The Entrepreneurs

Richard Reed created the drinks brand Innocent with two university friends in 1999. Years later, after growing the company into a global phenomenon worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the three friends started JamJar Investments, with the goal of backing the next generation of brilliant ideas. He’s now working with the Chivas Venture – a $1m search to find and support social entrepreneurs from across the world. So, how did he get to where he is today? Richard shares his story.

How do you launch a thriving print magazine in the digital age? Serena Guen is the founder and CEO of Suitcase Group, a multimedia brand best known for travel and fashion-inspired quarterly ‘Suitcase’ magazine. Guen launched Suitcase as a globetrotting student in 2012 and has never turned back. This week she shares the secrets to her success.

Kwami Williams was raised in Ghana and studied aerospace engineering at MIT, where he worked with Nasa. On a trip back to his homeland he encountered the super-crop moringa. This launched him on an entrepreneurial journey that resulted in MoringaConnect, which aims to eradicate rural poverty, and a clean-beauty brand, True Moringa. This week he shares his story.

Massimo Buster Minale is the founder of cult-favourite interior design brand Buster + Punch. During a career working for top architecture and design firms, Minale built and sold custom motorcycles in an east London garage. His passion evolved into a company and Minale was soon crafting furniture, light fixtures and accessories, with the goal of building an accessible lifestyle brand in an analogue-obsessed age. This week, he shares his journey.

Turin-born Luca Faloni built a successful career as a strategy consultant in London and San Francisco. But it was while working on a project in the fashion industry that he saw an opportunity to start his own company. Faloni tells us why he quit his job, how he started his eponymous menswear brand and what he’s learnt from the experience.

This week we profile The Next Web, a popular media brand based in the Netherlands. Founded in 2006, it runs one of the world’s most visited websites for technology news, operates a start-up hub and hosts an annual technology conference in Amsterdam. The co-founder and chief executive, Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, explains how the company found a business mix that works.

In 2010 Jeff Raider co-founded the iconic brand Warby Parker, which has revolutionised the eyewear market and become a household name. He’s now the CEO of Harry’s, an innovative company that’s hoping to replicate the success of Warby Parker, this time in the shaving market. So how did he get from spectacles to beards – and what has he learnt along the way? Raider shares his story.

Have you ever listened to an audiobook – that grandfather of the modern podcast, once defined by cassettes and CDs at your local bookshop? Now slick, digital and massively popular, audiobooks are the fastest growing segment in the publishing industry. But how are they made, what do the economics look like and will audio eventually kill the printed word? This week we’re talking to Laurence Howell from pioneering Amazon-owned company Audible.

Simon and Elaine MacKenzie are the husband-and-wife team behind new family-friendly city-guide brand Urbanito. While travelling with their children the Scottish duo discovered a lack of smart and stylish travel guides that catered to curious kids as well as their parents – so they decided to make one themselves. They share their story.

This week we meet Ben Saunders, one of the world’s most famous polar explorers. In 2004, he became the youngest person to ski solo to the North Pole and a decade later he completed the longest human-powered polar expedition in history: a 1,800-mile return journey to the South Pole on foot. Saunders is also the founding editor and publisher of ‘Avaunt Magazine’, a brand ambassador and a public speaker. He shares the most exhilarating moments of his career, why the less glamorous side of exploring involves spreadsheets and all the many lessons he’s learnt.