AJ is a serial entrepreneur and passionate student of startups.
After a decade of spending countless hours and money building companies, most of which failed, he went back to basics and surrounded himself with entrepreneurs decades further ahead of him.
He ran a deeply connected community of 400 entrepreneurs in the UK and realised how little he knew about the art and science of company building.
At this intersection of relationships and company building is where AJ has found the key to success.
If we don't understand people, we don't understand business.
But people are hard to understand....
Which is why this show exists!
scale with soul is a deep dive intro how the best entrepreneurs alive build and manage the relationships that lead to startup success.
AJ is a serial entrepreneur and passionate student of startups.
After a decade of spending countless hours and money building companies, most of which failed, he went back to basics and surrounded himself with entrepreneurs decades further ahead of him.
He ran a deeply connected community of 400 entrepreneurs in the UK and realised how little he knew about the art and science of company building.
At this intersection of relationships and company building is where AJ has found the key to success.
If we don't understand people, we don't understand business.
But people are hard to understand....
Which is why this show exists!
scale with soul is a deep dive intro how the best entrepreneurs alive build and manage the relationships that lead to startup success.
Most founders don't realise they're killing their brand until it's too late. The very growth they're chasing becomes the poison that destroys what made customers fall in love with them in the first place. Bryony Simpson has spent 20 years watching brilliant startups scale themselves into irrelevance—and she knows exactly why it happens. 🧠 Critical Founder Insights What You'll Learn:
▪️ Why 90% of scaling brands lose the human connection that built them
▪️ The four relationship principles every resilient brand must master
▪️ How to spot the early warning signs before your customers start leaving
▪️ Why personalised marketing often feels like spam (and what works instead)
▪️ The simple feedback loops that keep you connected as you grow
▪️ How tech and data can deepen relationships instead of destroying them
📖 Chapters 00:00 - Intro
01:21 - Human Connection Built Civilisation
04:15 - What's Actually Broken About Branding
09:12 - The Four Principles of Relationship Building
16:22 - Building Trust: Don't Break Promises
20:00 - Short-Term vs Long-Term Brand Thinking
23:04 - Knowing Yourself: The Brand Foundation
28:38 - Getting to Know Your Customer
37:48 - How Growth Destroys Customer Connection
48:05 - Becoming Human-Centred
52:13 - The Human-Centred Mindset in Practice
59:35 - How Data Can Build (Not Break) Relationships
1:06:36 - Growing Together: Evolution, Not Revolution
1:18:26 - The Solo Founder Challenge
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