The Hidden Hustle Podcast

If you’re trying to buy your first home in Ireland right now, what should you actually do? In Part 2 of our conversation with Ray Cooke, we move away from Ray’s business journey and focus entirely on money, property and the Irish housing market. We gave Ray a real-world scenario: a young person earning €50,000 a year, with no financial help from their parents, trying to get on the property ladder....

He went from selling 100 houses a year to watching the market completely fall off a cliff. Today, Ray Cooke has built one of Ireland’s best-known estate agency businesses with almost 100 employees, 10 offices, approximately €11 million in revenue and more than 1,000 homes expected to be sold in 2026. And it all started with Ray on his own in November 2005, admitting he knew very little about the i...

He went bust, lost everything, and started again from zero. Now he's built a €40 million ARR SaaS company with ambitions to hit €150 million in the next few years — and he's only getting started. In this episode, we sit down with Tommy Kearns, founder of Xtremepush, to hear the remarkable story of building one of Ireland's most ambitious SaaS companies from a Dublin startup in 2014 to...

From €60,000 in Revenue to €10 Million: The Incredible Story Behind iCabbi In part 1 of this episode, we sit down with Gavan Walsh to learn about the business he founded iCabbi. In part 2, we discuss life after the iCabbi sale from setting up an investment company and now getting back into the tech start up game. It started in Portugal, with Gavan not being able to find a taxi and wishing somethin...

Could Quantum Computing Be Bigger Than AI? That’s one of the biggest questions we explored with Jason Lynch, CEO of Equal1, on the latest episode of The Hidden Hustle Podcast. Jason has spent the last 7.5 years building Equal1, with an ambition that is anything but small: to become the biggest quantum computing company in the world. What makes the story remarkable is the technology Equal1 has deve...

Do you understand the complexities involved in getting a simple glass of clean drinking water? In this episode, we sit down with Karl Zimmerer, founder of Glanua, to hear the incredible journey of building one of Ireland’s leading water and wastewater engineering businesses and taking it international. Karl and his team has doubled the companies revenue in the last 4 years with Glanua on track to...

Paul McCarthy has recently stepped back from the day-to-day operations at Snapfix, so what better time to look back on what was key to getting his journey up and running. In this short but powerful episode, we unpack the journey from a simple kitchen-table idea to a global software company used by teams across more than 60 countries. Paul shares a practical masterclass in startup execution, explai...

Summary What does it take to build a No.1 Best Selling Product on Amazon in the US while competing at the highest level of sport? This week on the podcast, Alan sat down with Swifter founders James Madden and Nadia Power to hear how they’ve gone from launching a single running vest on Amazon to becoming a No.1 Amazon bestseller across Ireland and the US, selling in Amazon markets in Australia and...

From £500,000 Spent to Zero Customers… to International Expansion In this episode of  The Hidden Hustle Podcast , Jonathan Larbey, Founder & CEO of T-Pro, shares the hard lessons learned while scaling a healthcare technology business internationally. After achieving early success in Ireland, T-Pro attempted to replicate the same strategy in the UK. The result?  Nearly  £500,000 spent over two...

The $180 million Irish tech company you may never have heardof but one that helped revolutionise mobile phone billing worldwide from Park West in Dublin 12. In this episode, we sit down with Joe Hogan, founder of Openet, to hear the incredible 22-year rollercoaster journey of building one of Ireland’s biggest tech success stories before Openet sold the company to NASDAQ-listed Amdocs for $180 mill...

Description We had a brilliant conversation on the podcast with Connor McCandless from Energystore a company transforming construction through innovative insulation products that help homes stay warmer, more energy efficient and quicker to build. Connor shared the incredible journey of scaling the familybusiness from £4M turnover to £50M, expanding into the US market, completing 5 acquisitions, an...

Imagine not listening to your customers. That’s exactly whatmost companies are doing online. This week, we sat down with Stephen O’Leary, Founder and CEO of Olytico —a company that has spent the past 17 years helping brands truly understand what’s being said about them online. Stephen is also an ex-President of the Dublin Chamber ofCommerce and sits on Advisory Boards and Committees for Munster Ru...

What does it really take to build a billion-dollar business from the ground up? Description We recently sat down with Phillip McGlade, whose journey from one clinic to building Thérapie Clinics into Europe’s largest aesthetic provider is packed with lessons for anyone looking to grow a business, lead a team, or think bigger. Phillip shares his ambition to create a billion-dollar global business, w...

We’re back with Part 2 of our conversation with PaulMerriman and this one is packed with practical advice every Irish ear needs to hear.   Why is over €180 billion sitting idle in deposit accounts? Are you making the most of the Small Gifts Exemption? What’s actually the smartest way to invest €10k right now? And… are Irish banks quietly costing you more than youthink?   In this episode, we get in...

Description We recently had an incredible sit-down with Paul Merriman, CEO of Fairstone Ireland and founder of AskPaul.ie. We’ve split the conversation into two episodes, and this week’s release focuses on Paul’s incredible journey building his business. From not making it past Rag Week in college to now running a business managing €3 billion in assets, employing 250 people, and operating across 6...

Alex Fox and Johnson Hana have fundamentally changed the legal industry in Ireland. We had an incredible conversation with Alex Fox, Co-Founder of Johnson Hana and now General Manager of Eudia, which acquired Johnson Hana for $50 million in July 2025. Alex shares how he left his sales job after recognising alongside his brother that the legal industry was broken. What followed was a challenging ea...

Sometimes you need to fire your entire management team…including yourself. Meet the man who successfully stepped out of his ownbusiness.  Going from working long hoursevery week to becoming the “1-Hour CEO” by completely rebuilding his management team. Paul Ryan is the CEO of Temple and EDL, an 8-figure datacommunications and electrical distribution business he started with his fatherover 40 years...

Introduced to us by the legend Paul McCarthy, who described him as a ‘National Treasure’, Denis O’Reilly more than lived up to the title. Denis is the founder of Wild Wicklow Tours , ranked second globally on TripAdvisor and number one in Ireland before selling it to Tony Doyle Coaches in 2023. But what truly sets him apart is how he has channelled that success into meaningful, lasting social impa...

This week’s guest is Dr Harriet Treacy , Founder and CEO of Beyond BMI , tackling one of Ireland’s biggest health challenges: obesity, a chronic disease affecting 1 in 3 adults and costing the state over €2 billion each year. Beyond BMI is a medically led, science-backed online weight management programme for those struggling with Obesity. Harriet’s journey began while working in emergency medicin...

One of Ireland’s great business success stories and there’sa reason a book has been written about it. We had an incredible conversation with Gareth Sheridan,Founder & CEO of Nutriband, a Nasdaq-listed pharmaceutical company and aformer presidential hopeful. Gareth turned a college thesis into a publicly listedcompany, building the business from his bedroom while enduring some serioushard knock...

This week’s guest is Jonathan Larbey, Co-Founder and CEO of T-Pro. Founded 13 years ago in Ireland, T-Pro has grown into a global healthcare AI company with serious unicorn potential. Through its innovative voice recognition technology, T-Pro is reducing the administrative burden on healthcare professionals by over 70%, freeing clinicians to focus on high-value patient care. Today, T-Pro supports...

Today’s guest on The Hidden Hustle Podcast is SinéadCrowther, founder and CEO of Soothing Solutions.   This episode is a true masterclass in building a businessfrom the ground up with no money, driven by resilience, persistence, and an unshakeable belief in solving a real problem. Sinéad’s journey shows what it really takes to keep going through the toughest moments of entrepreneurshipwhen resourc...

🚜➡️🤖 From Diddly Squat Farm to building an AI company with 105 clients. This is a must-listen episode for anyone who would like to teach themselves AI and make a business from it 👇 This week on The Hidden Hustle Podcast, we sat down with Lucca Allen, Founder of ToraTech AI — and his story is nothing short of incredible. At just 23 years old, Lucca has already lived multiple careers. 🏎️ A highly...

Are your phone distractions decreasing your productivity in work? We believe this conversation could be a really important start to everyone’s 2026 with learning how we can better our inner world in a time where minds are extremely busy and so easily distracted. This week on The Hidden Hustle Podcast we talk to Shane Cradock high performance CEO and Athlete Coach. Shane has over 25 years experienc...

Really enjoyed an insightful discussion with Colm O’Rourke, founder of Capaciteam, recently ranked 3rd in Clutch’s Top 100 Fastest Growing Companies for 2025. Colm shared his fascinating journey from starting out in the nightclub scene, to founding Felix Recruitment, and ultimately building Capaciteam, a company specialising in IT services and IT consulting. Capaciteam is growing at an impressive...