The Start-Up Diaries Podcast

AppLearn is a leading digital adoption platform vendor that helps enterprises improve the data quality and productivity of their key internal systems. In this episode, Andrew Avanessian, CEO of AppLearn, talks through the incredible business they’ve built, from how they chose their core values, to being voted the 5th best tech business to work for and rank in the "Best Companies" list, a...

Flash Pack is an award-winning adventure travel company that brings together solo travellers in their 30s and 40s.  In the episode, Morgan Sadr-Hashemi, Chief Product and Technology Officer, discusses how he built the tech team at Flash Pack from scratch, talking us through his starting point and what he had to consider. He then dives into the challenges that he’s faced whilst building a product t...

Infer gives analysts machine-learning powers like never before. It gives users the ability to find insights, make predictions, and identify patterns through its easy-to-use but powerful SQL commands.  In the episode, Co-Founders Ryan Garland and Erik Mathiesen-Dreyfus talk through their unique path to founding Infer, going from boss and employee to co-founders, and how they’ve been able to shift t...

ECO Surv is the leading software provider for the Energy Efficiency, Retrofit and Renewables Industry. In the episode, Founding Director, Nathaniel Butters, discusses why now, 10 years downline the line, the business has started to look for investment, as he dives into the vision for the business and their potential in the market.  Nathaniel also talks us through what it was like to replatform the...

TUBR is a predictive analytics platform helping business leaders turn data into action, fast. It gives businesses the power to make informed actions and predictions from complete and incomplete data sets.  In the episode, Founder & CEO, Dash Tabor dives into how TUBR tackles common problems that businesses face with raw data, and gives her advice on where to start if you’re feeling overwhelmed...

In this episode we have Chieu Cao, Founder and CEO of Mintago, and former Co-Founder of Perkbox. Mintago is a financial wellbeing platform, helping businesses adapt and support their employees in changing economic conditions.  In the episode, Chieu discusses his route into entrepreneurship and his motivations behind both starting and exiting Perkbox. He then dives into the concept of financial wel...

Whether you’re a pet owner or not, you’ve more than likely heard of Pets At Home. Far from a start-up, this well-established retail company was founded back in 1991 and specialises in pet care products and services. So you might be wondering why their former Chief Data Officer is on The 'Start-Up' Diaries podcast... Joining the business in 2018, with huge ambition for how they could use...

In this episode, we hear from Eric Fulwiler, Co-Founder & CEO of Rival, a growth consultancy that builds challenger brands, strategies, and capabilities to change categories.  Eric has helped build some of the biggest brands in the world, from billion-dollar start-ups to Fortune 50 enterprises. Before co-founding Rival in 2021 he was the Chief Marketing & Commercial Officer of 11:FS, a cha...

trumpet is the tool for B2B Sales Teams that want to stand out from the crowd. trumpet held you wow prospects with personalised Pods (microsites) to get your foot in the door, then convert them with a collaborative digital workspace. All with one trumpet link. In this episode, Co-Founder and CEO of trumpet Rory Sadler discusses the story behind trumpet and their B2C approach to B2B sales…  Buildin...

Plytime Learning is a totally new concept in tutoring that makes learning more engaging and effective for children, more affordable and accessible for parents and more efficient for tutors. What began as a maths board game for their own children, is now an online learning platform aiming to make tutoring accessible for everyone.  In this episode, Co-Founders and husband and wife Ian and Lisa McCar...

You’ve most likely heard of Gousto, the meal prep delivery box that took the nation by storm. Gousto built the technology needed to get to over 100% growth year on year. And by 2022, more than 2 million meals were being delivered every single week. The team knew that if more companies used their tech, there’d be less engineering waste in the world. And so, Bento was born. In this episode we have M...

In this episode, we have Jim Mann CEO and Founder of UNDO, alongside Matthew Meredith Director of Technology at UNDO. UNDO develops pioneering carbon removal that can capture huge amounts of CO2 from our atmosphere. Their nature-based technologies lock away carbon permanently and start immediately.  In the episode, we dive into how tech plays a part in UNDOs carbon removal process and why their bu...

Welcome back to a brand new season of The Start-Up Diaries Podcast! To kick off the new season, we sat down with Mike Seville, Chief Data Officer at Dojo. Founded with a deep understanding of the UK payment industry at its core, Dojo’s goal is to empower hard-working businesses to focus on the things that really matter to them – by seamlessly taking care of the things that don’t. Dojo provides bus...

The Start-Up Diaries Podcast Season 7… is officially on its way!🥁⏰ The wait is finally over! Launching next week, we're pulling back the curtain on a captivating lineup of the UK's most groundbreaking and fast-growing start-ups. Get ready to dive headfirst into their stories of resilience, ambition, and the relentless pursuit of building a business from the ground up. From disruptive t...

Praetura are a venture capital firm in the North West, who invest in early-stage businesses and provide 'more than money' support. They have developed a reputation for being a supportive and proactive investor who injects more than just capital. In this episode, Managing Partner David Foreman sat down with Chris to dispel some of the common myths that exist about the venture capital word...

The New London Agency is a data driven growth marketing agency which helps to deliver explosive growth for clients’ bottom line by implementing bespoke plans that increase both revenue and customer growth. In the second part of our live recording specials at Queen Mary University, Chris sits down with Marc Simpson & Ozzy Amir, Co-Founders of The New London Agency as they walk through their top...

In a very special episode recorded live in front of a student audience at Queen Mary University, Chris is joined by Will Smith (no, not that one!) - Co-Founder of Banking Platform Tred. Tred is the UK's only carbon-neutral neobank and the only FinTech in Europe to be both B-Corp pending and a member of 1% For The Planet. Tred calculates a users personalised carbon footprint based on their spe...

SoSquared provides the infrastructure behind creating successful influencer marketing and user-generated content campaigns. Their mission is to connect businesses directly with creators to establish more transparent relationships, resulting in superior collaboration results.  In this episode, Chris sat down with Co-Founders Sam Royle (CEO) and Greg Donnelly (CTO) of SoSquared to hear all about the...

wi-Q is the multi-award-winning, cloud-based mobile ordering solution for digital guest engagement. With no app to download, your customers can instantly order and pay from your menu of services by scanning a QR code, entering a URL or being redirected upon accessing your WiFi. In this episode, Chris sat down with CEO of the business, Patience Tucker to discuss her journey from leaving a comfortab...

Wild.ai  is the app that helps women optimise their daily training intensity, duration and recovery. Users receive nutrition adjustments around their training, based on their hormonal fluctuations and learn how their body and physiological needs change across their cycles and life stages. In this episode, Head of Product Sahana Gopal, PhD, sat down with Chris to discuss how Wild.ai are breaking th...

BeZero Carbon is a ratings agency for the Voluntary Carbon Market. Combining expertise across climate science, finance and policy, it provides ratings, risk and data tools that improve information accessibility and decision making.  In this episode, CEO & Co-Founder Tommy Ricketts sits down with Chris to share the story behind his climate Tech start-up and the role they are playing in the Net...

10X Banking is a cloud-native core banking platform that's making banking 10x better for customers, banks, and society by enabling client banks and providers of financial services to give their customers more timely and relevant experiences and insights when it comes to managing money. In this episode, Chris is joined by Frankie Woodhead, a Product & Engineering Director at 10X Banking an...

VidiVet's purpose is to make vet expertise more affordable and accessible to every pet parent; allowing them to ask anything about their pet at anytime, from anywhere in the world instantly, without violating their wallet! In this episode, Founder Ben Sweeney, chatted to Chris about his journey from Vet to founding a start-up, discussing the challenges that come with being a non-technical fou...

As former VP of Customer Operations at Monzo and a current Partner at Ventures Together, Rona Ruthen has a glittering career background within the operational tech space. In this episode, Rona delves into the important relationship between operations and tech within a business, what makes a great operational leader, and the common challenges that operations teams can expect to face... Covering her...

EdenFiftyOne promotes the 51 universal skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening within English language education. Their mission is to make global English language teaching, learning and assessment easier and to improve experience, outcomes and opportunities for everyone, everywhere. In this episode, Founder & CEO Tom Reynolds joins Chris to talk through how he went from Assistant He...