What does a genuinely agentic marketing operation look like in practice - and can a founder actually build one that runs itself?

Linda Du, Founder and CEO of Moola, has built it. A full content and distribution pipeline - blog posts written, creatives built, posts scheduled across every channel, ad spend tracked and attribution mapped - running on a weekly loop, almost entirely without her having to step in. And it works.

Carl and Emily are joined by Linda to find out exactly how the pipeline is architected, what it took to get there, and whether any of it is replicable for the rest of us.

They dig into: why their TikTok agent is now generating AI videos of a Nicki Minaj GIF telling people to sort their pensions out (and why the engagement is real), the question of whether AI is actually coming for salespeople - Linda has a clear view on where the line is - and what happens when Reddit's human moderators start hunting your AI-generated posts. Hint: apparently X gave up that fight entirely.

And we play 'Machine-made or human'? Carl has also made an advert for Moola. He wants to know if Linda - AI marketing expert - can spot whether it's human or machine-made. She can. And her reason is not flattering.

Plus your listener stories and the usual promise to never. Ever. Take ourselves too seriously.

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At some point, every founder gets the question: have you thought about getting a coach? But is coaching the same as therapy? And what happens when you go into it as a client - and come out so transformed that you retrain as one yourself?

Carl and Emily are joined by Richard Titus - serial entrepreneur and certified executive coach, now CEO of Kimono, an AI identity platform - to get into the coaching question every founder eventually faces.

Richard shares what it felt like to be told he was a "terrible coach" by a (very drunk) former Samsung colleague - and why that single piece of feedback sent him to the Hudson Institute, where he trained and spent nearly a decade coaching founders. They dig into the coaching-versus-therapy spectrum, whether AI can ever replace a human coach ("a sycophantic sociopath," he says), and the surprisingly common coaching outcome: the answer that wasn't what anyone expected.

Plus we put Richard to the test with our "Inspiration or Imagination" quiz. Listener stories, Founder Diaries from Carl and Emily - including Carl's gut-punch first customer exit. And the usual promise to never. Ever. Take ourselves too seriously.

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Keywords: business podcast, founders, entrepreneurship, startup, UK business, CEO, entrepreneur interviews, leadership, Business, Entrepreneurship, Education, Self-Improvement, Technology, coaching, executive coaching, founder coaching, therapy, AI coaching, personal development

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Nineteen banks said no. Sahar Hashemi's perseverance answered every one of them - and Coffee Republic opened anyway. Then came 108 stores, a London Stock Exchange listing, and an OBE.

Carl and Emily are joined by Sahar Hashemi OBE - serial entrepreneur, co-founder of Coffee Republic and founder of Buy Women Built - to get into what actually separates the founders who keep going from the ones who preemptively stop.

Sahar's rejections didn't break her - they fed her. She also reveals the moment she eventually stopped on a different business entirely, and what made that call feel different.

Plus the Rejection Counting Quiz: did J.K. Rowling, Brian Chesky and the founder of Canva collect more knockbacks than Sahar - or fewer? One of those answers will surprise you.

Your listener stories: Ian, who got a meeting at a property company by emailing every employee about a conference he'd never attended. And Lara, who sent a kitchen sink in the post with the note "I've tried everything except this."

Emily on Bluebella's Fully Remote August in Founder Diaries - and whether trusting a team to work from anywhere is brave leadership or just hoping nobody's Zooming from a sunlounger. Carl on the big stones in the jar, and his battle with his love of the next shiny thing. Plus the usual promise to never. Ever. Take ourselves too seriously.

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We uncover a breathtaking example of bootstrapping: can a two-person team - no investors, no wider team - build a real enterprise business? What happens when you turn down every VC cold call?

Carl and Emily are joined by Daniel van Binsbergen - co-founder of Draftpilot, an AI-powered contract review tool built for law firms - to find out how far a lean founding team can go in the age of AI.

They dig into why Daniel turned down every VC meeting in year one, how his bootstrapped business now out-earns his previous Series A-backed company, and how to out-market competitors with $50 million budgets.

Back in the studio, Emily reveals what happened the week both her main advertising platforms went dark at once - and what she learned about organic traffic from being forced off them. And Carl shares his post-summer Founder Diary: the ultimate e-ink tech nerd project.

And also... we put Daniel through "How Tight Are You?" - a series of bootstrapper dilemmas from laptop upgrades to flights via Iceland. And Founder Fails: former guest Mark McDermott admits how he said ‘no’ to buying shares in a tech company that proved to be a costly mistake…

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By the time you hear this, Carl and Emily are (hopefully) on a beach somewhere with a cocktail in hand. But are they actually switched off?

In this second holiday break episode, they get honest about the reality of taking time off as a founder — and whether a true disconnect is even possible. Emily talks about needing a festival with no phone signal to actually stop checking in. Carl explores the three-week neuro pattern theory: apparently, your brain never fully shifts into a different frequency unless you take a proper break — which, as a founder, you probably never do.

There are also some brilliant rules from the founders in their lives: the friend who insists any call must first go through his wife; and the infamous welcome-to-the-team message from someone who once worked for Simon Cowell, who helpfully reminded new starters that his time is worth approximately £100k per minute.

All of that, plus a tease of what is coming in the next few eps: Daniel Van Binsbergen on bootstrapping a thriving business from limited resources, Sahar Hashemi OBE on perseverance and entrepreneurial tenacity, and Nick Katz with lessons on how to fundraise. We are back from September 1st.

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Carl and Emily are heading off for the summer - no guest interviews this week - but there's just enough time for Founder Diaries before they go.

Carl managed to embarrass himself on a sales call - by asking a series of confident questions about a very interesting book he'd spotted in their video call background. There was just one problem with the book..

Emily spent two to three days locked in a room reviewing Bluebella collections and loved getting back to the creative core of the business. But it raised an interesting discussion around context-switching as a founder.

Plus - a first listen at what's coming in September: bootstrapping legend Daniel van Binsbergen, AI agent burnout, and the context-switching epidemic nobody is talking about yet.

All delivered with the usual promise to never. Ever. Take ourselves too seriously.

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It should have been a dream exit. Mark McDermott closed the PE deal after ten years building ScreenCloud. Company sold. Cash in the bank. But he didn't celebrate. Didn't socialise. Barely left the house for six months. This is the exit that burned him out and nearly broke him - but does he have any regrets?

Carl and Emily are joined by Mark - co-founder and CEO of ScreenCloud, a global digital signage platform - to find out what the exit process actually does to you. The answer: investment bank hacked on signing day, funds nearly diverted. Trump's Liberation Day tariffs hit mid-deal. KPMG surfaces a bogus $20 million tax hole. Then you close. And you realise you've been running on fumes for months.

They dig into the coping strategies that weren't really coping, what "the weight of the cap table" means when other people's futures are sitting on your shoulders, and whether Mark would trade 50% of the deal price for a process that didn't break him.

Emily also shares the moment she realised she'd been lying to her fiancé on their engagement holiday - sneaking out to check emails, telling him she was getting drinks. Overwork or addiction? You can decide.

Plus Carl discusses the AI SaaS-pocalypse in Founder Diaries and why everyone needs an MCP server. Your listener stories, and the usual promise to never. Ever. Take ourselves too seriously.

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How do you get in front of the people who really matter - and generate solid opportunities in the process? Plus how our guest made a CEO cry.

Carl and Emily are joined by Pete Ward - co-founder of The ICE Network for Entrepreneurs and CEO of Humanity, the longevity health tech app - to get into the real art of power networking - and why you're doing it wrong.

They dig into: the one counterintuitive hack for getting time with any speaker at any conference (or just do what Emily does and stalk them to their hotel) the origin story of ICE (opportunity born from tragedy) and the eye-gazing ceremony Pete ran in a high-stakes meeting - where a global executive broke down mid-session and transformed the entire meeting into something far more wonderful.

Also: can Pete survive our real-world networking dilemmas quiz - the bathroom encounter, the graceful 15-minute exit, the 1am dance-floor gambit? Plus your listener stories, Founder Fails, and Emily drops hints about a secret new project in the Bluebella universe. She can describe the feeling. Just not what it is.

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Carl and Emily step back from the interview chair for an honest check-in on their own businesses. Emily is trying to forecast through the noise of Trump tariffs - when one man's mood can move your top line overnight, the numbers stop looking like a business plan and start looking like astrology.

Carl is six months into ThreadHound, his new SaaS business, picking up early customers - but starting to worry that saying yes to everyone could be the beginning of a very familiar mistake. His prescription: go back to the Lean Business Canvas.

And we couldn't resist sharing an early clip from next week: Pete Ward, co-founder of the ICE Network, on how to break into a room full of people and actually get in front of the person you really want to meet.

Comments, reactions, and your messages keep us going - join the conversation at vib.show.

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How do you hire the best people - and then make sure that they stick around? 

Finding the right people is tough. Spotting the wrong ones before it's too late is tougher.  Do you hire for culture or for skillset? What makes for a good (and a dreadful) interview?

Carl and Emily are joined by Anouk Agussol - co-founder and US CEO of Foundation Partners, where she helps companies on both sides of the Atlantic sort out their people problems - to get into the challenge every founder faces when building their team.

They dig into: which roles are really the hardest to fill, how you interview well in the age of AI, and the worst hires they've ever made. We also hear about the wild stories of the company founder who discovered an employee using deepfakes to carry on not two but FIVE jobs at once.

Also — can Anouk tell the difference between a real job applicant and an AI-generated one? Plus, your stories, Founder Diaries, and the usual promise to never. Ever. Take ourselves too seriously.

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