The Unlock with Oliver Bruce

Ecologi, one of only a few businesses in the world genuinely striving for economical change. Planting over 100,000 trees PER DAY, Elliot came up with the idea for a subscription based environmentally focused business whilst on his morning commute. He thought, "what is the cost of a coffee per day could be put into changing the planet?" The rest was history. 

Having suffered from burnout in his previous job Elliot never set out to become an entrepreneur but had an idea that he believed would make a genuine difference and change the world. He wasn't wrong. 

Oliver speaks with the very humble Elliot in this episode of Success Is In The Mind unearthing some eyeopening stats and an inspiring roadmap for Ecologi, could this be the world's first $1bn environmentally focused subscription business and will we see an IPO in the years to come? 

Watch this episode on our NEW website: https://www.successpodcast.co.uk/  

Sponsored by Capsule Cover
Produced by PinPoint Media
Available on all Virgin Atlantic flights via their inflight entertainment  

In this live on location recording, Oliver caught up with Andy Shovel co-founder of vegan food brand THIS at their London HQ. 

A born entrepreneur Andy’s hit the headlines recently for his slightly ‘out there’ marketing stunts, one of which included a life size naked statue of Piers Morgan in Leicester Square with his ‘THIS’ product housed around Piers’ nether regions… That said, the self proclaimed ‘un-cool’ entrepreneur that is Andy, co-created his first business with a group of mates whilst at University. Ironically quite a ‘cool’ clubbing night called ‘cash throw events’ and yes the clue is in the name, it didn’t take off financially but opened Andy’s eyes to the possible. 

From University to founding a recruitment business which he later exited through to finance, insurance and everything in between Andy has built and sold multiple businesses.

Not all of Andy’s business ideas however have succeeded. One such flop was ‘Equity Fish’, a business similar to what Crowdcube is today. Andy left this idea behind after being “outgunned by the legal system” - It didn’t stop there however, Andy also ventured into advertising on escalator handles however, that too also didn’t work…

Relentless and not knowing when to stop, Andy has since learnt, thankfully, when to say ‘no’. Clearly however, and contrary to that, he said ‘yes’ at exactly the right time when launching THIS, his most recent business. 

Having overfunded on multiple occasions and recently rolled out vegan THIS sandwiches into WHSmith and other high street stores, Andy’s vision of a mass market vegan brand is coming to fruition as their current market value is circa £75million.

Watch the full episode on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/BULhsd5cgg0

Sponsored by Capsule Cover
Produced by PinPoint Media 

Paul's Father ran away leaving his Mother to contemplate taking him to an orphanage. His Father returned, a 'wheeler dealer', Paul's father ended up as a market trader. As a teenager Paul ended up working for his Father in Waste and Disposal. There's money in muck as they say selling for millions just before his Father passed away. Paul's business acumen served him well growing and exiting multiple Waste brands. Paul was number 3 at sportswear brand Gymshark after the co-founders approached Paul in a Birmingham gym. Paul was critical in taking Gymshark to the £1bn valuation it is today. 

Paul became Chairman of Birmingham City Football Club later on in his career and after just 6 months of joining managed to get then promoted, but how? Paul joins Oliver to talk about upbringing, perceptions and determination not forgetting of course Paul's recent acquisition HERA Clothing which he wants to build into a £100m brand in under 3 years!  

Watch the full episode on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cPAgwuKxUM

Sponsored by Capsule Cover
Produced by PinPoint Media 

After dropping out of school with no qualifications aged 16, Daniel Hegarty got signed to the same label as Boy George and went touring with his punk band for just £100 a week. He then spent the next ten years carving out a career as a working musician in LA, writing for and performing with the likes of S Club 7, Robbie Williams and the Sugababes, before returning to the UK to be one of the first employees at Wonga, where he became fully immersed in the world of tech startups.
Dan became frustrated with the whole property buying process after almost losing the house he was trying to buy due to mistakes made by his solicitors. He realised there was huge potential for change in the mortgage and property market, and in 2016, Habito was born.
Habito is a tech startup that is dedicated to ending ‘mortgage hell’ and aims to streamline the whole process, cutting down the average transaction time from 21 days to just 10. Since its founding six years ago, Habito has seen rapid growth, from sorting just 245 mortgages in 2016 to a whopping £4 billion worth of mortgages in 2020. With £80 million of funding raised so far, Habito had recently expanded into lending their own mortgages, streamlining the process even further.
In this week’s episode of Success Is In The Mind, Oliver Bruce sits down with Daniel to ask, how do you set up a business with no experience and raise millions in funding? Was dropping out of school the best decision he ever made? And what does the future of mortgage broking look like?
Watch the best bits here - https://bit.ly/3tqDcyq Listen to the full podcast – https://link.chtbl.com/lsgRUCSI 
For more exclusive content visit Oliver's YouTube - https://bit.ly/32eboTi

Sponsor - Capsule InsuranceProduced by: PinPoint Media

Growing up on a farm in rural Suffolk, sisters Alice and Rosie never pictured a career in the fashion industry. After they both headed off to uni, they both started working the corporate life in London, and when a jacket made by their mother got a hugely positive response at a wedding, they decided to start Hicks & Brown together.
Whilst originally focused on selling jackets at events, the sisters soon realised that although the jackets weren’t selling out, the hats were a huge hit, selling out every time. This spurred them to pivot to focusing on the hats, and when Kate Middleton was pictured wearing a Hicks & Brown Suffolk fedora in 2020, the brand shot to fame overnight, taking orders from royal fans across the globe. In less than two weeks, sales from the ‘Kate hat’ meant that they had already surpassed their turnover for the previous year.
In this week’s episode of Success Is In The Mind, Oliver Bruce asks, how do you get a fashion brand off the ground with little to no money? How important are big events to brands like Hicks & Brown? Just how powerful is the ‘Kate Effect’, and how did the sisters capitalise on the unexpected opportunity?
Watch the best bits here - LINKListen to the full podcast – https://link.chtbl.com/lsgRUCSI 
For more exclusive content visit Oliver's YouTube - https://bit.ly/32eboTi

Sponsor - Capsule InsuranceProduced by: PinPoint Media

After being diagnosed at 18 with an autoimmune disease, Molly Johnson-Jones was fired from her job in investment banking after requesting to work from home one day a week. Molly then met Maurice O’Brien on the dating app Hinge, and after five dates they decided to start a business together which would provide a platform for people like them who wanted more flexibility in their jobs. From this idea, Flexa was born.
Flexa is a website which only allows companies with flexible working environments to advertise jobs on its jobs platform. Flexa has introduced a benchmarking index of hundreds of companies to measure their flexibility, and the most flexible of these get put on the ‘Flexa100’ list. Since its founding in 2019, over 1200 businesses have advertised jobs on the platform and the company manages 10 million transactions and $3bn of business a year.
In this episode of Success Is In The Mind, Oliver Bruce asks, should you give away shares of the company in the early days when you don’t have the cash? How do you start a business with someone you’ve just started dating? And has the traditional working week been replaced completely by a new world of remote working?
Watch the best bits here - https://bit.ly/3sQBUwa 
For more exclusive content visit Oliver's YouTube - https://bit.ly/32eboTi

Sponsor - Capsule InsuranceProduced by: PinPoint Media

From an early age, Hannah Chappatte was surrounded by successful family members, but her initial confidence took a knock when her teachers told her she had dyslexia. Despite this, she went on the secure As and A*s across the board in her A-Levels, before spending a globe-hopping year working in intern roles in various companies around the world. 
While studying English Literature and Language in Bristol, Hannah spotted a huge gap in the market for a platform that would provide reputable student accommodation, as well as help and support to students renting from private landlords in the tricky and often murky world of student housing. 
Thus in 2019 HYBR was born, and Hannah quickly won several competitions which gave her the initial seed funding she needed to get HYBR off the ground. Fast forward to 2022, and HYBR has hundreds of properties listed in 8 cities across the UK, and with a fresh round of funding that garnered £600k, it’s only up from here for HYBR.
In this episode of Success Is In The Mind, Oliver Bruce asks - how do you go it alone as a founder of a company fresh out of university? How do you build a middle ground between students and landlords who mistrust one another? And who can you turn to for support when you’re in the lonely position of founder?
For more exclusive content visit Oliver's YouTube - https://bit.ly/32eboTi

Sponsor - Capsule InsuranceProduced by: PinPoint Media

Serial entrepreneur Martin Bysh started his journey living in East London with a passion for programming games. Seeking amusement and enjoyment in everything Martin did he built 20 top 10 games before he was 30.
Having never worked for anybody, Martin founded, grew and exited multiple online businesses before the online space was comodosited by the arrival of the Apps. He even beat Facebook to it by founding MakeFriendsOnline in the early 00’s. 
Having co-founded Huboo which is tipped to be the next Unicorn of 2022, Martin Bysh tells Oliver how he’s set up businesses for exit, built a successful funding campaign raising nearly £100m (at point of recording) in seed capital and how the team at Huboo have gone from £0 to nearly £1bn+ in little over 3 years? 
Exclusive Content –
Young, naive and forgetting tax!: https://bit.ly/3JNqVJw Commercial importance in a business: https://bit.ly/3vcwCNc Obsessive startup mentality: https://bit.ly/3thPkAH "We aren't holding back on any opportunities": https://bit.ly/3s9LMRv 
For more exclusive content visit Oliver's YouTube - https://bit.ly/32eboTi

Sponsor - Capsule InsuranceProduced by: PinPoint Media

Jamie Barber is a prolific restaurateur and founder of the Hush Collection who started out as a lawyer and musician signed to George Michael’s record label. Myleene Klass started out in showbiz and in pop group Hear’Say, before turning her attention to the world of business when she founded her own children’s clothing brand, My K. 
After months of lockdown had given them both “extreme kitchen fatigue”, they decided to team up to launch My Supper Hero, a recipe box delivery service that provides gourmet meals in the comfort of your own home. Since launching in April last year, they’ve used their combined business experience to raise half a million pounds of funding and they already offer over a dozen different gourmet meals for delivery across London, with more on the way.
In this week’s episode of Success Is In The Mind, Oliver talks to Jamie and Myleene about their beginnings, the pressures of business and fame, the balance of work and family, and how to turn failures into lessons for the future.

Exclusive Content –
The way we consume media now is fast: https://bit.ly/34Y1Dt4

Learning through failure: https://bit.ly/3LAS83R

"I don't get it all right": https://bit.ly/3rS7Dws

There's no silver bullet: https://bit.ly/3sEZsCZ

For more exclusive content visit Oliver's YouTube - https://bit.ly/32eboTi

Sponsor - Capsule Insurance

Rory Sweet, Founder of Halo, who originally featured in Series 1 of Success Is In The Mind, has recently sold his business for a huge $715 million. Now, Rory returns to the podcast to discuss how he did it, and what’s next for him. 
In this slightly shorter episode of Success Is In The Mind, Oliver catches up with Rory to ask what it feels like to sell a company, how to decide who the right buyer is and where Rory’s going with his next venture.

Exclusive Content –
Snippet 1: https://youtu.be/xddFYlAg5fY

Snippet 2: https://youtu.be/3nTpI2jOjbI

For more exclusive content visit Oliver's YouTube - https://bit.ly/32eboTi

Sponsor - Capsule Insurance