scale with soul

No.1 Neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff shares the theory behind her book Tiny Experiments, which includes the problems with goals as we know them today.

She is an entrepreneur, whose first startup failed after she left her comfortable job at Google, but now has a thriving content business, Ness Labs, alongside her research as a neuroscientist at Kings College London.We dove into a range of topics including...

📖 Episode Chapters

00:00 - Intro

00:58 - The 3 Problems With Goals

08:06 - Why You Should Use Metacognition

13:47 - How To Escape The Prison Of Over-Thinking

20:35 - Cognitive Scripts: The Sequel, The Crowdpleaser & The Epic

32:51 - Where Are We Drunk On The Illusion Of Certainty?

39:43 - How To Lead Through Change

43:13 - How 1 Tiny Experiment Can Change Your Life

50:30 - End Of Year Routine

54:56 - The Paradox Of Persistence

57:50 - How To Get Out Of A Mental Hole

01:11:21 - How Can We Support Anne-Laure

If you enjoyed this episode you'll probably love;

One Of Europe's Largest EdTech Exits - Busuu $436m | Bernhard Niesner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRA3nboz9V0&t=1558s

WeWork Cofounder Breaks His 5-Year Silence (Exclusive)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u62kFgnUrU0&t=1615s&pp=0gcJCTwKAYcqIYzv

🪨 Resources:

Episode summary doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KdMvHuOvSA-WCkRGWcF3-xZoGntx7PpMBGyHuxmbobI/edit?usp=sharing

Ness Labs: https://nesslabs.com/

Ness Labs Annual Review Template (Google Slides): https://nesslabs.com/annual-review-template

Ness Labs Annual Review Template (Notion): https://satisfying-melody-287.notion.site/Year-in-Review-Template-5b31d64596cf40f1b8d79e88fb24a280?source=copy_link

👉 Subscribe on Youtube to be first to learn from world class, inspiring entrepreneurs

📧 Subscribe to my newsletter to get exclusive content and timeless frameworks for company, culture and community building:

https://scale-with-soul.kit.com/.

Cherrypick Discount Code: https://alpha.lollipopai.com/codes/soul50

Tom Foster Carter is the Ex-COO of Monzo and a serial entrepreneur. He joined Monzo as COO at Series A and helped them scale to become a £1 billion unicorn, before leaving to start his next startup Cherrypick.

He's a startup and business weapon which you can tell through this interview where we cover...

Episode Chapters:

0:00 - 0:53 - Intro

0:54 - 9:27 - Monzo: What broke as they scaled?

9:28 - 18:55 - Hiring lessons - 30-1000 employees

18:56 - 22:47 - Don’t set Values, set Operating Pinrciples

22:48 - 41:01 - Speed as a habit; Kipchoge, not Bolt

41:02 - 53:14 - Speed is a habit; Data not Debate

53:15 - 58:58 - Pains of going from free to paid

58:59 - 1:02:42 - How to spot shifts in the VC landscape

1:02:35 - 1:09:05 - How has he developed as a leader

1:09:06 - 1:15:25 - How are you kind in firing people?

1:15:26 - 1:20:39 - Top lessons from Monzo & Curve

1:20:40 - 1:24:54 - His secret sauce to startups

If you liked this episode, you'll probably love;

One Of Europe's Largest EdTech Exits - Busuu $436m | Bernhard Niesner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRA3nboz9V0&t=1558s

Nick Jenkins - The Marketing Secrets Behind The $Billion Business

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgDJtTNTxvs

👉 Subscribe on Youtube to be first to learn from world class, inspiring entrepreneurs

📧 Subscribe to my newsletter to get exclusive content and timeless frameworks for company, culture and community building:

https://scale-with-soul.kit.com/

Maya Moufarek is a Full Stack meaningful marketing expert, with decades of experience from companies like Google, Amex, Not On The High Street, and then the company she was the founding CMO of, Pharmacy2U (which raised $300m and is the 3rd largest pharmacy in the UK).

How do we have to evolve as the company evolves? How do we think about our business' marketing from a high level? What biases do leaders suffer from the most? Expect to learn a lot about your psychology, meaningful marketing, startups and so much more in this podcast interview.

📖 Chapters:

00:53 - What got you here won't get you there

04:05 - The Problem With Founder-Problem Fit

09:39 - What Biases Do Founders Fall Prey To The Most?

11:28 - What's A Meaningful Company To You?

18:53 - How To Recognise Meaning

23:58 - Hoffman Process - How To Come Back To Yourself

27:20 - "I'm not good enough" vs Owning Our Differences

31:25 - Finding Your People (Mentors, Advisors)

35:24 - Strongest Limiting Beliefs In Female Founders

39:03 - How We Get In The Way Of Timing

42:29 - Maya's Evolution Of Her Relationship With Control

44:00 - Control: Masculine vs Feminine

48:24 - How To Give Feedback Well

01:01:56 - Meaningful Marketing

01:05:07 - How Should We Stay Aligned With Customers?

01:14:05 - Customer Interactions Post PMF

01:18:44 - The Core Of Business

If you enjoyed this, you'll probably love:

Nick Jenkins - The Marketing Secrets Behind The $Billion Business

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgDJtTNTxvs

£100m CEO Superpowers & Shadow Sides - Aron Gelbard, Bloom & Wild

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c289plCAeDA&t=76s&pp=0gcJCQgKAYcqIYzv

👉 Subscribe on Youtube to be first to learn from world class, inspiring entrepreneurs

📧 Subscribe to my newsletter to get exclusive content and timeless frameworks for company, culture and community building: https://scale-with-soul.kit.com/

Aron Gelbard is the CEO of the £100m revenue startup, Bloom & Wild, a flower delivery company operating across Europe.

In this interview he shares his work styles and shadows as a entrepreneur and a look inside a unicorn startup business.

📖 Chapters

00:00 - What does inefficient work look like?

07:45 - CEO = Upside Down Pyramid

09:26 - Core Value: Care Wildly

14:37 - World Class Customer Service

20:45 - Biggest Feedback from Executives - Goalkeep Less

25:17 - Responding to Market Trends

30:10 - Fix the System Not the Symptom

31:50 - How to operationalise values

34:19 - Values In Life = Embedded in Business

37:19 - Balancing kindness with demanding high performance

39:54 - The Most Difficult Decisions

45:48 - How To Set Stretch Goals

50:23 - Managing Up & Down as CEO

53:32 - Knowing everyone on the team

56:54 - Stages Of The Business Model

01:01:35 - Merging Three Teams into One

01:11:15 - Novel Annual Board Agenda

01:15:21 - The Secret To Consistency

01:21:42 - How Life impacts What We Do

If you enjoyed this interview, you'll likely love:

WeWork's Co-Founder Breaks His 5-Year Silence (Exclusive)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u62kFgnUrU0&t=1615s

Pret & Itsu Founder: The One Skill To Build £Billion Brands | Julian Metcalfe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1EYLLS_0xw&t=1205s

👉 Subscribe on Youtube to be first to learn from world class, inspiring entrepreneurs📧 Subscribe to my newsletter to get exclusive content and timeless frameworks for company, culture and community building: https://scale-with-soul.kit.com/

Karolina Pelc is the author of HerPlay, and the Founder and ex-CEO of the startup BeyondPlay, which was acquired by FanDuel.

She has been through the startup storm and has come out the other side with methods for finding calm.

📖 Chapters

00:00 - Karolina Pelc

01:02 - Intensity As A CEO

04:22 - "You Think You're So Tough?"

06:48 - Addiction To Doing & Parenting

15:20 - Deep Internal Wisdom vs Limiting Beliefs

21:01 - What if You Fly vs What if You Fail

24:58 - Don't Try To Be Liked As The Leader

27:57 - Unexpected Challenges With Gender Diversity

31:24 - What Does Being Ruthless Mean?

33:07 - How Transparent Can You Be As A Founder

38:49 - Boundaries to Transparency

46:30 - "Entrepreneurs Are Not Managers" - Sir Richard Branson

49:16 - Your Relationship With Control vs Delegation

53:41 - Setting Standards of Trust and Attention to Detail

56:44 - "The Chaos Muppet Building Calmness"

01:11:27 - What Health Habits To Prioritise When You Have No Time

01:14:04 - Psychedelics: What they uncovered?

01:19:00 - The Habit Of Reframing

01:22:48 - A Book is Like A Startup

01:29:34 - Don't Believe In Luck!

01:33:02 - Her Play: The Book

If you enjoyed this interview, you might love:

Work Isn't A Family...But It Can Be Human | Katy Turner (interview)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51Gxz1cQstI&t=58s

One Of Europe's Largest EdTech Exits - Busuu $436m | Bernhard Niesner (interview)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRA3nboz9V0&t=1558s

👉 Subscribe on this channel to be the first to watch future episodes

📧 Subscribe to the newsletter to get summaries of each episode: https://scale-with-soul.kit.com/

Moonpig is valued at over a $Billion and the founder, Nick Jenkins, reveals all his marketing and business secrets in this rich and insightful interview!

Nick is a marketing wizard and here he delivers a masterclass in business and marketing as well as...

📖 Chapters:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:49 - What Will you Do When You Grow Up?

00:01:48 - What is next to be learnt?

00:02:28 - Lessons from living through the Russian Revolution

00:06:26 - Decisions: At Some Point Your Going To Have To Jump

00:08:55 - When Entrepreneurs Overcomplicate

00:12:35 - Moonpig Marketing Marvel

00:18:59 - The Most Important Discovery From A Statistics Degree

00:21:50 - Growing Repeat Customers

00:24:46 - Where To Start With Marketing

00:27:21 - What's Your Price?

00:28:54 - What's Your Product?

00:30:56 - What Companies Get Wrong About Customers

00:33:27 - Actors on the Phone Lines

00:35:20 - Optimising Each Element of the Business

00:37:18 - Forming Your Team

00:40:35 - Breaking Through The Clouds into The Sunshine

00:42:38 - What Would You have Done Differently?

00:44:03 - How To Scale Employees

00:48:43 - Changing Direction

00:51:43 - Europe Vs US

00:52:49 - "Don't hand in unfinished homework"

00:54:21 - How To Sell A Business

00:59:28 - Burn After Selling

01:01:51 - Recruiting Advice

01:06:20 - Work Life Balance

01:08:10 - Crafting Creativity

01:10:04 - The Difference Between A Good and Great Entrepreneur

01:13:15 - Passion For What You Do

01:14:34 - VC / Investors: Judging what to do next

01:16:56 - Getting Caught Out

01:17:50 - What The Entrepreneur Community Could Do Better

👇 If you liked this interview, you'll probably love these too:

Pret & Itsu Founder: The One Skill To Build £Billion Brands | Julian Metcalfe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1EYLLS_0xw&t=1205s

One Of Europe's Largest EdTech Exits - Busuu $436m | Bernhard Niesne

rhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRA3nboz9V0&t=1558s

👉 Subscribe on Youtube to be first to learn from world class, inspiring entrepreneurs

📧 Subscribe to my newsletter to get exclusive content and timeless frameworks for company, culture and community building:

https://scale-with-soul.kit.com/

Devika Wood is the CEO of the public company Brain+, who are leaders in improving dementia care. She is also one of the most honest and vulnerable founders I have ever interviewed.

In this interview she not only shares her deep inner world and trauma experiences, but also an exclusive summary of a court case involving her previous startup, and a deep betrayal of trust.

📖 Chapters

00:00:00 - A letter to my younger self

00:06:54 - How trauma can shape your impact on the world

00:13:51 - Refining your 'why'

00:18:48 - ROI for investors when your mission isn't money driven

00:26:36 - The story of the previous startup and a betrayal of trust

00:37:53 - The court case - lessons in leadership

00:46:10 - Compartmentalising vs Bottling it up

00:50:33 - The art of transparency in a team

00:54:22 - Backing yourself in moments of crises

00:56:50 - The best process to dealing with a crisis

00:58:51 - The balancing of the masculinity and femininity

01:11:32 - How your identity evolves as a founder

01:16:52 - How to best support our partners and ourselves

01:27:52 - WEALTH - Women In Health

01:32:27 - What stamp do you want to leave on the world

01:34:42 - How we can support Devika

If you enjoyed this episode, you might love these:

WeWork Cofounder Breaks His 5-Year Silence (Exclusive)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u62kFgnUrU0&t=1615s

Dangerous (But Common) Startup Myths | Sho Sugihara

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8eBlgYIVDg&t=2943s

👉 Subscribe on Youtube to be first to learn from world class, inspiring entrepreneurs

📧 Subscribe to my newsletter to get exclusive content and timeless frameworks for company, culture and community building: https://scale-with-soul.kit.com/

A 15-lesson reflection on £100k spent, 18 months, over 50 interviews with some world class entrepreneurs.

This is a very open and honest look under the hood into what it takes to create a podcast business. I've been focusing on founder interviews because I wanted to learn what it takes to create a great company and build an audience at the same time. I definitely learned one of them.... the hard way.

📖 Chapters
0:00:00 - Intro
0:01:13 - Pret A Manger & Itsu Founder - Get To The Truth
0:05:29 - Sharmadean Reid - Build Networks Of Power
0:12:30 - Busuu Founder - Operationalise Your Culture
0:17:19 - Count the pennies, and the millions will count themselves
0:21:49 - WeWork Cofounder - What Does It Mean To Change The World?
0:28:11 - Don't go slow to go fast... just go
0:31:10 - Know what you're selling first
0:36:44 - Distribution is 50% of the game
0:39:46 - The cost of isolation is delusion
0:41:31 - The answer isn't pushing harder
0:43:32 - Financial Breakdown (My P&L)
0:48:38 - Don't build for the wrong reasons
0:51:05 - Question your foundations
0:53:12 - The Cognitive Dissonance Spiral
0:54:43 - The art of learning from others' experiences
0:56:10 - Failure Is The Cost Of Entry
0:57:22 - The future of this channel

If you enjoyed any of the clips I shared, here are the whole interviews:

Pret & Itsu Founder: The One Skill To Build £Billion Brands
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1EYLLS_0xw&t=1205s

Create Your Networks Of Power | Sharmadean Reid MBE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyskAAx_P90&t=3243s

One Of Europe's Largest EdTech Exits - Busuu $436m
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRA3nboz9V0&t=1558s

From 80 VC Rejections To Rejecting VCs | Atilana Pinon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gK5uCJscFU&t=1852s

WeWork's Cofounder Breaks His 5-Year Silence (Exclusive)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u62kFgnUrU0&t=1615s

Please subscribe and hit the bell icon to support the channel!

Much love,
AJ x

WeWork's Cofounder, Miguel McKelvey, shares the most vulnerable, insightful and rounded account of WeWork in his first interview since the startup's dramatic collapse 5 years ago.

📖 Chapters - In this interview we cover...

00:00 - The Guilt Of WeWork & How To Let Go

15:40 - What Does Changing The World Actually Mean?

22:03 - Business And Community Tensions

27:36 - What Does Community Actually Mean?

32:21 - Community Ideologies vs Geographies

38:20 - Wisdom & Naval Ravikant

44:38 - When Does A Startup Become A Cult? "

57:26 - "How do you scale culture? "

01:04:03 - What culture practices to invest in as a smaller startup

01:11:21- Leaning Into Conflict

01:13:07 - Team Adam vs Team Miguel

01:21:24 - Power Tensions

01:26:27 - Rebekah Neumann's Role in WeWork

01:32:23 - S-1 IPO Filing

01:37:34 - The Public's Reaction To Adam

01:47:19 - Miguel's Awareness Of WeWork's Finances

01:54:02 - How Much To Trust Others In The Leadership Team?

01:57:18 - Noticing Scrappy Scaling

02:00:31 - Why It Made Sense For WeWork To Buy An Artificial Wave Startup

02:02:41 - Adam & Miguel's Reality Distortion

02:10:45 - What Really Destroyed WeWork

02:12:40 - How To Step Outside Of Ourselves & Reflect

02:18:08 - Miguel's Advice For Entrepreneurs

02:27:40 - What Can We Support Miguel With

🍿 WATCH NEXT

If you liked this conversation, you'll love this one too

Pret & Itsu Founder: The One Skill To Build £Billion Brands | Julian Metcalfe (interview)

👉 Subscribe for weekly interviews and deeply practical videos on how to scale with soul

📧 Get exclusive insights, timeless frameworks & founder tools in my newsletter

When GoHenry's founder hit rock bottom, she was drowning...

She realised that the single point of failure was her. At 6am every morning, that familiar sick thump of dread would hit.

Here's how she built her company from the ground up, faced rejection from her own board, and emerged stronger than ever.

💡 What you'll learn in this episode:

▪️ How to identify and eliminate dangerous "single points of failure" in your business before they drown you

▪️ Why operationalising your values through your entire team is the secret to retaining talent for over a decade

▪️ How to navigate brutal board dynamics and still drive toward what's right for your company

▪️ The 6-month evolution framework that prevents you from running into walls as you scale

▪️ The counterintuitive approach to M&A that led to a successful £125M+ exit to Acorns

📖 Chapters

00:00 - What Keeps You Up At Night?

01:21 - When you are the Single Point of Failure

05:19 - Fixing the system when you're drowning

07:36 - The little Red Handbook!

13:59 - Fixing the Points of failure in practice

15:39 - Realising you might not be needed in a company you built

19:14 - Do they just want a yes man?

23:09 - Control as a leader: When to hold on and when to let go!

27:32 - Developing Finance Function... When and how to do it

30:21 - The board chose someone else to be CEO

35:30 - 2 Points: Identify Your Dragons and Learn The Art of Pre-Present

37:41 - Working with Dragons on your board

39:52 - Three biggest Board meetings, the biggest decisions

43:02 - Fundraising Learning Curves: Raised £125M, Acquiring Pixpay and Being acquired by Acorns

48:01 - How we Acquired Pixpay, finding a similar culture in your acquisition

48:03 - Biggest learnings from 6 rounds of fundraising

52:14 - Generosity within the company culture. A solidifying moment

56:08 - The ROI of paying for a holiday for all the staff

01:00:29 - What in the culture leads to people staying on for so long?

01:03:31 - Going from CEO to Executive Chair of the Board

01:07:44 - Make your passion your mission

01:12:08 - How to choose and win your battles

01:15:38 - What action we need to take

🍿 WATCH NEXT

If you liked this conversation, you'll love this one too:

One Of Europe's Largest EdTech Exits - Busuu $436m | Bernhard Niesner (interview)

👉 Subscribe for weekly interviews and deeply practical videos on how to scale with soul

📧 Get exclusive insights, timeless frameworks & founder tools in my newsletter:

🔗 Guest Links https://www.gohenry.com/

LinkedIn - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/louise-hill-5197614

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