fix
Links:
Andrew Allen on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmichaelallen/
Bidfood's Open Doors accelerator:https://www.bidfood.co.uk/about-us/open-doors/
 
Related episode:Getting a Business Through the Messy Middle with Jane Hales: https://podcast.curiousbusiness.co.uk/e/co-founder-conflicts-jane-hales/
Chapters:
02:20 — First meal to last meal: the channel nobody thinks about
03:26 — "Start from stupid" (and why you need to)
04:39 — Am I done founding? The honest answer
06:20 — The margin paradox that kills good products
07:00 — Snuffling Pig, Biffs, and low barriers / high hurdles
08:21 — The Selfridges trap
12:08 — What an entrepreneur in residence actually does
17:47 — The supplement that almost died on the shelf
20:35 — Why the big players man-marking the shelf isn't winning
23:45 — The corporate question startups never ask
28:49 — One seat, one vote: how to bet 50:50 on purpose
30:05 — Reframing a failed launch as validated feedback
31:27 — Bold Bean, and the power of joining the dots
37:21 — The real waste in food isn't food waste
39:51 — Two hours a week that would change the game
40:49 — Should every company have one of me?
--Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. Listen to more episode via https://pod.link/1783648578.My name is Stephen Morris and I help you start a fire in your marketing and pipeline. Like to know more? Book a discovery call:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visit:www.curiousbusiness.co.uk.

Two-thirds of co-founded businesses will lose a founder at some point. Sometimes it's dramatic, maybe even existential - businesses sold amid conflict go for circa 40% less. However, the personal toll - the sleepless nights, the stress - rarely gets mentioned because of the NDAs... Jane Hales is trying to stop it getting to that point.
After stepping out of a three-founder business herself, Jane now works with founding teams in what she calls the "messy middle" — the point where the original excitement has faded, something feels off, and nobody's quite sure why. You might call it marriage guidance counselling for co-founders. The more she explains it, the more obvious it becomes that this is a gap nobody else is filling.
In this conversation, Jane makes the case that most co-founder conflict isn't a strategy problem. It's an emotional problem — and most of us make it worse by trying to treat it with business tools.
Listen to this episode to find out:
What the Partner Hype Cycle is, and why the "trough of disillusionment" is normal — not a sign things have gone wrong
Why 50/50 equity feels fair, but can become a structural time bomb 
Which three legal documents every founding team should have — and what the crucial fourth one is
Why VCs treat a co-founder departure as a red flag, and what it does to your valuation
What a "conflict entrepreneur" is — and why you should be wary of them
How to tell the difference between good and bad conflict
Why the most important meeting in your co-founder calendar has nothing to do with the business
Chapters:
1:44 — Marriage guidance for co-founders and the Partner Hype Cycle
4:42 — The symptoms: unmet needs, poor communication, somatic signs
6:30 — The business prenup: worst-case questions and the 50/50 trap
9:32 — Three legal documents and the fourth emotional contract
11:20 — When friendships aren't enough: the funeral story
12:49 — Good conflict vs. bad conflict: trust, dissent and psychological safety
14:31 — Jane's own story: "I tried to solve an emotional problem with business tools"
17:26 — Beware conflict entrepreneurs
22:36 — Early warning signs and the checklist
27:18 — War stories: the £7m bankruptcy and the dropped trousers
29:42 — What to put in place: the prenup questions and the alignment rhythm
Get in touch with Jane:
Website: https://janehales.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-hales/
Grab Jane's co-founder conflict early-warning checklist: https://janehales.com/executive-alignment-gap-checklist-form/
Join the waitlist for Jane's book (working title) 'From Dream Team to Divorce?':https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScH972r9KhOB6UUGV2Bd6sxM9iHI-uFbbyln1Gw7h3kWoZ16w/viewform
 
--Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. Listen to more episode via https://pod.link/1783648578.My name is Stephen Morris and I help you start a fire in your marketing and pipeline. Like to know more? Book a discovery call:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visit:www.curiousbusiness.co.uk.

Work is fragmenting - but are B2B leaders ready? Matthew Knight has spent a decade studying lean teams and project-based freelance workforces. In this episode, we explore the real gaps between theory and practice: the hidden skills, processes, and mindset shifts companies overlook. If your business is going lean, you need to hear this.
Matthew Knight has spent the last decade studying exactly that question. He's an independent strategist, founder of the Independency Company, and through his research organisation Leapers he's worked with over 250,000 people navigating life outside permanent employment. He knows this world from the inside - and he has a few things to say about how most organisations are getting it wrong.
Matthew tells a human story: why people step into self-employment for control, flexibility and purpose, but how the reality often brings isolation, financial stress and a brutal learning curve. He shares how a Slack channel that became a community, and then Leapers research that has reached hundreds of thousands of freelancers. He argues the smartest companies are those that design for relationship, not just transaction - and that this design yields commercial as well as moral returns.
Listen to this episode to find out:
Why the biggest barrier to effective freelance relationships isn't contracts or money - it's something most organisations already struggle with
What "the Tinder-fication of talent" means, why it happened, and why it might be unwinding
What "lean core plus extended network" looks like as a deliberate operating model rather than an emergency stopgap
The difference between outcomes and outputs - and why it matters more when teams are assembled per project
What's happens to mentoring when senior talent ages out of agencies and junior roles started disappearing
References and links
Matthew Knight on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thinkplaymake
The Independency Company: https://the.independency.co/
Leapers annual research and resources for people working independently: https://www.leapers.co/
Related Curious Business episodes:
#27: Matt Ballantine on randomness and how organisations adapthttps://podcast.curiousbusiness.co.uk/e/matt-ballantine-random-the-book/
#24: Neil Mullarkey on improv as a frame for how people work togetherhttps://podcast.curiousbusiness.co.uk/e/neil-mullarkey-improv-your-business/
Chapter list
0:01:00 — From developer to independent strategist
0:03:08 — The trigger: one job, one Slack channel, one gap nobody was filling
0:06:15 — From community to research to advocacy
0:07:03 — Something like a union? Why one model can't solve it
0:08:10 — What stops agencies and freelancers working well together
0:10:41 — Why freelancers are better at navigating uncertainty
0:12:31 — Why people choose to freelance: control, flexibility, and necessity
0:15:09 — The lean core and the extended network
0:15:53 — Does the Chief Freelance Office already exist?
0:16:56 — The three Cs of contingent workforces
0:19:52 — From cost-minimisation to ROI: a new mindset
0:21:19 — Should freelancers push back on being told where to work?
0:22:13 — Outcomes vs. outputs: what freelancers can and can't control
0:24:17 — How the freelance market has changed in 10 years
0:25:06 — Tinder-fication of talent: platforms, commoditisation, and what next
0:26:03 — Accessibility, oversupply, and the changing freelancer demographic
0:27:23 — The Leapers survey: what the data actually shows
0:29:15 — Isolation, loneliness, and the knowledge gap
0:32:04 — A holistic approach: L&D, mentoring, mental health for everyone
0:32:48 — AI and the junior talent problem
0:33:38 — Are freelancers being used as mentors? What's actually happening
0:35:34 — "It has to be designed" — and why that's harder than it sounds
0:35:40 — The skills warning: 10, 12, 15 years until nobody has any
0:37:30 — Policy, the DCMS and the long game 
 
--Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. Listen to more episode via https://pod.link/1783648578.My name is Stephen Morris and I help you start a fire in your marketing and pipeline. Like to know more? Book a discovery call:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visit:www.curiousbusiness.co.uk.