Predicting Startup Success | Measuring Team Dynamics with Soma Pirityi

Why Chance Matters More Than Business Strategy: Getting Random with Matt Ballantine

How many of the companies or people you admire got where they are by following a process? And how many took advantage of a lucky break or serendipitous pivot? We almost never think about the influence of chance on business strategy  — the randomness in the path to every success. What if the biggest competitive advantage isn't better planning - it's embracing randomness? Looking for the serendipity in business? Matt Ballantine, sociologist and co-author of 'Random: How to Thrive in an Unpredictable World,' reveals why the business strategy playbooks overlook the chance encounters that actually shape breakthrough growth. Matt has spent thirty years helping organisations try to change. In this conversation, he explains why organisational barriers tend to have deeply entrenched roots, why best practice is almost always survivorship bias in disguise, why the most exciting sports tend to have randomness built into the rules, and why pattern-spotting is both an asset and a blind spot for us humans. Listen to this episode to learn: * Why the laminated notices in a company toilet tell you so much about its values * Why best practice is something you think you can install - and good practice is something you have to arrive at * What German researchers found when they studied the coin toss in penalty shootouts  * Why LLMs give you a different answer every time * The first act of randomness leaders should embrace   Links Order Random the book: https://securityblendbooks.com/products/random [https://securityblendbooks.com/products/random] Connect with Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattballantine/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattballantine/] Related episode: #24 with Neil Mullarkey: https://podcast.curiousbusiness.co.uk/e/neil-mullarkey-improv-your-business/ [https://podcast.curiousbusiness.co.uk/e/neil-mullarkey-improv-your-business/] Related episode: #6 with Dan Klein: https://podcast.curiousbusiness.co.uk/e/dan-klein-gen-ai-curiosity/ [https://podcast.curiousbusiness.co.uk/e/dan-klein-gen-ai-curiosity/]   Chapters 00:54 — Sociologist or technologist? Why the distinction matters 01:56 — Baudrillard, McLuhan and the blurring of reality 04:15 — Why change keeps failing 05:26 — What grows back when you only deal with the surface 07:31 — The toilet test: reading company values in laminated notices 11:46 — Why Matt isn't a fan of best practice 13:08 — How a book about Random-ness came about 14:28 — Cards as a facilitation tool 16:48 — Apophenia: the compulsion to find patterns where none exist 18:34 — Who is the book for? Why is the book for? 19:12 — The format: why it's not really a book 25:03 — How the book can be used 25:56 — The five meanings of "random" 27:56 — Three reasons randomness is useful 28:34 — Facebook, Friends Reunited and survivorship bias in tech 30:06 — Businesses ofter don't like uncertainty — but they should 31:48 — The ovoid spheroid and randomness in sport 33:39 — Does randomness fly in the face of AI? 35:54 — The Watford employment agency: October 1993 38:15 — The first act of randomness every leader should embrace    -- Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their marketing and pipeline. Like to know more? Book a discovery call: https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/ [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/] Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter: https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/ [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/] If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visit: www.curiousbusiness.co.uk [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk].

The Price is Wrong: Redesigning B2B SaaS Pricing Strategy with Roee Hartuv

Most B2B software companies are leaving serious money on the table — not because the product isn't good enough, not because the sales team needs more training. It's the pricing strategy. It's not the number you choose, it's everything that comes before it. Roee Hartuv is the founder of Willingness to Pay, a consultancy that helps B2B SaaS companies redesign product pricing and packaging from first principles. His philosophy is simple: stop pricing the product, start pricing the customer. B2B SaaS pricing strategy is the silent revenue multiplier most founders ignore. Discover how value-based pricing and packaging can transform your go-to-market strategy.   In this conversation, we get into: * Why the actual price you charge is probably the least important pricing decision you'll make * How the shift from SaaS to AI is destroying gross margins in ways most businesses aren't tracking * What 'operational debt' looks like and why bad pricing makes it harder to manage renewals * Why value selling as a sales methodology needs the right packaging to support it * What the shift from seat-based to usage-based pricing means for finance, investors and customers * Who's most likely to be getting pricing wrong Whether you're setting prices for the first time or running a mature product business that hasn't revisited its model in years, this episode will make you think differently.   Connect with Roee: On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roeehartuv/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/roeehartuv/] Willingness to Pay YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SaaSPricing/videos [https://www.youtube.com/@SaaSPricing/videos]   Chapters: * 00:58 — What is Willingness to Pay, and why does the name matter? * 03:12 — When should a company start thinking seriously about pricing? * 03:58 — Is changing your pricing as risky as it feels? * 09:43 — What triggers companies to seek help with pricing? * 14:20 — Is there a "right" price — or is pricing always a moving target? * 18:14 — How AI is collapsing gross margins in real time * 20:32 — The pricing stack: packaging → metric → structure → number * 24:36 — Why value selling doesn't work without the right packaging * 28:27 — 5x revenue in 18 months: what actually changed? * 31:29 — The most counterintuitive thing about B2B pricing * 37:01 — The one thing to do if you're moving into AI   -- Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their marketing and pipeline. Like to know more? Book a discovery call: https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/ [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/] Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter: https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/ [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/] If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visit: www.curiousbusiness.co.uk [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk].

Predicting Startup Success | Measuring Team Dynamics with Soma Pirityi

We Invest In People is the oldest principle in venture capital. It's also, Soma Pirityi argues, the industry's longest-running paradox. 65% of startups fail due to team-related issues, not because they can't sell or find product market fit. So why can't we better measure, predict and guide startup teams to success?  Soma is the founder of ETA Technologies, the Cambridge-based company that's on a mission to measure, model and inform team dynamics. They've analysed over 10,000 startup teams and built mathematical models to spot the patterns of success - and failure - and realised that the team is the soul of the company. In this episode, we get into the data behind startup failure, the sometimes counterintuitive dimensions of what makes a great founding team, and why the single most predictive factor in startup survival is something most founders have never heard of. Listen to find out: * Why VCs are beaten by a stock-picking algorithm when it comes to early-stage investing * What the team slide in a pitch deck actually tells investors * Why too much resilience can kill a company as surely as too little * What is the single most predictive factor in founding team survival * The one story that proves why ignoring a data model can cost you everything Chapters: * 0:00:54 — The founding paradox: investing in people you cannot measure * 0:04:07 — From VC to founder: what crossing the table teaches you * 0:05:59 — The negotiation nobody teaches founders * 0:09:17 — Building ETA and why Cambridge beat Silicon Valley * 0:12:35 — 65%: the startup killer nobody talks about * 0:16:00 — The lone genius myth and the teams behind the icons * 0:19:45 — Survivorship bias: why ETA studies failure, not success * 0:26:29 — The Big 20: what ETA actually measures * 0:32:37 — Synergistic support: the most predictive factor nobody has heard of * 0:35:50 — Jim Simons: the mathematician who changed finance * 0:41:12 — The death of the pitch deck * 0:44:50 — The Frankenstein moment: testing their own team Links: * ETA Technologies: https://eta-technologies.com/ [https://eta-technologies.com/] * Connect with Soma on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/soma-benedek-pirityi/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/soma-benedek-pirityi/] Book recommendations: * Peter Thiel with Blake Masters 'Zero to One'  https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9780753555200 [https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9780753555200] (affiliate links) * Gregory Zuckerman 'The Man Who Solved the Market' (Biography of Jim Simons and Renaissance Technologies) https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9780241309735 [https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9780241309735] * Ashlee Vance 'Elon Musk' https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9780753555644 [https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9780753555644]   -- Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their marketing and pipeline. Like to know more? Book a discovery call: https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/ [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/] Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter: https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/ [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/] If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visit: www.curiousbusiness.co.uk [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk].

Thinking On Your Feet: Improv Skills for Business Growth with Neil Mullarkey

You couldn't make it up. But Neil Mullarkey does. He co-founded the World Famous Comedy Store Players with Mike Myers, appeared in the Austin Powers films, and has spent 40 years making things up in front of live audiences. For the last 27 years, he's been sharing those skills in boardrooms, with teams, and even with cybersecurity experts. In this episode, discover why thinking on your feet isn't a party trick - it's a critical business strategy for leaders managing complex teams and uncertain moments. His book In the Moment makes the case that the ability to listen, adapt, and build on what you're given isn't just good stagecraft. It's the most urgently needed skill in business. What's more, it's one that many teams and organisations struggle with. He argues, with warmth and hard‑won experience, that the same instincts that keep an improvised scene alive - listening, accepting an offer, and building on what’s been given - are the skills businesses desperately need to foster. In this conversation, I learn about Neil's journey into improv and we get into mistakes, blame, trust, failure, permission, laughter, silos, scripts, chaos, a soda syphon, and the surprising thing a room full of cardiologists taught Neil about improvising at the sharp end. Listen to find out: * Why laughter matters and 'mistakes' are rich creative material * Why the optimal team size is six, and what that has to do with improv * What a cybersecurity crisis has in common with a night at the Comedy Store * What cardiologists told Neil that changed his mind about improv in business * Why AI is making this deeply human skill more valuable, not less   Links: Neil's book 'In the Moment': https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9781398610767 [https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9781398610767] More about Neil and ImprovYourBusiness: https://neilmullarkey.com/ [https://neilmullarkey.com/] Connect with Neil on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilmullarkey/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilmullarkey/] A rare appearance by Neil with the Comedy Store Players on Sunday May 10th:  https://www.comedystoreplayers.com/events/comedy-store-10052026 [https://www.comedystoreplayers.com/events/comedy-store-10052026]   Chapters: 0:01:44 - More than a jolly: when to use improv and when not to 0:05:28 - How do you make it stick? 0:08:09 - Hackathons and the improv vs. structure tension 0:12:20 - The meetings chapter: tell, decide or implement? 0:13:21 - Permission, leaders and curating questions 0:15:08 - Origin story: from soda siphon to Comedy Store Players 0:19:32 - Confidence, failure and the improv stage 0:22:07 - Do you rehearse improvisation? 0:30:11 - What business pain does improv training address? 0:33:42 - Improv and cybersecurity crisis management 0:36:23 - The show must go on: mistakes, blame and Miles Davis 0:39:21 - Two pizza teams and the optimal team size 0:46:22 - Has anything changed in 27 years? AI and the human element 0:48:55 - Silos, shadowing and equifinality 0:53:05 - Improv or Best Practice? The cardiologists story   -- Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their marketing and pipeline. Like to know more? Book a discovery call: https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/ [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/] Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter: https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/ [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/] If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visit: www.curiousbusiness.co.uk [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk].

The Podcast Industry Expert Without A Podcast | with Chris Stone

Chris Stone has spent 13 years in the podcast industry, creating audio and video content for major UK publishers like The Telegraph, Evening Standard and New Statesman. He also writes the Podcast Strategy Weekly newsletter. But there's a twist: he doesn't have a podcast of his own. Why? Instead, he's launching Podcast Crew - a vetted marketplace solving a huge B2B gap in podcast production hiring. In this conversation, we explore why he chose to build infrastructure over personal brand, how podcasting fits into an overall content strategy, and how B2B leaders can apply this thinking to their own growth. Chris also challenges some of the most common assumptions podcasters hold: that social clips drive listeners, that video is for younger audiences, and that everyone who wants to grow their business should start a show. He also has a lot to say about where podcasting is heading - and why AI and podcasts are good news for live, in-person events. Listen to this episode to find out: * Why someone who has spent 13 years making podcasts for a living - and now advising other podcasters - doesn't have one himself * The question Chris asks every podcaster he meets, and why they often can't answer it * What social clips from your podcast are actually for * Why AI and podcasts are good for another, more conventional, medium * The dark web podcast Chris thinks everyone should hear * Why podcasts might be the most powerful community-building tool available right now Chapters: 03:10 – The Telegraph, Prince Harry, and Bryony Gordon's Mad World 04:45 – Building the New Statesman's podcast from a cupboard to 200k YouTube subscribers 07:47 – The three skills that make podcasting work 09:46 – Going off-the-cuff at the Labour Party conference 12:08 – Why Chris started writing Podcast Strategy Weekly 16:06 – Why a podcast producer deliberately doesn't have a podcast 20:04 – How B2B podcasts build trust (and why that matters more than reach) 21:30 – The case for video in podcasting 24:37 – What social clips are actually for (it's not what you think) 29:56 – Why hiring in podcasting is broken 32:11 – Building on Airtable and Softr with a developer from Upwork 34:18 – The podcast everyone should hear 38:05 – Three big opportunities in podcasting right now   Links: * Podcast Strategy Weekly: https://podcaststrategy.substack.com/ [https://podcaststrategy.substack.com/] * Podcast Crew: https://www.podcastcrew.co.uk/ [https://www.podcastcrew.co.uk/] * Connect with Chris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisstonetv/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisstonetv/] * Kill List podcast: search on any podcast app: https://wondery.com/shows/kill-list/ [https://wondery.com/shows/kill-list/]   -- Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. My name is Stephen Morris and I help start-ups and scale-ups get momentum in their marketing and pipeline. Like to know more? Book a discovery call: https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/ [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/] Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter: https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/ [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/] If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visit: www.curiousbusiness.co.uk [https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk].