The Entrepreneurs
A weekly deep dive into global business. Inspiring stories from startups to legacy brands in hospitality, design, fashion, and retail.
Latest Episodes
Taking off
Not long ago Texas-born Mickey Ashmore was a 20-something finance graduate working for Microsoft. Now he’s affectionately known as the Sabah Dealer, the founder of a hugely popular and fast-growing brand that sells slip-on shoes based on an old-school Turkish design. Ashmore shares his tale. Meanwhile, we meet Simon Talling-Smith,…
Bright future
We visit God’s Own Junkyard, a family business in a quiet neighbourhood in London that has perfected the art of making signs. We also meet an Australian entrepreneur who set off for gelato school in Italy and returned to Melbourne with a delicious company: Pidapipó Gelateria. Plus: former airline pilot…
Rivet & Hide
Entrepreneurs find inspiration in unlikely places. For Danny Hodgson, founder and owner of Rivet & Hide, one of London’s premier shops for premium denim brands, inspiration arrived thousands of feet in the sky. For more than two decades Hodgson worked for British Airways as a cabin-services director on long-haul flights…
Dark and stormy
Failure is an experience that no entrepreneur wants to encounter, yet one that pretty much every one will. This week we explore what happens when your luck runs out and the best ways to bounce back. Mark Jennings is the founder of Shaken Cocktails, a cocktail-subscription start-up. Shaken, however, no…
Aegean Summit: how to build a media brand
Amid paywalls, platforms and advertising woes, few media outlets have cracked the code required to create a successful, sustainable and profitable business model. The Aegean Summit, a new conference in Athens, is looking to the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean for guidance on best practice. We meet with…
Distill Ventures
How do you build a profitable new brand in the world of spirits? Launched in 2013, Distill Ventures helps brands navigate those early years with investment and mentoring. Since then they’ve invested millions in promising new spirits companies. But what makes a drinks brand stand out? What’s more crucial: marketing…
Growth
The team behind popular London-based menswear brand Percival open up about their business challenges and discuss their new crowdfunding campaign, and we profile Bontoni, a family-run Italian company looking to make its mark in a sector where established names loom large. Plus: we visit the Bluemond Farms in Serbia to…
Ambition and vision
Ryan Holiday went from talent agent to American Apparel’s director of marketing in his early twenties – then the wheels came off. Now older and wiser, Holiday is here with a lesson: ego is the enemy. Ross Bailey has something to share too. His vision was to create an Airbnb-style…
Company culture
How do you measure company culture? How seriously should a CEO consider it and how can it be improved? This week we meet Didier Elzinga from Australian start-up Culture Amp, a company revolutionising the ‘people-analytics’ industry. Meanwhile, with the news that advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy has created an emotionally…
The Entrepreneurs: Live
In this special live episode of ‘The Entrepreneurs’ recorded at our Marylebone HQ, Monocle’s Daniel Giacopelli and Andrew Tuck are joined by the visionaries and creative leaders behind inspiring, successful businesses. From industry giants and family outfits to one-man-bands and clever upstarts, we find out how to build a strong…
