The Entrepreneurs
A weekly deep dive into global business. Inspiring stories from startups to legacy brands in hospitality, design, fashion, and retail.
Latest Episodes
Mark Cho
Mark Cho is co-founder of The Armoury, a groundbreaking temple to classic menswear in Hong Kong, and co-owner of Drake’s, a highly respected UK company known for its beautiful neckties. Both brands have flourished under his watchful eye – so what lessons has he learned?
Five years of ‘Quartz’
Kevin Delaney is editor in chief of ‘Quartz’, a popular digital news outlet founded five years ago. Since then it has launched ‘Quartz India’ and ‘Quartz Africa’, made a pioneering mobile app and has just published its first book. So what’s the secret to its success? Delaney joins us in…
Health check
Is artificial intelligence the future of healthcare? We talk to Dr Claire Novorol, co-founder of Ada: an app designed by doctors and powered by AI that’s aiming to be your personal health companion when you’re unwell.
Wide-awake start-ups
In a technology industry obsessed with artificial intelligence and augmented reality, one of the most exciting sectors involves foam and springs. Start-ups are shaking up the once-sleepy sector of making and selling mattresses. But with competition through the roof, who will become the industry leader? We sit down with James…
Clean technology
Despite our growing eco-friendly credentials, humans still waste too much water. Malmo-based industrial designer Mehrdad Mahdjoubi has a solution: a futuristic shower designed by his clean-technology start-up Orbital Systems, which can reduce water usage by 90 per cent. It’s backed by Nasa-approved technology and the co-founder of Skype – but…
Good fit
Ben Farren is the founder and CEO of Spoke, a menswear brand obsessed with clothes built for fit. It sells just two styles – chinos and shorts – but in a huge range sizes. The products are sold online, directly to the customer. But what are the promises and pitfalls…
Lessons learned
We share top lessons learned from guests of ‘The Entrepreneurs’ in the first half of 2017.
Eat plants, love life
Paul Brown is the founder of popular healthy-food start-up BOL Foods, whose bestselling products included meat and fish until the company relaunched this summer as a plant-based brand. So why the dramatic change in strategy? Will customers flock to them or flee? And what sort of planning went into the…
Crowdfunded future
Antonio Weiss and Matt Brown are the founders of Thomas Clipper, a UK lifestyle brand that crowdfunds design-led products, such as sturdy double-edged razors and Italian-leather wash bags. The two have recently launched a line of French-made cologne on First Edition, their own crowdfunding platform for boutique craft brands. This…
The Memo
For newspapers and magazines, unpacking the complexities of technology stories can be difficult. As editor of ‘Tech City News’, London-based journalist Alex Wood realised that most media outlets did a bad job at writing technology articles for non-experts who care more about big trends than jargon. So, in 2015 Wood…
