Sam Talks Technology

Sam talked with Thomas and Penny about how they were days away from floating on AIM and making the Powers multi-millionaires, to the low of losing their home when it all came to an end after the dot-com market crashed.The subsequent rollercoaster ride is an amazing story in itself which they tell in this podcast.They talked about how the lows were low but the subsequent recent highs have been great. Penny has since written a book about her experiences called ‘Business is Personal’Penny told us in practical terms how she fixed herself and came back to run a successful Mastermind coaching business and was awarded an OBE from the Queen in 2014 for services to business.This interview is open and very raw with warts and all but you come away feeling invigorated and rooting for Thomas and Penny as they embark on the next chapter of their life journey together.

CEO of LikeMinds. The 'Creative Entrepreneur' who produced the artwork for numerous record covers including Pink Floyd, Genesis and Duran Duran and famously the original slogan t-shirts for Wham and Katharine Hamnett. - Remember 'Choose Life' Drew now runs the Like Minds breakfast briefings in London as well as a multi-day speaker event in Exeter every September. We talked about Drew's career as well as talked about this weeks business and tech news from CES.

Steve Karmeinsky is an angel investor and entreprenuer. We talked about the technology hits and misses from 2018 and then Steve gives his predictions for 2019. We discussed wearables, voice assistants, IOT, the future of social media and mobile phones as well as we discussed the future of work now that machine learning is automating work tasks and replacing peoples jobs. Will a 3 day weekend become the new norm?

Andrew is the CEO of D-Marketing. He helps businesses grow, develop and build their presence in the UK and EMEA markets; including from Finland, Israel, Sweden, N.America, Italy and France. Andrew is an ex-Microsoft product manager. Today he is an investor in Israeli and Finnish startups.

Sam talks with Katie about the new Cannabis 'Green Rush’. Katie also talked about the launch of her new medicinal cannabis newsletter called ‘The Telegrass’.We talked about the market opportunity for CBD oil and discussed the hotspots in the world with the UK surprisingly being one of them.Ninety five tonnes of marijuana were produced in the UK in 2016 for medicinal and scientific use, accounting for 44.9 percent of the world total.We finally talked about what investors are looking for in new cannabis startups in this new 'green space’?

Katie Lips launched her first tech (mobile) startup in 2003, and was named in top 50 most innovative mobile startups in 2010. She has held senior digital leadership positions at global businesses; leading digital transformation and innovation agendas. Katie set up Rebel Futures in 2017, delivering innovation for progressive businesses including Telefonica Alpha, Boots, Nespresso, Boston Consulting Group. Katie is about to start a new role at Which? (January 2020) championing consumer rights in the Digital Space.

Tom Foale is a highly experienced entrepreneur, problem solver and consultative salesperson with expertise in making the first sales of new high-value solutions, ranging from telecoms through cybersecurity to software services. He is currently working with several smaller advanced high technology organisations, helping them to develop their market strategy and with new business development at board level in larger organisations.

Euan Semple has been a leader and an influencer in the ever changing field of digital technology for two decades. An early adopter of social media, he implemented one of the first enterprise social network systems inside the BBC. He also ran BBC DigiLab, a department whose purpose was to help the BBC understand new technologies across the range of its activities and make better decisions about their use and implementation. Euan left the BBC in 2006 to establish his own consultancy and has subsequently worked around the world with an amazing range of organisations including BP, The World Bank, The European Commission and Volvo. He is also the author of the book ‘Organizations Don't Tweet’

Suzie and I talked about how she came up with the initial idea. How she set about producing her first initial samples, which went down a storm, with 21,000 snack bars sold on pre-order via her fledgling website.With a lounge full of boxes and packaging material Suzie realised she was on to something.Suzie talks about how she found her co-founder, her first investors, the ups & downs of raising money, trying to close high street retailers, while juggling payments on several credit cards before finally securing a £3m investment from NVM Private Equity.

Julia Herd is the Managing Director of PR Agency Five in a Boat. Over the past 20 years, Julia has specialised in consumer PR. She has also worked across other areas of PR including; technology, corporate and B2B PR, issues and crisis management, social media, sponsorship and events management. Julia has worked with well known consumer brands such as Disney, Virgin, Haagen-Dazs - to travel brands - KLM, Avis - to more technology and corporate led companies - HTC, Microsoft, AMD as well as music services - Deezer. She was recently elected as the Vice Chair of the PRCA Council for 2020.