Inter:views | Cracking The Entrepreneur Bottleneck

Rob has always been passionate about social media. He was studying in the USA at the time Facebook was still a start-up and ended up being one of the first Brits with an account.

He got his 1st client the same day he created Social Republic. 

Rob has learned a main lesson throughout his entrepreneurship journey: Enjoying the ride, having fun, taking the time to reflect and celebrate.

The importance of leaving a positive impact through ethical social media is another recurring topic. We also address marketing, how to scale through a network of experts, as well as why you should develop processes. 

35mn of valuable insights.

Alexandra is a mechanical engineer by education but definitely an entrepreneur at heart. She founded Eyrus in 2015.

“The idea of taking an idea and then just building it, it never gets old to me." This is a great summary of our discussion. Alexandra loves building things from scratch. She tells us how she was able to find a black hole in a fragmented industry and quickly grew into a 100-employee company.

Her keys to success so far: being very customer-centric, being structured, learning from the team, and making sure that the founders' roles evolve as the company is scaling up. 

Lots of food for thoughts. 

Richard is a CPA who got fed up from his 9 to 5 job and decided it was time to shake the accounting industry. In 2015, he created TaxFyle, a one stop online tax service. 

"Our team does one thing very well: We solve problems." How to organize people so they can solve problems better than others is the core of our discussion.

We also talk about the keys to disrupt a traditional market and expand internationally, what it takes to be an entrepreneur (hint: it's a lot about honesty), growth hacking and why financial management matters. 

Sit down, relax, and get a good dose of inspiration.

Maria was born a philanthropist. When she got married, Her husband and she were donating 30% of their income to good causes.

Today she's a social entrepreneur on a quest through Open Value Foundation to change people's approach to money. 

In this episode we talk a lot about what social entrepreneurship is really about, impact investing, theory of change and how philanthropy can benefit businesses. 

0% nonsense, 100% optimism! 

Special Start-up Episode, in collaboration with the Nordic Start-Up School. Part 1 : Sales & Marketing.

Kelvin Chikezie, Ukko Järvinen and Anthony Sundström, 3 NSS mentors joined me to discuss everything start-ups need to know about Sales & Marketing. 

• Why do start-ups need to focus on sales & marketing? Will they fail if they don't?
• What should they specifically spend time on? Where should they start? Is there a difference between B2B, B2C and B2B2C?
• What are the most frequent questions start-ups have? 
• How and where can they get their first clients?
• What are the biggest sales & marketing mistakes they can make?
• What is the #1 practical tip you'll give any start-up?

Alistair founded Extreme in 1995. That's right, 26 years ago. And he's still absolutely passionate about it. 

He's on a mission to drive positive change through extreme and adventurous sports. He shares his focus on sustainability throughout his entrepreneurship journey, and talks about topics close to his heart such as gender equality, climate change and mental health.

If you've been following the podcast for a while, you should now know how important people are in building a business. That's another core topic we address in this interview, together with Alistair's leadership lessons and why Covid19 wasn't all negative.

Make it happen and listen to this episode.

Dana has a double BA in marketing and information system as well as a Master in financial management. If it wasn't enough, she moved from a corporate career to the entrepreneur's life in 2018 and founded Jiuyi. 

As she explains, it was the right time, at the right place with the right people.

In this episode we cover the basics of doing business in China, the importance of being fully prepared, and why you should promote people from within your company. Dana also shares her secret recipe to selling to corporate clients. 

Never give up. I won't. Will you? 

This episode was made possible thanks to Impulse4Women. 

Jeff Morrill co-founded Planet Subaru, "your undealership" in 1998, which became one of the most successful privately-held car dealerships in the United States.

He now acts more as a coach and let his team operates the business. Such a situation gave him the time to write a book about his entrepreneurship and life lessons (Profit Wise, How To Make More Money In Business By Doing The Right Thing"). 

Jeff's key focus has always been people, his team, his customers and the community. He shares his insights about building a company culture by and for people, why any business should put their customers at the center of everything they do, how to lead from behind, and how to make more money by doing the right things. 

Buy his book "Profit Wise", all revenue go to charities. 

Get in touch with Jeff: https://www.jeffmorrill.com/email-jeff

Gabriela co-founded Mumi Design 7 years ago because she believed there were people out there like herself who'd like to be organized and couldn't work in chaos.

She was right. Her love for the product is definitely one of her key assets, together with a strong knowledge of the market. 2 topics we discuss in this interview.

We also address the impact of Covid19, how it nearly killed the business and the 1 thing that kept it all together. 

What can I say? Every week I meet passionate entrepreneurs. Gabriela is one of them. 

Get in touch with her: [email protected]

NB: Apologies for the sound issue on my side. 

Inter:views 57 | Joel Willans | Ink Tank Media | Finland

Passion is definitely the word that comes to mind when you chat with Joel Willans, Co-Founder at Ink Tank Media, and creator of the hugely successful Very Finnish Problem. 

Joel started his career with a job in ad sales in the UK then ended up years later in Finland "for the weather" as he says. 

Obviously, we had to talk about social media and content strategy. But we also discussed the importance of building relationships, sales, recruitment, the impact of Covid19 as well as book writing. 

An open-hearted conversation.

Get in touch with Joel: [email protected]