Shanley Knox is a brand strategist and social entrepreneur based in New York. In this conversation, we get into dismantling a business on the cusp on success, a dangerous bias around meaningful work, the audacious hope of building something new, and why a set of traffic lights in Downtown Manhattan changed just about everything… Show Notes 08:00 A …

Sims Foster is co-founder of Foster Supply Hospitality - a group of rurally independent small hotels and restaurants based in New York's Catskills Mountains. In this conversation we get into facing up to the inevitably of hundreds of tiny failures, finding thought partners, the importance of the practice room, how the hospitality industry could ret…

Jonathan Stark is on a mission to rid the world of hourly billing. He helps freelancers, consultants and creatives of all flavours find better ways to do the work they want to do in the world. Jonathan’s own journey has gone from live musician to digital agencies, independent software developer to teacher. While his books, talks, and daily newslett…

Amsterdam is widely renowned as a global hub. It's a centre of art, creativity, forward-thinking approaches to sustainability, and a centre of incredible nightlife. Olaf Boswijk has been at the very center of Amsterdam's nightlife scene for well over a decade: as the music programmer and resident DJ at the Club 11 venue, before setting up the legen…

A lot's happened since 9 year old Dmitry Koltunov and his family packed a few suitcases, left the Soviet Union, and headed west into the unknown. Today, he's known by many as the co-founder of Alice, a hugely successful tech company serving the hospitality industry. To many hundreds more, he's the indefatigable linchpin of a popular startup fellows…

Steve Bodow is a writer and producer, most well-known for being executive producer of The Daily Show. ----- Jerry Seinfeld says writing is perhaps the hardest thing in the world. But sometimes it feels easy. The pen just flows. What’s Jerry on about? And then all of a sudden it gets hard. The page stays blank. When you’re writing under time constra…

When it comes to starting any new project - whether an app, a product, a course, a book - there are so many potential traps to fall into. One of the biggest is not understanding what people actually want. After falling into this trap more times than he’d like, Rob Fitzpatrick decided to write a book to help others avoid it. Fast forward a few years…

In 2003, a new magazine launched. It felt a little different to what else was on the shelves at the time. Covering music, literature, street art and fashion, it featured a new generation of talent, and had a focus on quality: not just the content, but on bespoke cover art and high-end paper stock. The magazine was called Blowback and one its co-fou…

Starting a new company? Let's be honest - it's hard. In the midst of a global pandemic? Yep, definitely hard. Compared to a decade ago there are now far more places to get support in those early days, but Andrew Hutton and the team at Day One feel there are still some gaps that urgently need to be filled. With the belief that entrepreneurship is go…

Back in 2008, Kevin Kelly wrote a now legendary article on the long tail, and the concept of 1000 true fans. It's a concept that's gained ground in the 12 years since it was first posted, and in 2020, those trends around fandoms and the wide creator economy are - like a lot else in the world - accelerating. Today here are many new voices and platfo…

Taneshia Nash Laird is a social change agent and community developer with a pretty incredible resume. She's served as the Executive Director of the Arts Council of Princeton, notably as the first person of color in that role. She's been the Director of Economic Development for the city of Trenton New Jersey; and co-founded Legendary Eats in LA's St…

From his first release on XL Recordings in 1990, through to being called 'The Baron of Techno' by legendary BBC Radio 1 presenter John Peel; to his most recent project with classical musician Mathilde Marsal, and continuing to eschew trends in an industry that has a new flavor of the month almost every week - you can't pin down Dave Clarke as just …

Luciana is the founder of fashion brand Naissant - a womenswear line that takes a modular approach to female accessories. Coming from a family of Argentinian architects, Luciana has a unique perspective on product design, and balancing form and function. We talk about the importance of the women in her life, going from prototype to products, and wh…

Joey Cofone is co-founder of Baronfig - a company that makes tools for thinking. We talk about the mirage of failure, recognising the spectrum of what’s difficult, and alternative approaches to rebranding. Joey also explains what designs means to him, and why he doesn't identify with most of today's design industry. Show Notes: 02:15: Learnings fro…

To be human in the information age is to experience deep-seated tension. Many of us feel what seems to be a constant pressure to iterate, ideate and innovate. To strive, do better, think bigger, be more productive. To be creative, entrepreneurial, do work that matters. To make an impact. We exist in a constant overdose of information, yet we're als…