The Entrepreneur Experiment

In this Mentor Moment, Timo Boldt, founder of Gousto, shares a counterintuitive lesson for founders: sometimes your biggest competitive advantage is the thing everyone else is trying to avoid.

Timo explains why building Gousto meant embracing complexity at every level — from AI and supply chains to logistics, manufacturing, and customer experience. He reflects on the reality of scaling a capital-intensive business, raising hundreds of millions of pounds, and why founders need to be great at far more than one thing if they want to build something truly exceptional.

If you're building a business and wondering whether the hard path is worth it, this conversation is a powerful reminder that complexity, when managed well, can become your moat.

Listen back to the full conversation in Episode 429 of The Entrepreneur Experiment — and subscribe/follow so you don't miss the next Mentor Moment.

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In this episode of The Entrepreneur Experiment, Gary Fox sits down with Sean Noble, one of Ireland’s fastest-rising HYROX athletes, currently ranked among the top competitors in the world.

A qualified solicitor who walked away from the traditional career path to go all-in as a full-time athlete, Sean’s story is one of grief, obsession, discipline and reinvention. After a devastating knee injury ended his football ambitions, he spiralled into drinking, weight gain and depression — before discovering fitness as a way back.

What began as a means of escape became a new identity. From his first HYROX event in 2023 to winning major races, signing with MyProtein and Puma, and competing on the Elite 15 stage, Sean reveals the mindset, training structure and personal pain that have driven his rapid rise.

This is a conversation about going all-in, rebuilding yourself from rock bottom, and what it really takes to compete at the very edge of human performance.

The conversation took place at Wellfest, Dublin, as part of the new WellMan Stage.

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🎧 Show Notes

In this episode, we cover:

🔥 How a career-ending football injury changed Sean’s life
🧠 The mental toll of losing sport at 22
💔 How grief after his father’s death became part of his driving force
🏋️‍♂️ Why fitness became his “medicine”
🚀 Going from his first HYROX event in 2023 to the Elite 15
⚖️ The decision to leave law behind and become a full-time athlete
📈 Why HYROX is one of the fastest-growing sports in the world
🧪 The science of lactate threshold, smart training and avoiding burnout
🥇 What it takes to train 28 hours per week at an elite level
🇮🇪 The pride of representing Ireland on the world stage

💬 Standout Quote

“Fitness for me was my medicine. That was my why.” — Sean

In this Mentor Moment, Bobby Kerr - former Dragon and former CEO of Insomnia Coffee - shares the strategic lessons that helped scale Insomnia from a small coffee business into a recognised national brand.

Bobby breaks down why underfunding was one of his biggest early mistakes, how letting go of ego helped him choose the right brand name and structure, and why partnerships with companies like Spar, Easons, Penneys, and Meadows & Byrne became key routes to growth.

This is a practical lesson in playing the long game, building multiple revenue streams, and making the kind of strategic decisions that give a business more ways to survive and scale.

Listen back to the full conversation in Episode 439 of The Entrepreneur Experiment - and subscribe/follow so you don’t miss the next Mentor Moment.

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In this episode of The Entrepreneur Experiment, Gary Fox sits down with Conor Moules, founder and CEO of Barespace, the company building a true operating system for hair and beauty salons.

Conor’s journey is anything but traditional. He left school at 16 to become a hairdresser, moved to Australia during the recession, found his way into door-to-door sales, then business intelligence, location intelligence, and eventually the Irish startup world through Bamboo. After helping turn Bamboo around during Covid, Conor used that hard-earned reputation to unlock the next chapter: Barespace.

What started as a deep understanding of salon life has become a fast-growing software company solving one of the industry’s biggest problems: salon owners are expected to be creative experts, managers, marketers, employers, finance teams and operators - all while still working on the floor. Barespace was built to change that.

In this conversation, Conor shares how he and co-founder Glenn Baker profiled 173 salons, raised €750,000 from the very customers they wanted to serve, and went on to raise almost €4.9 million in total. This is a story about resilience, customer obsession, reputation, and what happens when you build with the industry, not just for it.

Show Notes

In this episode, we cover:

🔥 Why Conor left school at 16 and started out as a hairdresser in Peter Mark
💬 The unexpected lessons hairdressing taught him about listening, trust and human connection
🇦🇺 Moving to Australia during the recession and finding his feet in door-to-door sales
📊 How business intelligence and location data opened his eyes to the power of systems
🚀 The chance meeting with Luke Mackey that brought Conor into Bamboo
🧱 Why rebuilding Bamboo during Covid became the proving ground for Barespace
💡 The problem Conor and Glenn saw inside hair and beauty salons
✂️ Why salon owners are often expected to run the business and be the best person on the floor
🧾 How marketplaces can damage salon margins and weaken customer ownership
🔍 Why they profiled 173 salons before building the product
💰 How Barespace raised €750,000 from salon owners when traditional fundraising wasn’t working
📈 Processing €4.7 million in turnover in year one and growing from there
🧠 Why Conor believes founders need to ask for help earlier
🌙 The role of visualisation, daydreaming and belief in building a company
🔑 Why reputation, patience and obsession can become a founder’s greatest assets

Pull Quote

“The mission was never to get rich out of Bamboo. It was to unlock the gates to be able to walk in with Barespace.” - Conor Moules

Links & Resources

Barespace — the operating system for salons and barbers: barespace.io (https://barespace.io/)

Enterprise Ireland — mentioned as part of the Barespace funding journey: enterprise-ireland.com (https://www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/)

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In this Mentor Moment, award-winning journalist and entrepreneur Áine Kerr shares one of the most powerful career lessons you can hear early in life: it doesn’t have to be this or that. From teaching to journalism, startups to global tech platforms, Áine reflects on what she calls a “squiggly career” - and how the threadline only becomes clear when you look back.

This conversation is a reminder that curiosity, purpose, and following what genuinely energises you can often lead to a far more meaningful path than trying to force a perfectly linear plan. It’s especially powerful for anyone feeling pressure to “have it all figured out.”

Listen back to the full conversation in Episode 438 of The Entrepreneur Experiment - and subscribe/follow so you don’t miss the next Mentor Moment.

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