Hustle Awards 2025 Special: Bethany Hatten and James Wood of ClearEar, Winner of Young Entrepreneur

12 Sep 2025 · 39 min

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In short

Podcast Notes: Startups Magazine - The Cereal Entrepreneur

Episode Title

Hustle Awards 2025 Special: Bethany Hatten and James Wood of ClearEar, Winner of Young Entrepreneur

Hosts

  • Anna Wood: Editor at Startups Magazine

Guests

  • Bethany Hatten: Co-Founder of ClearEar
  • James Wood: Co-Founder of ClearEar

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Episode Summary In this episode, Anna Wood interviews Bethany Hatten and James Wood, medical students and co-founders of ClearEar, a mobile ear health service. The discussion covers their journey in starting the business, the significance of accessibility in healthcare, and their recent recognition as the Young Entrepreneur award winners at the Hustle Awards 2025.

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Key Takeaways

Introduction

  • Icebreaker: Favorite breakfast cereals.
  • James: Golden Grams, nostalgic but unavailable in the UK.
  • Bethany: Golden Nuggets, childhood favorite.

Background of the Founders

  • Bethany Hatten: Background in biological sciences and experience at PwC before studying medicine.
  • James Wood: Focused on medical studies with interests in gaming, scuba diving, and basketball.

Overview of ClearEar

  • Service Offering:
  • Focus on ear health, primarily earwax removal and hearing tests.
  • Target audience: Elderly, care home residents, and others with ear issues.
  • Unique selling proposition: Mobile service that visits clients at their location, improving accessibility.

Inspiration Behind Starting ClearEar

  • Encountered the unregulated state of ear health services during medical training.
  • Initial interest sparked from an ENT day at university, leading to training and business formation.

Market Differentiation

  • Mobility: ClearEar can provide services at care homes, addressing staffing and transportation challenges.
  • Affordability: No additional charges for home visits, making it accessible.
  • Use of technology for remote consultations with qualified audiologists.

Challenges Faced

  • Managing a business while being full-time medical students.
  • Learning curve related to business operations, finance, and taxes.
  • Demand for flexibility as they navigate placements and studies.

Achievements

  • Hustle Awards 2025: Recognition as Young Entrepreneurs.
  • Experience was unexpected; received news through a connection at the awards night.
  • Awards validate their hard work and motivate future aspirations.

Lessons Learned

  • Costs are often higher than anticipated; profits can be lower than expected.
  • Adaptability is crucial in business; have backup plans for unexpected challenges.
  • Networking and seeking help from others can lead to valuable opportunities.

Future Aspirations

  • Plans to transition responsibilities as they become doctors.
  • Interest in maintaining the business through training other medical students.
  • Excitement about future ventures and possible innovations in medical technology.

Conclusion

  • The hosts express gratitude for support from family, university, and the entrepreneurial community.
  • Call to action: A humorous request for help finding Golden Grams.

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Final Thoughts Bethany and James exemplify how students can innovate within healthcare while managing demanding academic schedules. Their story highlights the importance of perseverance, adaptability, and collaboration in entrepreneurship.

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Transcript

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0:00Welcome back to the Serial Entrepreneur, I'm your host Anna Wood. In today's episode, I'm joined by Bethany Hatton and James Wood, co-founders of ClearEar. We discuss what it's like to start and run a business as two busy medical students, the importance of accessibility in their service offering, and winning the Young Entrepreneur Award at the Hustle Awards 2025. Let's dig in. Hi guys, welcome to the podcast today. How are you? Hi, yeah, good, thank you. How are you doing today? Yeah, very good. Thank you. Thank you for coming on today. Thank you for having us. Yeah, awesome. I've never done a podcast before.

0:38Oh, well, I'm glad to be your first time. So we start every podcast episode with the same icebreaker question, which is what's your favourite breakfast cereal and why? James, you can go first. okay i think um i think my favorite breakfast cereal is uh it's called golden grams and it's it used to be this um like kind of crunchy golden squares um but you don't get them in the uk anymore and i've tried to source them from like everywhere but you i can't seem to find them but i don't know why i was just so addicted to them they're like so sweet but i think they had like a golden so be kind of vibe going but um yeah I think those are my favorite you can't get them anymore which is sad I don't think anyway but I think those are my favorite cereals yeah I'd say uh similar vibe but I like the golden nuggets I used to love those as a as a kid I've not had them since I was probably about 10 but I think they're definitely my favorite I'd have those if someone gave them to me I'd have those.

1:43Nice so would you both be able to introduce yourself and tell me a bit about your background? Sure yeah so I'm Bethany my background is a bit different so I've I've gone to uni once then I worked for a bit then I went back to uni and that's where I am now at uni but also we're running this this business clearer together. yeah I did biological sciences at uni to start with then I worked at PwC for a bit and then James and I met at university in Swansea this time around where we're both studying medicine and that's when we decided to start Clear Air as well. Yeah I'm James I'm also at Swansea University as well I've never had a full-time job so I've just been studying my whole life which has been amazing yeah and then we started Clear Air about a year and a bit ago now I quite like gaming as well and scuba diving and basketball.

2:39Nice of that. Leeson Welter, what is Clear Ear and what are you trying to achieve for the business? Sure. So Clear Ear is an ear health company that mostly focuses on those with ear issues. So a lot of the time we find that that's the elderly people, people in care homes, but that's not its limit. there's a lot of younger people that also have ear issues we find that with the elderly community a lot of the time they have earwax problems so our primary service to those individuals is removal of earwax and also hearing tests and making sure that your ear health is okay yeah that's basically what we do yes we're a mobile ear health company so we go to the care homes because there's kind of issues with like staffing and transport and things so yeah you call us up and then we can either come to you or you can come to us and it's all about the idea of like flexibility really yeah and being fully mobile so we find that the care homes appreciate that a lot because they're really really busy they've got a lot of staffing issues and organizing transport is actually really complicated for people with either they might have learning disabilities they might also have physical health problems which means that they can't get out very easily so us going to them is a really important thing that we've noticed for the care homes.

3:59Yeah that's great. So what was the inspiration behind founding the company especially as two busy medical students? So I think when we first found out about earwax microstruction and ear health was in an ENT or ear nose and throat day that we had as part of the uni and we learned that it was uh unregulated unregulated in the uk yeah um like ear wax removal on ear health like this side of it so we uh thought that well we were quite interested in ent so we thought we could kind of go into it and see what happened and then that's how clear it was founded yeah it was it was kind of more like it kind of happened by accident almost so we went to this conference and we we went to the conference because we were really interested in kind of ear health and kind of that side of medicine.

4:52So we went obviously not expecting anything. And then we got exposed to like different procedures. And then we thought, oh, this is actually quite interesting. This was something that we could do ourselves. And it started really, it was more of kind of like an interest thing. We didn't really see ourselves actually like coming up with a business, to be honest. That just kind of happened organically once we got trained and we were like, oh, there's actually a massive market for this. would be silly not to actually try and you know make something out of it definitely so what do you think makes clear air stand out in the market i think like what we talked about before about being mobile i think that really helps out instead of having to go to a clinic so especially someone saying an elderly care home um they'd have to go to their gp to get their ears checked and then they'd have to come back and then they'd have to go again to go and get their earwax removed because the NHS don't offer it anymore in Wales or it's getting reduced heavily so we're kind of breaking through those barriers of transport lying on staff lying on communications and we offer through Timper Health which is the company that trained us up and supplies us with all our gear they offer us three advice so we can take videos pictures of inside their ears and refer it on to them their audiologists and ENT consultants kind of look at them and look at the photos and say like what their thoughts were and if there's any pathology or any issues and then they can yeah give us advice then we can send them a pdf yeah so I think yeah the main things is that we're fully mobile so we can go to anywhere across south wales we don't charge extra or so for home visits which a lot of our competitors do and we thought that was really important because we saw some of the prices that people were charging and we thought that that's not something we really wanted to do we wanted to make sure it was accessible or as accessible as possible and then also yeah the fact that there's this remote review system so basically we're able to get advice from like qualified doctors and qualified audiologists and they'll be able to put their kind of input into a pdf and then the clients that we see can use that pdf as obviously like a knowledge base and also they can send that directly to their gp and get fast tracked for um like nhs referrals if they need to yeah great i think it is really important that you guys are kind of like meeting patients where they already are rather than like you said how your competitors are like oh no you've got to come to us or charge more for that yeah yeah we really really didn't want to do that and We wanted to try and make it as accessible as possible because the main reason that there's such a market for it is because the NHS have defunded this particular service.

7:48So. It's not it's no longer free at the point of access, so we just wanted to try and make it as accessible as possible for those people. yeah yeah that's great so I think something you said earlier has kind of like piqued my interest that James you said you've kind of studied your whole life and then Bethany you were talking about how you have had experience in a corporate before how do you think your both of your experiences which are different impact how you kind of run clearer sure yeah I'd say that honestly I'm probably more of the like organization person admin person kind of knows what needs to be done and then James has like the enthusiasm the kindness the the really good patient interaction and the good skills with patients and knows how to talk to them and has a really good rapport with them so I think on that side it kind of naturally fell fell that way like James does a lot of the appointments and the services I do a lot of the background work a lot of the admin and the organization I'd say I think that's a very kind way of saying that I'm not very organized yeah I think Bea's very good with patients as well she has great manner I think yeah recently I've been doing a bit more of the cleaning and Bea's been doing a lot more of the opening she works in social media as well as a part-time job so you do a lot of the media everything do online kind of stuff you're really good at that I think it's really unique that we're both medical students as well and you know we're being trained currently in this kind of patient patient interaction and the kind of whole idea of holistic health and how loads of different things uh loads of different uh issues that your body has it's kind of links with each other so I think that's quite unique as well quite humbling too yeah definitely though we can't give advice any advice yet we're only students yeah it kind of works out though that there's like someone who is very organized and kind of like admin driven and someone who is a bit more like great with the patients obviously because they also with the patients too but like it's good to kind of have a bit of everything there yeah definitely and I'd also say that James has I think I don't know I don't know how to quite explain it but I guess a lot of creativity behind like where we could go with things and ideas about I don't know different ways that we can make the actual process easier um because I think I'm quite like stuck to the routine of things whereas James can see things like a bit broader as well which is really useful yeah that's great so you're on the podcast today because you won the young entrepreneur award at the hustle awards this year so congratulations for that thank you so much thank you how did that make you feel what does that mean for you?

10:41I think it was such an incredible honour I think yeah it's kind of unbelievable that we won yeah I mean it's such a huge thing that I guess we weren't kind of expecting because I still feel we we're not as we're growing but we're not a huge company a lot of the other companies that we that are also really really good that we were up in the running with they were amazing they've done accomplished so much and I think um I think it's been really encouraging and really motivating as well and I think yeah it's just pushed us to kind of think about where where things can lead in the future a bit more as well yeah I think it's just such an honor because you know all that hard work's kind of showing and it's yeah it's nice it's really good feeling yeah I'd say that well yeah it's the first award that we've won so we're really really really excited and happy about that I think also it kind of I don't know how to explain it but I guess kind of like yeah validates the work that we've put in and like outside of our immediate circle because our friends and our family are really supportive and really really um like kind to us about what we're doing but because it's an external validation it it feels it feels different and also yeah just the the people that we were up against we yeah we couldn't believe it actually we what's really funny is that um James and I were supposed to be at the awards night um but we couldn't make it last minute and I didn't know this but someone that I used to go to school with was also at the awards night um and we haven't spoken in uh I don't know it's probably about 10 years at least um and he he just messaged me uh with a picture of like the stage um said like big up or something and I was like oh you're at the awards that's great let me know how it goes and he was like no like you just won we're like what no way so that's how we found out it was like almost like live um but yeah we were like I can't I can't believe it I can't believe that's actually happened what crazy small world as well that someone you would have known at school was that i know yeah i mean i've been seeing the stuff he's been doing he he has a really really great company himself actually um but yeah i didn't realize he'd be at the awards yeah that's amazing so kind of looking at your journey as a company what do you think have been some of the biggest challenges so far and how have you managed to overcome them yeah i think um like running a business being a full-time student has been pressured at times i think yeah i think where we are in medical school degree where we're in our third year where it's probably the busiest year where we're at placement all year in hospital and we're in different hospitals as well I think organizing that time especially me has been as we've highlighted it's been um quite difficult I think I've a few other responsibilities as well for like medical school rep and things but I think it's been good training I think and I think the learning curve has been quite steep at least for me because I have no experience in business whatsoever um and kind of learning like what taxes and things I see taxes this thing that just like grown-ups do yeah yeah but I think Bea's nearly a chartered accountant so she's really helped me out with that kind of side of things um yeah I think the learning curve's been quite steep but I think the journey's been awesome yeah um yeah I'd say that timing has been like really quite pressured for us because nine to five we're in the hospitals every day not the weekends though so the only time we have is after five and the weekends um and then occasionally we might have the odd day off here and there um so it works fine for appointments because quite a lot of people actually want out of hours appointments they want the weekend appointments and after five but it's yeah it's the doing the stuff in prep for that it's making sure you're all organized um and doing like all of the behind the scenes stuff that sometimes has been a bit bit difficult with timing just because we're so busy um but I think I think we've learned that we like there is time to do stuff It's just what you choose to prioritise and what you choose to give more attention to or more time to.

15:18Yeah, I can't imagine how busy it is to run a business alongside kind of doing your placement nine to five and then having a whole other thing to do as well. Yeah, I mean, like, to be honest, it's worked out OK. um the only thing that I find really difficult is if we're getting kind of I don't know messages or correspondence for something and obviously we're in the hospital it's really difficult to put your like attention into like replying to that and a lot of the time you can't you can't actually do that until you're on like a lunch break or something so that's I'd say that's probably the most difficult thing like day to day but shut up to my mum who's been our secretary yeah she's been taking all the phone calls for appointments and things like that and yeah she's really great otherwise I don't know I don't think it would actually be a thing if she wasn't picking up the calls I don't know we wouldn't be able to do it would we no so is the team you two and James's mum then yeah that's us I love that so what would you say have been some of the highlights on the journey so far for you oh there's definitely been a lot I think starting out, we thought we wanted to get kind of all trained up and start the company.

16:35And when we realised how much the training cost, we were like, oh, no, this is this is a lot of money. And then we it just kind of all fell into place. We saw this opportunity with the university for the big pitch where they I think it was partially funded by Santander. and so we pitched for that again not really expecting much of it but then we were granted an award for that and then I'd say that was our first like biggest highlight because that allowed us to actually do the do the training and allow us to actually kick start the the business so I'd say that was the first and kind of most important highlight but then there's been loads of others throughout James you can talk about a few.

17:20Yeah I think yeah I think we wouldn't be here with our Swansea University as well, the Young Enterprise team, I think, you know, the support that they've given us to like learn how to set up and the guidance they've offered and also the funding that completely allowed us to start clear air. As Bea said, the costs were quite high and we wouldn't have been able to do it out of pocket. So they made that kind of happen, which we're really humbled for. And I think when we found out that we won was a huge highlight. And I think getting the award as well is the entrepreneur award uh sounds cool I think yeah that was really humbling I think that was a massive highlight as well yeah yeah and I say also probably like the opportunities that we've had just by having a business and going to certain events and the connections that we've made also like some of the the friends that we might have made as well because of the journey that we've been on like there's a few people in like our local area that are similar-ish stages of their companies that we've met just by chance um and you know seeing how they're doing and getting ideas and things from them has been like a really important thing that we wouldn't have had if we didn't have clearer i think seeing patience as well is a huge thing for for us and kind of seeing how you know different that hearing can be when we remove their wax and they're able to hear their loved ones and his stuff I think you know it kind of reminds us why we got into this in the first place yeah definitely you know why I got into medicine in the first place as well it's just seeing the change in people's lives that you can make and it's really humbling yeah definitely I hear that from a lot of founders um in kind of like all sectors is seeing the impact that they have on people is truly kind of like what makes it because otherwise without people a company would really be nothing exactly yeah that's so true yeah it's definitely a massive thing um and I think as well because obviously we've we've had three years experience in hospitals um but you rarely actually get to see the impact that either you're having in the hospital or the team's having because people's care goes over such a long period of time and you move teams all the time whereas with this it's kind of quite an instant we go and see them and then they've got improved hearing after so it's actually really gratifying to know that something we're doing is actually helping right there and then and helps to kind of ground us as to why why we're doing everything we're doing you know.

20:01Great do you think your experience with clear has impacted um your kind of medical education so do you think it's improved in the way you are yeah definitely in in so many ways like um because almost every day we're like looking in people's ears we can easily like identify the anatomy easily see you know what pathologies could be there even though we're not allowed to give advice at this stage we can identify them for ourselves um and I think that's really that's been really important for some of our exams that we've had like I think that now I'd say ears are like pretty pretty good for us for the exams like if those come up we're happy and then not only that but being able to talk to different patients different people especially those with hearing problems and those that might be kind of housebound it's a really different kind of person that maybe we actually wouldn't usually see in the hospital that often so that's really helped us with different communication styles and things like that yeah what would you say yeah i agree i concur i think um humbling i think that it's really helpful to see all these patients as well and kind of learn that kind of patient interaction sign and you know learn from what um what kind of things you can say that can ease patients as well make them feel better and you know every pathology and every ear is different so seeing um you know it's just learning as well and on the job which is really good i'm not sure if i want to do a and t yet i think it'd be really cool as a future career I'm quite interested in it maybe A &E I'm not sure but I think ENT is really really interesting yeah yeah and I think also as well like having having this experience will be really important moving forward so hopefully this time next year we'll both be doctors if everything goes to plan so when we're applying to like specialty training and things like that um I think this experience will be really really important for us to kind of talk about and to reflect on as well um and hopefully set us apart from some other people because at the moment I think it's really really competitive some of these specialties so I think it'll be quite useful for us as well great uh so what lessons have you both learned since founding the company I think costs always higher than you think they are and yeah money profits are always lower than you think they are as well yeah yeah there's so many hidden costs that you don't really think about when you're setting something up um even if you're thinking about doing everything like everything yourself and not hiring anyone else like there's so so many costs that you just don't think about I'd say yeah being prepared to adapt as well I think it's a huge thing um you know things don't always go to plan or things don't uh happen when you think they will so it's just being able to kind of realize that have a backup plan or just completely change your direction yeah I think that's a huge thing in business as well and you know changing times as well yeah um I'd also say that probably it's not really not really a lesson but it's more just like something we've noticed like a lot of people are really really kind and really kind of up for helping you know when we've asked for advice and asked for help from people I think literally every single person has has been kind enough to do that so I think that's something that we've kind of realized that there is a lot of opportunities out there and a lot of people that want to help and you just have to you know be honest with them and tell them what your situation is and how you would appreciate their help if they're willing to give it to you I think being proactive is a huge part as well and you know going out there and doing stuff um nothing's really going to come to you if you don't apply I think he's really good at looking at everything that we can apply for like grants and opportunities and things like um yeah clearly nothing if you didn't do that i think but also it's just going to care homes so when we first started we didn't have any rep or any reputation or anything and it took us going to care homes and you know being proactive and saying look we've started this company you know we can come to you to help your residents with your barriers and things it took a while and to quite a lot of care homes of just going around to them yeah and keep going back to them more than once as well and we had a side little business with like making wreaths at Christmas we made all these wreaths and we couldn't sell them all yeah because the the market that we were supposed to go what was supposed to go to got cancelled because of bad weather so we had like 30 wreaths that we didn't really know what to do with so we just thought well my mum came up with the idea that we should uh make a few for the care home yeah so we made some for the care homes at christmas and like brought them so thank you for you know choosing clearer and things or like yeah highway clearer we do your health i think that was a i think that helped yeah it did yeah i think it's on the map and stuff yeah it's just persistence as well like going like some of the care homes we had to go to a few times to even even just to see someone that could make a decision just because they're so busy um yeah so it was just persistence and you know believing in kind of what what you're doing and that you can actually like help people um and then yeah hopefully something will something will come out of it yeah that's amazing the read story is so sweet so I think you touched upon uh reputation how did you build your reputation when you were starting up yeah so honestly when we when we first started um it was literally just going door to door to care homes um to introduce ourselves say what we did um we'd leave them like some leaflets and things like that um and that took that definitely took a few months to even get anything in um just because you know the the care homes a lot of them were really really interested they're like yes we've got a lot of people that are really struggling that's definitely something we're interested in but just because their line of work is actually just so busy they basically didn't have time to do a lot of like extra things we found that we had to keep going back to kind of remind them that we're still here so that's what we did to start with um and then I'd say when we have our kind of like clients that aren't from care homes so people that you know just live at home with whoever um those individuals we've found that that's been kind of word of mouth they've just kind of spoken to each other i guess um and that's how we've got some more business from that um he's really good at um social media she does it part-time stuff i think you know being yeah yeah you're really good at like just putting stuff together and posts and videos and really creative as well so i feel that's helped us build you know our reputation a lot as well um but yeah i think just being consistent and friendly and personalized as well yeah definitely yeah definitely personalized i think you know we learned one thing from a business advisor at swansea university where um you know checking up on them on their like birthdays on Christmas and things and just that personal like personalization aspect is really important as well and I think it's really easy the fact there's only three of us that we can be personalized yeah I think I think it's really important to make them feel valued as well yeah definitely yeah that's amazing so you've mentioned uh the university quite a lot within the episode how much have you kind of relied on the advice of the university when it came to clear it I'd say advice wise quite quite a bit I'd say we've done we've done a lot um a lot of on our own back but when we've when we've hit kind of brick walls that's when we've decided you know we need to use the resources that we have um and that the university is providing so that's when we'd go and see the business advisor at the at the university I'd say honestly though like the university their biggest input for us is just the opportunities they've given us with funding like without them we would honestly be nowhere um I'd say that's the biggest input that they've had but their advice has also like got us through some difficult times which has been really important yeah yeah we got recorded a few months ago as well yeah in this big studio with all these lights and cameras and stuff which yeah that was at the university as well so I think I think they um they're really like obviously they're really happy for us and they've um I think they're using us as kind of like a business case so they can promote their services to other students because I think at the moment they have they have so many opportunities and I don't think they're being utilized as much as they can be I think they're just trying to you know put out some more stuff to kind of show show the rest of the university you know like what what you can do with their help yeah we would we would actually be nowhere without them to be honest so great so we kind of spoke about the lessons that you've learned if you could go back in time to before you started the company what is one lesson or piece of advice that you wish you could give to yourself back then oh god that's difficult i don't know um one piece of advice i don't think we've made any huge mistakes yet that you know we kind of look back at and think oh my god I wish that didn't happen or that was terrible I think one reason because of that is because I think we've adapted really well and any hurdles we come over it's you know kind of just a road bump or it changes your direction I think the direction that does push you in the end it turns to be a good thing um and i think any kind of thing that you're looking back at in the future you don't know how it would be different if that was changed if that makes sense so you know whenever i've come across an issue i mean i've always done this since like year seven and telling my mate like who's stressed about his work or like something he didn't he forgot to hand in like i always said like in 10 years like this literally won't matter like why are you stressing about it and i think yeah having I think I always have that mindset of just not worrying too much I think in terms of like going back and changing anything I probably wouldn't change anything I think one thing that would have been more helpful to have is kind of maybe perhaps a knowledge of how like tax and you know things that you need to apply for with bank accounts and all of that for like business bank accounts and things I think that would have saved a lot of time but that being said I think um you know you have to learn somehow and I think just the way that I've kind of learned I think yeah I think I don't I wouldn't change anything I don't think no I don't think I'd change anything so I would say you know you said you have that that mindset where you don't want to stress over things too much that's that stresses me out I wish I could be more like that um but even just the idea of that really stresses me out yeah I feel you're stressing kind of get stuff done sometimes yeah that's true yeah it's a bit too much at times yeah yeah so maybe I would like to change that that would be good if I could be less stressed about things I think I've changed that as well actually yeah yeah I think that that kind of goes back to the thing at the beginning how you were saying how you're very kind of like admin organized and it kind of goes to show how James you're like yeah everything's cool everything's fine I'm very chill with everything that's very true so what do you think the future holds for Clearia and yourselves do you have any big plans that you can talk about?

33:01So we didn't actually expect it to even get as far as it has because we weren't even really thinking about starting a business so it kind of like I said before it kind of happened everything just kind of fell into place so if I'm honest we haven't given too too much thought about what's going to happen and the only thing there's a couple of things that we can say and one of them is that kind of in this time next year we're hoping to be doctors so we think things might change personally for us in the way that we probably won't be able to do you know the day-to-day appointments and things like that we would really really like to hand over kind of the business in some way shape or form to kind of maybe other medical students those that are kind of in our position that want to kind of get more more hands-on experience with patient care and things like that and also get business experience um we're not exactly sure on what that will look like but we do think that we might have to step away a bit um when we're doctors yeah i think for the meantime i think for me going to all these care homes and you know getting as many more care homes as we can for now i think that would be awesome yeah and getting more customers yeah um i'd love it to keep going clearer i think you know maybe getting more getting to the point where we could get employees and things and trying more people up to do this and you know we've had a real good connection with some of these care homes and yeah partnerships I don't want that kind of just to fizzle out into nothing I want something to be left behind yes you know getting there I don't know how we've got a few ideas but getting there I guess I think one thing that Claire has really done for me is showing me how interesting businesses as a whole and I think I'm really interested in you know surgical equipment I think um and that kind of side of medicine and I've had so many ideas of like how equipment different types of equipment that could be used in surgeries that aren't used now um so I think you know clearer is a stepping stone to that as well yeah definitely it's given and um you know seeing all these people like Kate um Kate Bosh Kate Bosh I think it's Kate Bosh she's um a person that we met on at a conference that she's um founded two startup companies and she's into like women's health yeah and her equipment and she's been a big inspiration for us yeah definitely I think she we also have spoken to her and she's kind of allowed us to see that some of our ideas about where we might want to go with kind of technology and like equipment she's made us kind of realize that that's actually possible because in my head I was thinking oh all these ideas are great but how how on earth would we be able to even you know put something together and have the kind of finance behind us to put something together but she's kind of opened up the doors to make us realise that there is definitely a possibility for something like that to happen and we don't have to like kind of do it just me and James on our own like we can get help so I think yeah without Calera we wouldn't have gone to that event we wouldn't have met Kate we wouldn't have even realised that some of our ideas could actually become something you know so I think it's exciting to look into the future and think that some of those things could kind of come true that we've been planning yeah I think whether clearer whether that kind of continues and obviously you're training to be doctors do you think you'd be interested in kind of founding more businesses down the line yeah definitely yeah and also like like James said I don't it'd be really really disappointing if clearer just kind of stopped like this time next year like we want to keep it going it's just I think we'll have to step away from the kind of patient facing role um because yeah I don't I don't actually think we'll have time for that unfortunately then but I definitely see us doing something else in the future like especially you know with with all of the kind of day-to-day experience we have like in hospitals in the NHS we can kind of see where some of the inefficiencies may lie.

37:29And, you know, we've already figured out loads of different things that we could do, we could put into place if we just had a little bit of help from external people. And I think that's definitely a direction that we're thinking about and how we can put those things into reality. Amazing. And that leads on to my last question is, is there anything else you wanted to add or plug at the end of the podcast? I think if anyone that's listening knows where any Golden Grahams are in the UK, I think that would be great. I think you should contact Clear Air because I've been looking for the cereal for about 10 years now.

38:10So if you can find it or source it, please let me know. Perfect. And thank you so much as well. Yeah, thank you. you guys for um thanks thanks for inviting us on yeah thank you so much one of these things before yeah also thank you so much to all of the judges and everyone kind of behind the scenes doing stuff for like the hustle awards and the startup magazine um yeah thank you so much and thank you for you know believing in us and giving us this award it's really really really really great I can't believe it still. Well, thank you guys for coming on the podcast today. Good luck on your journeys, all of them, from becoming doctors to finding your golden grains.

38:57Yeah, it's been amazing talking with you and learning more about your journeys and what you're up to. If you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and check out Startup Magazine's socials to stay up to date on the latest Startups news.

From the publisher

Anna Wood, Editor at Startups Magazine, speaks to Bethany Hatten and James Wood, Co-Founders of ClearEar all about what its like to start and run a business as two busy medical students, the importance of accessibility and their service offering, and winning the Young Entrepreneur award at the Hustle Awards 2025.

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