I was gonnae

This week’s #Iwasgonnae podcast guest is Michael Groves – Founder and CEO of Topolytics.

Michael Groves grew up in Birkenhead and didn’t really enjoy his time at school but was ‘OK academically’ but enjoyed his upbringing especially having a father in showbusiness. Michael tells us that watching his father and his folk band The Spinners taught him a lot about entrepreneurialism and tells us he is often asked ‘why do you do what you do now’, and his reply is ‘let me tell you about folk music’. And speaks very passionately about the Spinners brand and how this reflects within his own #business #branding.

Michaels early years of his #career was working as an #environmental consultant having a PhD in forestry this inspired his desire and got involved in auditing all over Indonesia’s forest management.

In 1998 he co-founded Great Circle to provide sustainable reporting as he and his then partner ‘had had poor experiences as employees, so why don’t we start our own business’ and wrote the business plan in a pub in Auckland!

Presently Michael is the Founder and CEO of Topolytics a data aggregation company monitoring UK waste and he and his wife have also successfully designed and produced a portable baby chair called the Totseat.

As you will hear on the podcast Michael is one of those #entrepreneurs that sees an issue and wants to find its solution. Listen to more of Michael's life stories now on the I was Gonnae podcast.

This week I Was Gonnaes guest is Bruce Walker joint founder and CEO of Future X.

In 2011 Bruce started his first business, WeAreTheFuture aged 17 from a high school classroom in Scotland, with a mission to inspire and connect entrepreneurs from around the world. Bruce tells us, ‘he has been on this crazy journey, reaching out to the most successful people he can think of’, he started his business off by sending ‘Lord Sugar an email and then Michele Mone, and Tom Hunter he was asking if they would attend one of the events he was organising. Eventually, his persistency was rewarded, and he received replies from some of the most successful people in the world and also received an endorsement from Lord Sugars company.

He tells us a story of a friend who sent a tweet to Richard Branson and got a reply to say that he may be at a charity and suggested that if she attended the event, she may meet him. After raising $2000 to attend the event she did meet Richard Branson and persuaded him to invest $1m into her company. The same friend then invited Bruce over to the states which really ignited his entrepreneurial spirit and continued developing connections with businesses within Silicon Valley and all over the world.

Moving forward Bruce has delivered global summits and programmes in Edinburgh, London, Berlin, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen, partnering with global brands.

Hear more of his life story now on the I Was Gonnae podcast..

Lawrence was born in Rottenrow hospital in Glasgow but as he puts it ‘made in the Royal Navy’.

Lawrence tells us that he knew that early on academia at school wasn’t for him and one day at the age of 14 ‘my mum and dad took me through to Rosyth Navy days’ ‘and wandered around the ships and saw where they had been in the world and from that day that’s what I wanted'.

For the next 20 years, Lawrence served in the Navy spending time in many Navy bases and traveled the world, and progressed through to becoming Master at Arms. During these years he tells us he ‘was lucky enough to visit all sorts of places Hong Kong, Singapore, Middle East all over Europe’ and ‘had fantastic experiences. And remembers being on board HMS Intrepid during the Falklands conflict.

After 20 years’ service ‘I had a decision to make to come out and do something else or take my pension’ his concern at returning to civilian life was ‘sometimes service people are pigeonholed as what they may be as employees’. But wanted to prove to himself that he could make a success of civilian life.

Progress several years on and Lawrence has set up Azure a company involved in hospitality and tells us the story of pitching to Sir David Murray for the catering contract for Rangers FC and serving during match days responsible for coordinating an operation which consisted of 1500 staff. Before selling Lawrence and his team had expanded the business significantly with a turnover of £15m.

Lawrence is now the MD of the Good Coffee company a business he has built to enable him to also put ‘something back into the community.

Next year Lawrence has challenged himself to do Everest base camp.

When asked what his advice to the next generation he told us-

‘ I urge you to travel as far and as much as possible, work ridiculous shifts to save your money, go without the latest iPhone, throw yourself out of your comfort zone, find out how other people live, and realise that the world is a much bigger place than the town that you live in. And when you come home, home may still be the same and yes you may go back to the same old job but something in your mind will have changed but trust me that changes everything’.

This weeks guest is John McGlynn - Businessman and Entrepreneur 

Paisley has a long history of successful people from the Coats and Clarkes to more recent times Gerry Rafferty, Gerrard Butler, Paulo Nutini, Archie Gemmel, Derek McInnes, Andrew Neil, and #entrepreneur and businessman John McGlynn.

John was also born and educated in Paisley knew from an early age he wanted to get into #business, he ‘loved attending school but hated academia’ and ‘hated learning subjects which I knew would be utterly useless for a #career in business’.

John tells us Accounts and Law have been ‘utterly invaluable’ to him ‘for what he does day to day’, ‘if you are going to be in business in any capacity if you don’t know your numbers your dead in the water’.

John remembers to this day the exact date of setting up his first business and always knew he had to set ‘really tough’ targets but says it's equally important to have rewards for achieving them. And at the age of 21, he rewarded himself with ‘a Porsche and had to sit and look at it for 2weeks as no one would insure me!’

John says, ‘the definition of an entrepreneur is someone that stands up more times than they fall down’. And ‘has no doubt in my mind the best talent in the world is in Scotland’. He was involved in the ‘entrepreneurial exchange in 1999 and was exposed to the best businesspeople in the world, Sir Tom Farmer, Brian Soutter, Sir Ian Wood, Jim McColl, and Lord Haughey and I went along (to the meetings) like a sponge’.

John's best piece of advice to pass on to others ‘if someone offers you their word or their bond, take their bond!’

Listen to more of John's amazing life story now on the #IWasGonnae Podcast.

This week I was gonnaes guest is Martin Gilbert.

Martin Gilbert is one of the longest-serving CEOs in the ftse and co-founder of Aberdeen Asset Management. Martin calls home Aberdeen but spends his time between London and Aberdeen.

Having been born and educated firstly in Malaysia and then in Aberdeen he says this was ‘the great stroke of luck in his life’ having been born and having time in Asia, and then says it later gave him the ‘confidence to build the asset management business', which then ‘was one of the first asset companies to locate in Singapore in the early 90s’.

Martin observes from his education that he finds it interesting ‘that the (academic) B class pupils at school often end up employing the(academic) A class pupils in business’.

Martins’ advice to any student or new entrepreneur is ‘that it better to try and fail than never to try at all’ and ‘wishes more people would set up their own businesses'.

Becky Woodhouse - Founder and CEO of Pure Spa and Beauty

Spending 2 1/2months of the COVID lockdown stranded in Bangkok gave Becky Woodhouse time to reflect on her Pure Spa and beauty business. Uncertain if the business she had built up over nearly 20 years could survive a pandemic. But as you will hear Becky is extremely resilient, hardworking, and always finds a way.

Becky was born in Norwich and at the age of 10 her resilience was apparent when she had to fight her case in an education system which she says ‘felt like they expected her to fail’ and they had ‘No real expectation about students going to University’. ‘Maths sits well with me’ and she thought ‘perhaps a rounded business career would suit’ and started applying to some accountancy firms. Becky was initially rejected from PWC and was so upset at the rejection that she ‘hot-footed it down to the PWC offices and said I am definitely the person you need for this job; you need to reinterview me!’ and was subsequently offered the job.

At 27, Becky founded the Pure Spa and beauty business and takes a lease on her first premises and ended up her dad and Becky completed the fit-out of the shop themselves, painting the walls alongside her 6-month-old baby! Shop fit-out completed she realised she could open the shop but had forgotten to think about marketing the business so purchased 10000 leaflets and hand-delivered these leaflets to tenement flats these with her son Morgan in a pram! - ‘There is no easy way to build up a customer base there are no shortcuts, you have to put in the hours, put in the work’.

Listen to more of Becky’s story now.

John Ward - CEO of Livingston FC and CEO of Spring Group

John Ward grew up in ‘quite a big family’ ‘on a council estate in Boghall’ and ‘didn’t have much money’ ‘and when you went to school you were kind of invisible’. He also describes himself back then as ‘really shy and went to school with a pair of NHS glasses with a bit of Sellotape holding them together in the middle, so it doesn’t make you very attractive to girls!’.

In his 3rd year at school, John realised he needed to do something and decided to take a trip to his career adviser and says’ it was almost as if the adviser’s role was to tell him what he couldn’t be’.

Needless to say, John didn’t take the advice or lack of and moved into employment and developed exponentially into senior management.

Moving forward John has built and sold his own businesses, mentored many businesses voluntarily with Scottish Enterprise, helped on the children’s panel in Livingston for 13 years, and is currently the CEO of Livingston FC and CEO of the Spring Group.

Out with business, music has played a large part within John’s life playing in a punk bank from a young age and has ‘always loved musicians that just want to be a musician, they don’t care about becoming famous, they just love getting out singing and playing’. John says he ‘likes the balance of having some creative skills and applying some of that creative stuff to business thinking in order to come up with solutions and solve problems’.

John’s advice to pass on to the next generation ‘no matter what you’re doing surround yourself with people you like and find as much joy in life as you can’.

Listen to find out more of Johns amazing life story

Mariessa Devlin - Entrepreneur

Mariessa Devlin was once told by her guidance teacher that ‘you're not going to get the grades’ ‘university is not for you’. She didn’t let that hold her back.

After moving to Glasgow to study at University she watched one of her friends who was always ‘buzzing and making things for her primary school’ and this was the pivot for Mariessa to decide that she wanted to become involved in teaching.

Mariessa tells us that she ‘loved teaching, what I did not enjoy as much was the bureaucracy and politics’, ‘but primary teaching was a door to what my business became’ and ‘making a difference to children’

Being seconded to Coca-cola to become their education manager and working with ‘one of the most inspirational bosses’ the marketing manager who taught Mariessa how to live and breathe a brand and that ‘decisions could be made very very quickly’.

Mariessa says ‘if it wasn’t for her husband Bernie, it wouldn’t have existed’ she was of course talking about their Enchanted Forrest nursery business. ‘My big dream’ was to open up a nursery and when she met Bernie he said ‘will you please stop talking about it and just do it!’

Moving on 6 years they had built a business of 5 nurseries employing 120 staff. ‘The biggest part of our success was having the right people surrounding us’

Listen now to the #Iwasgonnae podcast to hear more aof Mariessa's incredible life journey.

This week's guest is Craig Perkins. Craig is one of those #entrepreneurs that can’t sit still. Whether it's working within his Key Reservations 🏟business taking booking for his corporate clients, taking some corporate clients ‘doon the water for a dram’ on his Yacht’⛵or working on his latest business venture Tower Consultants supplying employees into the hotel trade, Craig never sits still. At an early age Craig ‘did everything not to be at school’ and now has to try to tell his kids ‘not to do that’! Craig from the age of 14 started his own Saturday business working washing cars and knew if he worked, he could get money in his pocket. And that was me on my journey, I never looked back’.

Listen now to #Iwasgonnae #podcast 44 to hear Craig's life and career development from Williamwood school to entrepreneur and becoming a home schoolteacher during lockdown!

The #Subclub nightclub in Glasgow was voted 16thbest nightclub in the world, Paul says about the Subclub ‘people in Glasgow just love to party’, ‘that validation of being one of the best clubs in the world ’was an incredible high for us all. However, it was hard work from examining every detail of the sound system to creating their own font specific to the Subclub. Although Paul also remembers some of the hard times, like during the credit crunch years and ‘having to pay wages using my credit card’

No matter if it’s for nightclubs like the Subclub or Smart City products or more recently Panther milk and Yoxa Fit Paul's passion for what he does shines brightly like a human neon billboard for his businesses.

Talking about Panther milk Paul tells us about traveling to Barcelona with a few of his friends to the Sonar music festival and ‘one of the local music promoters took us to the Avesta bar in the Gothic quarter and introduced us to Leche de Pantera’, ‘so the first night that we were in Avesta bar I was with my girlfriend and a few others and I can't tell you much about what happened after that!’ This was the start of Paul's fascination with producing #PantherMilk which is now available on Amazon.

Paul's career highlight- ‘is still having the friends that were involved with me at the start’.

Listen now to find out more about Paul Crawford's amazing life journey on Spotify.