Top 5 of 2025 | Investors, serial entrepreneurs, and subject matter experts

0:00Hello and welcome to the very last strategy and tragedy episode of 2025. oh my god how are we about to enter the second half of the 2020s decade let's not think about it anyway i hope you all had wonderful christmases if you celebrate i hope you were able to spend this time recharging relaxing spending time with loved ones and that you're revving up for 2026 I am ready for it I don't know if you can tell but I'm a little bit run down at the moment which always happens whenever we take that foot off the gas and start to relax and start to unwind so I hope all of you are in much better health than I am right now anyway I wanted to make sure I recorded this not only to share a very exciting roundup of the top five episodes of 2025 that you all enjoyed the most, the highest streamed episodes of the year, but also to check in, say hi, send you all warm festive wishes and of course all the success for the new year.

1:14I want to also give you a huge big thank you, if that makes any sense, for tuning in and supporting the show. I really, really appreciate it. You know, I see the numbers, the analytics on the dashboard and it's like wow okay that's amazing but what really means the most to me is when I actually hear from you when I actually hear from the individuals who message me who screenshot whichever episode they're listening to who tell me which interviews really resonated with them which parts of the conversation help them to maybe think about things a bit differently or know that they're not alone and that other entrepreneurs have gone through similar struggles or finding inspiration in these incredible stories.

1:59This is, of course, the whole purpose of the show. Strategy and tragedy is very much the highs, the lows, the realities, the strategies and tragedies of what actually goes on behind closed doors. It's not at all to put anyone off. It's to show that whilst entrepreneurship has been overly glamorised, actually, you know, it can be really tough. But of course, it can also be really rewarding. and I think that this has now become a very well-trodden path you know it's not like the boom from Silicon Valley 10-15 years ago where we're venturing out into the wild wild west like a lot of people have made a lot of the similar mistakes and you know I'm in a very privileged epicenter of not only interviewing these founders that you get to hear on the show but also the people that I know in my network and of course the hundred clients that my team and I used to work with at my marketing agency before so I'm at that epicenter of everyone's stories everyone's journeys everyone's struggles and there are a lot more similarities than you would imagine there are a lot of the same challenges the same struggles so definitely not alone let me know if you agree with this rank here I mean this is official according to the analytics but I would love to get your take if you're surprised that any have been in the top five or what was your favorite what was the one that you listened to and really enjoyed the most.

3:23And of course, always love to hear from you. So find me on social media, mainly Instagram, LinkedIn. Thankfully, I'm the only Stephanie Melodia in the world. So you should be able to find me just typing in my name. But let me know also who you'd like to hear from in 2026, in the new year, whether there are specific guests that you'd love for me to interview, whether there are specific brands or sectors. I want to shape the show according to you guys because of course without you this wouldn't even exist. All right without further ado let's get into it.

4:10Okay coming in at number five. I feel like a top of the pops presenter. Coming in at number five, we have the one and only Sabah Yousaf. She is an exited founder, herself turned investor. Of course, this makes for the best type of investor. Those who not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. She started her first business relatively young. She had a corporate career for a short stint and then launched her own direct to consumer, low calorie cookie brand. She scaled it up, sold it, incredible success. And now she backs other founders. She is very much focused on this whole concept of high agency, very much around taking accountability, being proactive, not assuming victimhood, really the most empowering thing that you can do as an entrepreneur.

5:03So let's have a quick listen to some of the clips from that episode. How much of luck would you attribute to your success with that first business i don't believe in luck at all i don't i don't believe in luck in any area of my life wow okay okay sure coincidence but coincidence statistically uh it's very low chance okay yeah why don't you believe in luck i i don't think luck exists i think it's completely manufactured it's a mental stigma i i don't understand the concept of luck that's really fascinating i think good things happen to you sure uh bad things happen to you I just see that as signals in my life.

5:39I don't double down or lean into this concept of luck because I think it can be misleading. I think it can give you false hope for things. I believe in hard work. High agency is really a philosophical strategy, I would say, to alter your reality. And I think I've learned how to be high agency over the years. And it allows my brain to run on signals instead of emotions. So that allows my decision-making process to be so much faster, which equals success being so much closer, which you might call luck. So what does a high agency individual look like? How do they operate? She didn't just find solutions for problems.

6:24She actually dissolved the conditions around the problem so that it could never happen again. She's owning the situation. She's controlling the situation. And really, she does this on a monthly basis. taking accountability you're being accountable for yourself no one is going to be accountable for you your biggest risk is not taking the risk yeah i love that really and i had to learn that the hard way if you want to be you want to hesitate and you want to be too careful you're not founder i get it i get it i love that you gotta you gotta take the risk was it fortune favors the bold you gotta take risk so if you couldn't already tell sabah yousof blew my mind with her refreshing takes, her hot take on not believing in luck and talking about taking risk, assuming accountability, being proactive as a founder.

7:14I could have talked about all of these juicy topics for many, many hours. But of course, as an investor, I needed to ask her about what she looks for on the other side of the fence. I know there are a lot of fundraising founders that listen to the show. So of course, whenever I do get the opportunity to interview some of the money people obviously I want to try and grill them as much as possible on what do they look for what do they say yes to really try to extract as many helpful practical tips and this is what she said a lot of emails and I see such junk titles and I think to myself that's just a wasted opportunity for you because I'm not going to open that just got to keep it really simple you just got to give a few metrics and it can be even if you haven't launched your product location.

8:02Tell me where the product or service is located. That's an immediate filter for me. Give me some kind of metric. Do you have an MRR, ARR? Is your MVP built? Anything. And don't be shy to tell me if you think it's less, don't be shy. You're really helping me with my filtration system. And then tell me a bit about you, maybe. Are you an ex something? Are you, did you used to work here? anything again it's not a show-off it's just telling me who you are and when i catch that and it's just three words i will open it and if i don't want to invest i'll send it to maybe 20 other people that might want to nice and i thoroughly recommend everyone do that i love those sorts of very specific practical tips i think there's a lot of very high level sort of conceptualization and generalizations, but really drilling it down to like, what do you write in the subject line of your email when you are doing cold outreach, pitching to an investor?

9:02Those are the juicy little nuggets that I definitely love. And I've had some great feedback from you guys as well. I know that you really like those very sort of specific direct tips. All right. So coming in next as we climb the charts at number four we have the sales expert Tash Rebug. Now my first year of launching Strategy and Tragedy I focused on the entrepreneur interviews and had some incredible guests on the show and really sort of cemented it as the podcast for entrepreneurs to learn from others, to listen to their stories, to gain both practical tips as well as inspiration from their journeys.

9:42This past year, 2025, I've been peppering in what I'm calling the subject matter experts. So I've had specialists on public speaking, hiring, conflict resolution, and of course Tash fits into that category as the sales expert. This one was incredible. I'm going to let you in on a bit of a secret as well behind the scenes. A lot of the time I'm meeting the guests for the very first time in person at the studio and Tash was one of them. Now of course a bit of a risk because you never quite know how you're going to gel, what the chemistry is going to be like and I think you can tell from this episode that we hit it off immediately.

10:22She is absolutely hilarious. She used to be a stand-up comedian so that tracks. Not only that but what I will also lift the hood on is that we also had a live audience member who was just she was having to like put her hand over her mouth and doing all sorts of body contortions and different things to to stop herself from bursting out laughing while we were recording the episode so shout out to our live audience member who was really trying to exercise a lot of self-restraint on that one anyway uh i'm very very very happy to see this one is in the top five not only was it so fun and so funny but so much goodness so much knowledge and practical tips and insights and and this is exactly what makes a perfect episode in my view anyway both educational as well as entertaining so glad to see this one is in the charts all right let's have a listen to some of the clips.

11:25Listeners, you are in for a bloody treat with this one. We're going to put this to the test. I am going to put Tasha's tips and tricks. I'm going to call some prospects live on the show. Amazing. Most of the time when I talk about cold calling, that is the thing that strikes so much fear into everyone's hearts. And it's almost like the Jurassic Park of sales. Everyone's like, no, no, that's dead. That died a long time ago. We don't need to clone that and bring it back but like bell-bottom jeans it has come back into fashion everyone's inbox is absolutely slammed what does no one do anymore call pick up the buzzer pick up well i'm excited to do it you have to be so fucking brave to do this you are right now my absolute hero hey name is stephanie melodia i'm the host of the uk's top 20 business show for the bravery that's 10 out of 10 in my books.

12:20Someone's calling me back. When I started out, I was off the back of being an actor. And I always said, you know, I've got no shame. I left the dignity at the door when I did a Sims 4 advert. And I'm born for sales. You know, it really works for me. And so I don't think that I personally had those blockers. But I've always tried to be a really empathetic person. And for me, realising that, look, there's always going to be sales things that you don't do well. I was awful at listening. I used to always be waiting to say that, oh, you've got this problem. I can solve it this way. And so that was my really big issue.

13:05But I was never afraid of getting in front of people and asking the stupid questions. Sales is just about getting a yes or no. Cold calling is almost the answer to being a pest. because instead of sending five, six emails in a row, you call once and you get your answer. That's the whole thing. I just don't really believe in being ghosted. I believe in giving up before you get the answer. I've got very thick skin. I'm a failed stand-up comedian. I'm very used to rejection. But if you call someone and they say to you, look, thank you for getting in touch, and they do say thank you, but this isn't of interest to me anymore, that's it.

13:44Most important part of any sales process, I would put money on anyone who's listening to this going, oh, well, none of this helps because I get all my meetings, but I never get a contract afterwards. It comes down to the follow up. 80 % of deals get signed after five follow ups. So if you pitch someone and you send a follow up email straight away being like, this is the info. Let's catch up in the future. The likelihood of you getting that is so slim. You have got to send another message. it's rude to not give an answer when you've been pitched to by someone so don't feel held back but just do it cold calling live on the air in front of a sales expert and as i mentioned before a live audience member watching us obviously we're doing it in front of the cameras and everything as well oh my god that was so funny and that went down a tree so i'm really really glad that you all enjoyed that one now of course interviewing a sales expert what did i have to ask them i of course needed to get them to sell me this pen.

14:45So best thing that's ever happened to me keeping a pen in my pocket sometimes someone will say to me we're sending you a contract can you sign it get it back to me straight away I'm bugged if I don't have a pen. Sorry Steph you said you didn't have a pen right? It's true. Yeah you did a bit of sales activity earlier didn't you? Yeah. How are you feeling about if someone asks you to sign a contract? I wouldn't be able to do it. Well I've I've got some really good news for you. If I just have a little look inside my bag. Oh, it's a good one, actually. It's a good pen. It's from the unicorn I helped build.

15:16That's perfect. Smooth. How much would you pay for a pen? A pound. How much is your average contract? A thousand pounds. Best investment you ever make, Steph. How do you feel about buying this pen? Well, a thousand extra return on that. Just buy that pen. fantastic but the problem is but the problem is i've already spent over a pound on calling america oh well that is your problem and not mine and we've verbally agreed now at this point that you are buying this pen don't you turn back on me at this point i love it i love it so happy to see the tash rebook episode is in the top five of 2025 moving on up climbing up the charts coming in at number three we have got confidence queen herself the scottish best friend to us oh it is lauren curry the founder of up front the newly published author here's some of what she had to say we are told to be more confident and then when we display those confident behaviors we're told to tone it down we're told not that much to go back in your box up front is changing hopefully changing the conversation that's why we talk about starting a confidence revolution to help women understand this it's not you it's not your confidence this is a systemic issue and one of the reasons that happens is we have such a narrow fixed idea of what confidence is and we are fed that story from when we're little confidence is usually masculine it's usually very loud and extroverted it's often american and you know i say this as your favorite scottish extrovert friend we live in a world that rewards extroversion and it is not good yeah for any of us so if you don't fit that really narrow box you get feedback really early in your life that you're doing it wrong the bigger picture challenge is what academics call the likeability penalty which is this notion that the more successful a woman becomes the more likely she is to be criticized something that I have experienced continue to experience and I often talk about this notion of tall poppy syndrome women stand tall above the parapet as a tall poppy they are much more likely to be you know the other people are going to try and cut them down so much so that I have a tall poppy tattooed on me the reality is that we live in a world where 90 % of people have a negativity bias towards women.

17:50Gary's statistic and it's one that underpins how we've designed the bonds because you can't talk about confidence and isolation from that. It's like you can't confidence your way out of oppression. You can't confidence your way out of oppression. This was such an interesting conversation with Lauren Curry. Very grateful for having her on the show super insightful that 90 % stat oh my god that absolutely blew my mind 90 % according to the UN have a negativity bias towards women insane in the membrane anyway I'm really grateful to Lauren for coming on the show and talking about a much needed topic moving on up we're getting closer to top first place but first of all coming in at second place we have the one the only jenny quigley jones founder and ceo of digital voices and influencer marketing agency which she just i mean scaled is not even the right term for this absolutely skyrocketed this business i don't have the stat to hand um right now but i think she said something like you know taking 50 quid and turning it into 20 million absolutely insane so let's have a listen to some of what jenny had to say on the show created this model we win when you it's basically guaranteed results if you're a brand that's desperate to sell more product get more app downloads we can guarantee a number of impressions or views for a campaign and if we don't hit that we either give back a portion of our agency fees or we commission more content when we realize The most accessible content is coming from influencers.

19:31There are so few agents. And it's still very disruptive. The industry needs to get better. I find it so interesting that eight and a half years later, we're still talking about the same model. If you're tuning into this right now, then first of all, a big heartfelt thank you. I really appreciate it. And secondly, there's a very high chance that you're on your own entrepreneurial journey right now. So whether you're a first time founder and you're figuring things out and you feel like you're on your own, or if you've done it before and realize that actually this whole entrepreneurship business is a lot easier said than done, then I might be able to help you.

20:03If you feel like you vibe with my energy and feel like you need some of that professional big sister direction, support and advice, then I'm opening up a few select spots for that one-to-one coaching, mentorship and growth strategy for ambitious founders. There's a link in the show notes, so check it out and I would love to hear from you. All right, let's get back to the episode. Jenny Quigley-Jones is so incredibly impressive to have built what she's built starting out from such a young age in again another male dominated industry and to have achieved the heights that she has with digital voices is just incredible I mean they are international they have offices all over the world I don't know how big the team is but you know they're turning over tens of millions and she's so lovely I know that sounds a bit weird but she's genuinely such a sweetheart I don't know you just when you look at like this success and especially when you see from the outside and you see the statistics the fast facts the headlines the numbers and and then being in such a privileged position that I'm in to be able to sit down and spend some real quality time going deep one-on-one asking these incredible entrepreneurs anything and everything is just it's just such a pleasure and I just I really take such pleasure in getting to know them obviously I'm interviewing them about their businesses but you know some of the personal still comes out and getting to vibe getting to feel their chemistry I mean mentioning the personal with the Jenny Quigley Jones interview which if you haven't really listened to the full episode and the same goes of course for all of the others that we are recapping here then you definitely should because as an example one of the tragedies that she shared with my traditional closing question at the end anyway was getting divorced um and again getting divorced at a very young age as well so she had enough about that and another thing that really is stuck in my memory since that interview was a story that she told about landing investment after an angel investor had seen her with a designer handbag honestly I'm not even joking go back and listen to the full interview after this so that you can get the full lowdown and hear all the stories.

22:12Anyway, the teasing, the foreplay is over. We are climbing up to first place. Oh my God. Your favourite strategy and tragedy episode of 2025 was Ben Coomber, founder and CEO of Awesome Supplements, who called out Stephen Bartlett in a letter that went viral let's have a listen to some of what ben kuma had to say on the show you wrote an open letter to stephen bartlett about spreading health misinformation that video has since garnered over a million views what was the upshot of that well uh he blocked me on instagram you can increase your testosterone by 1300 that's physically impossible getting millions of views that statistic's literally been pulled via an orifice such bad misinformation for me health is such a foundation in all that we do hundreds of thousands of people are going to go do that thing that is beyond ridiculous where have they found this health expert media started to write a bit more of a million views maybe a few important people saw right now i'd be lying if i didn't admit that of course the mention of steven bartlett definitely had something to do with the marketing of that episode but nonetheless you guys seem to have really enjoyed it i'm very pleasantly surprised is to see it is at the number one top spot and of course beyond that hook on calling out Stephen Bartlett in that viral video which you can watch on Ben Coomber's Instagram profile.

23:40Ben Coomber had so many stories to share, so much wisdom. He himself is a serial entrepreneur, he is a trained PT, he's a fitness health expert himself which is why of course he feels so passionately about the health misinformation that is often spread on DOAC. But moving on I want to share another quick clip from that interview, which is talking more about his MO, his Moda Operandi, as such a successful entrepreneur, now as the founder of Awesome Supplements, which is genuinely awesome. Very lucky to have done a live taste test on the show and very kindly gave me a handful of samples as well.

24:18So I can definitely attest to how yummy they are. My partner loves their products. So we have been buying more of them, but super successful again. So have a listen to what he had to say on working smarter not harder an entrepreneur will happily work 50 hours a week and you'll fill those 50 hours and sometimes you won't really know what's moved the needle on the 50 hours but because you're applying so much effort something must be working so it was a great exercise for me to go okay if next week and let's just say there's a business coach in the room you know saying this to me next week ben you're only allowed to work 30 hours what do you do and then you work 30 hours you're like hang on a second i had the same output i just focused on the shit that was really important so then i played another game ben you're only allowed to work 25 hours this week okay what do you focus on and i got down to like 18 15 hours and i was like hmm nice like there's a lot of filler here going on i'm so happy you mentioned that because this is the the working harder fallacy of like you think you put in the more reps the more hours the more output you're going to get no and when you don't know what's going to yield the highest results because you know especially in those early days there's a lot of experimentation but it does mean that you're running that risk of wasting a lot of time i have another confession to make ben kumba is not the number one top spot of 2025 the number one is you is that corny is that cheesy you are number one in my eyes at least anyway a huge thank you for tuning in for supporting the show whether you've just discovered it I don't know whether you're listening in now and this is the first you've ever come across it if so please hit that follow button and if you can give me a little rate and review that would be amazing and if you've been following from the very start oh my goodness you are the ogs I appreciate you so so much and if you haven't hit that follow button yet then what are you waiting for gang thank you all so much I am super excited for 2026 as usual there are some very fun exciting things in the works and as usual if you have any requests again whether it's specific guests if there are specific sort of subjects that you want to um that you want me to feature on the show and even if you want to maybe send a little voice note and we can include a little snippet in the show find me on instagram or LinkedIn, Stephanie Melodia.

26:48In the meantime, a huge, huge thank you once again. I hope you've all had a lovely festive season and wishing you all the very best for 2026. Okay, gang, I'll see you on the other side.

27:27Outro Music