That Great Business Show

George Clooney helped make the coffee pod glamorous.

Unfortunately, the estimated 30 billion pods going into landfill every year are considerably less glamorous.

Sofia Kalfa spent almost 20 years working with companies including Dell, PepsiCo, Wayfair and CRH.
She then brought that corporate experience into Fzin Coffee, a growing Cork business taking on some of the biggest names in the global coffee industry.

Fzin has developed an independently certified, bio-based and home-compostable coffee capsule that can go into a home compost heap, food bin, flowerpot or garden rather than joining the plastic and aluminium mountain.
But this is not simply a sustainability story.
Sofia explains:

How Fzin built an 80-plus-product coffee and beverage portfolio.
Why a customer told her that Fzin needed to be available through Musgrave.
How she followed up through LinkedIn and effectively told Musgrave: “You have to list us.”
Why seven business awards changed the type of people visiting the Fzin website.
How a UK customer arrived shortly afterwards.
Why she rejected the traditional van-and-sales-representative model.
How she plans to build a national and international commission-based sales network.
Why Fzin has avoided outside investment.
How hotels could dramatically reduce the waste created by in-room coffee machines.

There is also palm-oil-free drinking chocolate, coffee syrups moved from plastic into glass, grants, exports, rural Ireland, a Cork-via-Greece accent and a small Irish business refusing to wait for the giant competitors to change first.

In HIRE IN A HEARTBEAT, Sofia chooses former Glanbia Group Managing Director and current CRH board member Siobhán Talbot — and offers her a completely blank sheet of paper.
That Great Business Show with Conall O Morain is sponsored by De Facto® Shaving Oil, the world’s best all-natural shaving oil. No cans. No unnecessary waste. Made in Mayo and sold to the world.

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Vineta Bajaj interviews for another job every year.
She is also Group CFO of Holland & Barrett.

That may sound like a dangerous combination, but Vineta says interviewing is a muscle. Let it go soft and the day you genuinely need another job, your first few interviews will be dreadful.If you are in the corporate world, or want to understand that world, this is an essential episode.

Born and raised in Limerick, she finished school at 16, entered the University of Limerick before she was old enough for the pub, taught piano and developed a teenage fascination with trading options in oil refinery companies. As you do.

Since then, she has worked with KPMG, Kerry Group, Ocado and Rohlik Group before taking charge of the finances at Holland & Barrett, a company with over 1,200 stores globally.
Vineta explains why you should never say “that’s not my job”, why “busy” often means ineffective, how she told a CFO that she wanted his job, and why you must ask directly for the career you want. She also reveals the extraordinary full-circle moment when she hired two of the men who once hired and managed her.

Hire in a Heartbeat: Vineta attempts to dodge the compulsory name, admits her admiration for Michael O’Leary and ultimately chooses something more valuable—a leader with a genuine founder mindset.
With thanks to De Facto Shaving Oil, the longstanding sponsor of That Great Business Show.
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SQUID has raised €10 million, reached almost 4,000 reward locations and now wants to turn loyalty points into real spending power.

€85 billion is spent every year across the UK and Ireland trying to influence where consumers spend their money. Irish loyalty company SQUID has a rather disruptive suggestion: stop spending so much trying to buy people’s attention and put more of that money directly into their pockets.

ON Episode 303 of That Great Business Show with Conall Ó Móráin, SQUID CEO Matthew Coffey and Chief of Staff Leah Deasy, explain how the company grew from personally pitching independent coffee shops to operating across almost 4,000 locations. SQUID has raised €10 million over time, employs approximately 28 people and says more than 1% of the UK and Irish population now uses its platform.

We examine:
Why SQUID believes rewards can outperform conventional advertising
How three million rewards have already been claimed
Why free coffee remains a surprisingly powerful business tool
How the company makes money
The payment partnerships that could unlock European expansion
Its planned €10 million-plus Series A
Whether Revolut, Stripe or another payments giant could eventually come knocking

HIRE IN A HEARTBEAT:
Leah chooses Canva co-founder Melanie Perkins.
Matthew chooses Stripe founders Patrick and John Collison.

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The banks said no. The ramen got funded.

On Episode 302 of That Great Business Show with Conall Ó Móráin, we follow the money.
Real money. SME money. The stuff every founder wants, needs, chases, curses and occasionally dreams about.

Niall O’Grady, CEO of Linked Finance, explains how the company has put more than €400m into more than 5,000 Irish SMEs — and why speed matters when a business owner spots an opportunity. With him is Kevin Hughes, founder of Nomo Ramen in Dublin, who left a tech career, spent years obsessing over ramen, made hundreds of test bowls at home, was told “no” plenty of times, and still built the business.

This is not theory.
This is not “thought leadership.”
This is money, noodles, risk, graft, landlords, lenders and the glorious madness of Irish SMEs.

Hire in a Heartbeat:
Kevin chooses Ivan Orkin, the New Yorker who became a ramen success in Tokyo and helped open up the secretive world of ramen recipes.
Niall chooses John Teeling — and, even better, his grandmother Winifred Clifford, who ran a business in Clones and could apparently negotiate the legs off Hector Grey’s table.

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Listen in. Subscribe. Share it with an SME owner who needs money, speed, nerve, or a bowl of ramen.
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Would you pay 80 cent for a cube of ice?
Richie French, founder of The LXRY ICE Collection, says ice is no longer just frozen water. For premium bars, hotels, restaurants and events, it can be a luxury ingredient: crystal-clear, slow-melting, brandable and highly photographable.

Conall asks whether this is serious business or a cocktail of nonsense. Richie explains the science, the margins, the branded ice stamps, the family business behind Pure Irish Ice, and why a 26-year-old Irish founder is thinking about ice 24/7.
BTW, did you know certain supermarkets IMPORT ice from the UK?? Can you guess which ones?

Richie’s Hire in a Heartbeat: Majken Bech-Bailey and Jordan Bailey, formerly of Aimsir.
Sponsored by De Facto® the world's best all-natural shaving oil - shaving foam cans are sent to landfill. It's the law. De Facto is 100% recyclable. DeFactoShave.com
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