What If Everything You’ve Done Was For Nothing?

0:00Alex Chisnall:What stops founders from building something meaningful isn't the lack of ideas, it's the fear of getting started. I'm Alex Chisnall and this is Screw It Just Do It, the podcast for people who are ready to stop waiting, take action and make things happen. It's estimating that about a third of dogs in the UK could be either allergic to food or sensitive to food. you want to own your own time and decide when you work where you work from be work with what you're putting your energy into when you're an entrepreneur you have the amazing luxury of choosing all those things you know think about how much you're on your social media if that's more than an hour a day take that time back and use it so that you're not having to risk leaving your job to do something else if you are about to go on this journey just know that yes you will have more control over your time, but the number of hours you'll probably end up standing on your business will probably be far greater than any other job you've ever done where you work with someone else.

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1:37So Dr.

1:38Alex Chisnall:Guy, you're a successful vet helping animals every day. What made you walk away from that and take the risk of building a business instead? It's a great question, Alex, because I love being a vet. And at the end of the day, many vets become vets because they want to be on the front line, working with animals in the clinic, with their owners. But for me, in the end, it came down to impact. Because as one vet in one clinic, I could see maybe 20, 30 pets in a day. But my ambition was to help many, many more, even thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions. that really got me excited that sort of concept and then I thought business could be a really great route to get into that and that was sort of the starting point and what was there an actual moment that you can kind of go back to in your mind where you actually made that decision and you you took the first action whatever that might be to start making that happen yeah i think i sort of have to give some credit to my mother uh because always yeah mom's uh that's sort of out i guess in life but uh there was a point in my career where i was commuting crazy amount of hours three hours i was working really long shifts night shifts and I just started worn out and you sort of very bored and I remember my mum and and he was and

3:27so it was why did and think about education is the school of being a way of reaching and that was really someone that you need to consider it

3:49Alex Chisnall:and was there anything holding you back before that do you think like in hindsight was it you know fear, was it opinion of others, was it any number of things I was absolutely terrified to this in the way I mean to become a vet trained for up to six years you sacrifice a lot financially you know where you live uh you obviously have to worry about to get in and then to the publisher exam so in the back of my mind I think this fear was all that would be for nothing because you know this future was uncertain I didn't know what going to business or being for me would I completely lose my connection to the veterinary world or all the people that was scary but I think what was reassuring me was this drive I had I mean both back down in this business side of things and I think that kept me being confident decision and on track and what was your mum's initial reaction when you when you made that leap then?

4:59I think my mum was worried that I was unhappy. That was her main driver. I think she wanted to see me unhappy. But of course, I think even she was not sure that that was the right move because of all the reasons I said, she was part of that journey. I know family, I've looked around with the journey with becoming a vet because it's so involved. But I think ultimately she felt unbalanced. It was the right decision.

5:25Alex Chisnall:so she did and and what about um you know other family you know if you had a partner at that time sort of close friends what was what was their reaction was it was it mixed or was it kind of overwhelmingly positive but it was actually pretty negative because most people told me very good doing mba which is what i did at near school they said it's a waste of time because if you've got an established career you know you've got knowledge if you want to start a business just go and do it learn on the way yeah so i was getting a lot of friends who have good careers and interesting jobs telling me the nba so it was time um and my my partner at the time also sort of couldn't really understand it you've got a great career you must be a bear why are you community for all that at risk for an unknown future so actually it wasn't a positive environment for me to make that move but i just sort of went with i really trust my mom she's an entrepreneur herself right okay inspiration for me um and she's built something she's a breadwinner in our family she's together she's supported me throughout everything so I just sort of trust counsel went on with it What has your mum built out of interest?

6:58Alex Chisnall:What space is she in? So my mum works in Ruby but what's really interesting she's now in her 70s I'm not saying that. But so far, the big challenge wasn't just building a business here, it was building a business. Because when she was in her 20s, she just worked within the ragtime, she once offered people to say to her, are you the secretary? Where's your boss? And her mum's saying, I'm actually the office company. And that struggle in that environment is quite inspirational and she's now she's not even retired yet she's still going she's reaching 80 but this is her life and she's satisfied from it and it's me yeah it's like me as well it's often the way isn't it i i find is that entrepreneurs um retirement doesn't kind of enter the equation or it's just a different pace of life you know as you get older and you're you're in maybe in a slightly different role in the business but you you still want um some involvement in in the business you don't want to just go out on the golf course or or you know whatever that might be you know so i i totally get that um from your mom's point of view um if you hadn't made that leap where what do you think your life would look like now today i was going down a surgical route as a vet of all vets in the uk qualify as being able to do surgery but you can take further education further qualifications to become a specialist in surgery and i was going down that route you know i was training to have a advanced qualification it's for animal surgery which basically means you help to fix broken bones and organ surgeries that maybe don't do and I wonder if I probably would have carried on there working in a specialist myself I guess that was the most predictable by one to me what I've learned in life is that you never know

9:22Alex Chisnall:no exactly and what do you think about the the MBA decision now do you think that was the right decision or it was just the right decision at the time? I'm lucky because I was able to do the NBA. I mean, if you're not getting sponsored to do an NBA, it's very expensive. And so I don't think it's something that is accessible for everyone, but I 100 % would recommend doing an NBA to anybody who is from a clinical background or past, a not business background, and who thrives on having some of that. academic rounding thing. And I know that's not for everyone, but it's made me have the confidence when I'm a CFO talking spreadsheets in the camp and probably lost huge flows.

10:11I knew the language. Yeah. I knew the language was out of place before that. Yeah. And it was really exciting because I did quite a lot of modules in consumer value. and that's become a really interesting yeah it's the ecology yeah and what causes brand love I just found it really fascinating so for me it's interesting but I understand that it's not what everyone can do success yeah

10:51Alex Chisnall:you said earlier again you realize you didn't just want to help hundreds of pets but you wanted to help thousands if not hundreds of thousands if not millions was that the moment that you decided that the the business would become the vehicle for the impact that you wanted to make in the world yes i think i realized that that was the route to getting there honestly it wasn't just about that it was also about being an entrepreneur having control over my life yeah and i think other people who have entrepreneurial ambitious who are already on the journey i think it's a very common driver you want to own your own time and decide when you work where you work from do you work with what you're putting your egg into when you're an entrepreneur you have the amazing luxury of choosing all those things yeah i didn't expect it to be as hard work as it was that really does right yeah it was i thought it would be a different journey i thought i would have a lot more free time but what i've come to find now is is it there's nothing else i want to do i'm like i'm happy to be there working at least like working weekends anyway it's like um and that's different yeah yeah exactly um no it's interesting you say that i remember that when i took my leap and i i was with virgin atlantic before virgin starts when i was there for 16 17 years um but for me the driver was again i i wanted to be in charge of my destiny and whether that was um you know seeing somebody like rich a lot back back in the day used to see him a lot you know and every week there was another business being started and you know it's pretty inspiring right but for me like the first business i started after that was you know with the wrong decision in that again i wanted to be in charge of my time but i went into the health and fitness industry and suddenly realized you're having to fit that around when people are available.

13:00Alex Chisnall:So retraining is like a personal trainer. And then I went down the sports injury route and opened a number of sports injury clinics. But then to start with, you're just seeing people, you know, first thing in the morning, last thing at night, the weekend, and they're kind of like, hang on a minute, this isn't the life that I actually wanted. So let's segue into something else and start another business. So, you know, it is different for everybody. But as you say, that is like a massive driver for a lot of people, right? um and for people who don't know tell us a little bit more about omni and tell us a little bit more about the problem that you are solving absolutely so omni is our startup i co-founded the business with shiv silakuma who comes from a banking background but really it all began in the clinic it's obvious years that i was online seeking pets like their owners one thing that really structurally was the sheer volume of dogs that were coming in with skin problems and gut problems and we would very commonly as well skip medications for those symptoms and sometimes pets would have to stay on them for a very long time if not life with them and i did just feel that perhaps there was more we could be doing on the nutrition side to prevent those things from happening without the e-comeds that was really the starting point for omni and what a lot of people don't know is that that some of the most common proteins are in pet food products are actually triggers for big symptoms things like chicken, beef, dairy a lot of people just don't know that and it's somewhat counterintuitive because you think dog, chicken and beef but actually it's likely to be proven that those are quite common food allergies and so I thought well why don't I build a full nutrition solution that just doesn't use those strategies that we call novel proteins, things like yeast protein, algae protein, host protein, and maybe that would allow dogs to have delicious meals that get the food without nervous autism.

15:08And frankly, I didn't know whether that would work.

15:12Alex Chisnall:I was about to ask you, yeah. Okay. I didn't know. I didn't know if it was possible to formulate a diet without the salad of chicken and beef proteins. My first point of view was to go back to where I went to uni and studied at New Medicine, and I asked the head of nutrition diet, a person like Dainey's, what do you think about, well, you have a coffee with me, first of all. And then when I managed to facilitate a coffee, what do you think about this idea? Could we be helping a lot of pets by doing this? And maybe Dainey's may really hate for me, just being changing, to help. and he was elated, he was so excited because hearing it all just made sense yeah, we have the same nutrients balance it right and confident, a lot of people like the taste of it and absolutely, there's a lot of sense of it we'll really do this to your own that's how it all began and then since then we've developed wet foods, treats medical sticks, you know we've really loved this whole allergy friendly solution that always uses protein and most recently we've started to go into wild animals problems like dogs that have stiff joints or dogs that get stressed on their own just go to wild called separation until we've started to develop something that's there's support with those problems as well it's kind of ordaining into a solution and you mentioned before you're tackling things like allergies nutrition pet obesity why is that such a big issue like right now at this time um in society i think you know holistically it's an issue because pets that have those problems suffer that's the you know sort of the obvious thing where they their quality of life is lower and they may not live as long you know it's a bit like humans if you're overweight you might be more uncomfortable on exercise you might have a brief difficulty quite similar than four for pets and we know that an estimated 50 % of UK pets are overweight How many?

17:1750 %? Yeah, one or two So it's kind of staggering and then allergies and sensitivities are harder to measure because it's not that easy to sort of prove that a dog has a problem with a particular prating it can be quite expensive to get those tests done but it's estimated that about a third of dogs in the UK could be either allergic to food or sensitive to food. Okay. And these are big numbers, and this is also sort of the addressable market, because we can help these pets with solutions to get pets into a healthy body way.

17:58And was that the moment,

18:04Alex Chisnall:like when you were doing the research, that you realized this could actually be like really really big like the size of the market here is absolutely massive if we get this right yeah i mean i don't think we realized how big the market was either to be fair but we made a few hundred bags of dry food in these novel proteins and that by the way took us about energy recitulations because we were really adamant that the first product we set out there had to be at least as delicious as a meat-based product.

18:43Anyway, 20 recipes later, we finally thought we'd got there. And we went into a Facebook group where people were feeding raw blood foods, like the opposite of what we were making. So in a mid-sweek condition. And we asked them, who would be able to try our new the old routine that we're doing and giving us feedback. We'll send it to you free. Nice. And we basically sent out 200 bags, expecting half the people not to bother to reply. Yeah. I mean, I said, I don't like it. But it was completely opposite. The feedback, I think 91%, so the dogs loved it. It was really, really bad. Wow. These are the ones who are eating in the comments.

19:28and then the thing that surprised us most is those people said well where can we buy the next bag we never even thought about that so we started to realise that maybe there was demand for this even within raw meat feeding creeps on Facebook there's them out there what we started to do was set up the product online and see you know, just tested it, put it up a single and it just kept selling out. I've been three months for about nine months and then you started to really take a lot seriously and match up with the demand and it went from there.

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20:43Alex Chisnall:Plus, signing up for an account is completely free and there are no ongoing monthly fees. You've got 60 days from sign up to use them head to worldfirst.com forward slash screw it and get your 50 fee free business transactions now back to the podcast and when you when you did that that market research with the facebook group um what was the kind of time lag between uh you know the 200 that you had before then going actually we need to produce more because these people are asking us for more and then that therefore means there's a way bigger market than we realized out there it was within a month because they're already two kilograms out of food so it was really great we were just expecting them to us tell us the survey feedback data and said they just say oh well can we buy another bag and i remember we made a batch of 500 to scale just to these people but that went as well yeah we realized we needed bigger times so that's when we started doing 10 kilograms wow that's tremendous to and that's the beauty right being an entrepreneur and and testing stuff and trying stuff is that you get that immediate feedback, right?

21:52Alex Chisnall:Whereas if you were some, and again, I kind of look back on my time at Virgin and people always thought it was a really entrepreneurial organization. But by the time Virgin had got to the size it had after me being there for 17 years to make a decision, like to make a decision on this podcast, funnily enough, on a start, it took them 90 days and 24 people to listen to it. And it's just like, this is how slow these organizations move. yeah you as an entrepreneur and you're your co-founder could move pretty damn quickly right it's one of the best feelings when you're and anyone listening to this who works for a big corporate will definitely be able to relate to what you just described about the decision between complexity and red tape when you're a founder of your school business whatever you want to do just do it and you can do it today or tomorrow and that's a great feeling very empowering but you just got to be comfortable with making mistakes because with that you do make mistakes and you've got to just understand that's part of the journey and not take it personally or let it get you down it just learn from it move on yeah 100 um talk me through dragon's den experience i'm sure it's not the first time we've talked about it but what was going on in your head walking in there for a start we were really nervous because one thing we wanted to show the nation live in front of the dragons was that if you put a bowl of our kibble in front of a dog even though it's got no meat in it that dog will love this food we wanted to prove that in front of the nation but the BBC Dragon's Den crew wouldn't let us do anything to manipulate that scene so all we were able to do is give the producers the bag of food and the bowl and then we had to choose a dog to bring on set and the rest was just going to be a complete sort of whatever happens happens moment in front of the cameras rolling so I guess we were really nervous that this dog who's never tried on me before is going to go on in front of the dragons and just go up to the bowl of food and just sort of sniff it and walk away because that would just be a disaster for us would have made a great tv my view but yeah that was that was honestly the main thing on our minds when we were walking into the den is will the dog like the food now one thing a lot people don't know because they didn't show this on the episode they cut it out but the dog ate the food so quickly and the producers had filled it up so hard that it was probably like six portions in one and this little black lab inhaled it and then puked it all up straight away in front of the camera and no one had been no knew that or saw that because they cut it out um so that was quite quite sort of no runnily but it wasn't because there was a problem just Just any dog, if you eat them too much too quickly because they like it that much, they will just...

24:54Alex Chisnall:Literally inhaled it. Literally, there's only so much space in the stomach. But despite that, that nobody saw, you secured investment from Stephen Bartlett and Deborah Meaden, right? What did they see in you and in the business, do you think? Well, it's funny because I haven't watched an episode back that often, but I've watched it a few times since. one thing steven bartlett said to us was everyone there was this effect every once in a while you get people that come into this then who are killers and you are killers and he meant it in a really positive way you know like founders that really are go-getters i think but what's quite funny about it is our products are vegan and a lot of our customers are vegan so it's quite funny when you said we're killers because it's sort of ironic but we're quite the opposite with our products but anyway i think the message was even though maybe they didn't fully understand how the products work they believed in me and chiv yeah they like the fact that there was sort of this vet clinical side and this more sort of bankery finance side and that those skills are coming together to create quite a complementary skill set yeah and i think they felt that we answered what were really tough questions well and that was great great feeling especially when two of your idols you know shim and i both really respect both steven bartlett and deborah meaden when they are saying to you on tv that they respect you and they think you're great that's just i'm feeling that that's hard to top yeah um interestingly enough yeah did that change how you saw yourself as a founder at that time then did that give you something that maybe wasn't there before 100 it was very validating yeah yeah because they see so many entrepreneurs and so many businesses right so and they don't say that to everyone they don't have that sort of feedback for everyone so yeah just sort of very much validated us yeah good good friend of mine from a couple of weeks ago Piers Linney he was uh a dragon or not on on there for like two series I think like 2015 to 2017 something like that and um Piers always says you know always invest in the person because even if this business doesn't work out you've still got that relationship with that person you know they're going to do something that's ultimately going to be successful and you want to be on there for the ride um so it's interesting you got that feedback um how did that affect the business like initially in the in the first say six 12 months because again a lot of people probably don't know how many of those um pitches that are accepted then turn out to uh not be invested upon you know for a variety of reasons people deciding not to take the investment due diligence being done etc um but equally i've spoken to you know numerous people who's you know business literally just went to the moon and back straight after that experience yeah that's good good point to make actually because i think a lot of people assume that when a deal is made on the den that that's sort of the end but it isn't the headline terms are somewhat fixed you're sort of obliged to go with what you've agreed on the den but then there is as you say the due diligence process where all of your business numbers are scrutinized there might be additional you know documentation you need to provide and all that process does take some time and i don't think every business gets past that um but we we did and it was quite smooth we had been raising investment from other investors as well it wasn't just the dragons that were coming in on that ride so we had a lot prepared so we found that bit quite smooth i think what was really cool for us was we saw this massive peak in interest and in sales around the time of the episode that lasted for about a month but what a lot of people warned us about including the dragons who invested was that that's typically not sustainable and it tends to drop quite dramatically for some companies it's after a week for some it's after a month very rarely does it last longer than a month we were one of the really lucky companies where that sort of continued month on month for the best part of the year wow okay so it wasn't obviously as steep as it was around the month of the episode but we just kept getting record growth every month after and i think it just had a bit of a snowball effect where people were telling their friends about the product you know it was that initial influx of new customers but just a sort of word of mouth effect as that spread um and yeah we had a really huge sort of growth spot in in that year um if we went from a one to two million run rate to a eight to ten million run rate in one year so really humbling yeah amazing congratulations um and people always ask as well you know what kind of relationship do you have with the dragons afterwards you know are do you have any contact with them people have different reactions when I speak to them and it depends on the dragon as well like Peter Jones I guess had been there since since year dot and it's got a gazillion different investments right so I'm interested to know what your experience has been we were surprised positively because both Stephen and Deborah gave us their whatsapp numbers straight away really okay yeah we didn't expect that and no they literally said you need anything any advice if you want to chat just let's send us a message and so you know they have got big teams around them that filter things like this out but we sort of had a direct line and we've not sort of tapped into that so as not to abuse it but when we have sort of had inquiries or questions we have and they've responded straight away.

31:04And that's been really, really great. And then in terms of their sort of support of the business, I mean, Debra Needham's reinvested since. Our coach is super exciting. And she's always at the other end of the phone helping us through everyday business decisions. And she'll be really great for introducing us to people in her network as well. For instance, we met Chris Packham. through Debra Medin. He's also been involved with the brand. And she's just, she just sort of feels like that mentor figure that you could just come to with anything. And she'll give me a really straight answer. No fluff, but really helpful advice.

31:47And so we're really, really grateful for Debra. And then on Stephen Barber's side, he's got this amazing team around him that have, you know, alongside his support, have also just helped us with our branding. yeah because you know being really critical of what's working what isn't and that process has been great basically addressing all the things that they've suggested over time and um and yeah and so overall in all surprised how much they've been around to help us and

32:16Alex Chisnall:how much benefit we've got yeah no it's really cool to hear um moving on um you've spoken about having to almost we're talking like about um raising money which we've literally just been talking about you've spoken before about having to downplay your identity as a lgbtq plus founder um can you talk about that a little bit yeah i guess i'm in the fundraising world we've been one or two times because both me and she were gay as an co-founder and And we've got to the point in deals where we've almost had an investment come through, you know, after three to six months of due diligence. And the final step was sort of like a meal just to get to know each other.

33:08We've all gone for a dinner or a lunch. And then they've asked, do you have a girlfriend? Do you have family or whatever? And we said, no, I can't actually get it. And it just was a tangible change. change. Yeah. In this day, it's kind of sad that it's like, and it's not always like that. They get me wrong. We've had other investors who celebrated the fact that we're from, you know, an LGBTQ plus community. And it has, you know, this particular one, I remember the atmosphere of the MIP, it was still fortunate to be like, but it was very obvious that that was a red flag. and they did a big mess and they made some other excuse about timing or the unfocus suddenly changed or whatever and so yeah, it hasn't deterred me from being honest and open about who I am and that's really important especially as I've started to become more of a figure in this pet business space I really want other people thinking about doing something themselves to be empowered to do that and not have to fight it.

34:25So I feel like it's a beauty for me outside.

34:28Alex Chisnall:Yeah. And did, did you ever, did that ever cause you to like fully question being yourself in business and, you know, the face of the business, et cetera?

34:42Yeah. I mean, I mean, I think, a lot of founders will look at themselves in front of the camera for adverts for example on platforms like Meta of course sometimes it comes into my mind should I be that figure because perhaps just people seeing me talking the way I talk, acting the way I'm thinking I don't want to be buying dog food for my property those things come to my mind I think that's just I grew up, it wasn't what it is today in terms of acceptance. I know there's still work to do, but I think there's just something in me that wants to keep those things hidden so that I'm not exposed, but I'm actively working to not do that and to be proud of who I am and not let that be back.

35:36Alex Chisnall:Yeah. And where are you guys at in the business at the moment when it comes to fundraising and growing the business and scaling the business? So we are trying to grow a very big pie. And our sort of decision is that we're happy to own a small section of that pie as long as it's making impact and the business is really moving mountains. And so our intention is to continue down the venture capital route raise good amounts of capital and do so in a way that's really targeted and it might be that the next time we raise it's because we want to enter the US market to require a lot of character but there are other sort of channel kind of concepts that we're interested in exploring that i'm leading of capital say you know we want to become profitable and we're dependent on investment but we'd like to put it invested to just bring us to the next level as we'll keep it standing and keep pushing the barriers yeah um i need to introduce you to somebody as well i'll i'll chat to you once we once we finish this but um last couple of questions for you um for someone listening who's you know sitting on an idea and they're maybe too scared to leave the safety net of the current job what's your advice to them if it's possible to do the initial work at the weekends at the evenings there's a lot of time in your week that you might have available you know think about how much you're on your social media media if that's more than an hour a day take that time back and use it so that you're not having to risk leaving your job to do something else the key message for me is the business or the concept doesn't need to be fully developed for you to start getting some learnings so whatever it is you want to do just try to start with the most basic version of it talk to as many people as you can about it to get their feedback you always think it's still your idea that's their misconception true um and just get going and then if you start to get some feedback that it's good or that you're onto something that's the way which you might say okay now i'm ready to leave my job but i'd just be cautious about about leaving without anything you know in my case it was a course i was doing that was going to set me up or whatever it is build a prototype or get some data and market data but i wouldn't just leave your job without anything no and i think that that's really good advice and i like the point you make about the the the hour claiming back from social media and i saw a post come up the other day it was gary vaynerchuk i used to follow back in the day but hadn't you know seen any of his stuff for a very long time and it's too kind of like uber aggressive for me but it was something that that resonated was that thing of you know if you want to start that business if you want to start that relationship if you whatever it is and you say you haven't got the time to do it you know and then the graphic is somebody just lying on the sofa at night doom scrolling and it's like if you actually looked at how much time which you can on your phone right your phone will tell you how long you spent on there on a daily weekly basis claim that hour back like you say so i think that's a really good point to to make to to people listening and watching this that that's that's the most obvious hour that you can claim back you know and that that time multiply that hour over the course of 365 days become an expert right in whatever you're you're researching um what do you think's the biggest thing people overestimate about starting a business and maybe what they underestimate also i know you mentioned right at the beginning about how hard it was but um yeah maybe something about the overestimating about starting a business as well i mean from my perspective i overestimated how much of a sacrifice i'd have to make i thought I wouldn't get to pay myself for years.

39:50But actually, if you start doing something and you're selling, you can actually start to pay yourself salarier sooner than you might think. So that was a sacrifice I was expecting to make for longer than I did after. I mean, we didn't pay ourselves for about nine months. But I thought it might be way longer than that. Maybe that's just me. But yeah, so that was a good surprise. surprise and then I suppose yeah and if you are about to go on this journey just know that yes you will have more control over your time but the number of hours you'll probably end up on your business will probably be far greater than any other job you've ever done where you

40:31Alex Chisnall:work with someone else yeah 100 that's a good soundbite um to wrap things up and appreciate your time um tell me what would your definition of an entrepreneur be

40:46an entrepreneur thinks outside the box to bring solutions to people's problems

40:56Alex Chisnall:perfect um given that you're in this at the moment i guess what is a scale-up business once you've proven product market fit a scale-up business is when you just turn the taps on and you continue to do what you've proven out that you do it at scale so you make you basically multiply it again and again and again and show that it's not just a small group of people that want what you're doing or what you're selling it's the masses yeah um what about um what about what about what about what i was gonna ask you give me an entrepreneur that uh inspires you and that can be somebody that's always inspired you and that could be or that could be somebody that's come on your radar recently that that people might not have heard of or come across i have to say my mom because love it my mom started her own business when i was at primary school and i saw her life change all of our lives change praise and cons but yeah yeah i saw that her success and um in a world that was dominated by a lot of men and she was able to break through as a woman in business and that was a big inspiration for me what's your mom's name let's give her a shout out

42:21Alex Chisnall:and then i will finish up by saying um if you could pick a song that would kind of encapsulate the journey that you've been on so far is there a song that springs to mind

42:37um maybe ray of light madonna love it okay um and then last one again and you can come back

42:45Alex Chisnall:to me on this one having been on the show um is there anyone that you can think of uh an entrepreneur who you think um would be a great fit for the show who's got a really good screw it just do it story i'd say my co-founder ship ships come from a really tough background and he's had a lot of struggles um and he's managed to go to the nse build this business work in investment banking but he did not have a lot of the tools and opportunities that others had to get there so i think his story is really interesting brilliant whereabouts is shiv based by the way birmingham birmingham ah brilliant i was gonna okay we'll finish this conversation after i was going to tell you about the festival of entrepreneurs which is going to be in birmingham in november which we'd love to have you both there um might be easier for shiv but see if we can get you both there um dr guy sandalowski thank you very much indeed for being guest on Screw It Just Do It.

43:39Alex Chisnall:It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. It's been great.