Navigating a competitive industry requires adaptability, sharp execution, and a clear focus on long-term value.

In this episode of All About Business, James sits down with David Powell, CEO of Andrews Property Group, to trace his rise from a 19-year-old negotiator to leading a major property services firm. David shares candid lessons on managing older teams at age 21, rebuilding after his employer collapsed post-2008 crash, and overcoming the "year-off penalty" after taking a 12-month sabbatical.

The conversation also explores broader economic and business realities. David breaks down why single-revenue models are giving way to multi-stream operations, how tax burdens directly suppress hiring and growth, and how emerging tech and AI can automate routine tasks to enhance human connection.

Whether you are looking to advance your career, navigate market downturns, or lead a purpose-driven business, this episode provides practical insights into resilience and leadership.

Timestamps

01:53 Falling Into Property

10:05 Crash and Starting Over

21:22 COVID Pivot to New Homes

28:24 New Models and Income Streams

34:40 Stamp Duty as a Market Brake

40:10 Taxes and Hiring Costs

Links

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow David Powell on LinkedIn

Find out more about Andrews Property Group and their services here

Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HERE

All About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE

This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk

Scaling a business demands a clear story, sales strategies, and a realistic approach to capital.

In the third episode of our Summer Shorts series, James sits down with Enterprise Nation founder and UK Small Business Commissioner Emma Jones one final time, to dissect what it truly takes to transition from a running startup to a high-growth company. Emma outlines how to build a distinct brand without a massive budget, leveraging free PR opportunities like #JournoRequest, and why standing out comes down to knowing your exact story.

The conversation dives into practical sales tactics such as turning your former employer into your very first client to using persistent, value-led updates to close major buyers. Finally, Emma demystifies the funding landscape. She breaks down the critical difference between debt and equity, explains why you should raise "opportunity funding" before you actually need it, and outlines exactly what investors expect in return.

Whether you are looking to secure angel investment or simply expand your reach, this episode provides an actionable roadmap for your next stage of growth.

This episode concludes our 3-part masterclass with Emma Jones. From spotting your initial business idea in episode one, to setting up your operational foundation in episode two, and scaling for growth in episode three, this series delivers a complete, practical toolkit for every stage of the entrepreneurial journey.

Timestamps

06:21 Standing Out and Social Mission

10:09 Getting First Customers

13:04 Sales Follow Up and CRM

19:12 When to Raise Funding

20:22 Funding Sources and Angels

24:47 Debt vs Equity Decisions

Links

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Emma Jones on LinkedIn

Find out more about Enterprise Nation and the support they offer here

Find out more about the Small Business Commissioner here

Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HERE

All About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE

This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk

You can start a business for under £100, but building one that lasts requires navigating a minefield of practical, legal, and financial decisions.

In this episode of All About Business, James sits down with Emma Jones to break down the mechanics of turning an idea into a fully operational company. Emma walks through the real-world choices every founder faces. From writing a lightweight five-page business plan to deciding whether to trade as a sole trader or a limited company.

Emma shares why cash flow, not profit, is the ultimate reality test for a startup, how to protect your brand name without spending thousands, and why bootstrapping for as long as possible gives you complete commercial clarity.

This short episode delivers a practical blueprint for managing your admin efficiently, choosing the right insurance, and ensuring your business stays cash-solvent from day one.

Timestamps (Audio)

05:13 Sole Trader vs Limited

07:50 Registering and Accountants

10:08 Outsource and Hire Smart

13:35 Protect Your IP

17:13 Bootstrapping on a Budget

19:02 Funding Options

20:45 Costs, Cash and Getting Paid

Links

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Emma Jones on LinkedIn

Find out more about Enterprise Nation and the support they offer here

Find out more about the Small Business Commissioner here

Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HERE

All About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE

This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk

How do you start a business?

In this episode of All About Business, James sits down with Emma Jones, serial entrepreneur, founder of Enterprise Nation, and the UK’s Small Business Commissioner. This is part one of a three-part masterclass on starting a business from scratch. Emma delivers practical, step-by-step advice on how to spot market gaps, validate ideas through smart market research, and build a focused niche.

Emma shares insight on why testing a business as a side hustle gives you the space to refine your model, how to navigate early-stage co-founder decisions, and why sharing your idea early brings crucial feedback rather than stolen IP.

This short episode gives a clear, realistic blueprint for knowing if your business idea is worth pursuing, leveraging free resources to test demand, and cultivating the daily resilience needed to keep going.

Timestamps

02:48 Why Start a Business

09:03 Test and Hustle

11:03 Common Early Mistakes

16:54 Skills and Resilience

19:16 Co-Founders and Mentors

Links

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Emma Jones on LinkedIn

Find out more about Enterprise Nation and the support they offer here

Find out more about the Small Business Commissioner here

Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HERE

All About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE

This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk

When do you hire, when do you raise, and when is expansion actually the right move?

In this episode of All About Business, James sits down with Forest co-founder Caroline Seton to pull back the curtain on how a London startup scaled to over two million rides a month. From using smart pricing to make customers do the heavy lifting in logistics, to navigating 33 separate sets of local regulations, Caroline breaks down the raw operational tactics and tough strategic trade-offs required to build, survive, and scale an asset-heavy business.

Caroline gives a clear blueprint for turning operational headaches into profit drivers as they explore protecting margins through relentless asset care, knowing exactly when to double down, or kill an idea that isn't working.

Timestamps

01:38 Why Forest Started

10:32 Expanding Across London

15:09 Maintenance at Scale

21:38 Proof It Was Working

31:33 ULEZ and Space Reallocation

38:26 Making London Cycle Capital

44:50 Founder Advice and Tailwinds

Links

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Caroline Seton on LinkedIn

Find out more about Forest Bikes and their services HERE

Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HERE

All About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE

This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk

If your industry is facing a talent shortage or failing to prepare the next generation of workers, the solution isn't to wait for traditional institutions to adapt, it's to build the training infrastructure yourself.

In this episode of All About Business, James sits down with Oscar-nominated film producer Lisa Bryer OBE, and Day One Trust CEO Charlie Kennard MBE. Together, they break down a practical masterclass in rapid business execution, industry-led talent pipelines, and building teams that deliver under high-stakes pressure.

Lisa shares how turning a 24-hour corporate bankruptcy into the birth of Cowboy Films, proved that operational agility outweighs legacy credentials. Charlie details how partnering directly with major global enterprises created a sustainable, job-ready workforce model that prioritizes work-ethic discipline, and real-world execution over academic theory.

This episode gives a clear blueprint for building talent pipelines in your own sector, turning unexpected crises into business momentum, and instilling non-negotiable professional behaviors across your workforce.

Timestamps

02:46 Lisa Builds Cowboy Films

06:17 Charlie Starts The Schools

17:47 Who The School Is For

25:14 Behaviours For Career Success

36:07 Industry Led Curriculum

38:59 Alumni Success Stories

56:26 Advice For Creatives

Links

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Charlie Kennard MBE on LinkedIn

Find out more about London Screen Academy and their work

Find out more about Comby Films and their work

Find out more about Day One Trust and their work

Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HERE

All About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE

This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk

Are you exhausting resources trying to build every system from scratch? You could achieve faster, safer, scale by taking a proven playbook. And executing it better than anyone else.

In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with Jake Wilmot-Sitwell, co-founder and COO of Sandbox VR UK. Jake shares how he transitioned from venture capital to entrepreneurship, taking on £10M in capital to scale full-body, immersive VR experiences across the UK and Ireland.

Jake breaks down the core mechanics of their expansion strategy, explaining how a master franchise model eliminated the initial tech-development risk. He details their shift from capital-intensive flagship locations to lean, plug-and-play concession hubs, while sharing actionable frameworks for optimizing yield per square foot, leveraging media partnerships like Netflix, and scaling a frontline workforce.

Timestamps

01:56 Why VR and Entrepreneurship

09:57 Who Comes and Why It Works

22:40 High-End Tech Meets Hospitality

32:42 Hiring Young Teams

41:26 Fixes VAT Wages Rates

51:58 Future IP Partnerships

Links

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Jake Wilmot-Sitwell on LinkedIn

Find out more about Sandbox VR and their experiences here

Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HERE

All About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE

This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk

When your business hits an existential wall, are you willing to rethink your entire financial structure to protect your vision, or will you compromise the mission just to survive?

Most founders believe scaling requires bowing to traditional venture capital and prioritizing short-term margins. COOK proved there is another way by surviving near-bankruptcy, funding its own expansion through an unexpected subsidiary, and scaling past £100 million while keeping absolute control over its mission.

In this episode of All About Business, James Perry, co-founder of COOK and co-founder of B Corp UK joins as guest, and he pulls back the curtain on the messy, high-stakes reality of building a national consumer brand from scratch without burning out or selling out.

They unpack the reality of operational risk, the hard lessons of founder resilience, and how building an inclusive hiring model through the RAW initiative turned a perceived workplace risk into one of their strongest operational assets.

James shares the gritty mechanics behind COOK’s early years: how a loss-making enterprise was kept afloat by a cash-generating bakery, why he turned away standard venture capital, and how leveraging national media attention led to finding the patient, long-term private capital that saved the business. He breaks down how the 2008 financial crash tested their model and why a relentless focus on product integrity built a moat that traditional competitors couldn't cross.

Timestamps

02:08 Cadbury Lessons

10:00 Family Bakery Origins

12:56 Founding Cook

28:48 B Corp Beginnings

37:10 Certifying and Building UK

41:05 RAW Talent Hiring Program

49:19 Systemic Capitalism Glitch

Links

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow James Perry on LinkedIn

Find out more COOK and their products here

Find out more about B Lab UK and their work here

Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HERE

All About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE

This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk

Most consumer goods brands ask you to buy more - SURI does the opposite. They designed a sustainable, electric toothbrush made from plant-based materials that is fully recyclable. As a result they scaled to over £50 million worth of sales in just four years.

In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with Mark Rushmore, co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Sustainable Rituals, SURI. The fast-growing personal care brand that’s disrupting a defended, multi-billion-pound market by proving that daily wellness routines don't have to come at the cost of the planet.

Mark shares his journey from the corporate training ground of Procter & Gamble to navigating extreme burnout after his first agency exit. He explains the business mechanics behind SURI’s rapid scale, and why focusing on a "minimum lovable product" unlocked a viral wave of word-of-mouth growth.

James and Mark explore the strategies behind scaling a highly productive 50-person team, using AI as an operational accelerant rather than a replacement, and the practical frameworks for making tough business decisions. They examine how to establish a values-led culture, why investing in founder relationships with business psychologists is critical to preventing scale-up failure, and what the next generation of consumer brands must do to win.

This leaves us with a compelling question: when building a product for the long term, are you treating your business decisions like a temporary hat, a reversible haircut, or a permanent tattoo?

Timestamps

04:19 Burnout and Life Reset

16:36 Origin Story of SURI

25:08 Pricing Strategy and Lovable Product

31:42 Competing with Giants and Expert Team

37:51 Hiring Values Framework

46:13 Brand Expansion Vision

51:55 Decision Making Lessons

Links

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Mark Rushmore on LinkedIn

Find out more SURI and their products here

Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HERE

All About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE

This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk

Most charities are told to secure funding before they spend. Bloomsbury Football did the opposite — investing in fundraising before the money existed, and growing from four children to 7,000 a week as a result.

In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with Charlie Hyman, founder and CEO of Bloomsbury Football. His fast-growing social enterprise harnesses the universal power of grassroots football to tackle major societal challenges for young people, providing thousands of disadvantaged youth with vital role models, mental health support, and a true sense of belonging.

Charlie shares the 7 steps in starting, building and scaling a charity. He explains the business mechanics behind this scale: how diversifying income with brands like Mastercard and Adobe, and treating a charity like a high-growth private company unlocks true scale.

James and Charlie explore the strategy behind taking Bloomsbury national and how Charlie built a proprietary AI tool to scrape Charity Commission data for fundraising intelligence. They examine how to close high-value deals, attract top-tier corporate talent with pure purpose, and what commercial businesses can learn from high-ambition social enterprise models.

This leaves us with a compelling question: when building a company designed for impact, do your growth strategies reflect the actual size of the problem you are trying to solve?

Timestamps

03:05 Origin story volunteering

11:47 Income streams and bids

15:53 Charities vs businesses

21:23 Scaling leadership and coaches

32:12 Opportunistic Expansion Plans

38:12 AI Boosting Charity Impact

44:59 Fundraising Skills for Youth

Links

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Charlie Hyman on LinkedIn

Find out more Bloomsbury Football here

Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HERE

All About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE

This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk