The Start-Up Diaries Podcast

💪 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝗻 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗙𝗶𝘁𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀?

Discover how Mike Skaife, Head of Engineering at Ultimate Performance, is revolutionising the fitness industry with cutting-edge tech strategies and leadership.

🎙️ 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗛𝘂𝗯 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗭𝗲𝗿𝗼 𝘁𝗼 𝟭𝟬𝟬 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀: 𝗠𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗦𝗸𝗮𝗶𝗳𝗲 @ 𝗨𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲.

Join us as Mike shares his unique journey from Jaguar Land Rover to leading tech innovation at Ultimate Performance. Learn about the challenges of transitioning from a large team to a more intimate setup, how he’s mentoring the next generation of engineers, and the strategies he’s employing to integrate tech into a global fitness powerhouse with 21 locations across 9 countries.

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Mike is a DevOps expert and a skilled leader in aligning technical strategy with business objectives. He has played a crucial role in scaling JLR's digital hub from zero to nearly 100 engineers across development, testing, security, and more.

In this episode, we delve into Mike's unique journey, transitioning from a large team at Jaguar Land Rover to leading a smaller, dynamic team at Ultimate Performance. We explore the challenges he faced in his first 90 days, his approach to leadership, and how he navigates the complexities of integrating technology into a global fitness business. Mike also shares insights on the importance of handling failures, building trust within senior management, and the exciting future plans for Ultimate Performance.

Whether you're interested in tech, fitness, or leadership, there's something for everyone in this conversation. Stay tuned as we uncover the story behind Mike Skaife and his vision for Ultimate Performance!

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💡 Ready to elevate your leadership?

Not your typical Chief People Officer, JooBee Yeow is a trained Systems Engineer with a PhD in Leadership Development. Throughout her extensive career, she's worked with 2, 20 and 200-year-old companies with revenues ranging from 10m, 100m to £1 billion.

JooBee’s primary focus is guiding founders and start-up leaders to transition from the 'STARTing to Build' phase to 'BUILDing to Scale' – all while achieving organisational growth rate of 15% YoY, 15% QoQ and even 15% MoM.

The creator of the ‘Scaling Start-Ups’ blog series and newsletter, as well as the ‘Learngility Open Source,’ JooBee believes in the accessibility of knowledge. As such, she contributes extensively to the start-up community’s collective knowledge base via Sifted, Notion Capital, Atomico, Balderton, Forestay and Offbeat among many other publications, communities and VCs.

Discover how JooBee is empowering leaders to break through growth barriers and accelerate performance.

🎙️ Leadership 101: JooBee Yeow on scaling teams and effective feedback loops

Join us as JooBee dives into her extensive experience in organisational psychology and business strategy. We explore how she helps leaders navigate the complexities of scaling teams from 200 to 500, the critical role of 360-degree feedback loops, and the meta-competencies essential for sustainable leadership. JooBee also shares her expertise on fostering a culture of continuous learning, handling leadership challenges, and leveraging limited resources for maximum impact.

Whether you’re leading a start-up, managing a growing team, or striving to enhance your leadership skills, this episode offers invaluable insights and actionable advice.

Tune in to learn from JooBee Yeow’s proven strategies and elevate your leadership game!

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In this episode, Livvie Holt sits down with Stephen Bell, Group Chief Risk and Compliance Officer, and Frankie Woodhead, Group Chief Product Officer, from the Bank of London.
 
A unicorn status attained at time of launch, and second clearing bank to launch in the UK in 250 years; The business has taken the fintech sector by storm, landing into the top 10 of the nation’s most valuable FinTechs in 2021 – trailblazing since.
 
The Bank of London is different. They don’t lend, invest, or leverage your deposits like other banks do, so  they're not impacted by traditional ‘bank-runs’. They simply hold all deposits in full and unencumbered at the Bank of England, always keeping them fully available upon demand - 'safer banking for business Britain, the way it should be.'

We delve into the bank's unique vision and strategy that disrupts traditional banking by focusing solely on payment settlement, clearing, and agency banking without lending or investing.
 
Stephen and Frankie share insights into the challenges and triumphs of launching and growing a startup in the highly regulated banking sector. They highlight the importance of inclusivity being a the heart of the business, resilience, and a customer-centric approach in driving their success.
 
 Tune in to hear about their journeys, the innovative solutions they bring to the table, and their advice for other disruptors in the industry.
 
 Whether you're a startup enthusiast or a banking professional, this episode offers valuable lessons on navigating and succeeding in disrupting a traditional market, with purpose.

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Join us for an insightful episode as Chris McGowan sits down with Ben Booth to explore the remarkable evolution of MaxContact. Ben shares his compelling journey from working in a family-run business to leading major transformations, including innovative product development and strategic rebranding efforts. This episode offers an in-depth look at the critical importance of leveraging data, scaling operations while maintaining a robust company culture, and navigating intricate business transitions such as management buyouts and succession planning.

Discover how MaxContact has adapted to the rapidly evolving tech landscape, the strategies they’ve employed for market adaptation, and the lessons learned along the way. Ben shares his passions for building strong professional relationships and nurturing internal talent to become the best in the market. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned business leader, this episode is packed with actionable insights and practical strategies to help you thrive in the fast-paced tech industry.

Key takeaways:

• Ben’s transformative journey at MaxContact
• Leveraging data and maintaining culture during growth
• Navigating management buyouts and succession planning
• Implementing structural changes like rebranding and product sourcing
• Effective strategies for market adaptation and business growth
• Preparing for business exits and securing private equity investment
• Building strong relationships and seeking expert guidance

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Join us for a fascinating conversation with tech leader, Alidad Moghaddam, CEO of Blue Light Card, in an episode of tech growth mastery. From Navigating MoneySuperMarkets Acquisition, to scaling Trainline 400%, Alidad shares his remarkable journey and multicultural upbringing to leading a mission-driven organization that supports NHS workers, emergency services, social care, and armed forces personnel, Blue Light Card. Discover his experiences at American Express, Bain & Company, MoneySuperMarket, and Trainline, and how they shaped his approach to growth and innovation in the technology market.

Key Takeaways:

• Alidad’s multicultural background and its influence on his career
• Transition from American Express to the tech sector during a pivotal time of technological developments (smart phones). 
• Challenges and learnings from the 2008 financial crisis
• Key strategies for driving growth and innovation in tech businesses
• The mission and impact of Blue Light Card on everyday heroes
• The importance of IQ and EQ in leadership 
• Insights on building and maintaining company culture in hyper-growth environments
• The importance of being customer-centric and agile in business
• Vision for the future at Blue Light Card

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In this episode, Ben Whately, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Memrise, shares his journey from experimenting with neural networks to founding an innovative language learning platform.

Memrise is a platform that leverages memory techniques, deep understanding of neuroscience and novel approaches to second language acquisition to make learning a language dramatically easier and faster.

Ben discusses:

• The challenges of disrupting the Ed-Tech market
• The role of AI in education, and the growth of Memrise to 80 million users. 
• The psychological theories driving Memrise.
• His personal focus on angel investing in sustainability and climate tech startups
•  Practical advice for founders on navigating the startup ecosystem, understanding customer needs, and staying adaptable.
• Mental frameworks to adopt for agility in business development and growth (anti-fragile mentalities).
• How people from non traditional backgrounds can still flourish and have great success in the technology sector.
• What type of founder Ben looks to invest in.
• Counteracting innate bias to try to change the investment landscape and build a better technology ecosystem for the future.

And much, much more...

Tune in for insights on education, psychology, technology, and sustainable innovation.

💡📚The annual Technology Hiring Report by Burns Sheehan is now LIVE! Packed with salary benchmarks, market trends, founder advice, investment insights and more... Get your copy here.

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In this episode, Phil Goffin, CEO and co-founder of ZILO, shares his journey from early computing enthusiast to innovating in the fin-tech space, currently through leading a pioneering software company, ZILO.

ZILO, founded in 2020, aims to revolutionise the asset and wealth management industry with innovative software solutions. Phil explains the company's mission to modernise systems managing over $60 trillion in assets, which were previously based on outdated pre-internet technology. They're on a mission to be a global software giant.

ZILO has a strong focus on artificial intelligence, with 20% of their engineers dedicated to AI development; Phil discusses the challenges of AI adoption in the finance sector, AI's developments and how we protect and evolve the talent in the tech market, and how ZILO have a 1/1000 success rate in joining their world class teams.

Having secured £25 million in funding earlier this year (totalling circa £50 million of funding), Phil also sheds light on the challenges of the fundraising journey and advice for other entrepreneurs.

Phil also reflects on how his ADHD has influenced his creative problem-solving and offers his own experience on how he has been managing this, reframing it as his super-power over a limitation.

Beyond ZILO, Phil has founded multiple successful businesses, including Calastone, which was sold for £350 million.

He shares lessons learned from these ventures, emphasising the importance of passion over just profit and offers final advice for integrating AI into business from the ground up, rather than as an afterthought.

This episode provides a wealth of insights for aspiring entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts alike.

💡📚The annual Technology Hiring Report by Burns Sheehan is now LIVE! Packed with salary benchmarks, market trends, founder advice, investment insights and more... Get your copy here.

Follow The Start-Up Diaries Podcast on LinkedIn, Instagram, or find more free content from the Tech Recruitment Specialists powering The Start-Up Diaries - Burns Sheehan.

Ann O'Neill walks us through her brilliant career and how it's lead her to build a UK leading female health product focused on the menopause, Adora Digital Health.

Ann's diverse career started in sales & marketing over in radio. Having previously worked on the UK's biggest ever radio broadcast deals including Live8 with Bob Geldof, and worked with market leading broadcasters such as Viacom, MTV, and Global Media (then Capital Radio) to name a few.

After taking a career break to raise her children, Ann experience first hand how women desperately needed (and continue to need) more support in the workplace when dealing perimenopause, menopause and postmenopause symptoms. She took the matter into her own hands, and made the leap into entrepeneurialism.

Ann has founded a start-up that is an expert-led, AI health and wellbeing platform for menopause, provided by employers in the workplace, and is leading the way in this area of the FemTech sector.

You'll hear more on:

•  How it's possible to get into the AI healthtech sector when not having a healthcare, tech or AI background 😉
•  Fund raising challenges as a female entrepreneur; Ann joins the '2% club', the 2% of female entrepreneurs who successfully secure VC investment
•  Developing a public and private sector product
• The importance of marketing in a tech-startup
•  Advice for founders

Follow The Start-Up Diaries Podcast on LinkedIn, Instagram, or find more free content from the Tech Recruitment Specialists powering The Start-Up Diaries - Burns Sheehan.

In this episode we have Sadra Hosseini, the CEO and co-founder of Ryft, a payment platform business taking the fintech sector by storm, Helping software businesses become payments businesses by monetising transactions.

Sadra's entrepreneurial journey is nothing short of inspiring, and today we'll dive into how he's transforming the landscape of digital payments. The episode covers:

•  Funding and Strategy - Ryft raised 2 million in seed funding and received an Innovate UK grant, and are currently raising series A.
• Hollistic Hiring - Sadra hires based on cultural fit and drive rather than just skills and explains why.
• Partnerships -  Mentions one of their most proud partners, American Express, and how they developed this partnership.
• Angel Investing - Sadra personally angel invests in fintech businesses on the UK scene!
•  Advice for first time founders from a third time founder!

And much, much more.

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On today’s episode, we have Jason Iliffe, CEO and Co-Founder at CLIQ!

CLIQ is a community & social networking app aimed a connecting like-minded individuals together to join interest-based clubs and events; Connecting communities online and more importantly, offline.
 
Jason is a tech entrepreneur who started by coding his first marketplace website — an online beauty marketplace for freelance beauty professionals, AMB, was the UK's fastest-growing platform and voted the number one beauty/tech business start-up in 2021. AMB's success led to its acquisition by Revolution Beauty PLC, which lead to the creation of MY REV which was a SaaS/marketplace platform.
 
The second time founder delves into how he exited his first business, and walks us through a 'start-up 101' of the practical processes he faced and overcome in the process of building a successful tech driven business. Jason reflects on fundraising challenges first time around, alongside navigating difficult conversations on investment with his co-founder and partner Nicola Gunby. Jason highlights the valuable and powerful combination of having a technical and non technical co-foundership, and talks to us about how they’re pursuing the mission of reaching and impacting 1 billion lives for the better.  

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