The Start-Up Diaries Podcast

In this episode, Josh Garnham of Packfleet recounts his journey of building a B-Corp tackling sustainable delivery services from the ground up with his fellow co-founders.
Packfleet was founded in 2021 by a trio of former Monzo employees that include the neobank's former VP of Design Hugo Cornejo, VP of marketing and communications Tristan Thomas and engineering manager Josh Garnham. From dropping out of the renowned Cambridge university to launching his net-positive logistics firm, Joshua reccounts how his skills and product development approach have been influenced by roles at tech giants Monzo and Apple.
Together with co-founders, motivated by delivery frustrations, they aim to improve service for all stakeholders, prioritising ethics and sustainability. Targeting expansion beyond London's M25, Packfleet's commitment to B-Corp principles reflects its focus on ethical practices and corporate culture. Joshua stresses the value of small beginnings, collaboration, and shared values in entrepreneurial ventures, underlining Packfleet's dedication to innovative, sustainable logistics and a positive workplace culture.
Some Key Takeaway's:

1. Entrepreneurial Journey and Team Building: Listeners will learn about Josh Garnham's transition from academia to the tech industry, his experiences at Monzo and Apple, and the dynamics of co-founding Packfleet with a strong team ethos.
2. Tech-Driven Logistics Innovation: The episode delves into how Packfleet leverages technology to revolutionise the logistics and delivery industry, emphasising their unique approach to improving delivery success rates and customer satisfaction.
3. Sustainability in Business Operations: Insight into Packfleet's commitment to being a B Corp, focusing on sustainable practices, ethical employment, and their vision for environmentally conscious logistics.
4. Company Culture and Employee Well-being: The discussion highlights the importance of cultivating a positive, empathetic work environment, illustrating how Packfleet prioritizes its team's welfare and fosters a culture of inclusivity and collaboration to the highest levels.
5. Strategic Growth and Industry Impact: An exploration of Packfleet's business model, growth strategy within and beyond the M25, and their broader vision to influence the e-commerce and logistics sectors positively.

The Start-Up Podcast Diaries Season 9 is proudly partnered with UK Cyber Week 2024. Taking place on 17th-18th April 2024 at Olympia London, join 3000+ cyber tech professionals, to explore the latest developments and equip attendees with the knowledge to protect their businesses.

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Welcome back to a brand new season of The Start-Up Diaries Podcast!
To kick off the new season, we sat down with Mike Seville, Chief Data Officer at Dojo.
Founded with a deep understanding of the UK payment industry at its core, Dojo’s goal is to empower hard-working businesses to focus on the things that really matter to them – by seamlessly taking care of the things that don’t. Dojo provides businesses with a sleek, next-gen card machine that lets you take payments 80% faster than the competition.
In this episode, Mike Seville sits down with Chris to discuss the pivotal role that data plays at Dojo and the future of data teams...
Mike talks through how his role as Chief Data Officer has recently pivoted to reflect the way that data is moving, and what he thinks the future the CDO role holds.
Mike then dives into the fundamentals of building and scaling a data team, as well as the importance of having support a buy-in to the role of data from other C-Suite roles within an organisation.

Questions asked:

1. Tell us a bit about yourself and your journey at Dojo
2. When we were preparing this episode you talked through how data is the foundation of the product and the future of the business. Can you talk us through this and the data platforms at Dojo?
3. Your role as Chief Data Officer has recently pivoted slightly, can you talk us through how and why you decided to make this change?
4. What does this mean for you career wise and what are your thoughts on the future of CDO role?
5. What do you think are the fundamentals to building a data team and getting them up and running?
6. What are the growing pains of scaling a data team?
7. In order to have a good partnership with other functions within the business, what do you need, as a data team, from the other c-suite roles? How do you get them brought into the data function and the value that you deliver?
8. When we were putting this episode together, we spoke about how data seems to change more than any other areas in tech, do you think this is a good thing and what do you think the future of data teams looks like, particularly as data is becoming more accessible and easy to deploy?
9. What has been your biggest challenge in your career to date?
10. And finally, what piece of advice would you give to a data leader thinking about joining a scale-up?

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Slalom is a global consulting firm focused on strategy, technology, and business transformation. 4 years ago they introduced Slalom Build, Slalom’s brand for builders that blends design, product engineering, analytics, and automation to create the modern technology products of tomorrow.
In this episode, Chris is joined by Senior Director of Slalom Build, Cath Trotter. After openly discussing her non-technical background & journey into the industry, Cath talks us through how she has helped to build not one, but two start-ups within larger corporations.
She also dives into her experience with career mentoring, how she found the right mentors and how they impacted her career from leadership advice to dealing with Imposter Syndrome.
Cath discusses everything from the war for talent & the future of work to dealing with changes in digital expectations and getting to grips with sales. A great episode packed with tangible advice!

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In this weeks episode we were joined by Manoj Varsani & Marco Ferrari, Co-Founders of the property finance platform Hammock. Having recently raised £1million in seed funding, the team are preparing to launch their brand new current account for landlords. Sitting down with Oli Lochhead from our London office, the pair talked us through the processes they have in place that have enabled them to scale the Hammock platform so quickly and how they use customer feedback and insights to shape the product to what it is today - a renting platform made by landlords for landlords!
During lockdown the Hammock team took on a brand new not-for-profit venture in the form of SOS Supplies, in response to the national PPE crisis. SOS Supplies connects charities and organisations in need of urgent PPE with suppliers who can offer stock with fast delivery in the UK. Running the charitable organisation alongside Hammock, Manoj & Marco tell us how they reacted to the situation so quickly, the challenges they faced when pivoting their approach and why the project turned out to be a huge morale booster for their team during the more difficult times.

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💡 Ready to elevate your leadership?

Not your typical Chief People Officer, JooBee Yeow is a trained Systems Engineer with a PhD in Leadership Development. Throughout her extensive career, she's worked with 2, 20 and 200-year-old companies with revenues ranging from 10m, 100m to £1 billion.

JooBee’s primary focus is guiding founders and start-up leaders to transition from the 'STARTing to Build' phase to 'BUILDing to Scale' – all while achieving organisational growth rate of 15% YoY, 15% QoQ and even 15% MoM.

The creator of the ‘Scaling Start-Ups’ blog series and newsletter, as well as the ‘Learngility Open Source,’ JooBee believes in the accessibility of knowledge. As such, she contributes extensively to the start-up community’s collective knowledge base via Sifted, Notion Capital, Atomico, Balderton, Forestay and Offbeat among many other publications, communities and VCs.

Discover how JooBee is empowering leaders to break through growth barriers and accelerate performance.

🎙️ Leadership 101: JooBee Yeow on scaling teams and effective feedback loops

Join us as JooBee dives into her extensive experience in organisational psychology and business strategy. We explore how she helps leaders navigate the complexities of scaling teams from 200 to 500, the critical role of 360-degree feedback loops, and the meta-competencies essential for sustainable leadership. JooBee also shares her expertise on fostering a culture of continuous learning, handling leadership challenges, and leveraging limited resources for maximum impact.

Whether you’re leading a start-up, managing a growing team, or striving to enhance your leadership skills, this episode offers invaluable insights and actionable advice.

Tune in to learn from JooBee Yeow’s proven strategies and elevate your leadership game!

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