All Episodes

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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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.

How many of the companies or people you admire got where they are by following a process? And how many took advantage of a lucky break or serendipitous pivot? We almost never think about the influence of chance on business strategy  — the randomness in the path to every success.
What if the biggest competitive advantage isn't better planning - it's embracing randomness? Looking for the serendipity in business? Matt Ballantine, sociologist and co-author of 'Random: How to Thrive in an Unpredictable World,' reveals why the business strategy playbooks overlook the chance encounters that actually shape breakthrough growth.
Matt has spent thirty years helping organisations try to change. In this conversation, he explains why organisational barriers tend to have deeply entrenched roots, why best practice is almost always survivorship bias in disguise, why the most exciting sports tend to have randomness built into the rules, and why pattern-spotting is both an asset and a blind spot for us humans.
Listen to this episode to learn:
Why the laminated notices in a company toilet tell you so much about its values
Why best practice is something you think you can install - and good practice is something you have to arrive at
What German researchers found when they studied the coin toss in penalty shootouts 
Why LLMs give you a different answer every time
The first act of randomness leaders should embrace
 
Links
Order Random the book: https://securityblendbooks.com/products/random
Connect with Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattballantine/
Related episode: #24 with Neil Mullarkey:https://podcast.curiousbusiness.co.uk/e/neil-mullarkey-improv-your-business/
Related episode: #6 with Dan Klein:https://podcast.curiousbusiness.co.uk/e/dan-klein-gen-ai-curiosity/
 
Chapters
00:54 — Sociologist or technologist? Why the distinction matters
01:56 — Baudrillard, McLuhan and the blurring of reality
04:15 — Why change keeps failing
05:26 — What grows back when you only deal with the surface
07:31 — The toilet test: reading company values in laminated notices
11:46 — Why Matt isn't a fan of best practice
13:08 — How a book about Random-ness came about
14:28 — Cards as a facilitation tool
16:48 — Apophenia: the compulsion to find patterns where none exist
18:34 — Who is the book for? Why is the book for?
19:12 — The format: why it's not really a book
25:03 — How the book can be used
25:56 — The five meanings of "random"
27:56 — Three reasons randomness is useful
28:34 — Facebook, Friends Reunited and survivorship bias in tech
30:06 — Businesses ofter don't like uncertainty — but they should
31:48 — The ovoid spheroid and randomness in sport
33:39 — Does randomness fly in the face of AI?
35:54 — The Watford employment agency: October 1993
38:15 — The first act of randomness every leader should embrace 
 
--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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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.

Most B2B software companies are leaving serious money on the table — not because the product isn't good enough, not because the sales team needs more training. It's the pricing strategy. It's not the number you choose, it's everything that comes before it.
Roee Hartuv is the founder of Willingness to Pay, a consultancy that helps B2B SaaS companies redesign product pricing and packaging from first principles. His philosophy is simple: stop pricing the product, start pricing the customer. B2B SaaS pricing strategy is the silent revenue multiplier most founders ignore. Discover how value-based pricing and packaging can transform your go-to-market strategy.
 
In this conversation, we get into:
Why the actual price you charge is probably the least important pricing decision you'll make
How the shift from SaaS to AI is destroying gross margins in ways most businesses aren't tracking
What 'operational debt' looks like and why bad pricing makes it harder to manage renewals
Why value selling as a sales methodology needs the right packaging to support it
What the shift from seat-based to usage-based pricing means for finance, investors and customers
Who's most likely to be getting pricing wrong
Whether you're setting prices for the first time or running a mature product business that hasn't revisited its model in years, this episode will make you think differently.
 
Connect with Roee:
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roeehartuv/
Willingness to Pay YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SaaSPricing/videos
 
Chapters:
00:58 — What is Willingness to Pay, and why does the name matter?
03:12 — When should a company start thinking seriously about pricing?
03:58 — Is changing your pricing as risky as it feels?
09:43 — What triggers companies to seek help with pricing?
14:20 — Is there a "right" price — or is pricing always a moving target?
18:14 — How AI is collapsing gross margins in real time
20:32 — The pricing stack: packaging → metric → structure → number
24:36 — Why value selling doesn't work without the right packaging
28:27 — 5x revenue in 18 months: what actually changed?
31:29 — The most counterintuitive thing about B2B pricing
37:01 — The one thing to do if you're moving into AI
 
--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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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.

We Invest In People is the oldest principle in venture capital. It's also, Soma Pirityi argues, the industry's longest-running paradox. 65% of startups fail due to team-related issues, not because they can't sell or find product market fit. So why can't we better measure, predict and guide startup teams to success? 
Soma is the founder of ETA Technologies, the Cambridge-based company that's on a mission to measure, model and inform team dynamics. They've analysed over 10,000 startup teams and built mathematical models to spot the patterns of success - and failure - and realised that the team is the soul of the company.
In this episode, we get into the data behind startup failure, the sometimes counterintuitive dimensions of what makes a great founding team, and why the single most predictive factor in startup survival is something most founders have never heard of.
Listen to find out:
Why VCs are beaten by a stock-picking algorithm when it comes to early-stage investing
What the team slide in a pitch deck actually tells investors
Why too much resilience can kill a company as surely as too little
What is the single most predictive factor in founding team survival
The one story that proves why ignoring a data model can cost you everything
Chapters:
0:00:54 — The founding paradox: investing in people you cannot measure
0:04:07 — From VC to founder: what crossing the table teaches you
0:05:59 — The negotiation nobody teaches founders
0:09:17 — Building ETA and why Cambridge beat Silicon Valley
0:12:35 — 65%: the startup killer nobody talks about
0:16:00 — The lone genius myth and the teams behind the icons
0:19:45 — Survivorship bias: why ETA studies failure, not success
0:26:29 — The Big 20: what ETA actually measures
0:32:37 — Synergistic support: the most predictive factor nobody has heard of
0:35:50 — Jim Simons: the mathematician who changed finance
0:41:12 — The death of the pitch deck
0:44:50 — The Frankenstein moment: testing their own team
Links:
ETA Technologies: https://eta-technologies.com/
Connect with Soma on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/soma-benedek-pirityi/
Book recommendations:
Peter Thiel with Blake Masters 'Zero to One' https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9780753555200 (affiliate links)
Gregory Zuckerman 'The Man Who Solved the Market' (Biography of Jim Simons and Renaissance Technologies)https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9780241309735
Ashlee Vance 'Elon Musk'https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9780753555644
 
--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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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.

You couldn't make it up. But Neil Mullarkey does. He co-founded the World Famous Comedy Store Players with Mike Myers, appeared in the Austin Powers films, and has spent 40 years making things up in front of live audiences. For the last 27 years, he's been sharing those skills in boardrooms, with teams, and even with cybersecurity experts. In this episode, discover why thinking on your feet isn't a party trick - it's a critical business strategy for leaders managing complex teams and uncertain moments.
His book In the Moment makes the case that the ability to listen, adapt, and build on what you're given isn't just good stagecraft. It's the most urgently needed skill in business. What's more, it's one that many teams and organisations struggle with. He argues, with warmth and hard‑won experience, that the same instincts that keep an improvised scene alive - listening, accepting an offer, and building on what’s been given - are the skills businesses desperately need to foster.
In this conversation, I learn about Neil's journey into improv and we get into mistakes, blame, trust, failure, permission, laughter, silos, scripts, chaos, a soda syphon, and the surprising thing a room full of cardiologists taught Neil about improvising at the sharp end.
Listen to find out:
Why laughter matters and 'mistakes' are rich creative material
Why the optimal team size is six, and what that has to do with improv
What a cybersecurity crisis has in common with a night at the Comedy Store
What cardiologists told Neil that changed his mind about improv in business
Why AI is making this deeply human skill more valuable, not less
 
Links:
Neil's book 'In the Moment':https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9781398610767
More about Neil and ImprovYourBusiness:https://neilmullarkey.com/
Connect with Neil on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilmullarkey/
A rare appearance by Neil with the Comedy Store Players on Sunday May 10th: https://www.comedystoreplayers.com/events/comedy-store-10052026
 
Chapters:
0:01:44 - More than a jolly: when to use improv and when not to
0:05:28 - How do you make it stick?
0:08:09 - Hackathons and the improv vs. structure tension
0:12:20 - The meetings chapter: tell, decide or implement?
0:13:21 - Permission, leaders and curating questions
0:15:08 - Origin story: from soda siphon to Comedy Store Players
0:19:32 - Confidence, failure and the improv stage
0:22:07 - Do you rehearse improvisation?
0:30:11 - What business pain does improv training address?
0:33:42 - Improv and cybersecurity crisis management
0:36:23 - The show must go on: mistakes, blame and Miles Davis
0:39:21 - Two pizza teams and the optimal team size
0:46:22 - Has anything changed in 27 years? AI and the human element
0:48:55 - Silos, shadowing and equifinality
0:53:05 - Improv or Best Practice? The cardiologists story
 
--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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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.

Chris Stone has spent 13 years in the podcast industry, creating audio and video content for major UK publishers like The Telegraph, Evening Standard and New Statesman. He also writes the Podcast Strategy Weekly newsletter. But there's a twist: he doesn't have a podcast of his own. Why?
Instead, he's launching Podcast Crew - a vetted marketplace solving a huge B2B gap in podcast production hiring. In this conversation, we explore why he chose to build infrastructure over personal brand, how podcasting fits into an overall content strategy, and how B2B leaders can apply this thinking to their own growth.
Chris also challenges some of the most common assumptions podcasters hold: that social clips drive listeners, that video is for younger audiences, and that everyone who wants to grow their business should start a show. He also has a lot to say about where podcasting is heading - and why AI and podcasts are good news for live, in-person events.
Listen to this episode to find out:
Why someone who has spent 13 years making podcasts for a living - and now advising other podcasters - doesn't have one himself
The question Chris asks every podcaster he meets, and why they often can't answer it
What social clips from your podcast are actually for
Why AI and podcasts are good for another, more conventional, medium
The dark web podcast Chris thinks everyone should hear
Why podcasts might be the most powerful community-building tool available right now
Chapters:
03:10 – The Telegraph, Prince Harry, and Bryony Gordon's Mad World
04:45 – Building the New Statesman's podcast from a cupboard to 200k YouTube subscribers
07:47 – The three skills that make podcasting work
09:46 – Going off-the-cuff at the Labour Party conference
12:08 – Why Chris started writing Podcast Strategy Weekly
16:06 – Why a podcast producer deliberately doesn't have a podcast
20:04 – How B2B podcasts build trust (and why that matters more than reach)
21:30 – The case for video in podcasting
24:37 – What social clips are actually for (it's not what you think)
29:56 – Why hiring in podcasting is broken
32:11 – Building on Airtable and Softr with a developer from Upwork
34:18 – The podcast everyone should hear
38:05 – Three big opportunities in podcasting right now
 
Links:
Podcast Strategy Weekly: https://podcaststrategy.substack.com/
Podcast Crew: https://www.podcastcrew.co.uk/
Connect with Chris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisstonetv/
Kill List podcast: search on any podcast app: https://wondery.com/shows/kill-list/
 
--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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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.

When brilliant engineering meets marketplace failure, something's broken. Justin Megawarne built Megaslice after watching technically excellent work fail commercially. He shares why go-to-market strategy is as critical as code quality, how his apprenticeship shaped his founder mindset, and what CTO-level leaders get wrong about taking products to market. A deep dive on bridging the gap between technical excellence and business success.
In this episode, Justin argues that the tech industry is structurally set up to fail its clients - through broken billing models, misaligned incentives, and methodologies that function primarily as ways to transfer liability to the client. He makes the case for value pricing as the more ethical model, explains why the right quality in a founder isn't confidence but arrogance, and outlines his approach to shared risk and long-term client relationships.
In this episode:
What Nobel Prize-winning economics has to do with your software agency
Why Hiring a Software Agency Is Like Buying a Used Car
The difference between outcomes and outputs — and why it matters
Just what is "the right level of arrogance" in a founder?
The interview question Justin uses instead of a coding test
Why Megaslice says 'work from wherever it makes sense' to its team
Why 'specialisation is for insects'
The single most important thing founders tend to get backwards
Links: 
More about Megaslice:https://megaslice.uk/
Connect with Justin on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmegawarne/
Chapters:
0:01:06 - Megaslice and Justin's background
0:06:33 - The Lemon Market problem
0:10:41 - Time and materials, Agile, and broken industry incentives
0:13:42 - Interest alignment and giving clients what they need
0:16:33 - Qualifying clients — founder profile, arrogance, and capital
0:21:48 - Why organisations find software so difficult
0:26:14 - Why start a company — and how Megaslice has changed
0:28:27 - Hiring for intrinsic motivation — and the hi-vis jacket story
0:35:01 - The biggest thing founders get wrong
0:38:16 - Who inspires Justin — the crackpots of history
--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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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.

How do you build and fund a business built around a mission that life-changing for your community but doesn’t represent a typical 10x opportunity for investors? Meet Kirsten Jack, founder of Uncommon, the online community where neurodivergent young people can connect, find their people, and build the support networks they need.
At a crossroads in a her career, Kirsten did more than change jobs. She answered a call she’d felt since childhood. Diagnosed with autism in her teens, she was shaped by years of navigating organisations not built for her. When she became a parent she found that the world’s newfound openness to neurodivergence wasn't translating into real support. She found long waiting lists, a patchwork of under-funded groups, and families left to improvise. That frustration sparked Uncommon, an online community built because Kirsten refused to wait for someone else to act.
Autism, ADHD, dyslexia and other types of neurodiversity aren’t rare. It affects somewhere between 10 and 15% of the population. However, many young people are undiagnosed (especially girls), and are navigating it without even knowing why things feel so hard. The scale of unmet need is significant, and it’s a gap that Uncommon exists to fill.
Listen to This Episode to Learn:
How she funded the start of the business and absolute must-haves when seeking funding for a purpose-led business
How to design a product around your most vulnerable users from day one, and why they pivoted their community focus early on
The honest truth about grant funding that has conditions attached - and the NHS contract that taught Kirsten the hard way
How Kirsten manages the decision fatigue of being a solo founder - and the simple habit that changed things for her
What success actually looks like for a business built around purpose
 
Chapters
1:00 - Building Uncommon: A Safe Space for Neurodivergent Youth
7:35 - Supporting Neurodivergent Employees in the Workplace
12:21 - Decision-Making Strategies for Solo Founders
14:20 - Building Early Support Systems for Youth Mental Health
16:59 - Challenges Faced by Neurodivergent Students in Mainstream Schools
19:22 - Supporting Neurodivergent Youth Through Flexible Online Programs
23:43 - Targeted Fundraising and Impactful Business Models
28:19 - Supporting Young People Through Clubs, Mentoring, and Fun
33:59 - Empowering Youth Through Safe and Supportive Creative Spaces
38:21 - Strategic Insights and Challenges in Educational Community Building
42:09 - Transformative Impact of Uncommon on Youth and Families
 
Links and Resources
Find out more about Uncommon:https://www.bemoreuncommon.com/
Read the testimonials from grateful parents:https://www.bemoreuncommon.com/testimonials
Connect with Kirsten on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsten-jack/
 
--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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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.

While competitors flood the market with shortcuts and artificial ingredients, Matt Hunt's Protein Ball Company built sustainable business growth the hard way. In this episode, Stephen Morris digs into the real business strategy behind 11 years of profitable operations—from logistics and cash flow management to the scaling decisions that aren't taught in accelerators. A deep dive into what it takes to grow smart, not just fast.
The Protein Ball Company was born eleven years ago after Matt Hunt spotted the rise of protein snacking at an LA trade show. What began in a small unit with a single machine is now exporting to 14 countries, with listings in Caffe Nero, Black Sheep Coffee and Flying Coffee Bean, and a major UK supermarket listing in the pipeline.
In this episode of Curious Business, Matt talks candidly about how Covid tanked their revenue from £4m to £1m overnight. He explains what kept the business alive, and why they’re committed to natural ingredients in a category dominated by the chemistry set - even when everyone told him they'd never scale if they didn't follow suit. 
Listen to this episode for some hard lessons about cashflow, hedging your bets, trusting your gut, and the fine margins of business:
Why private label manufacturing isn't a compromise, and why having the right private label customers could be what saves your business
How Matt sizes a new market without paying for expensive data, and the tests he runs to check his intuition
What a branding agency's "graveyard exercise" revealed about decisions they should have made years earlier - and how to apply it to your own business
The state of the protein market and why he thinks the ultra-processed food reckoning will eventually prove him right
How a business exporting to fourteen countries manages cash flow, liquidity and growth
 
Links from the episode
The Protein Ball Company: https://theproteinballco.com
The Protein Ball Company on Amazon:https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/TheProteinBallCo/page/70CB4F6A-D02B-4652-9F25-4931F0329B0B
Connect with Matt on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthunt001/
Robot Foods and the rebrand:https://www.robot-food.com/work/the-protein-ball-co/
 
Books mentioned
Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill (affiliate link)https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9781785042416
How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie (affiliate link)https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9781785042409
 
Other episodes mentioned:
Curious Business #12 with Ella McKay of Fatso:https://podcast.curiousbusiness.co.uk/e/ella-mckay-fatso-rebellious-branding/
 
Chapters
0:00:45 - Elevator pitch
0:01:09 - Why he started the business
0:02:06 - Why balls, not bars
0:03:44 - The main phases of growth over 11 years
0:05:32 - What does success actually look like?
0:07:10 - How the Caffe Nero listing came about
0:09:35 - Matt's background - the market, the olives, the degree
0:11:43 - Cash flow, hedging and keeping the business alive
0:12:37 - Why everything is in-house
0:13:41 - What Matt spends his time on
0:17:38 - Throwing some shade on the protein sector
0:20:42 - Trade shows as the engine of growth
0:22:45 - Why brand was deprioritised - and why it was time to rebrand
0:27:55 - New product development - certainty, failure and the kids' range
0:29:55 - Analytics vs. intuition
0:31:11 - Books, podcasts and the "turning the dials" idea
0:33:40 - Goals for the year ahead
--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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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 happens when a business strategist who despises AI-generated content builds an AI writing platform? Nigel Jay Cooper spent a decade coaching professionals on authentic LinkedIn presence—until he decided to fight the flood of "beige" ChatGPT posts by developing software. The twist: he used AI as his development team. In this episode, Stephen uncovers how business people can now develop software without code, why authentic storytelling still matters in the age of AI, and what it means for business strategy when your tools do the heavy lifting.
Nigel Jay Cooper found himself in exactly that position. He'd spent a decade training professionals and teams in employee advocacy to create authentic LinkedIn content. He was also determined to fight the flood of ‘beige’ content generated by ChatGPT et al - thoughtless, generic posts lacking personality and spark.
His first instinct was to fight against AI. But when everyone kept using it anyway, he realised he was fighting the wrong battle. The question wasn't whether people would use AI. The question was: can they use it in a way that reflects their personality, experience and humanity? So he set out to build Ghostart, even though he's not a software developer.
Listen to this episode of Curious Business as Nigel shares how he built Ghostart over the past year, and discusses:
The beige content crisis: Why AI-generated LinkedIn posts are "soul destroying" and how people remove themselves from their own voice
Building with AI: Using different models for different purposes, learning through trial and error, and managing the "700,000 suggestions you didn't want" that the LLMs tend to spit out
The technical journey: From two aborted platform attempts to the approach that makes AI development productive and effective
The Beige-ometer: Training an AI writing coach in rhythm, emotion, and storytelling - not optimising to LinkedIn's algorithm
Why your beta test should make you feel ashamed: The essential advice that propelled the platform forward
 
Chapters:
0:01:06 - The Beige Content Problem
0:04:27 - Who Ghost Art Serves
0:09:10 - Building with AI - The Vibe Coding Reality
0:11:47 - Tools and Techniques
0:17:31 - Keeping AI Focused
0:21:20 - The Hardest Parts to Build
0:27:17 - The Beta Launch
0:30:53 - What Users Actually Valued
0:35:47 - Lessons and Success
 
Links:
More about Ghostart and try it free:https://ghostart.io
Request a demo: https://ghostart.io/teams/demo
Connect with Nigel on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigeljaycooper/
 
--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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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.

Stephen Midgley—your host—took on an unexpected business strategy challenge: navigating broken systems trying to help a loved one trapped in coercive control. In this Curious Business deep dive, hear how he leaned on his background as a systems architect and ChatGPT to diagnose dysfunction, unlock hidden barriers, and build The LINDA Project. A powerful case study in using strategic thinking and AI to solve real-world access problems.In this episode of Curious Business, Stephen Midgley recounts how he navigated those challenges and leaned on Chat GPT and his background as a systems architect, to do something about it - for his mum, and now for others too. What follows is equal parts heartbreaking and baffling, as Stephen moves between police, hospitals, the care system, and other agencies. Each has their own language, arcane forms and reasons to say no, it seems.
Upon being bounced between agencies, the compassion of frontline staff was undermined by broken processes, so Stephen turned to AI. What began as a query on ChatGPT became a practical set of tools that can help others facing the same awful challenges.
Stephen describes balancing his time between building crude, command-line tools with spending precious hours with his mother. The system he’s developing, named LINDA in memory of his mum, is a translator, memory bank, assistant and also a tool to support charities working in the space. He wants to make hidden pathways visible and give people the options they often aren't told about.
What we cover:
What can happen when you ask for help
The "password problem": how using the wrong words can lock you out of help
Three patterns of broken systems
The LINDA tools: Using AI to translate policy language, surface hidden options, and compare policies against your experiences
Why AI should augment human support, not replace it
The 'non-crime' database field and his campaign for more transparency
Links and Resources:
The LINDA Project:https://www.keec.online/linda/
Change.org petition for transparency on domestic abuse non-crime closures:https://www.change.org/p/justice-for-linda-and-for-every-abuse-victim-erased-from-the-system
Stephen's original AI for the Rest of Us presentation: https://youtu.be/CkqwNYQIh6U?si=97nHD52r_49_j2tJ
Charities mentioned:
AAFDA – supporting families bereaved by domestic abuse:https://aafda.org.uk/
Disclaimer: Stephen Midgley is not a legal professional and nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.
Thanks to Jari Worsley for sharing Stephen's 'AI For The Rest of Us' talk with me in the first place:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jariworsley/ 
--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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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.

With ecosystems increasingly outperforming standalone firms, marketing leaders’ key skills may lie in their ability to get their organisations to influence, persuade, enable, and collaborate. In an ever-noisier and more complex market, the companies that can co-create, communicate and change to bring customers value tend to be the winners - but it requires a very different approach.  
In this episode, former three-time global CMO Leeya Hendricks makes the case for platform thinking in B2B marketing, where value is co-created across networks of customers, partners and complementors rather than pushed through linear channels. 
She shares insights from her new book The Platform Playbook and explains why the CMO is uniquely positioned to orchestrate ecosystem growth - connecting product, technology, data and partners around shared value.
What We Cover:
Why "platforms over pipelines" is the future of B2B marketing
The three misconceptions holding organisations back from platform thinking
A practical four-dimension framework for operating marketing as a platform
Why the funnel was always just a convenient model, not reality
How to measure ecosystem health beyond traditional marketing metrics
The unexpected cultural transformation that happens when organisations embrace co-creation
Key Takeaways
Platforms aren't technology - they're business models and systems of value creation
Customers trust ecosystems, not isolated brands
Sharing multiplies value in ecosystems, even though leaders fear it dilutes value
The CMO's role is to make silos more permeable, not destroy them
Think long-term stickiness, not short-term campaigns
 
About Leeya Hendricks
Leeya is the author of The Platform Playbook (Palgrave Macmillan), Managing Director of Hark Consultants, and has served in three global CMO roles across major technology companies including IBM and Oracle. She lectures in digital ecosystems and orchestration, and runs My Barre Vibes, a digital-first fitness platform.
 
Connect with Leeya on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-leeya-hendricks-120b95a/
 
Order The Platform Playbook (affiliate link):https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9783032080301
 
Find out more about My Barre Vibes:https://www.mybarrevibes.com/
--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. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their 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.