The Happy Startup School The Happy Startup School

This episode of the podcast is another window into our community where you get to know our members and what they do.

Today I’m talking to Simon Batchelar, cofounder of Pallant Digital and the Marketing Success Club. He shares his journey from running a digital marketing agency for large clients to now offering courses and coaching to founder run businesses that he believes can make a difference.

Simon has a need for adventure and impact and believes that change happens from the bottom up. He wants to help amplify the voices of small business doing good things so they can all make a big impact.

During our conversation he shares some of his ideas about what it means to do marketing well and how to build a trusting relationship with your customers.

He’s fighting the get rich quick marketeers out there by helping more people market themselves more authentically and sustainably.

You can find out more about Simon's agency work here - https://pallant.digital/.

You can also learn about the Marketing Success Club and take their free courses here - https://marketingsuccess.club/

Check out his YouTube channel with fellow marketeer Adam Bastock - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCusIq1ZLn8kqgGZx4iN71GQ

Will and Joel are friends from university who went into business together. They put all their enthusiasm and energy into it and it grew. They worked hard and they got their rewards.

However, at some point it stopped working so well.

It went from simple to complex.

It went from being exciting and rewarding to just feeling like a job.

The spark had gone and they weren’t sure why. They’d focused their attention on trying to make the business work well again but had forgotten to also focus on their friendship.

In this episode of the podcast we hear about how improving the communication between founders is more important than trying to improve the business. Particularly if before they were founders they were friends.

Will and Joel honestly share the story of their business and their relationship as cofounders. They valued their friendship more than anything else but in creating a false harmony they were doing more harm than good.

They’ve both been on a journey of learning not only about business but also about themselves and each other. By discovering what each of them really wanted they were more able to decide where the business needed to go and how it needed to grow.

This isn’t just a story of business growth but also founder growth.

Will and Joel, because of their friendship, found the courage to be truly vulnerable with each other and through that become stronger together.

They reignited their passion for the business by discovering what they needed personally and then exploring how the business could meet those needs.

This episode of the podcast is another recording from our weekly Friday Fireside show. It was recorded on October 2nd and features our good friend Kees Klomp, whom we lovingly think of as the buddhist businessman.

Kees is now Professor of Applied Science at Rotterdam University and founding partner of Thrive Institute a think tank looking to reinvent business and society.

According to him the business of business is to serve life. That’s its purpose because without life there is no business.

During this conversation he shares some challenging ideas about where the current economic system is taking us and what he believes needs to change in order for business to be truly purposeful.

We talk about how pain and purpose are intrinsically linked and we also discuss the difference between meaning and purpose.

We live in an age where the majority of people feel disengaged from their work and where the businesses they work for are having an adverse affect on our climate and environment. Kees says these are symptoms of a broken system; that system being capitalism.

However, he says that it’s impossible to change this system unless we tackle the stories and beliefs that hold it up.

And so its up to all of us to reeducate ourselves into a new way of living that’s based on interconnectedness rather than individualism - my wellbeing is your wellbeing and is the planet’s wellbeing.

I recommend you get yourself and nice hot drink and find a comfortable place to sit in order to listen to this episode because if you’re like me your mind will be blown.

In this episode of the podcast we shine a light on one of our members, share their work and find out what it’s been like to be part of the Happy Startup School. If you’re launching a business for the first time and are looking for support and guidance during those initial uncertain months then check out our community at http://happystartups.co. We provide mentorship, masterclasses, training and networking to help you build your confidence and your business. Remeny Armitage’s superpower is making friends. She’s turned that superpower into a business and now helps other businesses grow by turning their existing clients into happy and loyal advocates. She knows that if you serve your clients better your profits increase. She started her journey of entrepreneurship over three years ago and during this conversation she shares how she’s grown in confidence and got more clarity about the value she offers. Through the community she’s become more focused and has been “building a fortress around her of really good people”. That’s enabled her to be more bold about her business. She does her work because it makes her happy and others happy. We’re thankful and proud to have her part of our tribe! Are you scared to talk to your clients? Get Remeny to do it. It may be the best thing you ever do.

If you ever find yourself pitching to a VC or for any kind of funding it’s important to know how to tell a compelling story.

When it comes to pitching VC’s Haje Kamps, pitch coach, author of Pitch Perfect and CEO of Konf (a virtual conferencing platform), says the three elements you need to remember are: define the problem; say why you’ve got the perfect team; and demonstrate how you’ve got some traction in the market.

In this recording of our Friday Fireside Haje shares some of his views on storytelling, startup life (particularly when it comes with dealing with venture capital) and why he believes it’s important in business to not only tell compelling stories but also authentic ones.

Other things we touch on are the importance of building strong brands; being intrinsically motivated and the general irrational behaviour of people.

This episode of the podcast is another recording from our live Friday Fireside webinar. On this week’s show, we were joined by Eleanor Tweddell.

Eleanor is the founder of Another Door, a community that supports people through redundancy, and author of the book “Why losing your job could be the best thing that ever happened to you”.

During our conversation, we hear about Eleanor’s journey from a corporate employee to entrepreneur and the hurdles she’s had to overcome along the way.

She shares her thoughts on the importance of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, playing with ideas and surrounding yourself with inspiring down-to-earth people.