Episode #563 - Turning Isolation into Growing A Collective That Transforms Local Shopping Into Shared Purpose - with Sarah O'Neill
ScaleUp Radio
Find me, Granger Forson, at or on LinkedIn. Sarah O’Neill’s journey began with a simple, heartfelt need: to feel part of a community again. What started as a personal response to the isolation of lockdowns grew into Cotswold Collective, a thriving rewards-based membership platform dedicated to supporting local businesses and bringing people together. Her background in marketing and events became the spark that helped transform a difficult season of life into something meaningful for thousands of others. In our conversation, Sarah shares the early days of the...
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Episode #562 - Making Water Behave, Saving Energy And Scaling A Mission That Matters - with Samantha Mant
ScaleUp Radio
Welcome to another inspiring episode with me, Granger Forson find me at or on as I sit down with Samantha Mant, CEO and Founder of Halcyan Water, a business transforming the way homes and companies manage hard water and energy efficiency. Samantha’s journey began in the world of beautiful bathroom design, where she repeatedly saw installations deteriorate in just months. Instead of accepting that frustration, she experimented. She searched globally, discovered a technology that could turn badly behaved hard water into nicely behaved hard water, and...
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Episode #561 - The Power of Saying 'No'
ScaleUp Radio
This week on ScaleUp Radio Shorts, Kevin and Granger dive into two powerful conversations from recent episodes, with leaders who’ve scaled very different businesses, but who share strikingly similar philosophies. 👉 Hugh Taylor took Roadnight Taylor from burnout to brilliance by radically niching down, cutting 80% of his client base and doubling fees through a bold auction model. 👉 Michael Yorke of Prime dcm discovered the sweet spot in not trying to grow too big, instead focusing on lean, trust-led delivery with full transparency and hands-on leadership. Here’s what you’ll learn in...
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Episode #560 - How Radical Focus Transformed a Struggling Consultancy into a Global Leader - with Hugh Taylor
ScaleUp Radio
I’m Granger Forson and you’ll find me at or on . In this inspiring episode of ScaleUp Radio, I’m joined by Hugh Taylor, CEO of Roadnight Taylor. His story is a masterclass in transformation, determination, and the power of experimentation. Hugh shares the remarkable journey behind Roadnight Taylor’s shift from a struggling generalist consultancy to a globally respected Independent Specialist Grid Consultancy, now recognised in the top 0.1 percent worldwide for client value perception and enjoying 100 percent team retention over six...
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Episode #559 - Building Trust Not Tension by Changing Construction Through Openness and Real Financial Clarity - with Michael Yorke
ScaleUp Radio
Welcome to another episode of ScaleUp Radio with me, Granger Forson. You can connect with me at or find me on anytime. Today I’m joined by Michael Yorke, co founder of Prime DCM, a construction and development business based just outside Gloucester. Michael’s journey is a powerful example of what happens when you challenge industry norms and build a company rooted in openness, respect and genuine partnership with clients. Starting just one month before the 2020 lockdown, Michael and his business partner James shaped Prime DCM around an open...
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Episode #558 - From Unicorn Ambition to Creative Freedom – Lessons from Two ScaleUp Journeys
ScaleUp Radio
In this episode of ScaleUp Radio Shorts, hosts Kevin Brent and Granger Forson dive into the powerful contrast and surprising common ground between two visionary founders: Lilia Stoyanov, CFO and Founder of HR-tech and fintech platform TFY, and Virtyt Pula, Creative Lead of boutique creative collective TOML. Though their sectors, business models, and goals couldn’t be more different, both leaders share an innovative approach to building remote-first, talent-led organisations that challenge conventional ideas about scaling. 🔑 In this episode, you'll learn: How Lilia scaled TFY to...
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Episode #557 - From PR Pioneer to Portfolio Career; Value-Based Growth and Lasting Legacy - with Andrew Bloch
ScaleUp Radio
In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, I’m joined by Andrew Bloch – one of the UK’s most influential voices in the PR and marketing space. Best known as the co-founder of Frank PR and now the founder of a boutique consultancy, Andrew shares the story of building, scaling, exiting, and reinventing a business around his strengths and values. We explore his fascinating career arc – from growing Frank into one of the UK’s leading agencies, to selling it, buying it back, and eventually transitioning it to employee ownership. Andrew now operates a portfolio career that combines M&A...
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Episode #556 - Turning the Spam Filter on its Head: A Privacy-First Approach with Sentrya - with Claudiu Cogalniceanu
ScaleUp Radio
On this episode of ScaleUp Radio, I’m joined by Claudiu Cogalniceanu, the solo founder behind Sentrya, a revolutionary new approach to email protection. What makes Claudiu’s story so remarkable isn’t just the tech, though that’s impressive, but the journey. He built the first version of Sentrya in under a month while working as an Uber driver, launched it on Product Hunt, and grew to over 450 users in 25+ countries using organic Reddit marketing alone. Sentrya flips the traditional spam filter model: instead of trying to detect spam, it creates a clean list of approved senders and...
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Episode #555 - What if your business could scale globally with just 25 people — and no external funding? - with Lilia Stoyanov
ScaleUp Radio
In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, I’m joined by Lilia Stoyanov, the CEO and cofounder of TFY (Transformify Ltd), a bootstrapped, AI-powered global workforce management platform. TFY enables businesses to hire, onboard and pay contractors in 184+ countries – all from one platform. And it’s not just another HR tool — it’s a human-centred, AI-powered engine that automates compliance and payments, so finance and HR teams can focus on strategic growth. In this episode, we cover: How TFY achieved 90% profit growth in 2024 with zero external investment The three-phase scaling strategy that...
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Episode #554 - From Neurosurgeon to $200M Founder
ScaleUp Radio
In this episode of ScaleUp Radio Shorts, Kevin Brent and Granger Forson unpack the remarkable ScaleUp journey of Dr. Mark Kotter, a neurosurgeon, stem cell biologist, and founder of Bit Bio, a deep-tech biotech company that’s raised over $200 million and scaled to 200+ people. It’s a story that starts with clinical frustration and leads to a cutting-edge company using AI to literally reprogram cells. But beyond the science lies a business story that any entrepreneur can learn from, full of lessons on leadership, values, team alignment, and the bumpy road of scale. 💡 Episode...
info_outlineOn this episode of ScaleUp Radio we, once again, bring you a compilation of some great business advice that we’ve heard throughout 2021.
There’s no getting away from the fact that it’s been another challenging year for so many, and we’ve heard some great insights and advice along the way that have helped many of us, and will continue to help us as we face the new year.
We’ve been lucky enough to have a real range of conversations in the past year - from accountants, lawyers, marketers and IT support right through to restaurant owners, franchisees, funeral directors and gin makers.
With all of this diversity it’s been really interesting to see how much common ground there is. At the end of the day the key challenges to building and scaling up a business are not unique to any particular industry or sector. Sure, there are differences, but the key things remain the same. All of our guests have provided some great lessons that they have learned along the way, that can be of real benefit to all of us.
No matter the size of your business - large or small - make sure that you celebrate the wins that you have achieved this year. Small and medium businesses are the backbone of any successful economy and you don’t need me to tell you that it can be hard at times.
But hold onto the reasons that you started out in the first place. You set out to achieve something, and we have all achieved something special; something to be proud of.
Hold onto that star that guides you and drives and work out how you are going to get that little bit closer to it next year.
The links to all of the episodes that these pieces of advice are from are below, so you can spend time getting to know each business owner better.
This is the last episode of ScaleUp Radio for this year. I want to thank you for your continued support for ScaleUp Radio. We are now being listened to in 59 countries across the globe, with more of you listening and downloading now than ever before.
We’ll be back with a new episode on Monday, 10th January. In the meantime, enjoy this excerpts of advice from our episodes in 2021.
Links to episodes featured in this compilation:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Eddie_Perks_2.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Caroline_Butcher_2.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Faith_Guest.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Ben_King.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Greg_Baldwin.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Hollie_Whittles.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Steve_Harris.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Helen_Jones.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Darren_Wilkins.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Paul_McCafferty.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Daniel_Walton.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Kerry_Perkins.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Aasia_Baig.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Celia_Felgate.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Oliver_Percival.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Tom_Field.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Ian_Jarvis.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Peter_Chatterly.mp3
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scaleupradio/Duncan_Gilroy.mp3
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