Episodes

  • Get Your Feet In the Grass - Mark Bentley Trailer

    Get Your Feet In the Grass - Mark Bentley Trailer
    Sep 21 2026
    Mark Bentley is back for part two, and this is the first episode we have filmed. He answers the five questions I ask everyone: What is your morning routine? What are you most proud of? What annoys you? What do you do to relax? What advice would you give to someone struggling with all the AI right now? As ever this is the trailer to the main event, where we pick up the self-awareness thread from Mark's first appearance and bring it right up to date. We get into staying grounded when AI has everyone overwhelmed, why the tool itself is never the problem, raising kids to think for themselves, and Mark's belief that the most powerful AI you will ever manage is the one already running in your own head. The full episode lands in a few days.
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    4 mins
  • Selling to Private Equity: What They Don't Tell You

    Selling to Private Equity: What They Don't Tell You
    Sep 17 2026
    Sorcha Lorimer built Trace, a boutique data privacy consultancy, from scratch. She bootstrapped it, landed enterprise clients across the UK, Europe and North America, and sold it to a private equity backed business. In this episode, she talks openly about what that journey actually looked like, from leaving a comfortable corporate role to navigating COVID, scaling as a lean team, and going through the opaque process of selling a business. She also introduces Onyxio, her new venture helping health tech and life sciences companies build confidence in how they use sensitive data. What We Cover - Sorcha's background in the NHS, digital agencies and financial services, and how that mix shaped Trace - The emotional reality of leaving corporate life and building from zero as a solo founder - Why she started with the end in mind and set an eight-year timeline to exit - How Trace pivoted from SaaS-led to consulting-led and what that taught her about business models - Navigating COVID as a small business reliant on enterprise relationships - How her corporate background helped her win enterprise clients and anticipate procurement blockers - The sale process: kissing frogs, dummy runs, knowing your numbers and being ready when the right buyer appears - Why selling to an experienced acquirer matters - Gotchas in deal structures: clawbacks, lock-in periods, IP clauses and leaving money on the table - What Onyxio does: a "passport office" for sensitive data, bringing legal, security and technical lenses together - Why data confidence matters more than ever in the age of AI - Her advice to her younger self: start earlier and stay curious Key Takeaways If you plan to sell, keep your house in order from day one, not just when a buyer appears The zero-to-one phase strips away your corporate identity and you need to be prepared for that Enterprise sales cycles are long, so diversify your client base with well-funded startups too Around 30-38% of deals succeed; many fail on compliance debt and poor documentation Stubbornness is an asset, but you have to be able to read the data and know when to pivot Selling a business is opaque and there is no standard playbook, so treat early conversations as dummy runs Links Sorcha Lorimer on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sorchalorimer Onyxio: onyxio.co
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    44 mins
  • Are you willing to take the hits? Sorcha Lorimer Trailer

    Are you willing to take the hits? Sorcha Lorimer Trailer
    Sep 15 2026
    Sorcha Lorimer was the founder of Trace, a data privacy consultancy she bootstrapped, scaled to enterprise clients across the UK, Europe and North America, and sold to a private equity backed business. She's now building Onyxio, which helps health tech and life sciences companies prove their sensitive data is safe to use. She answers the five questions I ask everyone: What is your morning routine? What are you most proud of? What annoys you? What do you do to relax? What advice would you give to someone looking to become an entrepreneur? As ever this is the trailer to the main event. In the full episode, Sorcha and I get into how she built and sold Trace, what she learned about navigating the sale process with private equity, and what she's building now with Onyxio in the world of sensitive data and health tech.
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    5 mins
  • AI In Recruitment: How can you stand out?

    AI In Recruitment: How can you stand out?
    Sep 10 2026
    Alfie Elliott is the Director of Select Group, a boutique recruitment business covering IT, business operations and consultancy across the UK and US. Starting as a 16-year-old apprentice in East Croydon, Alfie has spent just under 15 years in the recruitment industry, working primarily across financial services and consulting. In this conversation, Bhairav and Alfie dig into what the UK job market really looks like right now, from graduates with first-class degrees struggling to find work through to senior banking professionals out of a role for over a year. They cover how AI is reshaping hiring at every level, why relationships and proactive networking still outweigh a polished CV, what the over-50s job market actually looks like versus the myths, and where the opportunities are in consulting, financial services and startups. They also talk about Alfie's decision to stop drinking nearly two years ago, how sobriety has changed the way he networks and operates, and what the shift away from alcohol means for business culture more broadly. What We Cover - How AI is filtering candidates out before they ever speak to a human - Why the same networking advice applies whether you're a graduate or a senior executive - The reality of the UK job market for over-50s - LinkedIn as a recruitment tool versus a social media platform - Where the opportunities are right now in consulting, financial services and startups - How the role of a software engineer has changed with AI - Why fractional and consultancy work is growing - Sober networking and the cultural shift away from drinking in business - The physical and mental health impact of giving up alcohol - How Gen Z's relationship with technology is affecting communication skills Key Takeaways The UK job market is tough at every level. Being proactive and building relationships is the single most important thing you can do, regardless of your seniority. At junior level, candidates may not speak to a human until the third or fourth stage of the hiring process. AI screening is now standard. Keeping your technical skills current matters more as you get senior. People who haven't moved with the technology are the ones most at risk in redundancy rounds. Networking is a numbers game at the start and a quality game once you know where your time is best spent. Don't wait for permission — go to events, approach people, follow up. Sobriety doesn't mean opting out of business culture. Non-alcoholic options and the broader cultural shift are making it easier to network without drinking. Links Alfie Elliott on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alfie-james-elliott/ Select Group: Mentech Select (IT) | Insight Select (Business Operations) | InScope Select (Consultancy)
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    36 mins
  • Make Yourself Human - Alfie Elliott Trailer

    Make Yourself Human - Alfie Elliott Trailer
    Sep 10 2026
    Alfie Elliott is the Director of Select Group, a boutique recruitment business covering IT, business operations and consultancy across the UK and US. He started as a 16-year-old apprentice in East Croydon and has spent just under 15 years in the industry, working across financial services and consulting. He answers the five questions I ask everyone: What is your morning routine? What are you most proud of? What annoys you? What do you do to relax? What advice would you give to someone who's looking to get recruited right now? In the full episode, Alfie and I get into the realities of recruitment in 2025: how AI is filtering candidates before they ever speak to a human, why networking and relationships still matter more than a polished CV, what the job market actually looks like for over-50s, and how sober networking is changing the way business gets done.
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    3 mins
  • Start for Success with Jan Cavelle (replay)

    Start for Success with Jan Cavelle (replay)
    Aug 20 2026
    Jan Cavelle returns to the show, this time with her new book Start for Success, the prequel to Scale for Success. Where a lot of startup books are written by people who raised a billion dollars in Silicon Valley, Jan's is built from the honest, often raw stories of real founders, including the smaller and less glamorous ones whose journeys actually resemble most people's. Bhairav and Jan work through the full arc of starting a business: why people really do it, why you still have to make money even with the most altruistic mission, and the fears, funding traps and hiring mistakes that catch founders out along the way. It's a candid, reassuring listen for anyone thinking about taking the plunge, or anyone already in it and second-guessing themselves. What We Cover Why Jan wrote a second book, and why the timing suits Start now The gap between the glamorised idea of entrepreneurship and the reality The real reasons people start businesses, and why yours only has to be good enough for you Why you are not running a charity: even mission-led businesses need a model that makes money Values and mission that are true to you, not written to impress others Co-founders versus going it alone, and treating a co-founder relationship like a marriage Fear of failure and imposter syndrome, including why success can make the doubt worse Starting small to overcome fear, and why failure is rarely as bad as you imagine Coaches versus mentors, and why a good mentor in your field is gold dust Incubators and accelerators: an unregulated, wildly variable industry worth researching hard Why founders neglect their own personal development, and why that is a mistake Funding myths, the reality of investor scrutiny, and the case for bootstrapping Hiring the right people at the right stage, and protecting culture as you grow Staying relevant amid constant change, and keeping the ChatGPT panic in perspective Key Takeaways Most people start a business for lifestyle, freedom or necessity, not to get rich. Know your real reason and own it. A business has to make money to survive, however altruistic the mission. Break-even helps a few people; profit lets you help many. Fear paralyses more founders than failure ever does, and the reality of failure is usually far milder than the fear of it. A mentor gives advice you can take or leave; a coach encourages you to run your own race. Neither should tell you exactly what to do, and neither knows everything. Raising funds is not a sign of success, and funded businesses are not automatically better ones. An investor is someone else looking over your shoulder. Hiring expensive people too early breaks things. Bring in the right people at the right stage, and protect your culture as it spreads. Links Start for Success and Scale for Success are available on Amazon in paperback, hardback and Kindle, and through the usual booksellers More from Jan, including links to the books, at jancavelle.co.uk
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    45 mins
  • RWE: What do you really need to worry about when starting a business?

    RWE: What do you really need to worry about when starting a business?
    Jul 30 2026
    In this episode of Real World Entrepreneurship, Bhairav and Alan dig into a question every business owner wrestles with: what’s actually worth worrying about? Between cash flow, co-founders, market reception and the things you genuinely cannot see coming, it’s easy to spend energy in the wrong places. Alan and Bhairav talk through how they’ve each dealt with the unexpected over the years, including a deeply personal story from Alan about a cancer diagnosis that tested everything he believed about planning and control. What You Will Learn From Listening - A simple test for deciding whether something is actually worth worrying about - Why detailed planning gives a false sense of control, and why that’s not actually a problem - The difference between risks worth preparing for and risks not worth the effort - How COVID exposed which businesses could adapt and which couldn’t - Why Eisenhower’s two quotes on planning are more useful than any risk register - How Bhairav’s experience selling Atom challenged his own assumptions about strategy - Why founders should run a “hit by a bus” scenario on themselves, not just key staff - Alan’s personal account of being diagnosed with cancer two weeks after buying a company - What the “trough of disillusionment” is and why it hits most founders around six months in - How to tell the difference between problems worth carrying yourself and problems you can hand off
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    31 mins