Screw It Just DO It with Alex Chisnall

"Well our mission is to make hosting hassle-free for everyone and that's something that we're going to strive for and keep going. I'm not sure what success looks like but once we live in a world that's really easy to share and put your property on airbnb and booking.com and Expedia, then I think it's mission accomplished." Welcome to James Jenkins-Yates fom Airsorted. Airsorted provide airbnb hosts with a 24 hour hassle-free hosting platform, that basically amalgamates and services guest bookings from travel websites such as airbnb, Expedia and booking.com  The company handles the management of host properties from creating listings with photography, maintenance, restocking household items, to liaising with the guests themselves. Homesharing is obviously a booming industry and one of the key ingredients in the ever-growing sharing economy.  Last year on New Year's Eve alone, airbnb reported 3 million people had used the service and in 2016 80 million bookings had been made with projections of $100 million for 2017. Airsorted are already in 10 locations and by the end of 2019 the company aims to expand into 38 locations throughout the world. They've already raised a bunch of money and are curently overfunded on Seedrs. I spoke to James to find out how he came up with the idea.. Let's StartUp! 

"That's what you've got to do as an entrepreneur. You've got to see what other people haven't seen sometimes. You won't get it right all the time but boy, when you get that punt right, it's just fantastic And it's the best feeling in the world when you can pull that off." I welcome Kris Gumbrell, co-founder of Brewhouse & Kitchen, recently named best pub chain and best pub to work for at the Publican Awards. Kris is a fellow Cardiffian exiled to Bournemouth like myself. His brand is a really disruptive force in the pub industry and has come in like a breath of fresh air with 19 sites in the UK, 15 in the last 2 years alone. With 400 staff they are now the biggest brew chain in the UK and 2nd largest in Europe. With 300 different beers that are brewed onsite unique to each location, they have a brewing academy, hosted 8,000 brewing experience days and given 18,000 brewing masterclasses. We're in the pub - let's StartUp!

"Probably one of the best things that happenend to me in my life is that I got diagnosed with Stage IV melanoma cancer. It was a big health scare, I didn't know if I would be around in a year, and I asked myself if I was gone in a year and I don't have longer to live, what do I really want to do" On today's show I welcome Sean Greeley, CEO and founder of NPE Coaching. When you're 26 and you hear a doctor on the other end of the line say "I don't mean to scare you but it's stage IV melanoma cancer and you need to get to hospital immediately', your life changes in a very profound way.  Sean went from being a professional wakeboarder, competing for Team USA to founding and becoming CEO of Npe coaching. He went from a high school kid in New Engalnd, turning down scholarships in both track and field and music to move to Florida and follow his dream of competing professionally in wakeboarding.  He also walked out of his first class in business school leaving $10k of the first term's tuition behind. Sean's gone on to found and grow Npe, a company i've been privileged to be a part of, and been listed a number of times in the Inc 500 fastest growing privately-owned corporations in America. Let's StartUp!

"I think it was the tipping point where we saw, after running the company for some years, trying to reach out to people all the time and trying to engage these people. It's quite painful and it's a lot of energy that you have to give. It's then quite the opposite, people reach out to you and they want to work with you because what you do is meaningful and you really see the difference in your company. Your days are not the same days at all, it's much more exciting because you feel you are bridging a gap and people need you and everything you do is going that much faster." Julien Verdier is the co-founder of ad tech company, adyoulike, a global leading native in-feed platform. Launched in 2011 is is recognised as being a pioneer in native technology and creating advertising expereinces for users that mirror the websites they are visiting.  Adyoulike operates in more than 18 countries, has over 100 employees and has received funding from a French billionaire and then through VC's.  Julien originally started the business after quitting his job with his best friend back in 2010 and with no money they started Adyoulike.  I caught up with Julien to find out a litle more about what Adyoulike does. Let's StartUp!

"Running a startup is a rollercoaster, and there are constant up and downs. I think that the most important thing in those ups and downs as a person is identify when you're down and just telling youeself that this is something temporal.  Eventually you hit the bottom. And then you go back up. As long as you are aware that at the bottom you can only go up, and ou will go up eventually..you can probably overcome everything." I welcome Dror Ginzberg founder of Wochit. Dror has over 25 years of experience in technology with the focus on video and related tech. As co-founder and Ceo of Wochit, Dror provides over 600 global news brands, media brands, publishers and professional bloggers with the video creation platform for production of video content at scale and speed.  After starting his career in techhnology whilst serving with the Israeli defence forces, he's now on his second tech startup. And with offices in New York, London and Israel he's a man on the move. I manages to track him down at his home in Tel Aviv. Let's StartUp!

"...And when the government announced the smart meter rollout it was crucially the customers who owned that data. Not the energy suppliers, not the district network operators, that to me was a massive opportunity to say 'well hang on a second'. In a market where consumers feel more disempowered than any other market, all of a sudden they own the one asset that the industry needs to operate. That has to be a tool to rebalance the market." On today's show I welcome Jane Lucy, founder of energy disruptor labrador. Jane first worked with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to create the first collaborative communities around money and land and take on the supermarkets.  She has a really interesting backstory as a lawyer, single-mum and now as an energy disruptor. She created Labrador which tracks your energy use through your smart meter and automatically switches you to the best tariff. As one of he most expensive household bills, most of us doing nothing about it. We don't switch tariff, preferring to stick with one of the big 6 energy suppliers where we could be saving up to £300 annually by switching. I caught up with Jane to find out just how easy it can be.. Let's StartUp!

"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."   Join Jamie Spafford 'live' on March 28th in Bournemouth: Just visit the Eventbrite page for StartUpU. And on this week's show I speak to Jamie, Ben, 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. Let's StartUp!

"It was at that moment that I realised that a buyer and seller had a need, and that the current operators in that market weren't fulfilling that need, for whatever reason. It really got me thinking about the secondary ticket market...and I actually stumbled across this £3 Billion opportunity. Twenty-Four year old tech entrepreneur Luke Massie sold his first business aged just 17 for £96,000. Having invested £50,000 of that in his next startup, Vibe Tickets is now valued at over £6,000,000. With over 200,000 fans on social media and investment from Matt Newing, Scott Fletcher and Richard Branson, this "Air BNB" for concert tickets" is on a mission to stop ticket touts for good. We talk tickets, touts..and Ed Sheeran... Let's StartUp!

"I went to Manchster Met to study business management and I didn't register, but went down to where I thought my lecture was meant to be. I sat in the room for about half an hour and got very, very bored. I was convinced I was in the wrong room and I never went back. I went back to my halls of residence and I went down to the University and dropped out." Steven Bartlett, Co-Founder of Social Chain. See Steven Bartlett's Social Chain co-founder 'live' in Manchester on March 21st 2018 here:http://bit.ly/2FlewvR Social Chain is an award-winning and hugely innovative social media marketing agency, with a collective reach of over 200 million millennials across their platforms and an enviable global client portfolio that includes Apple, McDonalds, and the BBC. Social Chain was set up in 2014 by two young entrepreneurs - Steve Bartlett and Dom McGregor - who dropped out of university to pursue their business venture. Dom McGregor, Social Chain Co-Founder, tells us how they made it. How it all began Steven Bartlett moved to Manchester to enroll on a Business Management course at Manchester Metropolitan University, but that didn’t last long with the business vision he had on the side. Steven wanted to create a social media-assisted platform based on common interests and university life, designed to connect students in the same city. He envisioned it as a place where students from the same cities could connect, to share anything from advertising an event to selling old textbooks; a Gumtree for students. So with that in mind, he dropped out of university to focus His energy on Wallpark. Whilst working to grow Wallpark, one of the main things Steven learnt more about was the behavior of young people on social media, on Twitter in particular. During this time Steven stumbled upon a Twitter page aimed at students run by a student at Edinburgh University; his name was Dominic McGregor. Dom was posting extremely funny and relatable student content that in turn attracted thousands of followers. He saw the opportunity to use these platforms to connect a brand with its audience. If there was a way to weave a brand’s message seamlessly into the page, and engagement and following wouldn’t suffer, Steven wanted to create it. Steven got in touch with Dom and shared his vision, and soon enough he ended up ditching his studies too. Together they set up Social Chain...  

"I think I had done what I wanted to do out of that. I didn't feel like I needed to prove myself in anythig so I think I could take more risks. It didn't really matter in a personal sense at that time. It matters enormously to me now but in that sense it was a bit of an experiement and if it didn't work then there was plenty of consulting out there, etc..it gave me some freedom to think about it in that way." On today's show I welcome Ed Molyneux, founder of Freeagent. Microbusinesses constitute 98% of all businesses, and most of them hate having to manage their finances. Meet Ed Molyneux, former RAF figher pilot turned Freeagent founder, an online accounting system for freelancers and small businesses like you and me. Ed originally trained with the US Airforce in Texas before two tours of duty in the Balkans with the RAF. He left to set up as a defence technology consultant, beore becoming frustrated with the lack of bookeeping software for small businesses and finally getting a tax bill at the end of the year, which came as a bit of a shock. Fast forward to 2018 and Ed has now floated Freeagent on the AIM, raising over £10 million and prior to that raised £9 million through a combination of crowdfunding, angel investment and bank loans. We talk risk, growth and of course...fighet jets. Let's startup!