My Wife Gave Me One Year... We Built a Unicorn

Steven Mendel built ManyPets from an idea into one of Europe's leading pet insurance businesses. But this episode isn't about insurance. It's about finally backing yourself. After years building successful businesses inside large organisations, one conversation with his wife changed everything. She gave him one year.In this episode, Steven discusses:Why he left corporate.The conversation that changed everything.The three times ManyPets nearly failed.Why becoming a unicorn didn't matter.Building an irresistible employer.Starting again with Lateral.Why it's never too late to reinvent yourself.🎧 This episode is powered by Molten Ventures, a leading European venture capital firm backing ambitious founders from seed through growth. 👉 Find out more at moltenventures.com🎟️ Join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, November 3–4 at NEC Birmingham 👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk

Jim Cregan was a labourer. He was hosting festival stages dressed as a mermaid. He had no idea what he was doing or where he was going.Then he went to Australia, walked into a petrol station hungover, and found a ready-to-drink iced coffee.That was the moment.In this Founder Classic episode of Screw It Just DO It, Jim tells the complete story of how a single product in a petrol station in Australia changed everything. From writing a delusional email to Farmers Union from his hotmail account, to returning to the UK with Suze and launching Jimmy’s Iced Coffee, to the moment he nearly crashed his car watching a stranger choose Jimmy’s off a supermarket shelf.This is the real SIJDI moment. Not a strategy, not a business plan. Just a feeling that grabbed him by the horns and would not let go.Key Takeaways• How a hangover in Australia became the seed of a £10M+ business• Why Jim and Suze started without a plan and built it anyway• What kept them going when nothing was working• The power of seeing someone choose your product over everyone else’s🎧 Don’t miss a moment of entrepreneurial insight. Subscribe to Screw It Just DO It wherever you get your podcasts.🏟️ Join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, November 3–4 at NEC Birmingham👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk

Alla Ouvarova didn't have experience in food.She didn't have investors lining up.She didn't even have an existing category to enter.Alongside co-founder Anna, she launched Two Chicks and created the liquid egg white category in the UK from scratch.In this episode of Screw It Just DO It, Alla shares:- Why everyone rejected their idea- Starting with £25k instead of £250k- Creating a category nobody understood- Nearly losing everything overnight- Building confidence through action- Selling a majority stake after 20 yearsA brilliant conversation about resilience, confidence and backing yourself before everyone else does.🎧 Listen to the full episode of Screw It Just DO It🎟️ Join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, November 3-4 at NEC Birmingham👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk

Tommy Kelly spent years in the Royal Marines operating in some of the harshest environments on earth.But one lesson carried into business: Do hard things.This became a conversation around discomfort, resilience, burnout and learning to keep moving when life gets difficult.In this Bite-Sized episode of Screw It Just DO It, Tommy talks about the Arctic exercise that nearly broke his unit, the moment he artificially created chaos to force himself out of the Marines, and the Monday morning he walked into the office and told his co-founder he was done.Key Takeaways• Why doing hard things is the most practical form of resilience training• What the Arctic night from hell taught Tommy about keeping going• The screw it just do it moment — artificially creating chaos by leaving the Marines• The burnout no one talks about: 12 years of compounding pressure• Why being on the right path matters more than being at the destination🎧 This episode is powered by WorldFirst, specialists in international business payments. If your business pays overseas suppliers or receives payments from abroad, those transaction fees can quickly add up. As a Screw It Just DO It listener, you can get 50 international transactions completely fee free for 60 days.👉 Create a free account and claim the offer at worldfirst.com/screwit🎧 Don't miss a moment of entrepreneurial insight. Subscribe to Screw It Just DO It wherever you get your podcasts.🎟️ Join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, November 3–4 at NEC Birmingham. Two days of real conversations, practical insight, and founder-led growth.👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk

Simon Woodroffe left school at 16. He got arrested at 19. He built stages for rock bands, sold TV rights, and spent decades figuring out how the world worked.Then at 47, with no restaurant experience, he put his entire life savings on the line and opened Yo! Sushi.It changed everything.In this episode of Screw It Just DO It, Simon and Alex talk about what it actually means to risk it all, why he believes it is never too late to start, how he negotiated a 1% royalty that made him more than everything else combined, and what 50 years of doing things differently has actually taught him.We also get into his new autobiography, Yo, Man!, Dragons’ Den, Yotel, and why the unconventional path is often the only one worth taking.Key Takeaways• Why starting later in life can be an advantage, not a limitation• How Simon built a £1 million opening using £200k and a lot of pulled favours• The 1% royalty he negotiated that outlasted everything else• Why megalomaniac control at the start is the right strategy🎧 This episode is powered by WorldFirst, specialists in international business payments. If your business pays overseas suppliers or receives payments from abroad, those transaction fees can quickly add up.As a Screw It Just DO It listener, you can get 50 international transactions completely fee free for 60 days.👉 Create a free account and claim the offer at worldfirst.com/screwit🎧 Listen to the full episode of Screw It Just DO It🎟️ Join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, November 3–4 at NEC Birmingham👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk

This episode was recorded when Huel was four years old and doing £14 million in revenue.You are listening to it knowing what it eventually became.Julian Hearn started Huel with a simple goal: find 1,000 people willing to pay £45 a month for a nutritionally complete food. Half a million pounds a year. A lifestyle business he could run three days a week.When they hit £750,000 in year one, he knew that plan was gone.In this Bite-Sized episode of Screw It Just DO It, Julian talks about the early Huel story: the initial product order of £5,000 of stock, the PR that arrived in the first month without asking for it, the customers who started defending the brand online before Julian even had a team, and why he never wrote a proper business plan for any of it.He also talks about hiring, culture, direct-to-consumer, and why the biggest risk in any product business is manufacturing — not the market.Key Takeaways- Why Huel started as a lifestyle business and when Julian realised it was not going to be one- The 1,000 fans model and why it is the right way to start anything- Why execution beats business plans, and what Julian did instead- How building direct-to-consumer gave Huel a weapon that retail-first competitors never had🎧 This episode is powered by WorldFirst, specialists in international business payments. If your business pays overseas suppliers or receives payments from abroad, those transaction fees can quickly add up. As a Screw It Just DO It listener, you can get 50 international transactions completely fee free for 60 days.👉 Create a free account and claim the offer at worldfirst.com/screwit🎧 Don't miss a moment of entrepreneurial insight. Subscribe to Screw It Just DO It wherever you get your podcasts.🎟️ Join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, November 3-4 at NEC Birmingham👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk

Joe Woodward had what most people would call a dream job. Chief Marketing Officer for the Rajasthan Royals in Mumbai. Ten years building things in sport, music and entertainment. Then the pandemic hit, the rug came out from under him, and he moved home.He sat down to update his CV. He immediately got frustrated.That frustration became Vizzy — a platform built to replace the 500-year-old document Leonardo da Vinci invented, and give people a genuinely human way to show who they are. Not bullet points and PDFs. Not job titles and logos. Who they actually are.In this episode of Screw It Just DO It, Joe tells the full story. The flip chart moment with his sister Jess and her husband Chris. The investor conversation with Robert Dodds, Simon Fuller's business partner, that ended with four words: 'That's the idea. I'll back it tomorrow.' The cold start launch. The Instagram DM from a stranger who said Vizzy had just landed them their dream job. And the lesson from Burberry, Louis Vuitton, EY and Tiffany that the future of hiring is not about getting more applicants — it's about getting fewer, better ones.Key Takeaways- Why the flip chart moment changed everything — and what that looked like in practice- How Joe went from zero to Burberry and Louis Vuitton without a hiring background- Why the best founders are still personally obsessed with hiring at £2 billion- What Vizzy taught Joe about the difference between instinct and overthinking🎧 This episode is powered by WorldFirst, specialists in international business payments. If your business pays overseas suppliers or receives payments from abroad, those transaction fees can quickly add up. As a Screw It Just DO It listener, you can get 50 international transactions completely fee free for 60 days.👉 Create a free account and claim the offer at worldfirst.com/screwit🎧 Listen to the full episode of Screw It Just DO It🎟️ Join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, November 3-4 at NEC Birmingham👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk

Raj Thiruchelvarajah was running a health and fitness business when his co-founder sent him a document that changed everything. It was an idea about wearable blood flow restriction technology. Within months, Raj had shut down his original company and gone all-in on Hydro.In this Bite-Sized episode of Screw It Just DO It, Raj explains the exact moment he knew they had to pivot — the internal disagreements, the decisive call he had to make as CEO, and why April 2022 was the turning point that blew the business up.From Leeds Rhinos to Newcastle United, Leicester Tigers and the Washington Commanders, Hydro is now embedded across 80+ elite sports teams globally. This is the story of how focus — not funding — made that possible.Key Takeaways• Why trying to serve every customer nearly killed the business• How one decisive pivot to pro sports transformed growth• The screw it just do it moment that started it all• Why experience matters more than age in founding a startup🎧 This episode is powered by WorldFirst, specialists in international business payments. If your business pays overseas suppliers or receives payments from abroad, those transaction fees can quickly add up. As a Screw It Just DO It listener, you can get 50 international transactions completely fee free for 60 days.👉 Create a free account and claim the offer at worldfirst.com/screwit🎧 Don't miss a moment of entrepreneurial insight. Subscribe to Screw It Just DO It wherever you get your podcasts.🎟️ Join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, November 3–4 at NEC Birmingham👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.ukTwo days of real conversations, practical insight, and founder-led growth.👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk

For 20 years Dominic Day knew exactly who he was.Professional rugby player. Wales international. Saracens. Bath.Then it stopped.No changing room. No match day. No structure. Just questions.Who am I now? Dad? Founder? Ex-player?In this conversation Dom talks about what it actually feels like when 20 years of identity ends overnight, what the transition from elite sport into business is really like, and why the best opportunities in his life — playing in Japan, moving to Bath, starting FourFive with George Kruis — have always been on the other side of fear.Key Takeaways:- Why Dom was wildly unprepared for retirement despite every club having a support system- The identity question he is still working through years after leaving rugby- The 30-year regret test he uses for every major decision- What it actually felt like when three orders came through on a website they'd only just switched on- Why balancing fatherhood and building FourFive is the hardest thing he has ever had to do🎧 This episode is powered by WorldFirst, specialists in international business payments. If your business pays overseas suppliers or receives payments from abroad, those transaction fees can quickly add up. As a Screw It Just DO It listener, you can get 50 international transactions completely fee free for 60 days.👉 Create a free account and claim the offer at worldfirst.com/screwit🎧 Listen to the full episode of Screw It Just DO It🎟️ Join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, November 3-4 at NEC Birmingham👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk

Daniel Priestley started every one of his businesses on a credit card.No investor deck. No grant. No seed round. A mentor he shadowed, a sales muscle he built from scratch, and a clear-eyed read of where the economy was heading.In this Bite-Sized episode of Screw It Just DO It, I ask Daniel the one question that cuts to the heart of every founder journey: what was the single thing you needed to go from where you were to where you are now?His answer is not what most people expect. And the framework he uses to explain why enterprise has become the only factor of production that matters in the digital age is one of the clearest things I have heard on this show.If you are stuck waiting for the right moment, the right funding, or the right connection, this is the episode that reframes all of it.Key Takeaways- Why working for a founder beats any formal business education- How a credit card became the launchpad for a multi-million pound business- Why sales is not optional, it is the foundation- What the shift from the industrial age to the digital age actually means for founders right now🎧 This episode is powered by WorldFirst, specialists in international business payments. If your business pays overseas suppliers or receives payments from abroad, those transaction fees can quickly add up. As a Screw It Just DO It listener, you can get 50 international transactions completely fee free for 60 days.👉 Create a free account and claim the offer at worldfirst.com/screwit🎧 Don't miss a moment of entrepreneurial insight. Subscribe to Screw It Just DO It wherever you get your podcasts.🔥 If you're serious about growing your business, join us at the Festival of Entrepreneurs, 3-4 November 2026 at the NEC Birmingham. Two days of real conversations, practical insight, and founder-led growth.👉 www.festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk