That Great Business Show

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.

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
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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Episode 300: Emma Jane Clarke, Martinstown Lodge: Leadership Coaching With Horses, No Saddles, No Cowboys, No Hiding

What happens when a senior executive walks into an arena with a horse and discovers the horse is not impressed by their title, their car, their bonus, their LinkedIn bio or their carefully manufactured air of command?

That is the business Emma Jane Clarke has built at Martinstown Lodge in Co. Meath.
No horse riding. No cowboy tricks. No corporate away-day nonsense with beanbags, beach balls or frostbite. This is equine-centred leadership development, where horses are used to help leaders and teams see how they really show up.

Emma Jane is no flake. Far from it. She was a senior leader in a government agency, managed large teams and multimillion-euro portfolios, and before that was the only female harvesting foreman in the UK forestry sector. Then, after a major accident left her in a wheelchair, she went after the dream: a farm, horses and a business helping people get out of their own way.

On Episode 300 of That Great Business Show with Conall O Morain, Emma Jane explains:
Why horses are brutally honest leadership mirrors
Why senior managers cannot bluff a horse
Why your thoughts are not necessarily reality
Why checking in too much can interrupt the flow of a team
Why confidence, presence and trust matter more than title
Why some CEOs need less PowerPoint and more paddock
Why no one, absolutely no one, gets to play cowboy
She also explains the business model, the client base, the expansion potential, the international ambition and why this strange-sounding idea is already working with serious companies.

And in Hire in a Heartbeat, Emma Jane chooses Steve Bartlett, Jay Shetty and, best of all, her 89-year-old mother Dorothy Clarke, who recently started her own podcast. That is competition. Family competition. The worst kind.

Brought to you, as always, by De Facto Shaving Oil. The world’s best shaving oil. Not a beard oil. DeFactoShave.com
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She Got Into Tesco... Then One Rogue Zero Nearly Blew It Up | Erica Sheehan, Homespun

Real business. Real lessons. Listen to us — or learn the hard way.
Everybody loves a success story.
Few sees the panic behind it.

This week on That Great Business Show, Erica Sheehan returns three years after her first appearance to reveal what really happened behind Homespun's growth.
The headlines look great:
• Tesco listings
• SuperValu success
• Amazon UK sales
• New product launches
• Growing retail footprint

The reality?
• Five years searching for the right manufacturer
• A supplier pulling out after months of development work
• A coconut oil shortage threatening production (Monaghan seems to be a good source of coconut oil!)
• Thousands of online orders arriving overnight after one influencer mention
• A Tesco launch nearly derailed because of a single rogue digit in a barcode

This is entrepreneurship without the Instagram filter.
Erica also reveals how a chance encounter in Avoca led her to the manufacturer who finally cracked the code, why Amazon is far harder to sell on than most people imagine, and the advice she received from the late, great Ray Coyle of Tayto.

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.
HIRE IN A HEARTBEAT
Erica's picks:
• Katie McNally (Craigavon) — content creator who helps bring the Homespun brand to life online.
• Ian Dobbie — veteran food industry advisor and mentor whose experience has helped Erica navigate growth and avoid costly mistakes.
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