Winning Friends

Part 1 was about Ryanair, internet fame and building a brand people couldn’t ignore. Part 2 looks at what happened when Michael Corcoran had to build something of his own.👉 Missed Part 1? Start here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4oXzpsMyifhAw2uKppZGoy?si=c8fd86f14ccb41ccAfter Ryanair, Michael co-founded Frankly. The business was growing. Then it collapsed. Michael says he lost around €30,000 in unrecovered expenses, along with any illusions about how far personal trust can carry you in business. Just four weeks later, he started again with Slice Social Consultancy.In this episode, you’ll learn:
💸 why trust is not the same thing as due diligence
🤝 what to look for in a business partner
📊 why founders need to understand the numbers themselves
🧠 how owning your weaknesses can make you better at running a business
🛠️ how to build around what you’re good at
🔄 what starting again looks like after things go very wrong👉 The Ryanair story was only half of it. Part 2 gets into the rest.Winning Friends is powered by e-Residency of Estonia, where founders around the world launch, run and scale companies 100% digitally.

In 2021, Michael Corcoran walked into Ryanair as its new Head of Social with an open brief: take the airline’s social media, work out what it could become and build the team to make it happen. What followed turned Ryanair into one of the most recognisable, provocative and relentlessly entertaining brand voices on the internet.For the first episode of our new season, Michael joins brand-new hosts Mirjam Hunt and Julian Poole to tell us how they did it. Today he runs Slice, a social consultancy built around helping companies develop stronger strategy, teams and capabilities of their own. So we also put the obvious question to him: if you’re a founder or small business without an eight-person social team, how should you approach social media today?In this episode, you’ll learn:⚡ why speed became one of Ryanair’s biggest advantages🎯 how to turn a distinctive brand voice into a repeatable way of working🔥 how to judge which risks are worth taking📱 how small teams can make better social content without over-engineering it🔁 why your best-performing ideas deserve more than one outing🧠 what matters when building a social media strategy todayMichael gave us far too much good material for one episode, so we’re starting Season 2 with a two-parter. Part 2 lands on October 13, when the conversation moves from building brands to building a business – including the very hard lessons Michael took from the collapse of Frankly.👉 Listen to Part 1 now and come back next week for the rest of Michael’s story.Winning Friends is powered by e-Residency of Estonia, where founders around the world launch, run and scale companies 100% digitally.

The first word that comes to mind when you trace Andres Tuul’s career is unconventional. After helping scale The Farmer’s Dog into a billion-dollar DTC business, Andres stepped into a two-Michelin-star kitchen with no professional cooking experience. What might look like a detour has become a powerful source of new business ideas, including his latest venture, Lutso: AI technology that helps elderly people age with dignity at home.In this Winning Friends bonus episode, you’ll learn:🍽️ what a two-Michelin-star kitchen taught him about leadership and fast feedback🐕 why The Farmer’s Dog was never just a pet food company💡 how stepping outside your silo can lead to better business ideas🏡 how Lutso is tackling a serious real-life problem⚙️ why AI should remove bottlenecks, not peopleListen and share with your friends today!Winning Friends is powered by e-Residency of Estonia, where founders around the world launch, run and scale companies 100% digitally.

Founders often default to building everything in-house because it feels safer and more controllable. David Gram’s view is that this instinct can quietly slow you down. When speed matters and capability gaps are real, partnering can beat building, even if it means sharing control.🎧 Catch the full episode on Winning Friends.Powered by e-Residency of Estonia, where entrepreneurs build and grow borderless businesses from anywhere in the world.

David Gram walks us through the five rules that help leaders introduce new ideas while keeping trust intact. From expecting resistance to understanding which rules you’re breaking, building early ownership, and making sure others shine along the way.🎧 Catch the full episode on Winning Friends.Powered by e-Residency of Estonia, where entrepreneurs build and grow borderless businesses from anywhere in the world.

Drawing on his experience at LEGO and his work today with leadership teams, David Gram argues that experiments should be evaluated close to where ideas originate, not funnelled into a central committee or “idea platform” that lacks context.🎧 Catch the full episode on Winning Friends.Powered by e-Residency of Estonia, where entrepreneurs build and grow borderless businesses from anywhere in the world.

Experimentation is rarely the hard part. Knowing what to test, when to stop, and how to bring people with you is.David Gram spent nearly a decade at LEGO, helping the company rethink how it explored new territory after its early-2000s crisis. Today, as co-founder of Diplomatic Rebels, he works with founders and leadership teams navigating change where resistance is normal and resources are limited.In this episode of Winning Friends, David shares practical lessons on making experimentation sustainable and change adoptable.In this episode, you’ll learn:🧪 how to prioritise experiments without overwhelming your team🎯 how LEGO used opportunity spaces to decide what was worth testing🧠 why organisations resist new ideas and how to plan for it🤝 how to push change without burning bridges or losing allies🧭 the five habits of diplomatic rebels who make change stick🧩 when partnering beats building everything yourselfListen and share with your friends today!Winning Friends is powered by e-Residency of Estonia, where founders around the world launch, run, and scale companies 100% digitally.

Andres Kõpper (NOËP) reflects on how predictable behaviour builds confidence – using Apple’s one-button logic as a metaphor for branding. When people know what to expect, trust follows. When signals change too often, loyalty erodes.🎧 Catch the full episode on Winning Friends.Powered by e-Residency of Estonia, where entrepreneurs build and grow borderless businesses from anywhere in the world.

NOËP is not just one person making music, but a working business: managers, agents, a band, partners, and multiple revenue streams.In this clip, Andres Kõpper shares what the business of being an artist actually looks like and why trying to handle every role yourself eventually becomes the bottleneck.🎧 Catch the full episode on Winning Friends.Powered by e-Residency of Estonia, where entrepreneurs build and grow borderless businesses from anywhere in the world.

When TikTok became the main route to discovery in music, it didn’t just change how songs were promoted – it started influencing what got made in the first place.In this clip, Andres Kõpper (NOËP) reflects on what happens when distribution channels begin shaping the product itself.🎧 Catch the full episode on Winning Friends.Powered by e-Residency of Estonia, where entrepreneurs build and grow borderless businesses from anywhere in the world.