Scaling a business seems like the obvious goal. But what if growth without the right strategy leads to losing control?

In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with David Palmer, founder of Life of Fish, the modern London fishmonger that started as a lockdown pop-up outside a Peckham cafe, and has now grown into a multi-site retail and wholesale business built on sustainability, craft, and genuine customer service.

Together James and David explore the harder lessons of growth: why expanding too fast almost broke the business, how to know when to consolidate rather than chase new opportunities, and what it means to build something that runs on profit rather than debt.

David shares what he learned starting work at Billingsgate Market at the age of 14 with no qualifications and no plan. Climbing into bins at 2am and learning to fillet fish under pressure, allowed David to slowly piecing together a skillset he didn't realise he was building. The lesson he took from those years is simple: nothing you learn is wasted, and starting from the bottom teaches you things no shortcut ever could.

They also discuss what it really takes to build a product business in a traditional industry that nobody had modernised.

Timestamps

2:11 Leaving school at 11

12:56 The entrepreneurial pivot question

15:14 The breakthrough moment

17:26 The gap in the market

19:33 COVID lockdown launch

21:15 70 people queue

38:55 Lesson on over expansion

39:57 Turning down free rent

43:39 Hiring philosophy

Links

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow David Palmer on LinkedIn

Find out more Life of Fish and their products here

Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HERE

All About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE

This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk

Thirty years of building a business without a board, without investors, and without ever wanting to sell, and it just keeps growing, there’s something to learn from that.

In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with Victoria Stapleton, founder of Brora, the British luxury cashmere and clothing brand. Victoria has built Brora over 30 years from a single supplier and a home phone number into a business with shops across the UK, a store on Madison Avenue, and a fiercely loyal customer base.

Victoria shares what she learned from building slowly and deliberately, and why organic growth gave her control, quality, and a life outside work. She also gives insight about why every founder considering outside investment should think carefully about what they are actually giving if they take it.

Together they explore what it really takes to run a product business built on craft and quality: how to manage suppliers, why the shop experience matters more than ever, and what you actually learn about your business by walking the warehouse floor every morning.

Victoria's tells is about who she transitioned Brora into an Employee Ownership Trust, one of the most underused business succession models in the UK, and how it works.

Timestamps

11:25 First Shop and Doing It All

18:49 Hiring and Building a Loyal Team

20:52 Organic Growth and Staying Independent

30:21 In Store Styling Magic

38:21 Bonuses Profit And Legacy

47:05 Store Locations And New York

54:19 Glasgow Store Failure Lessons

56:14 Final Questions And Farewell

Links

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Brora on LinkedIn

Find out more Brora and their products here

Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HERE

All About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE

This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk

Most people think successful entrepreneurs spot brilliant ideas.

Sahar Hashemi believes the opposite.

In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with Sahar Hashemi, entrepreneur, author, and founder of Buy Women Built. They talk about Sahar’s journey over three decades building businesses, backing herself, and why entrepreneurship is far simpler than most people make it.

Sahar shares the hard lessons from scaling Coffee Republic to 110 stores and what happened when they handed the business to the professionals. What she learned about founders staying close to their customers, why bureaucracy is the silent killer of entrepreneurial culture, and why the moment you lose sight of who you are serving, is the moment a business starts to decline.

Together they explore what a startup mindset actually looks like in practice, how to know when a growing business is quietly losing its edge, and why the single most important thing any leader can do is keep their people connected to the customer. Sahar also makes the case that something done badly is better than if it’s not done at all, and that the best thing any aspiring entrepreneur can do is start somewhere, however small.

Timestamps

3:13 Discovering New York-style coffee

9:30 The decision to leave law

12:19 First Coffee Republic

16:54 Going public

26:39 The tweet that sparked Buy Women Built

35:05 The Rose Review of Entrepreneurship

40:43 The startup mindset

51:17 No plan, just purpose

Links

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Sahar Hashemi on LinkedIn

Find out more Buy Women Built

Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HERE

All About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE

This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk