The Entrepreneur Experiment

What does it take to make a plan at 16 - and still be executing on it at 32?

Ashley McDonnell saw a Christian Dior exhibition in London as a teenager and decided she was going to work for Dior. She didn't know French. She'd never lived abroad. She had no connections in luxury. Six years later, she was walking into LVMH headquarters on Avenue Montaigne in Paris.

Now she's back building in Ireland — founding Ireland Fashion Week, launching Vyko (Ireland's first luxury brand group), and building the kind of long game most founders don't have the patience for.

In this episode she pulls back the curtain on how the luxury industry actually works, the psychology behind why people buy luxury, why China is the most important luxury market in the world, and the one piece of advice — focus — that changed everything.

SHOW NOTES

In this episode of The Entrepreneur Experiment, Gary sits down with Ashley McDonnell — founder of Ireland Fashion Week, Vyko Group and the Tech Powered Luxury podcast. Ashley spent over a decade working across LVMH, Christian Dior and Puig, one of Europe's biggest luxury groups, before coming home to build something entirely new.

What you'll learn:

How Ashley reverse-engineered her way from Galway to Christian Dior at 22 — by mapping the exact path the executives above her had taken

Why the luxury industry is built on groups and conglomerates — and what that means for Irish brands trying to scale

The psychology of luxury buying — from unlimited budget shoppers to the strategic Chinese traveller saving 20% per handbag

Why 90% of luxury sales were offline pre-Covid but almost 100% were digitally influenced

What Vyko is — and why Ashley is building Ireland's first startup luxury group from scratch

The one-note iPhone system she uses to track every single day of the year across Paris and Dublin

Why focus (not ideas) was the advice that changed everything

Connect with Ashley:

Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ash.mcdonnell/

Vyko Group: https://www.instagram.com/vykogroup/

Ireland Fashion Week: https://www.instagram.com/irelandfashionweek/

Podcast: Tech Powered Luxury: https://www.instagram.com/techpoweredluxury/

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In this Mentor Moment, Paul Buckley shares the messy, real start of what became a serious founder journey - not from a polished “masterplan,” but from a place of pressure, responsibility, and learning fast. Paul is the entrepreneur behind EPS Group Australia (which he built and exited) and now C2O Group, and he’s a great example of how leadership is often forged in the moments you didn’t choose: when the plan changes, money gets tight, and you still have to figure it out.

The lesson here is about adapting at speed, stepping up before you feel ready, and how momentum is created when you stop waiting for perfect conditions and start operating like the person who can handle bigger responsibility. If you’re building something — or trying to level up how you lead — this one will land.

Listen back to the full conversation in Episode 444 of The Entrepreneur Experiment — and subscribe/follow so you don’t miss next week’s Mentor Moment.

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What if the reason your business isn't scaling is that you're aiming 10% higher when you should be aiming 10x?

Sean Mullaney has been a founder three times, led engineering at Google X's moonshot factory, scaled Zalando from €1bn to €10bn, and is now building Seapoint - the business bank designed from the ground up for founders. In this episode, he unpacks the systems, mindsets, and decisions behind 25 years in tech, and why he believes we're living through the most exciting moment in business history.

You'll learn how to spot a real technology shift vs. a fad, why "thinking in systems" is the single biggest unlock for any founder, how to give and receive the kind of brutal feedback that actually grows people, and why AI is the most optimistic story in tech right now — not the scariest.

Whether you're pre-seed or scaling past your first million, this one's packed with frameworks you can use on Monday morning.

SHOW NOTES:

What you'll learn:

Why aiming for 10x better is often easier than 10% better (the Google X philosophy)

How to tell a genuine technology shift from a passing fad

The "thinking in systems" framework Sean uses to run every part of Seapoint

Why most business banks are built for bankers, not founders — and what Seapoint is doing differently

How to give and receive brutally honest feedback (and why it's the greatest gift you can get)

Sean's contrarian, optimistic take on AI and what it means for founders, workers, and society

Why he'd back a 17-to-20-year-old founder over almost anyone else

Key moments:

Sean's first startup: web-to-SMS restaurant bookings built in a dorm room

Lessons from the dot-com boom and how it mirrors today's AI wave

Inside Google X: how moonshot thinking actually works in practice

Scaling Zalando from €1bn to €10bn — the systems that made it possible

Why Sean started Seapoint and what makes it different from every other business bank

The books, advice, and mindsets that shaped his journey

Recommended book: Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows

Connect with Sean:

Website: https://www.seapoint.co/

LinkedIn: Sean Mullaney (DMs open - make it interesting!): https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanmullaney/

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A reminder that big breaks often come from proactive moves: ask, show up, build relationships, and make it easy for the right people to say yes. Rory also shows what matters after the moment hits - capturing it, repurposing it, and using it to build momentum, not just hype. Listen back to the full episode, Episode 443 - and subscribe/follow so you don’t miss the next episode.

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In this episode of The Entrepreneur Experiment, Gary Fox sits down with Anthony Kelly - entrepreneur, co-founder of Glofox, and co-founder of WellFest - for a wide-ranging conversation on building in the health and wellness space long before it became mainstream. From spotting the early signals in boutique fitness and turning that into a global software company, to building one of Ireland’s best-known wellness festivals over a decade, Anthony shares what it really takes to grow in a category that is evolving in real time.

He opens up about the importance of timing, niche focus, culture, and hiring, how Glofox scaled internationally and navigated the shock of Covid, and what it was like to eventually join forces with ABC Fitness. But this episode goes beyond business too. Anthony reflects on identity, obsessive founder energy, male health, emotional resilience, and why more honest, conversational spaces are needed for people to figure out what actually works for them.

If you’re building a business, navigating growth, or trying to create a life that works beyond just work, this is a thoughtful and deeply valuable episode.

Show notes

In this episode, we cover:

🔥 How Anthony spotted the shift in boutique fitness before the market fully exploded
🚀 The early Glofox story: from agency work to building a SaaS platform for gyms
💡 Why niche focus gave Glofox an edge in a crowded software market
📈 Growing from early traction to global expansion across Ireland, the US and Australia
🌍 What it takes to build enterprise relationships and win major fitness franchise clients
🧠 The hiring lessons Anthony learned the hard way, and what he now looks for in great people
🏗️ Why culture is built by behaviour, not by slogans or slide decks
🦠 How Glofox and WellFest both survived Covid - and what that period revealed about community
🎟️ The decade-long journey of building WellFest into a major wellness brand
👥 Why Anthony believes men need more spaces built around listening, not lecturing
🪞 The identity trap many founders fall into when business becomes everything
⚖️ Redefining success through business, body and brain - and building a life that works as a whole
🔁 A practical reset exercise for anyone trying to change the story they tell themselves

Links and resources

Anthony Kelly LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anthonykelly81

Glofox: glofox.com/lp/gym-management-software-revenue/

WellFest: https://www.wellfest.ie/

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