In this bite-sized episode of Screw It Just DO It, I speak with Cemal Ezel OBE, CEO and founder of Change Please.

Cemal shares the defining moment that reshaped his life and career. On a long bus journey in Vietnam, a stranger asked him a question that forced deep reflection. Sitting in a rocking chair at ninety, what legacy would he leave behind. That question led Cemal to build Change Please, a social enterprise using coffee to tackle homelessness.

Today, Change Please trains homeless people as baristas, pays a living wage, provides housing support, and reinvests all profits into reducing homelessness. The business is stocked nationwide in Sainsbury’s and is expanding internationally while maintaining strong environmental standards across its supply chain.

This episode explores purpose-led entrepreneurship, building the right team, choosing mentors carefully, and why founders must take time to recognise progress.

Key Takeaways

• Why reflecting on legacy clarifies decision making
• How small actions can scale meaningful impact
• The importance of surrounding yourself with experienced mentors
• Why founders must pause to acknowledge progress

🎧 Don’t miss a moment of entrepreneurial insight. Subscribe to Screw It Just DO It wherever you get your podcasts.

🎟️ Join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, November 3–4 at the NEC Birmingham.

👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk

Matt Richards MBE is a two time Olympic champion who understands pressure at the highest level. In this episode of Screw It Just DO It, Matt shares how self belief was built early, tested at the 2024 Olympics, and later applied to building a business while still competing at an elite level.

We talk about dealing with doubt, staying consistent when outcomes are uncertain, and why feedback and focus matter when you are building something new.

Key Takeaways

How Matt rebuilt belief under Olympic pressure

Why consistency beats confidence during uncertain moments

What elite sport teaches you about execution and focus

How feedback shaped Matt’s move into business

🎧 This episode is powered by WorldFirst, specialists in international business payments.

If your business pays overseas suppliers or receives payments from abroad, those transaction fees can quickly add up.

As a Screw It Just DO It listener, you can get 50 international transactions completely fee free for 60 days.

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🎧 Don’t miss a moment of entrepreneurial insight. Subscribe to Screw It Just DO It wherever you get your podcasts.

🔥 Join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, November 3–4 at the NEC Birmingham.

👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk

Simon Alexander Ong is a speaker, coach, and author of Energize. In this Bite-Sized episode of Screw It Just DO It, Simon explains why energy sits at the centre of fulfilment, performance, and progress.

We talk about acting before the timing feels perfect, building relationships without expectation, and learning to filter feedback properly. Simon shares the moment he realised that waiting creates regret and why fulfilment starts with decisions made in the present.

Key Takeaways

Why waiting for the right moment often leads to regret

How energy is shaped by people, environments, and internal stories

Why relationships grow stronger without expectations attached

How to filter feedback into signal and ignore the noise

This episode is for founders and leaders who feel drained, distracted, or stuck waiting for clarity.

🎧 Don’t miss a moment of entrepreneurial insight. Subscribe to Screw It Just DO It wherever you get your podcasts.

🎟️ Join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, November 3–4 at the NEC Birmingham.

This Festival of Entrepreneurs panel brings together founders who experienced The Apprentice from the inside and lived with the consequences after the cameras stopped rolling.

Tre Lowe, Sabrina Stocker, and Daniel Elahi share why they chose visibility, what the show really gave them, and where it genuinely helped or hindered their businesses. We talk about personal brand, resilience, teamwork under pressure, and the difference between short-term attention and long-term value.

This episode, hosted by James Burtt, founder of Phonic Content, is not about reality TV. It is about making deliberate decisions when exposure, risk, and reputation are on the line.

Key Takeaways

Why visibility accelerates opportunity when values are clear

How resilience is built under pressure, not comfort

When personal brand helps and when it becomes noise

Why certainty and teamwork matter more than tactics

🎧 Don’t miss a moment of entrepreneurial insight. Subscribe to Screw It Just DO It wherever you get your podcasts.

🎟️ Join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, November 3–4 at the NEC Birmingham.

👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk

Adam Kamani has scaled businesses by focusing on the one area founders struggle with most. People.

In this Bite-sized episode of Screw It Just DO It, Adam explains why hiring decisions shape everything that follows, how strong teams compensate for leadership gaps, and why personality matters more than skill when a business starts to grow.

What You’ll Learn

• Why managing people becomes harder as businesses scale
• How hiring for personality protects culture long term
• Why strong teams fill leadership and capability gaps
• What founders often get wrong about people decisions

This episode is for founders and leaders who want to scale without losing trust, accountability, or momentum.

🎧 Don’t miss a moment of entrepreneurial insight. Subscribe to Screw It Just DO It wherever you get your podcasts.

🔥 If you’re serious about growing your business, join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs on 3-4 November at the NEC Birmingham.

👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk

Henry Firth and Ian Theasby are the founders of BOSH!, one of the UK’s most influential plant-based food brands. What started as frustration with corporate life became a deliberate decision to build an audience before building products.

What You’ll Learn

• Why starting with content de-risked their entire business
• How £20k funded the first critical leap
• The discipline behind focusing on the UK before global expansion
• What founders misunderstand about slow, steady scale

This is a practical conversation about focus, restraint, and building something meaningful without rushing scale.

🎧 Don’t miss a moment of entrepreneurial insight. Subscribe to Screw It Just DO It wherever you get your podcasts.

🔥 If you’re serious about growing your business, join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, 3–4 November 2026 at the NEC Birmingham.

👉 Subscribe now and be part of the movement.

Growing on TikTok becomes easier when you understand how the platform thinks. Timothy Armoo explains the system with complete clarity.

Most founders post on TikTok without understanding how the platform decides who sees what. In this Bite sized Screw It Just DO It episode, Timothy Armoo strips away the guesswork. He explains why niche dominance matters, how to warm the algorithm, and why video level performance beats follower count every time. His approach is built from running campaigns for global brands and seeing what actually drives reach. These insights apply to any founder trying to grow an audience, test messaging or build trust online. His view of TikTok as a behaviour engine rather than a social network gives you a clearer way to work with the platform instead of fighting it.

Guest Note:

Timothy Armoo is the co founder of Fanbytes, one of Europe’s largest Gen Z marketing agencies.

Key Takeaways

• Warm the algorithm before posting to improve distribution.
• Build content for one niche to help TikTok identify your audience.
• Create episodic content to increase watch time and return visits.
• Use trends to give the algorithm a shortcut for matching your videos to intent.

🎧 New episodes of Screw It Just DO It drop every Tuesday & Thursday, so make sure you follow wherever you listen. You’ll hear real conversations with founders who’ve taken a risk, built something from scratch, and figured it out along the way.

FOE returns to NEC Birmingham on November 3-4, 2026. Stay connected at www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk and follow @festivalofentrepreneurs for news, updates, and future events.

Real entrepreneurs. Real stories. Real strategies.

👉 Follow the show. Keep showing up. Screw It Just DO It!

#ScrewItJustDoIt #FestivalOfEntrepreneurs #StartupLife #Entrepreneurship

Sandra Byrne never set out to be an entrepreneur. She left school at fifteen, had no qualifications, and started in retail to get by. What followed was a twenty-one-year journey that led her to build the biggest Lush store in the world on Liverpool’s high street.What You’ll Learn

• Why acting like an owner matters even when the business is not yours

• How community and experience replaced marketing budgets

• What it takes to scale without losing culture

• How to stay entrepreneurial inside a large organisation

This episode is a practical lesson in leadership, ownership, and building something meaningful without waiting for permission.

🎧 Don’t miss a moment of entrepreneurial insight. Subscribe to Screw It Just DO It wherever you get your podcasts.

🔥 If you’re serious about growing your business, join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, 3–4 November 2026 at the NEC Birmingham.

👉 Subscribe now and be part of the movement.

This episode features Richard Harpin MBE, founder of HomeServe and one of the UK’s most experienced scale up operators. Recorded before his recent MBE award, this conversation shows exactly why his contribution to British business has been recognised.

Richard shares how he grew a simple plumbing insurance idea into a global business valued at over £4 billion. He breaks down his nine step framework for building and scaling companies, from copying and pivoting early, to securing the right investor, replacing yourself as founder, and choosing steady evolution over dramatic change.

We also cover international expansion, backing yourself when capital is tight, and why mentorship has played a defining role throughout his career. Today Richard is focused on helping the next generation of founders through Growth Partner and Business Leader, with a clear ambition to support a significant share of the UK’s mid sized businesses.

Key takeaways

Follow a clear framework and focus on execution not ideas

Secure the right mentor early and listen to them

Evolve constantly to avoid becoming irrelevant

Expand internationally with local leadership in place

Strip your business back to its core value and commit fully

🎧 New episodes of Screw It Just DO It drop every Tuesday & Thursday, so make sure you follow wherever you listen. You’ll hear real conversations with founders who’ve taken a risk, built something from scratch, and figured it out along the way.

FOE returns to NEC Birmingham on November 3-4, 2026. Stay connected at www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk and follow @festivalofentrepreneurs for news, updates, and future events.

Real entrepreneurs. Real stories. Real strategies.

👉 Follow the show. Keep showing up. Screw It Just DO It!

#ScrewItJustDoIt #FestivalOfEntrepreneurs #StartupLife #Entrepreneurship

Scaling a startup into a national or international brand is rarely clean, predictable, or glamorous.

Recorded live at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, this panel brings together founders who have scaled in very different industries but faced the same uncomfortable decisions along the way. From compliance and capital to branding, product reality, and investor relationships, this conversation focuses on what actually holds when growth accelerates.

Guests:

Mark Rushmore, Co-founder of SURI

Laura Fullerton, Founder of monk

Claire Warner, Co-founder of Aecorn

Melissa Snover, Founder of Remedy Health & Nourished

Jeannette Linfoot, Host of Brave Bold Brilliant (moderator)

In this episode, you’ll learn:

Why compliance and financial clarity cannot be delayed

When rebuilding is the real growth decision

How to think about scale before demand explodes

What raising capital really looks like in tougher markets

If you are building something you want to last, this episode will help you see scale more clearly.

🎧 Don’t miss a moment of entrepreneurial insight. Subscribe to Screw It Just DO It wherever you get your podcasts.

🔥 If you’re serious about growing your business, join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, 3–4 November 2026 at the NEC Birmingham.

👉 Subscribe now and be part of the movement.

00:00 Welcome to the Festival of Entrepreneurs  

00:12 What It Really Takes to Scale a Startup  

01:25 Meet the Founders  

04:17 Early Scaling Lessons  

05:48 Strategic Bets vs Rushing to Scale  

07:04 Building Compliance Before Growth  

08:18 Choosing a Market That Can Scale  

10:25 Lessons From Before This Business  

13:20 When Customers Reject the Product  

16:40 Branding Before the Product Exists  

18:14 Understanding the Numbers  

20:57 The Reality of Raising Capital  

21:55 The Screw It Just DO It Moment  

24:35 Handling Rejection as a Founder  

27:51 Choosing the Right Investors  

29:58 Scaling With the Right Partners  

32:17 Building a Brand in a New Category  

34:43 Final Thoughts From the Panel