Around the world and across all businesses, we are living in difficult times. Business leaders are trying to answer a long list of pressing questions. How will our firm secure revenue to keep the lights on? How can we be nimble and reactive to the needs of our customers and clients, while also finding opportunities for growth? And will some of this uncertainty just become our new reality? We asked a few founders for advice.

Monocle 24: The Entrepreneurs

Surviving a crisis

Tom Molnar is CEO and co-founder of Gail’s Bakery, which has more than 50 UK outposts. Tom started it after meeting Gail Mejia, founder of The Bread Factory, a wholesaler serving London’s top chefs. For 2020, Gail’s launched the “Waste-Not” campaign to champion reduction of food waste.

Gail’s Artisan Bakery

Every year more than one billion tonnes of food produced for human consumption is estimated to be wasted. We meet two women leading the fight against such waste: Mette Lykke from Copenhagen-based Too Good To Go and Elsa Bernadotte from Stockholm company Karma.

The business of reducing food waste

JP Mastey is founder of unisex-natural-deodorant brand Corpus. Mastey is the former owner and president of Baxter of California, the premium men’s grooming and skincare brand he bought in the year 2000. He left Baxter not long after it was sold to L’Oréal in 2013 and this venture marks his return to the beauty industry. The conversation tackles the skincare industry, sustainability and growing a covetable brand.

Corpus

Oliver Goffe co-founded the UK-based Marloe Watch Company in 2015 with Scottish designer Gordon Fraser, then a complete stranger. The pair didn’t meet in person until 18 months after they started speaking, and today continue to work remotely on their range of smart mechanical watches.

Eureka 187: Marloe Watch Company

Jonathan Petrides is the CEO of Allplants, a vegan food business that he co-founded with his brother Alex. Since launch in 2017, the company has cooked and shipped more than one million meals across the UK.

Allplants

Phil Cody launched the UK shoe brand Cody & Co in 2019. The company manufactures all its footwear in Sheffield, using traditional methods inspired by Phil’s favourite Italian brands.

eureka-186: Cody & Co

Clemens Böninger is co-founder of The Drug Store, an upscale London-based retailer focused on CBD products with locations in Marylebone and the City. Clemens started in the medical marijuana market, but shifted his focus in response to the demand for CBD-based natural remedies. Just around the corner from our Midori House headquarters you’ll find the first permanent location, a minimalist shop that resembles an art gallery.

The Drug Store

Philip Chan is head of Page Hotels, the Hong Kong-based company that’s just launched a new property in central London. We talk to him about the small details of his hotels and how to create a fresh concept in a crowded market.

Eureka 185: Page Hotels

Maria Hatzistefanis is founder and CEO of Rodial, the skincare brand she launched in 1999 with a small investment. While raising a family and writing two books, Maria has managed the company’s expansion into 35 countries. Maria started as a beauty writer for ‘Seventeen’ magazine in her native Athens before studying business at Columbia in New York. But after a short career in finance, she saw a niche for targeted skincare products and created Rodial.

Rodial

Alexander Walton Masters is the managing director of The Out, an on-demand luxury car-rental company that exists to help Londoners escape the city. The company was born out of Jaguar Land Rover’s venture-capital arm InMotion, which incubates and invests in companies in the mobility space. From delivery to pick-up of its Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles, The Out aims to take away the usual pains of renting.

Eureka 184: The Out

Freddie Blackett is the co-founder and CEO of Patch, the London-based online garden centre launched back in 2015. Patch helps customers find and choose the right plants for their space and then delivers them right to their door. From rookie gardeners to plant enthusiasts and big-name corporate clients, Patch has proved popular in helping Londoners select and care for their plants, while giving them confidence to head out to the local garden centre too.

Patch

Twin brothers Byron and Dexter Peart, founders of fashion and accessories label Want Les Essentiels in 2006, are no strangers to launching a business. In 2019 they established Goodee, an online marketplace that sells sharp-looking, sustainable home goods that are ethically made.

Eureka 183: Goodee

Steve Tidball is the CEO and co-founder of Vollebak, a men’s outerwear label launched with one question: what does the future of clothing look like? Steve and his brother Nick dreamed up the brand while running ultra-marathons in extreme conditions. Today, leaning heavily on science and technology, their team creates pieces from materials most have never thought to use, from titanium to graphene.

Vollebak

Ellie Webb is the founder of Caleño, a non-alcoholic spirit inspired by the flavours and colours of Colombia. Since its launch in January 2019, the Bristol-based brand has sold almost 30,000 bottles of the juniper and inca berry alcohol-free spirit.

Eureka 182: Caleño

Monocle 24’s weekly tour of the most inspiring people, companies and ideas in global business, whether they are starting from scratch, reinvigorating the family firm or developing new technology.

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Monocle 24: The Entrepreneurs

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