Bulletproof Entrepreneur

Send us Fan Mail As we kick off Season 2 of the podcast, I’m taking the opportunity to share a little of my own journey, both personal and professional. For most of us, our childhood experiences shape our thoughts and actions as we get older and I’m no exception. A happy childhood in Scotland was interrupted by some personal and family challenges that have been influential on me and the decisions...

Send us Fan Mail Alan Smith www.capital.co.uk www.bulletproofentrepreneur.net   https://www.linkedin.com/in/alancapital Twitter @alanjlsmith   This podcast is produced by Tribunista Sponsored by Capital Partners

Send us Fan Mail This is a special episode as it’s the last episode of Season 1 and so we’ve put together a compilation of the greatest hits covering some of the key ideas, insights, and themes that have emerged from the 15 conversations I’ve had so far. In this episode, you’ll find the best comments, quotes and thoughts from the world-class entrepreneurs and experts I’ve spoken with over the last...

Send us Fan Mail Let me start by sharing a statistic that’s quite shocking- less than 2% of Venture Capital funding goes to all female founder teams. So those female founders who’ve managed to get started, and raise some capital are rare in the extreme. Those who’ve done it multiple times and had successful exits are even rarer - so Louise really is something special.  A born entrepreneur who star...

Send us Fan Mail I attended a conference run by a friend of mine Andy Hart called Humans Under Management - it focuses on the behavioural side of wealth and is one of the best financial or business conferences out there.  I did a little fireside chat thing on stage but while I was at the event, I had quite a few people who came up to me and told me that they enjoyed the podcast and I even had one...

Send us Fan Mail This time I’m trying something different. First, I’m speaking with two co-founders, Damian Milkins and Simon Hancock who built a hugely successful tech business called Control Circle and led it to a $65m exit. I let this one run longer than the usual 60 minutes because the guys were in full flow and there was no way I was going to cut this short -  there were just too many interes...

Send us Fan Mail According to the Department of Business and Industry, there are 5.6 million businesses in the UK. But get this - out of the 5.6 million businesses, 4.2 million had no employees - they are sole traders. And 99.2% of all businesses have less than 49 employees. Only 4% of businesses ever hit £1m turnover.  And yet, SMEs account for three-fifths of all employment and around half of th...

Send us Fan Mail Every now and again you hear a story that stops you in your tracks because it deeply touches a part of you whilst at the same time is uplifting and inspiring. Stefan Wissenbach is a serial entrepreneur and has built and sold 4 financial services businesses before launching his current company which is a technology business focused on helping entrepreneurs to create more engaged te...

Send us Fan Mail I think one of the reasons that this podcast is proving to be popular is that most of the stories follow that classic ‘Hero's Journey’’ narrative arc.  Our hero, the Founder is dissatisfied with the status quo of their current situation, sets off on a bold journey of discovery - starts a company, and faces insurmountable problems, huge challenges and fierce obstacles. Eventua...

Send us Fan Mail Don Fraser is something of a legend in the financial planning and wealth management sector – he’s been working with entrepreneurs for well over 30 years and he’s got a deep understanding of not only the financial issues but perhaps more importantly the personal and human ones. During our conversation, Don explains the vital importance of timing when you’re planning your exit, and...

Send us Fan Mail Richard Bridgwood was the founder of Contender which was a media and film distribution company which he and his team built from scratch over 12 years and sold to one of the biggest entertainment and media companies in the world, Entertainment One. If you’ve got kids, you’ll be familiar with one of his companies’ creations, Peppa Pig which nowadays is a global sensation worth hundr...

Send us Fan Mail Hi and welcome back to the Entrepreneur Transition podcast - the only podcast that explores the uniquely human journey involved in building a business, selling it and crucially, life on the other side. In 20 years of working with and advising entrepreneurs, I’ve come to realise that it’s a transition more than it is a transaction and there are so many issues and challenges that a...

Send us Fan Mail This Inspired Conversation is in many ways why I launched the podcast in the first place - to explore the human side of the entrepreneurial journey, every bit as much as the financial side. Let me share a quick true story to  give you some context: Did you hear about the entrepreneur who sold his business and made a fortune and was miserable?  Markus Persson is a Swedish tech entr...

Send us Fan Mail From a council estate in Hackney, London to an ‘8-figure exit’ by age 27. The most inspirational founder conversation you will hear in a long time. I’ve met a lot of entrepreneurs over the years but few are as impressive as Tim Armoo - or Timo as he’s better known. He knew he didn’t want to be poor and decided from an early age that being an entrepreneur and starting his own busin...

Send us Fan Mail Tom Manwaring is at the top of his game. He’s the leading Mergers & Acquisition advisor in the UK focused on the media sector and in particular television production companies. He’s advised hundreds of owners and completed almost 50 deals (including 13 in the last 2 years which is some going considering what’s been going on). The combined sale value is in excess of £1 billion...

Send us Fan Mail My name is Alan Smith and I’m a founder, entrepreneur, investor, wealth manager and yes now a podcast host! Over nearly 20 years, my team and I have established our business, Capital Asset Management as the leading independent wealth advice business in the UK, focused on working with successful business owners. In that time, I’ve worked with hundreds of founders and have always be...

Send us Fan Mail For this episode, we go to the Emerald Isle to speak with a serial entrepreneur from Ireland called Donal Daly. A self-confessed tech geek, he founded, scaled and sold 5 companies and is now on his 6th, most, the most exciting, and certainly on a personal basis the most rewarding. Over his 30-year entrepreneurial journey , he’s bootstrapped his start-ups, he’s raised external fund...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is about courage. From the outside looking in, the life of an entrepreneur seems exciting and fun. Starting a business and growing it towards a successful exit appears to be fairly straightforward. However the statistics confirm that very few ever manage to do that. Nigel Shanahan is an extraordinary entrepreneur. Through tremendous ups and downs, he grew his tech sta...

Send us Fan Mail Mark Mills was- as he refers to it himself ‘one of those annoying kids at school, who started businesses buying and selling stuff  - and he’s been building them ever since. But there were several failures along the way. Listen to him talk about the opportunity he had back in 1999 to open the first franchise for Starbucks in Europe - and why he turned it down! He admitted that wasn...