Roei Samuels was nearly thrown out of school at 14. He was selling burned CDs in the schoolyard before most people knew what a side hustle was. Years later he grew the sports media company RealSport to 9.5 million monthly users and engineered the buyer into acquiring the whole business. Then he did something most founders never would: he walked on stage and tried stand up comedy.In this episode Roei breaks down the real blueprint for building a company in 2026. We get into the brutal truth about selling a business that nobody tells you, the £40k in the bank while burning £800k a month, the story behind Connected (now the 18th fastest growing company in the UK), the AI opportunity he would chase if he were 20 today, and why ADHD has been his single biggest advantage.ABOUT THE GUEST:Roei Samuels is a serial entrepreneur. He scaled and exited the sports media company RealSport and now runs Connected, ranked 18th by The Sunday Times for the fastest growing companies in the UK and 67th by the Financial Times across Europe.

ABOUT IN THE BUSINESS:What's Your Step One? is the podcast from In The Business (ITB), where we sit down with founders to find the very first move that started it all.

Subscribe so you never miss an episode.

#WhatsYourStepOne #InTheBusiness #Entrepreneurship #StartupPodcast #RoySamuels #BusinessIn2026 #FoundersJourney

They were told they'd never amount to anything. Now they've got 20+ million views on a single video, cleaned a TfL train, and stopped Simon Squibb in the street.The Maka Twins went from being "looked down upon" their whole childhood and getting a Chatterbox award in primary school, to building one of the UK's most-watched cleaning brands, cleaning TfL trains, airplanes and Big Ben ambitions, pulling 64,000 new followers from a single video and racking up 20+ million views on one branded post for Carhartt. This is their full story.

In this episode of In The Business podcast, James and John open up about growing up with no entrepreneurial role models, why their first business flopped when all they cared about was margins, the dream that sparked their student cleaning company, the moment they decided to clean places nobody asked them to clean, bumping into Simon Squibb on the street, how they really think about mentorship, and why "boring businesses make the most money."

Whether you're a young entrepreneur just starting out or someone trying to build a brand from zero, this one's for you.

🎙️ In The Business is a podcast for young entrepreneurs, hosted by Harrison Turner and Tom Mumford. We sit down with founders who've built real businesses, from their step one to the first million, and unpack the stories behind the success.If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe and leave a comment telling us your biggest takeaway.

FOLLOW IN THE BUSINESS👇

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harrisonturnerofficial/

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inthebusinessofficial/

🌐 Website: https://inthebusiness.club/

FOLLOW THE MAKA TWINS 👇

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themakatwins/

🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@themakatwins

🌐 Website: https://makagroupservices.com/about-us

Entrepreneur Tawhid Juneja went from earning £150K/month in healthcare recruitment to cocaine addiction, £2.4M bankruptcy, and 33 months in prison. Now he's rebuilt, owning businesses and football club AFC Welwyn. This is his full story.In this episode of In The Business podcast, Tawhid opens up about growing up with a single mum, building his first recruitment business, how the 2008 recession forced him to pivot into healthcare, the ego and addiction that came with making serious money, what it was really like inside a prison cell, and how he rebuilt his entire life with a £20K loan from his aunt and no mobile phone contract.Whether you're a young entrepreneur just starting out or someone going through a tough time, this one's for you.

0:00 Intro

1:13 Growing up with a single mum

2:09 First business: rec-to-rec recruitment

5:04 Healthcare recruitment, garage to Ed Miliband

6:41 When the drugs started

9:05 How addiction escalated with money

10:02 Drug culture in sales environments

13:30 "I didn't realise until I was in a prison cell"

15:02 Taking cocaine into his own sentencing

16:09 From the high life to prison

18:33 £2.4 million bankruptcy and losing everything

19:56 Mansion to sheltered accommodation to prison cell

23:19 Making £150K/month at the peak

23:35 Rebuilding from zero with a £20K loan

25:42 Running a business from pub wifi on a brick wall

26:18 Advice for young entrepreneurs starting from nothing

27:42 What good market research actually looks like

38:19 Using AI to scale a recruitment business

40:57 Do degrees actually matter to employers?

42:16 "Prison was the best thing that ever happened to me"

45:45 What young people should take from this story

48:47 The single best piece of business advice he's received

49:49 What he'd say to his 25-year-old self🎙️

In The Business is a podcast for young entrepreneurs, hosted by Harrison Turner and Tom Mumford. We sit down with founders who've built real businesses, from their step one to the first million, and unpack the stories behind the success.If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe and leave a comment telling us your biggest takeaway.

FOLLOW IN THE BUSINESS🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harrisonturnerofficial/📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inthebusinessofficial/🌐 Website: https://inthebusiness.club/FOLLOW TAWHID JUNEJA🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tawhidjuneja/⚽ AFC Welwyn: https://www.afcwelwyn.co.uk/

Ask for anything else and the clue is in the name. Flat White Or F*ck Off is a concept by Rory Sutherland brought to life by Tom Noble, Charlie Hurst, Will and Lucia Sudlow. Serving only one product, the business is a bold experiment in simplicity and provocation.In this episode we speak with the founders about the £27,000 pop up in London, what's next for the brand and why they started this business.

What's your coffee order?

Find more episodes and follow us on socials:Instagram: @inthebusinessoffical Tiktok: @inthebusinessofficial Spotify: In The BusinessApple: In The Business

Grace Hardy is a content creator, accountant, bookkeeper, and business owner.

In this conversation, she shares why she decided to start her own business and the very first steps she took to launch her company.

Timestamps:

00:00 Choosing the Unconventional Path

01:12 The Decision to Start a Business

02:50 Building the Business: First Steps

04:06 Client Acquisition Strategies

07:47 Content Creation and Social Media Impact

19:55 Challenges of Entrepreneurship

20:49 Hiring the Right People

23:34 Advice for Young Entrepreneurs

Paul Sherratt is the Founder & CEO of GloveGlu, the company behind the world’s first goalkeeper glove grip spray.

In this interview, we take Paul back to step one...the moment GloveGlu began. He shares how the idea came to life, the early challenges he faced, and the key lessons learned while scaling the brand into a global business.

In The Business is a podcast that takes entrepreneurs and founders back to the very beginning, uncovering how they launched their business, landed their first customers, and the lessons that shaped their journey.

Raising investment isn’t about having a “cool idea.” It’s about proving you can execute, sell, and build something real without acting entitled or wasting investors’ time.In this episode, angel investor Phil McSweeney (40+ investments; thousands of pitches seen) breaks down what actually gets a yes, what gets you ignored, and the fastest ways founders accidentally sabotage themselves.What you’ll learn: • The first sentence / first two slides that decide whether you’re taken seriously. • Why a pitch should feel like a movie trailer (not an essay). • The reality check investors apply: can this reach £10–20m/year revenue? • Founder traits that matter (and the ones that instantly repel investors) • Why raising money is a relationship, not a transaction. • How young founders can get access and what they must prove first.

Why is it so hard to find an angel investor and what are you doing that makes it harder?

In this reddit asks Q&A, Phil McSweeney (angel investor with 40+ investments, mentor/coach to startups, author) answers the questions founders actually ask when they’re trying to raise: where to find angels, when to pitch, how to spot a bad investor, how to think about equity, and what a pitch deck is really for.

This isn’t theory. It’s what happens after you’ve seen hundreds/thousands of pitches and you’re tired of founders wasting everyone’s time.

In this episode:

• Why angels are hard to find (and why they don’t advertise themselves)

• Should you tailor your pitch for US investors or focus locally first?

• The “best pitch deck format” myth and how to stand out without being boring.

• When you should approach investors (hint: traction beats vibes)

• How to vet an angel investor (equity grabs + control issues)

• What to do after a failed pitch (feedback, accelerators, and persistence)

• Can you raise with just an idea? (the brutal reality unless you’ve got a track record)

• How to tell if investors are interested on a call.

• What a pitch deck actually is: a movie trailer, not the full story.

• Rule-of-thumb equity: how to avoid a messy cap table and stay in control.

In this episode, we sit down with Andrew Keith Walker a founder known for seeing the “direction of travel” early. Unpacking what separates real trend-spotters from people who just chase hype.

We cover:

• How tech disruption really works (and why the winners often come back with a new value proposition, think Rolex, vinyl, print).  

• AI: why it matters, and how it will actually show up (embedded into everyday systems to reduce overload and stress, not just as a shiny standalone tool). 

• The honest truth about VC: once you take investment, you don’t fully control the steering wheel anymore which can change decisions fast.  

• A real “they told me it would never work” story. Including how a product that record labels wouldn’t buy ended up being bought by Apple.  

• Andrew’s newest company: “self-help psychology” positioned like brushing your teeth for your mind: affordable, practical tools, delivered one per week so you can build habits instead of binge information.

If you’ve ever wondered what’s coming next after phones, why some industries get stuck in the “disruption trap,” or how to build something useful without pretending to be a guru, this one’s for you.

What happens when you’re 17, smashing school, and still decide to walk away because the business is growing faster than the timetable?

In this episode, we sit down with Finley Hyett, a 17-year-old entrepreneur who dropped out in Year 12 to go all-in on his Cardiff-based digital marketing agency. We unpack the part most people skip: how you earn trust when you’re young, how you build real self-belief (not cringe quotes), and how to stay consistent without burning out. 

Fin breaks down:

• Why school felt like it was slowing him down (and what it did give him)

• The real strategy behind being “young” in business: low expectations → overdeliver → trust

• How confidence is built through expertise + reps, not “manifesting”

• Falling in love with the process (and why “routine” is the wrong word)

• His “graduating from friends” idea — and how to avoid loneliness while levelling up

• Why his motivation shifted from money to building an entrepreneurship movement in Wales

Find more founder conversations: https://linktr.ee/Inthebusinessofficial

Follow Finley: https://www.youtube.com/@finley_hyett/videos