Episodes
Tuesday Mar 27, 2018
Customer development and market validation with Wendy Lea
Tuesday Mar 27, 2018
Tuesday Mar 27, 2018
Taking a more thoughtful approach to understanding market focus was a major learning for Wendy Lea, when as an experienced CEO of a very hot, very high growth VC backed freemium software startup, her urgency to execute led to mistakes that she now recognizes were avoidable. Answering a question posed by a student startup, she references Steve Blank as someone she learns from every single time they meet and shares her thoughts on why a customer development playbook is a necessary reality check to all the BS talked around product-market fit.
Having delivered business solutions in 30 countries, Wendy brings a worldly point of view to digital innovation and her entrepreneurial pursuits - she's currently CEO of Cintrifuse and on the Board of Techstars. In 2012 and 2013, she was recognized as a Women of Influence in Silicon Valley and in San Francisco.
Wednesday Mar 14, 2018
Flexible working in practice and at scale with Dana Denis Smith
Wednesday Mar 14, 2018
Wednesday Mar 14, 2018
The how, why and what you need to know about flexible and remote working with Dana Denis Smith. After realising her first business could not scale, Dana founded Obelisk Support to keep City lawyers, especially mothers, working flexibly around their personal commitments and to provide clients with quality legal support solution onshore. She now manages 1500 remote working lawyers, with over 1 million hours of capacity, and was named by The Times as one of UK's Top 50 Employers for Women and Outstanding Innovator by Legal Week for getting alternate ways of working accepted. "I don't care to be a sexy business owner, I want a sustainable business for the long-term".
Wednesday Mar 07, 2018
Founder focus and the MVP trap with Mark Logan
Wednesday Mar 07, 2018
Wednesday Mar 07, 2018
Back by popular demand, Mark Logan joins me to talk about why founders block their company's success if they don't learn how to manage their idea flow and communication processes. We explore how product market fit is necessary, but not sufficient, the MVP trap, how to surface bad news internally and why so many startups are in the process of failing slowly. Mark is former Skyscanner COO and IOD Director of the Year.
Thursday Mar 01, 2018
Thursday Mar 01, 2018
How do you iterate your way to product market fit without scaring your investors? And what are the best practices as your company grows to multiple locations, or your team is spread across several sites? Tom Adeyoola, CEO and Founder of fashion technology company Metail, has grown his startup to over 100 people, raised $20million in strategic investment and had offices in both London and Cambridge from day one. He joins Vicky Brock to share the very deliberate people management processes he has evolved to develop his teams and combat any feeling of us and them. He also talks about how Metail looked beyond domestic markets and use the concept of 10x improvements to ensure that the products they bring to market are positioned in a way that will deliver sufficiently disruptive change.
Tuesday Feb 20, 2018
Tuesday Feb 20, 2018
Small Business Entrepreneur of the Year 2017, Leah Hutcheon of Appointedd, joins Vicky Brock to help an entrepreneur who is sick of bad advice. We discuss when to trust advisors, when to trust your gut, where to find good advice, how to grow your team and how to manage input from investors and board directors that you disagree with. As Leah says, you need to build and use your network and trust yourself to know that with any people decision - if it is a maybe, then it's a no.
Wednesday Jan 31, 2018
Exposing your idea, validation and embracing vulnerability with Joel Blake OBE
Wednesday Jan 31, 2018
Wednesday Jan 31, 2018
Answering a listener's question on whether to expose their early pre-startup idea on social media to get validation, guest Joel Blake OBE joins the Entrepreneur Agony Aunt to talk collaboration, iteration, validation and being ready to embrace your vulnerability. He explains: "entrepreneurship changes you to your core - how open are we really to being changed?"
Friday Jan 26, 2018
Hyperfocus, urgency and founding for scale with Dennis Mortensen of x.ai
Friday Jan 26, 2018
Friday Jan 26, 2018
Serial entrepreneur Dennis Mortensen talks about how hyperfocus, urgency, radical transparency and a single KPI have become part of his process for building successful startups at scale. CEO of x.ai, whose AI personal assistants are changing the way meetings are scheduled, Dennis advises a founder looking to inject more pace into their startup team.
Sunday Jan 21, 2018
Social impact and how entrepreneurship beats charitable aid with Kate Webb
Sunday Jan 21, 2018
Sunday Jan 21, 2018
Founder of tourism companies spanning two continents and working with entrepreneurs in Malawi and the UK, Kate Webb of Orbis Expeditions advises a founder wanting to build a business with social purpose in developing regions. In this fascinating discussion, Kate shares her learnings from over a decade of entrepreneurship in Africa, and why she so strongly believes in pursuing business and economic development, instead of charitable aid.
Tuesday Jan 09, 2018
Board tensions, risk and good governance with Dean Nash
Tuesday Jan 09, 2018
Tuesday Jan 09, 2018
Dean Nash, Head of Legal & Compliance at Monzo Bank, talks light touch risk management processes, trust and autonomous decision making - and the tensions that arise from very different worldviews of the founder and the board director. Dean may just have changed my mind about a few hard truths of board governance as we dive into a question from a first-time board director trying to support a fast-moving founding team who regard board meetings as an unnecessary distraction.
Tuesday Jan 02, 2018
Tech hiring and growing your retail technology business with Cathy McCabe
Tuesday Jan 02, 2018
Tuesday Jan 02, 2018
Retail technologist Cathy McCabe talks about finding good technical hires for your startup. She believes you need high-performance individuals who can wear different hats. Hungry, ambitious generalists who want to learn and do different roles - but with that comes the challenge of high maintenance.
As a former retail CIO turned tech startup CEO, she also advises how technology entrepreneurs can better sell to large retailers and brands. “Constantly be looking at the pipeline and how you’re growing the business - you have to focus relentlessly on your product. You can’t just hand the solution over and move on. You have to really help them adapt to make sure that what your solution is promising is actually delivered and continues to deliver.”
Wednesday Dec 27, 2017
Coping with acute and chronic stress as a startup founder CEO
Wednesday Dec 27, 2017
Wednesday Dec 27, 2017
In this mini extra episode, Mark Logan, IOD Director of the Year and former Skyscanner COO advises a startup founder who asks whether the stress they are under is a normal part of the CEO job, or something more troubling.
He explains that while moments of acute stress come with the CEO title, the problem is when these join up to become chronic. We shouldn’t live with that because while it might become normal, it is not sustainable. “Remember you didn’t start the company because you were after more stress in your life!"
The blog post referenced by Vicky in this episode: Mistakes that cost founders their companies
Tuesday Dec 19, 2017
Moving beyond startup failure with founders Joe Tree & Vicky Brock
Tuesday Dec 19, 2017
Tuesday Dec 19, 2017
Founders Joe Tree and Vicky Brock talk about losing their companies and facing, then surviving the pains of startup failure in this frank episode. They share the invaluable if difficult, learnings that come from that experience. Under-capitalisation, product-market fit issues, slow sales cycles, and board/investor tensions don’t take away from the sense of personal responsibility and pain when you lose your company - but as Joe says: “we didn’t fail to do something remarkable... I have no regrets. You have a whole arsenal of experience that very few people have.”
Tuesday Dec 12, 2017
Maximising sales, PR and startup visibility on limited resources
Tuesday Dec 12, 2017
Tuesday Dec 12, 2017
Cally Russell, founder and CEO of Mallzee, gives wise, practical advice on getting PR, boosting startup visibility on a shoestring, the power of the founder sale and why you should be focussing on OKRs. All while patiently taking the odd below the belt insult from fellow entrepreneur Vicky Brock in surprisingly good humour.
Sunday Dec 03, 2017
Management challenges and how to tackle them with Mark Logan
Sunday Dec 03, 2017
Sunday Dec 03, 2017
Mark Logan, former COO of Skyscanner and IOD Director of the Year joins Entrepreneur Agony Aunt Vicky Brock to tackle two reader questions. In 30 minutes we cover why founders and leaders also have to develop themselves as managers, how to make meetings more effective by banning status updates, how to handle a problem boss and when it is time to quit your job.