Real Talk Real Hustle

What Went Wrong: Navigating a Name Change | Real Talk Real EP11We never planned to talk about this one. But it's part of the journey too. In this short bonus episode, we pull back the curtain on the obstacle that delayed our launch: the name change nobody saw coming. We started out as The Honest Hustle, a name we loved and trademark-checked thoroughly. Or so we thought. Turns out, we never che...

Real Health, Real Life | Real Talk Real Hustle Ep. 10 This episode is different. It's about the real health and the real life behind running a business, especially as women, as mothers, navigating it all while the business never stops needing you. We get into the realities nobody talks about. Going back to work just three months after giving birth because there was no maternity pay. The mum gu...

Being Open and Vulnerable | Real Talk Real Hustle Ep. 9 This is the episode we almost didn't make.2019 was one of our best years in business. We had a head office, a team of area managers, 147 staff across four nurseries, and for the first time, the space to step back and become businesswomen rather than nursery workers. Then Covid hit. In this episode we get honest about what came next: closi...

Work-Life Balance | Does It Even Exist? | Real Talk Real Hustle Ep. 8 In this episode, we get honest about what balance really looks like when you're running a business, raising a family, and trying to show up as your best self all at the same time. We talk about the overwhelming weeks, the guilt of not giving 100% to everything at once, and the small rituals that help us reset: from a dog wal...

Marketing & Branding | What We Wish We Knew From Day One | Real Talk Real Hustle Ep. 7 What does it actually take to build a brand that people trust and how do you get it right from the very beginning? In episode 7, we're joined by Jagz, founder of The Branding Distillery and a branding expert with 24 years of experience. We met Jagz through the Newham Chamber of Commerce networking events...

HR: What Every Business Owner Needs to Know | Real Talk Real Hustle Ep. 6Nobody tells you about HR when you're starting a business, until you're sitting in front of a tribunal judge with no legal support, no HR structure, and no idea how serious it could get. In this episode, we're joined by Reyhana, an outsourced HR specialist for micro and scaling businesses. We met Reyhana through n...

Eat. Sleep. Repeat. | Real Talk Real Hustle Ep. 5 What does it really look like to go all in on a business when you're in your early 20s, in debt, on a survival budget, and the only thing keeping you going is a dream you refuse to let go of? In this episode, we get into the reality of what it took to build our nursery from the ground up. The sleepless nights, the seven-day weeks, the missed ho...

The Importance of Prestart Finance | Real Talk Real Hustle Ep. 4 Message from us: If you're a superfan and have been listening very closely to our story, you might have noticed we had to slightly change the release dates of a couple of our episodes. You haven’t missed an episode, and well done for catching that! The good news is that you get to listen to our conversation with Romesh about the...

The Pressure Is On | Real Talk Real Hustle Ep. 4We've got the keys. We've got the building. Now we've got 12 weeks to turn a derelict Victorian doctor's surgery into a fully operational nursery, with £25,000, no salaries, and two families who gave up their lives to help us make it happen. In episode 3, we get into the reality of the build-up to opening day. The survival budgets. Th...

The Hustle Begins | Real Talk Real Hustle Ep. 2 What does it actually look like to build a business from scratch? Before you have an office, a budget, or anyone telling you what to do? In episode 2, we take you back to November 2003. We'd handed in our notice, stopped agency work, and set up our makeshift headquarters on Sarah’s bedroom floor in Barking. Armed with library books, a floppy disk...

Who Are We? | Real Talk Real Hustle Ep. 1 Who are we? How do two best friends of 30 years build a business together, and what does it really take to go from zero to 23 years of entrepreneurship? In this first episode of Real Talk Real Hustle, we introduce ourselves, our story, and the business we've built together: Barney Bears Nursery, a Children's Day Nurseries group with two locations i...