Financial crises can hit any business- especially in today's economy. Selling might feel like the only option. But is it?

What should founders do when things look bleak? How do you rebuild momentum, and give your business the best possible chance of surviving and thriving? When one pair of siblings were running The End nightclub, they found themselves £1.5 million in debt and facing enormous pressure to sell.

Instead, they chose a different path, and turned the business around.

In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with Zoë Paskin, co-founder and managing director of Studio Paskin. They are the independent powerhouse behind legendary London destinations like The Palomar, The Barbary, and the Michelin-starred Evelyn's Table, celebrated for maintaining flawless standards in a brutal industry.

Zoë shares the remarkable story of turning around a legendary 90s nightclub facing massive debt, stepping into leadership when no one expected her to, and the reality of selling a business at its peak.

James and Zoë explore how to scale when the broader market is struggling, how to strip down operational expenses to rescue a business, and why the best career advice may be to simply : go wherever the biggest problems are.

Links:

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Zoë Paskin on LinkedIn

Find out more Studio Paskin and their work 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

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

60% of the UK diet is ultra-processed. And the food industry is manufacturing your addiction. So why is this public health crisis continuing in plain sight, and what it would actually take to change it?

Two things are clear. Britain's food system is more broken than most people realise. And Gousto is far more interesting a business than its recipe boxes suggest.

In today’s episode, James speaks with Timo Boldt, founder and CEO of Gousto, about building one of the UK's most ambitious food businesses from scratch and why, 14 years and 80 million meals later, he's only just getting started.

Timo shares how he left a career in investment banking to start again. With no money, no network, no customers, he shares what that journey has taught him about fundraising without connections, growing with your customers and building a business around a problem genuinely worth solving.

They also discuss how Gousto has used AI intelligently from the beginning, not as a replacement for people, but as a tool that makes the whole operation sharper; from cutting food waste and optimising factory logistics to building fully personalised menus that 80% of customers now rely on.

Timestamps:

01:37 What Gousto Does

06:23 From Banking to Entrepreneurship

13:24 Scrappy Startup and First Orders

25:35 Affordability Taxes and Transparency

31:16 Healthy Without Preaching

34:33 Factories And Delivery Network

42:12 China Trip AI And Robotics

Links

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Timo Boldt on LinkedIn

Find out more about Gousto and their products

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

What does it take to build a luxury brand by accident and keep it thriving for 30 years without ever taking outside investment?

In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with Tom Faulkner, award-winning British furniture designer and founder of Tom Faulkner Limited. They talk about the unlikely journey from redundancy at a record label to running one of the UK's most distinctive handcrafted furniture brands, with showrooms in London and New York, and a workshop in Swindon that has been making things by hand since 1996.

Tom shares the story of how a side hustle in hand-painted tabletops became a serious business the moment he discovered what you could do with metal. He talks about buying a Swindon fabrication workshop for £5,000, inheriting two employees, slowly building a loyal team and a global client base. All through organic growth, word of mouth, and relationships with interior designers.

They explore what it really means to build a premium, handcrafted brand in the modern world: the growing appetite among wealthy clients to understand how things are made, why British manufacturing remains a genuine selling point in the American market, and how Tom navigated the early months of US tariffs with a decision that cost him margin but protected his customer relationships.

Together they also discuss the challenge of succession and legacy for founder-led businesses, why Tom has never chased scale for its own sake, and what he hopes to do next.

Timestamps

4:56 From Chrysalis Records to Hand-Painted Furniture

8:40 Buying the Swindon Workshop (The £5,000 Decision)

12:56 The Pimlico Road Showroom & London's Design Cluster

15:53 Expanding to New York

20:24 Staying Artisan: Organic Growth & British Manufacturing

25:20 Signature Pieces: Capricorn & the Collections

36:13 Navigating Business Challenges & US Tariffs

43:01 Future Plans: Collaborations, Sculpture & What's Next

57:04 Advice for Young Entrepreneurs

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Tom Faulkner on LinkedIn

Find out more about Tom Faulkner LTD 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

How can a major museum be run with the same entrepreneurial mindset as a high-growth business?

In today's episode, James Reed speaks with Elizabeth McKay, Director and CEO of the London Transport Museum. While many perceive museums as static archives, Elizabeth explains how she applies commercial strategy to ensure one of London’s most iconic cultural landmarks remains financially sustainable and relevant in a modern economy.

Elizabeth shares insights from her unconventional career journey and explains why the museum identifies as the best in the world for urban transport. They explore the evolution of work through the lens of London’s history, from the original "chairmen" who carried sedan chairs to the "navvies" who hand-dug the first underground network.

Together they discuss the balance between preserving heritage and driving innovation, including the story of Harry Beck’s revolutionary Tube map and how it was initially rejected for being too radical. Elizabeth also outlines the realities of leading a cultural institution that functions as both a charity and a successful commercial entity.

Timestamps

01:48 Transport history highlights

09:50 Young entrepreneurs message

20:04 Design DNA of TFL

24:26 Running the museum business

33:27 Leading through uncertainty

40:21 Funding model explained

45:10 Youth skills pipeline

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Elizabeth McCay on LinkedIn:

Find out more about TFL Museum and their exhibitions 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 visit Flamingo-media.co.uk

Why are millions of jobs going unfilled in one of the UK’s biggest industries, while so many young people are struggling to find work?

In this episode of all about business, James Reed speaks with Sarah Bradbury, CEO of the Institute of Grocery Distribution, about the future of the UK food industry, the growing challenge of attracting young talent, and why the sector may offer far more opportunities than people realise.

Sarah shares insights from her 25-year career across major retailers, before stepping into one of the most influential leadership roles in the UK food sector. She explains how IGD works across the entire food system and how they help competitors collaborate on the biggest long-term challenges facing the industry.

They explore the pressures reshaping food and retail, including changing consumer habits, climate change, AI, automation, workforce shortages, and the potential impact of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, on the future of food consumption.

Together they also discuss leadership, collaboration between rival businesses, and why the UK food industry remains one of the country’s most important, and underestimated, economic forces.

Timestamps

02:00 What IGD does

08:43 Retail tech and AI trends

12:27 UK food system challenges

18:36 Land use and solar farms

23:47 Hidden food careers

31:29 Youth unemployment urgency

43:27 Closing reflections and CEO Forum

Follow James Reed on LinkedIn

Follow Sarah Bradbury on LinkedIn

Find out more about IGD and their impact 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