Founder Roundtable: Acquisition Strategies That Actually Scale in 2025
Season 3 kicks off with a heavyweight episode.This week, we’re joined by three operators who’ve collectively spent more than £100 million on Meta in the last 18 months - and who sit behind some of the UK’s fastest-growing consumer brands.Jack Rubin, founder of Purdy & Figg, the DTC cleaning brand now generating £50M+ in annual revenue.Olly Hudson, a co-founder of Soar With Us, the UK’s largest DTC growth agency. And returning fan-favourite Matt Kelly, founder of Spacegoods, back after one of our most memorable episodes.This conversation is exactly what brand owners talk about over a pint (or three). We go deep on:The real state of Meta ads right nowHow AI is reshaping acquisitionWhy doubling down on your influencer strategy is no longer optionalWhat it actually takes to scale a modern DTC brand in 2025If you’re looking to sharpen your customer acquisition strategy over the next 12 months, this is the episode you’ll want to binge.
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From £0 to £10m Per Year Selling Jewellery At 27 | Olivia Jenkins
Meet Olivia Jenkins - the founder behind the fastest-growing jewellery brand in e-commerce.In 2020, she was burnt out, broke, and dealing with the recent loss of her mum. Alongside her partner Jack, she channelled this grief to start D. Louise — a multi-million pound jewellery brand now loved by thousands of women across the UK from Molly-Mae to Maya Jama.In this unfiltered episode, Olivia shares how she turned a side hustle into an eight-figure business.Chapters00:00 - Trailer01:10 - Introductions02:10 - Launching a brand with zero experience 08:30 - The importance of customer-centricity 10:24 - Sourcing and selling her first products13:20 - Bootstrapping the first drops 18:55 - Taking the leap full-time, & working with your partner24:50 - Black Friday: The day everything changed25:50 - Bringing Gymsharks ex-CEO on board29:50 - Importance of authenticity in collaborations33:40 - Handling negative reviews and customer experience35:10 - What made D.Louise stand out in a saturated market44:30 - Future categories and avoiding distraction47:00 - Why big brands can't copy D.Louise52:40 - Shifting Behaviours: Women buying themselves jewellery54:00 - The big vision for D.Louise56:30 - Rebranding: Telling her mother's story through design
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She Scaled Steven Bartlett to 1 Billion Listens - Here's Why She Left | Grace Andrews
Meet Grace Andrews, the 28-year-old Marketing Director behind the world's biggest podcast - Diary of a CEO. Grace joined Steven Bartlett as DOAC's third employee in 2020 when the podcast had just 8,000 subscribers. Through trial, error, and in Grace's own words 'lots of naivety' she built the marketing playbook that scaled the brand to more than 1 Billion listens in just four years. In our chat with Grace, we deep dive her playbook for building the world's biggest podcast while also diving into the top social media tips and trends for 2025. Not one to be missed!
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Meet The Marketing Genius Who Turned Ryanair Into Social's Funniest Brand
Meet Michael Corcoran and Dave Morrissey. Mates, drinking buddies, and two of the UK's leading social marketers. Michael is the marketing genius who turned Ryanair into the world's leading airline on social, clocking up more than 1 billion organic impressions in 12 months. Now he's building Slice, a consultancy agency where he's helping some of the UK's top brands cut through the noise and grow on social. Dave has spent the last three years leading out e-commerce at TikTok where he has helped the UK's top DTC brands scale their revenues through TikTok Shop. In this unfiltered chat, we deep dive on the strategy that built Ryanair into a global leader on social, how brands can level-up on TikTok, and some hot takes on the future of social. Not one to be missed!
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The Sports Stars Building A Multi-Million CBD Empire | George Kruis & Dom Day
Bio.George Kruis and Dom Day aren’t your average founders, they’re former international rugby stars who went from scrums and stadiums to supplements and Sainsbury’s. As ex-Saracens teammates, their journey from elite athletes to co-founders of wellness brand ‘FourFive’ is full of unexpected pivots, hard-won lessons, and big wins in both the worlds of e-commerce and retail.In this episode, George and Dom get real about the moment they knew they had something special with FourFive, how they tackled the transition from rugby to retail, and the mindset shift that came with life after sport. From leveraging their athlete networks to landing shelf space in major retailers, they unpack how they found their “unfair advantage” and built a trusted name in the crowded wellness space. Including the challenges of scaling and building a brand around a highly regulated product, CBD.They talk Shopify, subscriptions, investor relationships, and even the science (or lack of) behind whether FourFive can really cure a hangover. We say it can.If you're a founder, athlete, or someone in between, this one’s packed with energy, insight, and inspiration. And a good load of laughs too.Timestamps0:00 Trailer01:30 The Back Heel Conversion02:56 The Aha Moment for FourFive/ The Idea for FourFive05:10 Transitioning from Rugby to Entrepreneurship07:55 Finding the Right People and Support09:15 Lessons in Communication09:52 Preparing for Life After Rugby/ Tapping into your Network14:18 Lean into your Skillset/ Finding your Unfair Advantage17:17 Getting into retail/ Sainsbury's20:43 The Ecom Pivot22.06 The Parallels between Sports Teams and Businesses29:35 Goal Setting31:49 Is FourFive a Hangover Remedy?36:53 Challenges of being in the CBD Space40:17 Shopify + Subscriptions43:38 Influencers and Investors46:15 Jack's POV
Welcome to the Lock-In - a podcast where we lock the doors of our favourite pub to bring you an unfiltered chat with some of the world’s top E-Commerce Founders. Each episode our hosts Jack, Jamie, Joe and Dan sit down with some of the biggest and best minds in entrepreneurship - pulling back the curtain to share the stories, playbooks and mistakes they’ve experienced while building 8 & 9 figure brands. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Ireland