Screw It Just DO It with Alex Chisnall

"It was selling slower than we thought, only because we were still only letting tech businesses in. So we had recruiters turn up, agencies, and we told them we couldn't accommodate them because we were focused on creating an atmosphere for tech businesses. And that was hard to do when available funds in the bank were at one point two thousand pounds and we had quite a lot of bills to pay..and that's available funds..we were deep into overdraft." On today's show I speak to David Galsworthy, co-founder of Techspace, Europe's co-working space for tech scale-ups in London and Berlin. Tech space now has six properties in London with a community of over 1,500 people and has recently opened a new space in Berlin. David's first forays as an entrepreneur were in the wild west of Ecuador over twenty years ago. He's now the proud co-owner of some of the best looking and best value co-working spaces i've seen.  And with demand outstripping supply he believes we're still nowhere near saturation point.  Tonight we're also 'live' at Thisworkspace in Bournemouth with Xero co-founder Gary Turner and the Richmond Group's James Benamor.Go to the StartUPU eventbrite page to come down and ask YOUR questions!

"The scariest bit is committing to it. Once you've done that each day is fine. People think it's this terrifying thing but if you didn't have a job for two months you'd manage. And after two months if it wasn't going that well you can apply for normal jobs...or if it is going well, take each day as it comes." On today's show I welcome Tom Putnam, co-founder of beeline, a startup making a smart navigation system for urban cyclists alongside a community platform to enable people to share and inspire great experiences. Beeline have an army of investors from successful crowdfunding campaigns on both Kickstarter and Seedrs including tennis star Andy Murray. I caught up with Tom to find out how they raised the money, what they did with it and how they have built their team. Screw it, Just do it 'live'! Tickets available http://bit.ly/2FUnkJJ  

"So that is absolutely the right thing to do...that is what we have refused to do each and every time. Partly because we're foolish and partly because we like a challenge. But also because it doesn't feel like the most effective way to test the market proposition. So you're much less likely to succeed if you don't have probably 50% of whatever your target is pre-agreed upfront. If you don't have all your backers lined up which we didn't you'll probably fail." On today's show I welcome the duo behind Thomas Clipper who are disrupting the male grooming industry scene, one crowdfunded product after another. Matt Brown and Antonio Weiss have crowdfunded their grooming products six times since they started nearly four years ago. From their initial classic old school razor to last years cologne launch they have sold their male grooming products in over 44 countries as they look to improve our morning shaving rituals.  I caught up with both to find out more - let's StartUp!

"It was fairly difficult. It was more difficult to retain our first customers  than get them onboard. Acquiring the first few customers wasn't a big thing.  It was retaining them and stopping the churn rate them. It was one of our downfalls at the start, we didn't onboard them fully. We didn't have our customer support in place. What we quickly understood was that getting customers was isn't as hard as retaining them." On today's episode of StartUp Saturday I welcome Dominic Chapman, co-founder of StemX.  StemX are a video interviewing platform for recruiters, HR teams and business owners. Designed to enhance and simplify both employer and employee experiences online. Dom's mission is to disrupt the recruitment industry where candidates are assessed on more important qualities than what's just written on a CV.  Let's StartUp!

'I wanted to become a millionaire so I could help a lot of people. But then I realised that I could use my knowledge to build something, and as it scales, it can create impact. If I can make money in the process then I can invest in other young entrepreneurs and their ideas as people have been doing with me. I would like to give back to society, not only with the product but with knowledge and capital. I think this way, if everything goes well, I can achieve it." On today's show I welcome Marco Barbosa, founder of E-Solidar, which is a global, giving marketplace that allows people to shop, sell and donate to their favourite charitable causes. Now, many charities have yet to fully grasp the opportunity that technology offers and we obviously live in a world where we all use the internet to do a variety of things such as shopping, dating and consuming a variety of products and services. Yet, only a small percentage of charitable giving occurs online.  So, E-Solidar's goal is to provide a platform that allows all members of the charitable community to interact in a single marketplace. To date, they've raised just under €1,000,000 and were recently named in the Forbes '30 under 30' list for social entrepreneurship.  Let's startup!

"It's been absolutely brilliant. I've had the best year. If you'd have asked me if I'd be in this position last year I'd have said absolutely not and I feel very lucky. I have worked incredibly hard over the last 12 months but we went into the Liberty store a few weeks ago..and it's a nice journey to be on at the moment." Happy New Year! on today's show I welcome Hayley Measures from Born Nouli - Greek for 'being born fearless". Hayley initially supplied base layers to the British ski and snowboard association and which has now evolved into gym and yoga activewear leggings. Hayley shares how she quit her day job after she got sick of buying 'How to' books on Amazon.  For those of you still thinking about starting a business, Hayley tells of her struggles juggling a career, motherhood and a long-distance relationship with her partner in the French Alps, and going all-in with Born Nouli: Being born fearless.

"We're in this stage where you have no money again. And we've had the same problem twelve times. We've run out of money every single time we've done it. I wish someone had turned around to me at some point and gone 'listen, process, absorb'. Just listen to people. At the end of the day everybody turned round to me and said you're going to run out of cash...and I said 'no, no, no we're not going to run out of cash at all'. And..we ran out of cash. We ran out of cash three times until I realised that there's a lot more to running a restaurant and running a business than meets the eye." On today's show I bring you a taste of one of our 'live' events in anticipation of our first 'live' events of 2018 starting later this month. I welcome Andy Lennox from Koh Thai Tapas. Koh was founded in 2009 at the height of the recession when he had a choice of properties with low rent, but the challenge of having no capital from the banks. Andy opened the first restaurant in Bournemouth in 2009, winning restaurant of the year in its first year. This led to many more restaurant openings, fast forward to 2018 and they now have thirteen locations across the south of England. Andy started with £7,000 and three staff and a first year turnover of £20,000. In 2018 they now have 350 staff and a turnover of £12,000,000. Here's how he did it.  

I hope you had an awesome Christmas and are looking forward to an amazing new year. I interview Alessandra Sollberg founder of Evermore Health who are revolutionising the functional nutrition space that leverage personalisation. Alessandra grew up speaking 6 languages and got into the nutrition space after teaching windsurfing and snowboarding. After graduating from Oxford University she spent time in startups before spending time as an investor with private equity and venture capital firms. She now has her own funded nutritional startup and I recently spoke to her to find out more.

"So with Jonno and I, there was a very clear moment I can remember when I said, 'If we're gonna go ahead and do this...when it's on, it's on...'And we made that clear decision that we're dedicating the next years of our lives to doing this and that's what we did. We quit our jobs and we were all in." I speak to Tim Fung, founder of Airtasker, an online marketplace that allows people to outsource tasks and errands to people in their local community. Airtasker was founded in 2012 in Australia, now has over a million members and is launching in the UK in early 2018.  So if you're looking to make money from tasks, the practical such as moving furniture, right to the outrageously decadent such as paying someone to wait in line to buy you the latest iPhone then listen up. On today's episode Tim and I speak about a whole bunch of different things from raising finance to building a team.

"At the start of this bus journey this american traveller sat next to me and asked me what I did. I explained I wasn't too happy with my job and he basically said something that changed my life. He said if you're not happy you should do the rocking chair test. Essentially this is to imagine sitting in your rocking chair at the age of 90 and thinking about your legacy in the world, who you have helped, have you left the world in a better place, who's going to remember you, and for why. That was a pretty profound moment at the start of an eighteen hour bus journey. I was thirty minutes in going "No, no, no. I haven't done anything of any significance that's going to make a difference in the world. If I died tomorrow no-one's going to remember me. I've not left the world in a bette place and that really struck me hard. Whilst everyone else was asleep on the bus I was bolt upright thinking about my life about what I need to do to make changes." I speak to Cemal Ezel, founder of social enterprise Change Please. Last month Cemal was crowned Lloyds Bank Social Entrepreneur of the Year. Change Please essentially uses coffee to tackle homelessness by training homeless people to become baristas and providing a London living wage job, housing, a bank account, therapy and support. Selling coffee across London through mobile vans, Change Please coffee is now being stocked in Sainsbury's supermarkets nationwide and with locations in New York and San Francisco after a chance encounter on Richard Branson's Necker Island the future is one of hope and promise. Cemal and I talk about the rocking chair test, regular reviewing and celebrating, networking..plus rocketships and parachutes..stay with us on that one.. Wishing you a very Happy Christmas - spare a thought (and some change) for those who are homeless this Christmas. Donations to Change Please.