PODCAST · business
Virgin StartUp Changemakers
by Virgin StartUp
The Virgin StartUp Changemaker Podcast brings you honest, inspiring conversations with the founders behind some of the most exciting businesses and brands in the world today. Recorded live at our Changemaker events, each episode dives into the real stories behind the headlines - the bold decisions, the tough moments, the lessons learned and the impact created along the way. From early ideas to game-changing growth, these are the people using business as a force for good. Expect practical insights and refreshing candour. If you’re building something of your own, or thinking about it, this is your front-row seat to the conversations that matter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
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Challenge the System, Not Just the Market: GoHenry
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with GoHenry co-founder Louise Hill to explore what it takes to build a business that doesn't just solve a customer problem, but sets out to change the system around it. After seeing her own children struggle to...
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Make the Unfamiliar Matter: UNROOTED
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with UNROOTED founder Nathan Clemes to explore how you build demand for a product when most of your customers have never heard of its hero ingredient. From leaving a career in finance to building a functional drinks…
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Go Small Before You Go Big: COAT Paints
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with COAT Paints co-founder Rob Abrahams to explore how a startup can take on an established industry without trying to compete with everyone in it. From spotting a frustrating customer experience in a market dominated…
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Build the Community Before You Sell: Pretty Little Marketer
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Pretty Little Marketer founder Sophie Miller to explore how listening to your audience, experimenting in public and building genuine connection can turn an online following into a thriving business. What started as...
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Build the Brand Before You Have It All Figured Out: Desmond & Dempsey
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Desmond & Dempsey co-founder Molly Goddard to explore how a simple idea around pyjamas became a brand built around something much bigger: taking more pleasure in slowing down. From making their first 100 sets in...
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Pick the Right Wave: Fanbytes
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Fanbytes founder Timothy Armoo to explore why building a successful business isn't just about how hard you work, but choosing the right opportunity to work on in the first place. From starting his first business at...
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Know Your Customer, Then Build: Childs Farm
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Childs Farm founder Joanna Jensen to explore how deep customer understanding, strong relationships and relentless persistence helped turn a personal problem into a major British skincare brand. Inspired by her...
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Turn Better Data Into Better Healthcare: Hertility
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Hertility co-founder Dr Helen O’Neill to explore what happens when scientific expertise, lived experience and a refusal to accept the status quo come together. From starting Hertility as a clinical trial to…
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Purpose Is a Business Decision: Nice and Serious
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Nice and Serious co-founder Tom Tapper to explore how founders can turn purpose from something they talk about into something that actively shapes how they run their business. From landing a first project with Sky...
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Build Better, Then Make Noise: Mous
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Mous co-founder James Griffith to explore how relentless product development and attention-grabbing marketing helped turn an early failure into a global tech accessories brand. From losing their savings on the…
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Curiosity Creates Categories: Seedlip and Sylva Labs
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Seedlip and Sylva founder Ben Branson to explore what can happen when founders follow their curiosity rather than simply searching for a gap in the market. From experimenting with botanical distillation at home to...
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Back the Founder, Not Just the Idea: Black Seed
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Black Seed co-founder Karl Lokko to explore what investors really look for in founders and why access to capital still isn't equal. From entering venture capital with little experience of how funds worked to…
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Building Boldly: Grief, Grit and Growing D.LOUISE
In this inspiring episode of Founder to Founder, we sit down with Olivia Jenkins, co-founder of D.LOUISE, the sustainable, tarnish-free jewellery brand that’s redefining what it means to build a purpose-led business. After losing her mother and facing a period of uncertainty during the pandemic,...
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The Grind Behind Grind: David Abrahamovitch on Luck, Lessons and Leadership.
This is an episode from our newly launched Founder to Founder podcast. Follow us on Spotify and Apple to get the latest episodes when they drop. In today’s episode, we’re joined by David Abrahamovitch, founder and CEO of Grind – from turning his Dad’s old phone shop into a go to coffee come...
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Build Community, Not Just Hype: Astrid & Miyu
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Astrid & Miyu founder and CEO Connie Nam to explore how putting experience and community at the heart of a brand can create growth that lasts beyond the initial hype. From hand-delivering early orders and running...
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What I wish I knew: ADHD, Anxiety and the Founder’s Mind
Here's a bonus episode for you, from our brand new podcast, Founder to Founder. Subscribe to the new feed to get the latest episode every 2 weeks on a Wednesday. Subscribe on Apple and Spotify now. In this powerful episode of Founder to Founder, we’re joined by Alex Partridge, founder, mental...
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Sell the Dream, Back It Up: The INKEY List
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with The INKEY List co-founder Colette Laxton to explore how a clear purpose, deep customer understanding and a willingness to move fast helped build a global skincare brand. From spotting unanswered skincare questions…
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Start Simple, Grow With Purpose: Freddie’s Flowers
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Freddie’s Flowers founder Freddie Garland to explore how a simple subscription idea grew from a milk float and a garden gazebo into a household flower brand. Freddie shares how he stripped his original idea back to...
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Earn Attention, Don’t Just Buy It: Biscuiteers
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Biscuiteers founder Harriet Hastings to explore how creativity, storytelling and partnerships helped turn a gifting idea into a distinctive British brand. From spotting a gap in food gifting to working with brands...
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Your Dream Is the Business Plan: Simon Squibb
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with entrepreneur and investor Simon Squibb to explore why building a business should start with what you care about, not simply where you've spotted a gap in the market. From becoming an entrepreneur at 15 after…
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BONUS: Introducing Founder to Founder
Meet Founder to Founder, another podcast from Virgin StartUp exploring the role mentorship and community can play in building and scaling a business. Hosted by Virgin StartUp Mentor and PACK'D founder Luke Johnstone, the series features candid conversations with founders including David...
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BONUS: Confidence Is Built by Doing: Confident and Killing It
In this bonus episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, we sit down with Confident and Killing It founder Tiwalola Adebayo to explore how founders can build the confidence to pursue ambitious ideas without waiting for fear and self-doubt to disappear. From posting her first confidence video despite...
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Waste Less, Impact More: Too Good To Go
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Too Good To Go co-founder Jamie Crummie to explore how a simple idea for tackling food waste grew into a global technology business with purpose built into its model. From witnessing food being thrown away while...
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Turn Instinct Into a Breakout Brand: TRIP
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Virgin StartUp Managing Director Andy Fishburn sits down with TRIP co-founder Olivia Ferdi to explore how a personal discovery became one of the UK’s fastest-growing wellness brands. From developing their first drinks with supermarket…
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Success Doesn’t Have to Mean More: Olivia Rubin
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with fashion designer and founder Olivia Rubin to explore what happens when you stop measuring business success by how fast and how big you can grow. From creating her first rainbow skirt after stepping away from…
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Make Sustainability Impossible to Ignore: Wild
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Wild co-founder and CMO Charlie Bowes-Lyon to explore how sustainability, standout branding and a strong product can combine to create rapid startup growth. From identifying an overlooked opportunity in the…
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Purpose, Optimism and the Infinite Game: Simon Sinek
In this special live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Holly Branson sits down with bestselling author and leadership thinker Simon Sinek to explore purpose, optimism and what it takes to build a business for the long term. Recorded as part of Virgin StartUp’s 10th birthday celebrations,...
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Build the Brand, Then Build Beyond It: Grind
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Grind founder and CEO David Abrahamovitch to explore how a single coffee shop became a multi-channel brand spanning hospitality, home delivery and major partnerships. From taking over his dad’s old phone shop and...
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Impact Has to Scale Too: Ocean Bottle
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Ocean Bottle co-founder Will Pearson to explore how founders can build environmental impact into the commercial model of a growing business. From witnessing the scale of ocean plastic pollution first-hand to…
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Mental Health Is Everyday Health: Self Space
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Self Space co-founder and therapist Chance Marshall to explore what changes when we stop treating mental health support as something reserved for moments of crisis. Chance shares the personal experiences that led…
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Test the Idea Before You Build It: MAGIC AI
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with MAGIC AI co-founder Varun Bhanot to explore how founders can test an ambitious business idea before investing heavily in building it. From his own experience of transforming his health to creating an AI-powered...
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Design Waste Out From the Start: ReBorn
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with ReBorn co-founder Brian Walmsley to explore how founders can build sustainability into a physical product from the very beginning, rather than trying to fix its impact later. From spotting the huge amount of waste...
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Can We Trust Sustainable Shopping?: Canopey
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Canopey co-founders Thomas Panton and Hugo Douglas-Deane to explore how startups can make sustainable choices easier for customers without expecting them to be perfect. From tackling greenwashing and verifying...
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Purpose Needs a Business Model: Zinc VC
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with Zinc VC co-founder Ella Goldner to explore how purpose-led founders can build businesses that create meaningful impact and still deliver commercial returns. From Zinc’s mission-driven investment model to the...
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Break the Taboo, Build the Market: HANX
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with HANX co-founder Farah Kabir to explore what it takes to build a startup in a category where challenging the status quo is part of the job. From spotting a problem in the condom aisle and surveying thousands of...
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Waste Is an Opportunity: DASH Water
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Natalie Pearce sits down with DASH Water co-founder Alex Wright to explore how an overlooked problem in the food supply chain became the foundation for one of the UK’s fastest-growing drinks brands. From testing an imperfect product in London...
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Build a Business That Doesn’t Run You: Dan Kieran
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Ben Keene sits down with Unbound co-founder and author Dan Kieran to explore the part of entrepreneurship that business books often overlook: what building a company does to the person building it. Drawing on more than a decade of building and...
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Business Can Change Lives: Change Please
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Ben Keene sits down with Change Please founder Cemal Ezel to explore how entrepreneurship can be used to tackle one of society’s biggest challenges: homelessness. From leaving a career in the City and launching with a £25,000 Start Up Loan to...
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Start Local, Build Something Bigger: Brixton Brewery
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Ben Keene sits down with Brixton Brewery co-founders Xochitl Benjamin and Mike Ross to explore how a shared love of beer and their local community grew into one of South London’s best-known craft beer brands. From experimenting with home…
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Find Your Flavour, Then Scale It: Quarter, The Woolf’s Kitchen and Black Milk
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Ben Keene is joined by the founders behind Quarter, The Woolf’s Kitchen and Black Milk to explore how you turn a food or drink idea into a distinctive brand that customers want to come back to. From testing sauces at farmers' markets and...
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Scarcity Without the Hype: Paynter Jacket Co.
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Ben Keene sits down with Paynter Jacket Co. founders Becky and Huw Thomas to explore how deliberately making less can help you build a stronger, more sustainable fashion brand. From documenting their first jacket on Instagram to creating…
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Culture Is What You Practise: Flexa, Unplugged and BetterSpace
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Ben Keene is joined by the founders behind Flexa, Unplugged and BetterSpace to explore how you build a strong team and company culture as your startup grows. From flexible working and founder wellbeing to psychological safety, transparency and...
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Build the Brand Before You Scale It: Pip & Nut
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Ben Keene sits down with Pip & Nut founder Pip Murray to explore how a kitchen experiment became one of the UK’s most recognisable food brands. From making her first nut butters at home and testing them at market stalls to crowdfunding, finding…
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Attention Is Earned, Not Bought: The Uncommon, LIHA Beauty and Untapped Digital
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Ben Keene is joined by the founders behind The Uncommon, LIHA Beauty and Untapped Digital to explore how startups can make social media work without being overwhelmed by every new platform, trend and algorithm. From building an audience...
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The Jump: Episode 6: Change Please
We're bringing you the final episode of our exclusive series, The Jump, available wherever you get your podcasts. The final episode of Series 1! Meet Cemal Ezel, the inspirational founder of Change Please, who went from City trader to changing the lives of homeless people one cup of coffee at a...
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Introducing... The Jump - a brand new limited series from Virgin StartUp
We interrupt your MeetUps so bring you an exciting new series from Virgin StartUp and give you exclusive access to the first episode. *click here to subscribe to the new feed to hear the rest of the series* Launching a travel startup just before Covid hits. Being inspired by your daughter to…
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Start Small, Build with Purpose: Meander Apparel, Leo’s Box and Box & Sprout
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Ben Keene is joined by the founders behind Meander Apparel, Leo’s Box and Box & Sprout to explore how you turn an early idea into a business with customers, purpose and room to grow. From crowdfunding a first product and bootstrapping from a...
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Build Your Brain Before Your Business: Heights
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Ben Keene sits down with Heights founder and Secret Leaders host Dan Murray-Serter to explore the relationship between founder wellbeing, failure and building a better business. Dan shares how his own experiences of insomnia and anxiety led him...
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Purpose and Profit Belong Together: Better Business Act, B Corp and Bethnal Green Ventures
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Ben Keene is joined by leaders from Virgin, the Better Business Act, Bethnal Green Ventures and the Institute of Belonging to explore how founders can build businesses where purpose and profit work together. From embedding impact into your...
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Make Less, Make Better: Petit Pli, Bendi and Arkdefo
In this live episode of Virgin StartUp Changemakers, Ben Keene is joined by innovators from Petit Pli, Bendi and Arkdefo to explore how founders can challenge fashion’s culture of waste and build sustainability into a business from the start. From clothes that grow with children and unwanted…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
The Virgin StartUp Changemaker Podcast brings you honest, inspiring conversations with the founders behind some of the most exciting businesses and brands in the world today.
Recorded live at our Changemaker events, each episode dives into the real stories behind the headlines - the bold decisions, the tough moments, the lessons learned and the impact created along the way.
From early ideas to game-changing growth, these are the people using business as a force for good. Expect practical insights and refreshing candour.
If you’re building something of your own, or thinking about it, this is your front-row seat to the conversations that matter.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
HOSTED BY
Virgin StartUp
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Virgin StartUp Changemakers have?
Virgin StartUp Changemakers currently has 50 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Virgin StartUp Changemakers about?
The Virgin StartUp Changemaker Podcast brings you honest, inspiring conversations with the founders behind some of the most exciting businesses and brands in the world today. Recorded live at our Changemaker events, each episode dives into the real stories behind the headlines - the bold decisions,...
How often does Virgin StartUp Changemakers release new episodes?
Virgin StartUp Changemakers has 50 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Virgin StartUp Changemakers?
You can listen to Virgin StartUp Changemakers on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Virgin StartUp Changemakers?
Virgin StartUp Changemakers is created and hosted by Virgin StartUp.
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