START UP. START NOW. – Details, episodes & analysis

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Karen and Patrick O'Flaherty are the dynamic husband and wife duo at the helm of Pip Organic, a brand dedicated to crafting 100% organic food and drink for the whole family to enjoy. 

Karen and Patrick’s business journey began when they opened their own organic juice stall in London’s Borough Market. Their passion and drive has since led them on to create Pip Organic, a company dedicated to making top tasting products that work with nature.

With Karen’s expertise in branding, and Patrick’s passion for organic, Pip Organic has gone on to become a successful brand that is on a mission to make it easier for parents to say “yes”!

With hard work and perseverance, Karen and Patrick have transformed Pip Organic from the tiny seedling it was, into the brand it is now, all whilst raising two children - who of course provide advice for all the Pip products along the way!

Find out more about Pip Organic via: website, Instagram, LinkedIn & TikTok.

A new episode EVERY WEEK, showcasing the journeys of inspirational entrepreneurs, side hustlers and their mentors. We discuss their successes, challenges and how they overcame setbacks. Focusing mainly on what they wish they had known when starting out. The podcast aims to give aspiring entrepreneurs the confidence to START UP and START NOW by showcasing real and relatable entrepreneurs. After all, seeing is believing!

Join the conversation using #startupstartnow and tagging us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Don't forget to leave a review as it really helps us reach those who need it and allows us to get the best guests for you!

Connect with START UP. START NOW. and to nominate a guest please visit: www.startupstartnow.co.uk.  To connect with Sharena Shiv please visit: www.sharena.co.uk.

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Alex Gibbs is co-founder and director of BAM (Built Asset Management), London’s leading co-living operator. BAM has housed over 6,500 young professionals in London and provides over 1,500 units of accommodation across the capital and beyond.

In under eight years, Alex and his business partner bootstrapped BAM from a zero- to eight-figure turnover business in one of the UK’s most competitive sectors. After four competitor acquisitions over the last two and a half years, BAM now operates over £350 million worth of residential real estate.

Alex is a passionate entrepreneur and has significant experience in scaling businesses, as well as acquiring both profitable and distressed SMEs. He is a recognised industry and business leadership media commentator and holds advisory roles within growing businesses spanning several sectors.

Find out more about Alex Gibbs via: LinkedIn.

Find out more about Built Asset Management (BAM) via: their website.

A new episode EVERY WEEK, showcasing the journeys of inspirational entrepreneurs, side hustlers and their mentors. We discuss their successes, challenges and how they overcame setbacks. Focusing mainly on what they wish they had known when starting out. The podcast aims to give aspiring entrepreneurs the confidence to START UP and START NOW by showcasing real and relatable entrepreneurs. After all, seeing is believing!

Join the conversation using #startupstartnow and tagging us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Don't forget to leave a review as it really helps us reach those who need it and allows us to get the best guests for you!

Connect with START UP. START NOW. and to nominate a guest please visit: www.startupstartnow.co.uk.  To connect with Sharena Shiv please visit: www.sharena.co.uk.

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Established in 1985, Kiki McDonough Ltd was born from Kiki’s passion for showcasing coloured gemstones in innovative, contemporary designs. She continues to lead the way in British fine jewellery design. The brand’s very first creation, a pair of distinctive crystal heart earrings, were put on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s renowned jewellery gallery, cementing the brand’s importance within the modern jewellery landscape.

Kiki has been at the forefront of the British fine jewellery for more than 35 years, launching her first range via a small concession in 1985. Following moves to Elizabeth Street in 1989 and Walton Street in 1992, her designs are now housed in a flagship store on Symons Street, just off Sloane Square. The business has grown rapidly year-on-year and the collection is available to buy online, at selected stores in the UK and overseas including the US and Canada.

Colour, creativity and craftsmanship have long been held in high esteem by Kiki and her family. She is a fifth-generation jeweller and the only woman in that line, igniting in her an ambition to share the joy jewellery can bring, and how a little colour can elevate the every day. Though her designs have varied in style, cost and composition over the years, Kiki has always aimed to provide wearable and beautiful jewellery at an affordable price. Filling this gap in the market has been her motivation from the start.

Kiki’s clientele spans style conscious women of all ages. Her designs have also been popular amongst members of the Royal family. The Duchess of Cambridge has worn her jewellery on numerous occasions, just like Princess Diana before her.

Passionate about the ballet, Kiki has been on the Development Board of the English National Ballet school and has been a trustee of the Starlight Foundation, both of which she still supports. She is also a business mentor for the Prince’s Trust, supporting young entrepreneurs at the start of their business journey. Kiki lives in London with her two sons. She loves to travel and is a keen supporter of Liverpool Football Club.

Find out more about Kiki via: LinkedIn.
Find out more about Kiki McDonough fine jewellery via: their website, Instagram and Facebook.

A new episode EVERY WEEK, showcasing the journeys of inspirational entrepreneurs, side hustlers and their mentors. We discuss their successes, challenges and how they overcame setbacks. Focusing mainly on what they wish they had known when starting out. The podcast aims to give aspiring entrepreneurs the confidence to START UP and START NOW by showcasing real and relatable entrepreneurs. After all, seeing is believing!

Join the conversation using #startupstartnow and tagging us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Don't forget to leave a review as it really helps us reach those who need it and allows us to get the best guests for you!

Connect with START UP. START NOW. and to nominate a guest please visit: www.startupstartnow.co.uk.  To connect with Sharena Shiv please visit: www.sharena.co.uk.

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Olly Hiscocks is a snack fanatic and founder of Olly's, one of the most exciting brands in the healthier delicious snack space with their range of innovative Pretzel Thins, Chocolate Pretzel Thins and Olive snack pouches. 

Having landed a degree in neuroscience, he then embarked on his entrepreneurial journey in the wonderful world of olives. His snack adventure was born out of marinating olives in his kitchen in London and selling them at local farmers markets in 2016. Since then, Olly's has gone on to become an international snack brand, selling millions of packs each year across countries all over the world. 

Olly is a seasoned pro when it comes to breathing new life, colour and character into snack categories; all guided by his snack creation ethos which is to keep health at the heart and deliver flavour to the full. The rise & rise of their latest creation, Pretzel Thins, has translated to the Olly's range being the fastest-growing pretzel brand in the UK currently, and he's sure there will be plenty more creations to come.

The community surrounding Olly's is something that has always been incredibly important to the brand, which is continuing to build upon its mission to feed the planet's feel-good. This mission goes well beyond the snacks and into the lifestyle and relationships the brand looks to foster and grow. Olly's also works closely with their charity partner, One Feeds Two, to support them by providing over 25,000 school meals to underprivileged children around the world. 

Find out more about Olly Hiscocks via: LinkedIn.
Find out more about Olly's Snacks via: their website, Instagram and Twitter.

A new episode EVERY WEEK, showcasing the journeys of inspirational entrepreneurs, side hustlers and their mentors. We discuss their successes, challenges and how they overcame setbacks. Focusing mainly on what they wish they had known when starting out. The podcast aims to give aspiring entrepreneurs the confidence to START UP and START NOW by showcasing real and relatable entrepreneurs. After all, seeing is believing!

Join the conversation using #startupstartnow and tagging us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Don't forget to leave a review as it really helps us reach those who need it and allows us to get the best guests for you!

Connect with START UP. START NOW. and to nominate a guest please visit: www.startupstartnow.co.uk.  To connect with Sharena Shiv please visit: www.sharena.co.uk.

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The Debate Mate Group is a social business with 2 distinct but complementary parts – the charity Debate Mate Schools, and the business Debate Mate Limited. At its core, Debate Mate – across the entities - teaches confidence, communication and leadership from the classroom to the boardroom. 

Margaret founded Debate Mate (Schools) as a non-profit in 2007 with the aim of reducing poverty, improving social mobility and tackling racism through a revolutionary education programme. The programme, which started with 200 students in London, has now reached over 125,000 young people in nearly 100 countries. 

Debate Mate Limited, established in 2015, provides world-class communication and leadership training and engagement events for leading companies across the globe. Current partners range from Morgan Stanley to Meta, from Snapchat to Standard Chartered. The business launched an ed-tech platform in 2020 as a response to the Covid pandemic, that provides virtual skills-based programmes for nearly 1000 young people per week from 47 countries aged 5 and up. Courses range from learning to debate to exploring law, technology and entrepreneurship, and we currently run them in English and Arabic. 

The business is raising investment this year to accelerate its technical evolution and is partnering with data science specialists from the Institute of Education to imbed ML and AI to enable them to scale their programmes.

Find out more about Margaret McCabe via: LinkedIn.
Find out more about Scarlett McCabe via: LinkedIn.
Find out more about Debate Mate via: their website, Instagram and LinkedIn.

A new episode EVERY WEEK, showcasing the journeys of inspirational entrepreneurs, side hustlers and their mentors. We discuss their successes, challenges and how they overcame setbacks. Focusing mainly on what they wish they had known when starting out. The podcast aims to give aspiring entrepreneurs the confidence to START UP and START NOW by showcasing real and relatable entrepreneurs. After all, seeing is believing! 

Join the conversation using #startupstartnow and tagging us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Don't forget to leave a review as it really helps us reach those who need it and allows us to get the best guests for you! 

Connect with START UP. START NOW. and to nominate a guest please visit: www.startupstartnow.co.uk.  To connect with Sharena Shiv please visit: www.sharena.co.uk.

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Al is a serial entrepreneur and Co-Founder/CEO of Grenade, one of the most successful UK FMCG brands of the last 25 years. Starting with a £500 loan from the UKTI Passport to Export program in 2010, he sold shares in Grenade in 2014 for £35M, again in 2017 for £72M, and in 2021 for £200M, to Mondelez International.

Current trading as of 2023 values the brand at over £500M and still growing.

Grenade has been featured in the Virgin Fast Track 100 for seven consecutive years in a row, with no signs of slowing down, and its signature product, Carb Killa, is currently the bestselling protein bar brand in the UK grocery channel, disrupting the entire confectionary category for the first time in many years, as well as the number one selling item in food on Amazon.

Al has won UK Entrepreneur of the Year an unprecedented three times, and is a mentor for Virgin Start Up, as well as an angel investor and philanthropist. He also holds multiple pilots licences for both aeroplanes and helicopters and is an honorary Colonel in the British Army (Royal Artillery)

He has invaluable experience in going head to head with industry giants and passionately tells the highs and lows of building a disruptive global brand and overcoming adversity against all odds, from making front page headlines after surviving a plane crash to creating one of the UKs best known and fastest growing consumer brands.

Find out more about Al Barratt via: LinkedIn.
Find out more about Grenade via: their website, Instagram and Twitter.

A new episode EVERY WEEK, showcasing the journeys of inspirational entrepreneurs, side hustlers and their mentors. We discuss their successes, challenges and how they overcame setbacks. Focusing mainly on what they wish they had known when starting out. The podcast aims to give aspiring entrepreneurs the confidence to START UP and START NOW by showcasing real and relatable entrepreneurs. After all, seeing is believing!

Join the conversation using #startupstartnow and tagging us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Don't forget to leave a review as it really helps us reach those who need it and allows us to get the best guests for you!

Connect with START UP. START NOW. and to nominate a guest please visit: www.startupstartnow.co.uk.  To connect with Sharena Shiv please visit: www.sharena.co.uk.

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In 1987 John co-founded The New Covent Garden Soup Co Ltd which pioneered and grew the fresh soup category in the UK. Daniels PLC bought New Covent Garden Soup Co in 1998. John then co-founded Glencoe Foods Inc., to bring the fresh soup concept to the US. In 2005, John co-founded Little Dish, which supplies healthy, natural and convenient meals and snacks to children over one year old. Little Dish created the chilled toddler food category for fresh toddler food and healthy snacks. John successfully exited Little Dish in 2017.

John is an investor & Non-Executive Director providing value-added business growth advice, guidance and mentoring to business owners. John is a business thought leader and delivers keynotes on a range of entrepreneurial, management & motivational leadership topics: www.johnstapleton.eu/keynote-topics. John is resident business advisor to Bord Bia’s entrepreneurial start-up programme in Ireland and is investor director at Mission Ventures, a progressive business accelerator designed to build challenger brands in the UK, principally through Corporate Venture Partnerships (www.missionventures.co.uk).

Find out more about John Stapleton via: LinkedIn and his website.

A new episode EVERY WEEK, showcasing the journeys of inspirational entrepreneurs, side hustlers and their mentors. We discuss their successes, challenges and how they overcame setbacks. Focusing mainly on what they wish they had known when starting out. The podcast aims to give aspiring entrepreneurs the confidence to START UP and START NOW by showcasing real and relatable entrepreneurs. After all, seeing is believing!

Join the conversation using #startupstartnow and tagging us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Don't forget to leave a review as it really helps us reach those who need it and allows us to get the best guests for you!

Connect with START UP. START NOW. and to nominate a guest please visit: www.startupstartnow.co.uk.  To connect with Sharena Shiv please visit: www.sharena.co.uk.

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Jo Fairley is a businesswoman and writer. She co-founded the Green & Black’s chocolate company with Craig Sams, her husband, and has launched several other successful ventures since then.

Jo did not enjoy school, left at 16 with six O-levels and learned shorthand and typing at a secretarial college. She got a job with a magazine publisher and worked her way up through the features department to become the UK’s youngest magazine editor at the age of 23.

Her move into chocolate came when she happened to try a couple of squares of a sample sitting on the desk of her future husband, Craig Sams, a health foods entrepreneur.  Jo decided that it was the best she had ever tasted.  She bought two tonnes of chocolate for £20,000, using all of the proceeds from the flat she had just sold. She and Craig launched Green & Black’s in 1991 and sold the company to Cadbury’s in 2005.

Find out more about Jo Fairley via: LinkedIn, Instagram,  & her website.

A new episode EVERY WEEK, showcasing the journeys of inspirational entrepreneurs, side hustlers and their mentors. We discuss their successes, challenges and how they overcame setbacks. Focusing mainly on what they wish they had known when starting out. The podcast aims to give aspiring entrepreneurs the confidence to START UP and START NOW by showcasing real and relatable entrepreneurs. After all, seeing is believing!

Join the conversation using #startupstartnow and tagging us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Don't forget to leave a review as it really helps us reach those who need it and allows us to get the best guests for you!

Connect with START UP. START NOW. and to nominate a guest please visit: www.startupstartnow.co.uk.  To connect with Sharena Shiv please visit: www.sharena.co.uk.

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Wild is the UK’s first refillable plastic-free deodorant. Charlie Bowes-Lyon is a serial entrepreneur with a background in marketing, particularly focused on sustainable businesses. He co-founded Wild and runs their tech and marketing departments since launch.

Wild sells sustainable, natural personal care products that are stylish, convenient, effective and reinvent how we think about everyday bathroom products.

Launched in April 2020, Wild has a wide range of natural deodorants available on wearewild.com or in stores such as Sainsbury's, Boots and Waitrose.

Wild’s products are made using natural ingredients and aim to remove single-use plastic waste from the bathroom. They are also vegan friendly and never tested on animals. With over 80 tonnes of plastic waste saved and 200,000+ trees planted around the world, Wild's mission to make the bathroom a more planet friendly place is only just beginning.

Listen in to find out more about Charlie's journey to starting his business, viral marketing, fundraising and how they went about creating the UK’s first refillable plastic-free deodorant.

Find out more about Charlie Bowes-Lyon via: LinkedIn.

Find out more about We Are Wild via: website, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. 

A new episode EVERY WEEK, showcasing the journeys of inspirational entrepreneurs, side hustlers and their mentors. We discuss their successes, challenges and how they overcame setbacks. Focusing mainly on what they wish they had known when starting out. The podcast aims to give aspiring entrepreneurs the confidence to START UP and START NOW by showcasing real and relatable entrepreneurs. After all, seeing is believing!

Join the conversation using #startupstartnow and tagging us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Don't forget to leave a review as it really helps us reach those who need it and allows us to get the best guests for you!

Connect with START UP. START NOW. and to nominate a guest please visit: www.startupstartnow.co.uk.  To connect with Sharena Shiv please visit: www.sharena.co.uk.

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A former lawyer, she started two ground-breaking businesses: the UK’s first coffee bar chain, Coffee Republic, which she grew to 110 stores and a £50 million market cap, and Skinny Candy, a market segment-defining brand of sugar-free sweets.

Her first book, ANYONE CAN DO IT became a bestseller by demystifying the idea that entrepreneurship is an innate trait. Her latest, START UP FOREVER, stems from her experience working with large corporations over the last decade and addresses one of the most pressing questions now facing large organisations: how to be more entrepreneurial.

Her mission is to connect the heart as well as the head in big business and distil the unnecessarily complex subject of innovation and entrepreneurial behaviour down into simple, actionable and human terms.

Sahar is currently working on her exciting new project Buy Women Built launched in March 2022 to boost economic recovery by bringing consumer support and recognition to female founded businesses.

Listen in to find out more about Sahar leaving her law career, starting a business, writing a book and starting Buy Women Built.

Find out more about Sahar Hashemi via: Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Find out more about Buy Women Built via: website, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter. 

A new episode EVERY WEEK, showcasing the journeys of inspirational entrepreneurs, side hustlers and their mentors. We discuss their successes, challenges and how they overcame setbacks. Focusing mainly on what they wish they had known when starting out. The podcast aims to give aspiring entrepreneurs the confidence to START UP and START NOW by showcasing real and relatable entrepreneurs. After all, seeing is believing!

Join the conversation using #startupstartnow and tagging us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Don't forget to leave a review as it really helps us reach those who need it and allows us to get the best guests for you!

Connect with START UP. START NOW. and to nominate a guest please visit: www.startupstartnow.co.uk.  To connect with Sharena Shiv please visit: www.sharena.co.uk.