The ideaSpace Podcast

Leo Rayman, founder and CEO of EdenLab speaks to Ben Hartley and shares his unique perspective as an “eco-capitalist,” advocating for the commercialization of sustainability to accelerate impact. Listen as they discuss working with startups, the art of storytelling in the sustainability space, and the exciting journey of making companies more sustainable and sustainable companies bigger. It also looks at the role of startups in climate action, and the need for businesses to integrate sustainability into their core operations. As former CEO and CSO of creative agency Grey London, Leo spent 25 years advising global clients on marketing, branding, innovation, culture-change and sustainability. He's also an adviser to Carbon13, the venture builder for the climate emergency, and holds a distinction from the Cambridge University Institute of Sustainability Leadership. Leo is also a published author, blogger, podcaster, regular LSE lecturer and inspiring speaker.

In this special Cambridge Tech Week podcast episode we chat to Umaima Ahmad, CEO and co-founder of 52North, a multi-award winning med-tech company focused on reinventing the healthcare journey, starting by transforming cancer care with Neutrocheck®. She shares lessons learned from the early days of Neutrocheck to the company recently being the first ever venture investment of Macmillan Cancer Support. Hear how Umaima moved from a successful career as a finance lawyer into the world of entrepreneurship and healthcare, via her role in business development at AstraZeneca. She tells us about how the idea came about, the importance of good hires and provides some tips on securing early investors.

In this latest start-up stories episode we’re talking with Jim McDougall, the co-founder of Outfield Technologies, an exciting start-up making a real impact to the way orchard growers can forecast their fruit yields. Combining innovative machine learning with drone technology, they help farmers manage the lifecycle of fruit in their orchard – making farms more efficient, profitable and sustainable.   Hear how Jim seized on interesting career opportunities, moving from a background in engineering to the world of horticulture start-ups via working on oil rigs! We also cover the early years of the company, how the products evolved and changed, and chat about the interesting dynamic between co-founders. We also delve into the mindset of the entrepreneur, and talk honestly and openly about the difficulties of founding and running a successful start-up.

This episode is the next in our Business Basics series and focuses on communication for Start-ups. Simon Hall, a journalist of 25 years' experience, mostly as a News Correspondent with the BBC, and who has worked across TV, radio and online is our guest for this episode. He's also an author of eight novels and a series of non-fiction business communication books. He supports startups and entrepreneurs, particularly with communication skills and packages, including pitching for investment and customers. He spoke to us about all things comms, with a focus on founders and Start-ups. The episode is full of hints and tips on pitching and presenting, offers guidance on how to avoid the common communication traps and tells us why storytelling is an important way to communicate your brand. It's also full of practical advice to help you in defining a headline and your core value proposition. If you're not sure where to start with communications for your Start-up then this is the episode for you!

Joe Parry started Cambridge Intelligence, a company building game-changing visualisation tools with applications ranging from fraud detection to cyber security, at his kitchen table over a decade ago. He now has a team of over 60 with customers all over the world. Joe talks through his entrepreneurial journey, particularly the crucial first years of turning the concept into a reality.

We recently spoke to Cambridge Angels, Simon Thorpe and Phil O'Donovan about what they do, what makes a good investment and why Cambridge is a great place to start a business. Simon, chair of Cambridge Angels, has invested in over fifty companies, mainly tech focused and in the UK. Phil founded Cambridge Silicon Radio and joined Cambridge Angels after the company was acquired by Qualcomm.  Both bring a wealth of experience to this week's podcast - the first in our Business Basics series. So take a listen to get some great insights into what makes a pitch great, what to avoid and the one thing you need to remember when preparing.

Tristram Norman is co-founder and CTO of Simprints, a non-profit tech start-up building identification tools for the developing world – their mission is to improve the lives of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens. These tools are reducing the number of people globally without formal identification which is in turn improving healthcare provision in the developing world. We spoke to him about the early days at Simprints, the challenges they’ve faced along the way and his experience of going from start-up to a hugely successful social enterprise.

Matthew Cleevely talks to Ben Hartley about the trials and tribulations of founding a sucessful company. Matthew founded 10to8, a global online appointments and scheduling software used by millions worldwide.

Rosemary Francis is an expert on computer architecture, high-performance computing and analytics. She founded, and spent ten years building, Ellexus, which was subsequently acquired by Altair. Ellexus is a leading input/output (I/O) analysis tool, which helps customers find and address issues quickly, improving speed accuracy and cloud readiness. The software products are used for I/O diagnostics, optimization, and dependency detection by HPC administrators of large enterprises. Rosemary now continues in a technical role as Chief Scientist within the HPC team where the Ellexus tools now reside. We've been incredibly fortunate to have had Rosemary on the Advisory Board of ideaSpace and also as an advisor for The Entrepreneurship Clinic - an ideaSpace event for new founders. Rosemary is also a public speaker, mentor, and advisor, and carries out work for the Rasberry Pi Foundation.

Some entrepreneurs give the impression that turning an idea into a successful business is an easy ride. It almost never is. Guy Blaskey, founder of Pooch & Mutt, one of the fastest-growing dog food companies in the UK, spoke at our first Start- up Stories event. Here he discusses some of the lessons he’s learnt from experiencing the good, the bad and the ugly of building his business.

Jason Mellad is a passionate entrepreneur, scientist, and CEO. He's also co-founder of Start Codon - a Cambridge based accelerator which aims to identify, seed-fund and drive the success of the most disruptive healthcare Start-ups worldwide. As an investor in early stage life-science Start-ups, and an entrepreneur himself (not to mention an ideaSpace alumni), Jason has a wealth of experience and knowledge to share with founders who are beginning their Start-up journey.