Sound Advice: Entrepreneurs Unfiltered

Her day job made her ‘cry every night’, so Hazel Reynolds took the plunge, quit, and crowdfunded her first card game 'Randomise' which became an Amazon bestseller. Gamely has since sold 250k games (Soundiculous and Frozen Unicorns are fan favourites) and turned over £2.5m.

His Dragon's Den pitch is imortalised as the tv show's 'best ever', and Harry Redknapp describes him as having the workrate of a top footballer. This is how Sam Jones convinced stars like Tinie Tempah to invest in his tech start-up, Gener8.

The former record-shop manager co-founded musicMagpie in his garage and turned it into the world's most popular eBay shop, with an annual turnover of £100 million and exports to buyers in 140 countries. He tells us how he did it.

Her university tutor told her she was 'too business minded', her parents said she was mad. But the creative founder of Burnt Toast Designs didn't let that stop her building an impressive client base in corona times. This is how she did it.

This is not your average accountant. After a South-American sabbatical, Mike Psaras ditched the suit and tie, drawing on a decade of industry experience to practically help small businesses thrive with his super smart strategies, instead.

Are you one of 1.3m following Bubba Ice, co-founder of experiential ice cream chain Pan-N-Ice, on TikTok? From cringe posts and rubbish Shopifys to brand hook-ups and hashtag strategy, super-charge your small business with his social media secrets. 

The World Economic Forum predicts we can close the gender pay gap in 217 years – but the founder of Gapsquare thinks we can do it in 20 with her AI software. This how she built the prototype and why parenthood made her a better business owner.

Setting up a business is like playing poker – you have to deal with ambiguity, anxiety and risk. The trained architect shows his hand to reveal how he built coffee recycling company BioBean, and tech and urban housing company Skyroom, from big ideas.

Dream of a design-based business that takes off online? From cashflow to finding customers, the founder of Plumb and Rabbitts shares an incredibly honest insight into growing her bespoke cake and design start ups with five children in Northumberland.

The super-personal story of how ex-Red Bull marketeer set up shampoo brand Nut and Noggin from her farmhouse table in 18 months, to 'look after our heads’. Share your burn-out-to-start-up stories during Mental Health Awareness Week on Twitter @sageuk

Ryan Panchoo is a joyful burst of creative fresh air. Family food intolerances led him to create a gluten-free doughnut that tastes so good, Selfridges came knocking. For anyone who dreams of quitting the day job – this is how he created Borough 22.

Endlessly effervescent is the way to describe pocket rocket, Jess Ratty, the energetic founder of The Cornwall Camper Company and Ha-lo PR company. Pitch up and learn how she built them from scratch.

Transferring decades of pencilled performance figures to Excel was eye-opening for farmer Sam Watson Jones. Revenues were static and little by little, fields disappearing. There had to be a tech solution, he thought. Enter, the Small Robot Company.

To celebrate International Women's Day, we bring you a bumper small business investment episode with three brilliant guests who have fascinating stories to tell. In this episode, we are talking with Sarah Turner, Rushina Shah and Sarah Norford-Jones.

Latte habit out of control? Blame Sahar Hashemi, founder of Coffee Republic. The UK's coffee craze started with the former lawyer and a super smart business plan that slowly smashed through suppliers’ and banks’ countless rejections.

Half of the world’s food created, is wasted. Cue industrial designer Solveiga Pakštaitė and her beautifully innovative product Mimica Touch. Scientists, seed funding, biochem cramming, it's the stuff of entrepreneurial dreams, this episode.  

Retro video games, sustainable glass straws - Mathew Porter is a seasoned side hustler. Google hacks, supply chain secrets, what makes manufacturers tick; hear how VASO’s CEO launched his innovative product in an emerging market and kept his day job 

FanFinders started life as a side-hustle in Alec Dobbie’s box bedroom in West Yorkshire. His self-coded data platform curates content from top baby companies, and grew to serve over five million parents on two continents.

Julien Callede shares how he co-founded Made.com and led the operationally complex, ‘fast furniture’ retail company, to be a global success. From wonky products to glorious waves of investment, and a new project, The Entrepreneurs Partnership.

Want to make your small business successful? Have a million different questions about starting up? Join business journalist Bex Burn-Callander and some seriously amazing entrepreneurs for season one of Sound Advice.