$40M/Tech Founder Reveals the Smart Way to Run & Grow Your Company With AI in 2026 | E369

E370 | James Ashford, 8-Figure Founder: The Person You’re Protecting Is Destroying Your Business

In this episode, James shares his challenging beliefs about sales (selling is service, not commission-driven), hiring (fire high performers who are dickheads), business problems (everything is connected—you might think you have a sales problem when it's really a marketing problem), and alignment (you've got to be aligned with your significant other first, or you can't build the life you want). He also reveals his journey from being an "accidental diminisher" of his team to understanding that his need for significance was making him the bottleneck, uses his grandmother's fruitcake recipe as a metaphor for why business owners don't delegate, explains the difference between paying for performance (waiters and tips—doesn't work) vs paying good salary (the restaurant owner who tips upfront gets great service), and shares why Mark Garwood's 10-year journey to a £5M contract that doubled to £10M annually proves that sales without commission works. What you'll learn: 💼 Selling is in the service of others (be willing to say "don't buy from us") 💰 Don't pay sales commission (85% of salespeople don't hit quota anyway—data shows it doesn't work) 🔥 Sack the dickheads, even high performers (they'll poison your culture regardless of numbers) 📊 Everything in business is connected (sales problem might be a marketing or business development problem) 🧠 The accidental diminisher (you're scoring highly on all six ways to diminish your team) 👵 Your grandmother's fruitcake (why business owners won't delegate—need for significance) 🎯 Set the standards, inspect what you expect (granular playbooks + inspection processes) 📞 Mark Garwood's 10-year deal (best salesman he knows, took decade to land £5M contract, doubled to £10M in 2 years) Book recommendations: Multipliers (Accidental Diminishers) - Liz Wiseman - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Multipliers-Best-Leaders-People-Think/dp/0061766879 The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alchemist-Paulo-Coelho/dp/0062390007 The Four Agreements - Miguel Ruiz - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Four-Agreements-Practical-Guide-Personal-Freedom/dp/1878424319 James Ashford is an entrepreneur, consultant, and speaker who failed many times before building a software business that ran without him and sold to Sage for an eight-figure exit within five years of starting. His "Go Proposal" software was designed to solve a specific problem he saw in sales: the proposal sitting in the client's inbox, disappearing, never being reviewed. He built it so proposals could be created, accepted, and paid for during the meeting itself. That business took him through a rigorous exit process and gave him the clarity he needed to step back from being the constant rescuer and bottleneck in his own business. Now he works with business owners and consults on the psychological and operational foundations of sustainable businesses. He's most known for his contrarian beliefs about commission, culture, and what actually drives business growth—which is rarely what people think. Business leaders need the greatest awareness of themselves. Your belief system shapes everything. The psychology underneath is what actually drives business success, not the tactics or strategies. Connect with James Ashford - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesashford/ -------- Sign up to receive our weekly Scale to Win newsletter: https://subscribe.monkhouseandcompany.com Follow Dominic on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:14 James Ashford introduces his entrepreneurial journey 02:38 Importance of firing disruptive high performers 04:11 Alignment with significant other crucial for peace 07:54 Balancing love for business with family expectations 10:58 Cultural norms and their influence on business 13:45 Overcoming limiting beliefs in scaling a business 19:10 Questioning the effectiveness of sales commissions 21:09 Rethinking sales strategies and customer trust 25:18 Avoiding accidental diminishment of the team 32:28 Importance of radical truthfulness in high-performance teams 37:45 Building trust through honesty and psychological safety 41:51 Handling resistance to change and truthfulness in business 44:28 Recommendations on business books and personal development

$40M/Tech Founder Reveals the Smart Way to Run & Grow Your Company With AI in 2026 | E369

In this episode, Nikola reveals his contrarian belief that AI can be better than humans at customer service (not instead of humans, they'll do very different work), why he spent two hours on the phone with Vodafone when he got their confirmation email with someone else's name on it (and why that's not really about AI or humans), why they built a "token leaderboard" internally to track which AI tools they're using most, why junior developers will definitely beat senior ones at learning these tools (plasticity just goes down as you age), how AI gives him superpowers as a CEO (a chief of staff reminding him he promised something 4 days ago), and why their business model is "Rolls Royce for large enterprises, BMW for everyone else." He also shares his journey from a Serbian family to the University of Cambridge, how his PhD supervisor convinced him not to do a PowerPoint job at McKinsey, and why he ended up founding a voice AI company instead of working in finance (he wanted to be "a proper monkey" as well as a PowerPoint monkey, in his words). What you'll learn: 🤖 AI can be substantially better at customer service (humans already lost their role long ago in most companies) 📞 The Vodafone example: edge cases, six different humans bouncing you around, why most companies lack taxonomy of failures 💼 Rolls Royce + BMW model (premium high-touch implementation + self-serve platform for SMBs) 🧠 Plasticity matters: junior devs will beat senior ones at learning AI tools (nature's law—ability to learn new things decreases with age) ⚡ AI superpowers for CEOs (chief of staff reminding you of commitments, transcription of meetings, Slack tracking) 🎯 Why Google can't compete (they care about ads and compute use, not customer service—you go down their priority list) 📊 "Token leaderboard" to track which AI tools you're using most 🏢 From consulting motion + tech to becoming a platform business About the Guest: Nikola Mrkšić is CEO and co-founder of Poly AI, a Series D company building voice AI agents for enterprise customer service. The company is a spin-out from the University of Cambridge where Nikola met his co-founders and the whole senior research team. They'd all worked on building really good voice agents for their professional and academic lives. The business started with an idea to prove voice technology can be a good thing in people's lives, not just "that pesky thing that gets you to not speak to a human when you really want to speak to a human." Connect with Nikola Mrkšić - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikola-mrksic/ -------- Sign up to receive our weekly Scale To Win newsletter: https://subscribe.monkhouseandcompany.com Follow Dominic on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 01:17 Series D company background and voice technology focus 02:33 AI surpassing human customer service capabilities 05:18 Personal story of frustration with customer service 08:07 Successful AI implementations in hospitality and finance 10:58 AI handling sensitive customer service cases 13:16 Broad societal changes due to AI integration 15:00 Impact of AI on workplace efficiency and team dynamics 19:30 Young people naturally adapting to AI tools 23:30 Discussion on younger generations and AI fluency 24:46 AI improving individual weaknesses in the workplace 29:10 Transition of Poly.ai to a more platform-based model 33:01 Challenges of scaling B2B SaaS in different markets 36:01 Immigrant perspective in building successful companies 40:08 Nikola's educational journey and serendipitous career path 48:21 Competitive position against major tech companies

Here's Why Your Agency Will Never Scale (The Real Problem) | E368

Setting up a business is a major life decision that should not be taken lightly—it is incredibly painful. The ups definitely outweigh the downs, but the downs can be dark. Having a co-founder makes all the difference. Matthew Duhig, CEO and co-founder of FX Digital, started the business at university with his co-founder Tom, to build a website for his sister's bridal shop for free. Fifteen years later, they've grown from £1.5M to approaching £10M revenue, from 20 people to nearly 80, and they've built connected TV applications for major media and sports companies. Along the way, they had one major near-death experience when a single client became 80% of revenue, then in-housed the work down to 60%—leaving Matt and Tom with no personal wealth or assets, living together, staring at the barrel. But they believed in their proposition, backed themselves against the wall, and won 4 of 5-6 bids they needed to win, which launched them into major tech company work and one of their best years ever. In this episode, Matt reveals his four contrarian beliefs about building businesses: (1) Running a business is incredibly painful and decision should not be taken lightly; (2) Vision comes from consumption (reading, listening, watching—not plucking it from air); (3) Don't make promises you can't control (resentment is harder to overcome than anything else in teams); (4) The job of an entrepreneur is to reduce risk (not take risks). He shares why he's an absolute delegator (sometimes great, sometimes backfires), how he managed to get off the tools when billing five days a week, why he stays in touch with 5-10 people at any given time who might be future hires, and how Barcelona became their second office (Jack the QA lead asked if he could relocate and Matt asked him to set up an office instead). What you'll learn: 💼 Why having a co-founder is massive (not dark and lonely on your own) 🚨 What near-death looks like (80% revenue from one client, they in-house the work at 60%) 📚 Vision comes from consumption (read, listen, watch—a year of immersion in industry) 🤝 Don't make promises you can't control (resentment is the hardest thing to overcome) ⚙️ The job of an entrepreneur is to reduce risk (not take them) 🎯 Delegation as core skill (sometimes great, sometimes backfires, but necessary) 📞 Keep a pipeline of 5-10 potential hires always (chat with them, stay in touch) 🌍 Barcelona expansion lesson (talent + cost benefits + less competition than London) Book recommendations: The Intelligent Entrepreneur - Bill Murphy Jr. - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intelligent-Entrepreneur-Bill-Murphy-Jr/dp/0805094296 Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits - Greg Crabtree - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Simple-Numbers-Straight-Talk-Profits/dp/1600374514 Simple Numbers 2 - Greg Crabtree - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Simple-Numbers-Straight-Talk-Profits/dp/1600374514 About the Guest: Matthew Duhig is CEO and co-founder of FX Digital, a business that builds connected TV applications for media and sports companies. He started the business with co-founder Tom at university when Matthew was 20 years old—Tom was away due to a bike accident in London ("Tom get well soon"), so they're running it together remotely. They grew from £1.5M revenue (7 years ago) to approaching £10M now, with headcount from 20 to nearly 80. The business evolved from web design work for his sister's bridal shop (free work) to building websites for a few years, then in 2015 they stumbled across connected TV—creating applications for TV like you create mobile applications, then launching them onto streaming platforms. That niche and doubling down on it propelled their growth. Connect with Matthew Duhig / FX Digital - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/matthewduhig -------- Sign up to receive our weekly Curious Leadership newsletter: https://subscribe.monkhouseandcompany.com Follow Dominic on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 01:03 Starting FX Digital and early challenges 07:15 Surviving a critical business downturn 12:59 Personal sacrifices and work-life balance 17:10 Stepping back to foster leadership growth 22:25 Delegation and leadership management strategies 28:34 Benefits of hiring fractional leaders 32:48 Building and automating key business systems 35:03 Establishing a Barcelona office for expansion 37:30 Talent acquisition benefits in Barcelona 39:42 Influential books and educational resources 41:28 Sources of ongoing inspiration and learning

From Broke at 48 to Yo! Sushi Founder, Here's What I Learned | E367

We will soon trust AI more than people with their own agendas. In 50 years, we'll realise 50%+ tax was madness when 20% could have worked. Digital voting will let people vote on issues, not political parties, and we'll have an executive of 40 people (like Singapore) instead of 1,000 MPs arguing endlessly. And Brexit will be remembered as the best thing that happened—because this entrepreneurial little island will reinvent how to govern, and the rest of the world will copy us as they've done throughout history. Simon Woodroffe, founder of Yo! Sushi and YoTel, original Dragon on Dragons' Den, performer at Edinburgh Festival, recording artist with the Blockheads, and now published author of "Yo Man," has built businesses across multiple industries starting at age 45—and he's got radical ideas about politics, taxation, and why megalomaniac control at the beginning is the right way to start any business. In this episode from Thailand (where Simon now lives with his Thai wife after being brought up in old Singapore), he reveals how he started YoSushi after a Japanese TV producer said "conveyor belt sushi bar with girls in black PVC miniskirts," flew to Japan when it was expensive and difficult (Japan was the last great mystery of the East 30 years ago), found 2,500 conveyor belt sushi bars nobody in the UK knew about, and opened Poland Street with everything he had in the world—only to have nobody come for the first two weeks. Then the second Saturday, there was a 100-yard queue down the block because they'd done something so completely different. He shares why he was nicknamed "the steamroller," why megalomaniac control is perfect at the beginning but you must let go after three years, how he hired Robin Rowland who closed all the Yo Below bars much to Simon's chagrin (but was absolutely right), and why he's earned roughly 1% of YoTel turnover every quarter for years—which has funded everything since and probably saved him from going broke. Book recommendations: How to Get Rich - Felix Dennis - https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Get-Rich-Felix-Dennis/dp/0091927447 Yo Man - Simon Woodroffe - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yo-Man-Simon-Woodroffe/dp/1398616761 About the Guest: Simon Woodroffe is the founder of YoSushi (celebrating 30 years in January) and YoTel (now over 30 hotels worldwide, much bigger business than YoSushi), original Dragon on Dragons' Den (series 1-3), performer at Edinburgh Festival where he did a one-man show, recording artist with the Blockheads, and published author of "Yo Man" (his second book—the first was his autobiography). He's done a few things. He's 77 years old, was brought up in old Singapore, has lived all over the world, and now lives in Thailand with his Thai wife. His home base is Thailand because it's the best place he's found after searching everywhere. Simon started YoSushi at age 45 after a long, hard life that hasn't always been good. He's now a licensor of both YoSushi and YoTel, broadcasting on social media, and trying to give something back to the world to improve it—whether politically or directly helping one person at a time. He always said that when he was knocking on other people's doors, if he was ever the one whose door was knocked on (which is the situation he finds himself in now), he would always try to respond to everybody. And he does. Connect with Simon Woodroffe - https://www.linkedin.com/in/yosimonwoodroffe/ -------- Sign up to receive our weekly Curious Leadership newsletter: https://subscribe.monkhouseandcompany.com Follow Dominic on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 01:01 Introduction to Simon Woodroffe's journey and achievements 02:37 Simon on world improvements and his life in Thailand 03:47 Predictions on digital voting and government change 06:37 A small executive model for better governance 10:00 Reducing taxes by changing government spending 12:00 Trusting AI over human biases for balanced insights 14:06 Launch of Simon's book, Yo Man, and the ATM story 16:57 Bringing conveyor belt sushi to London 20:05 Transition from steamroller to delegator in business 21:36 Successful expansion under Robin Rowland's leadership 24:10 Involvement in Yotel and its global success 28:59 Importance of theatre and 'ziz' in business branding 30:07 Letting go of control for business growth 31:28 Transition to TV and participation in Dragon's Den 35:14 Enjoying Dragon's Den and investments made 38:08 Overcoming challenges during Yo Sushi's opening weeks 42:29 Creative 'yo' brand extensions and their impacts 45:01 Making tough business decisions swiftly and confidently

Former Hostage Negotiator Reveals Business Secrets & Negotiation Tactics | E366

Conflict is not a dirty word. You don't need a trigger warning; you need to know the trigger better. Don't rush to solve the problem. And when you're negotiating, remember it's not about you. Scott Walker is a kidnap-for-ransom and extortion negotiator who's spent 20 years with a ringside seat into what makes human beings think, feel, and act—particularly in times of stress, overwhelm, challenge, and conflict. Over 300 cases across every major continent, and touch wood, every single person came back. That's a 100% success rate in an industry where the average is 93% (better than the All Blacks' win rate), and all those lessons apply directly to everyday business and life. In this episode, Scott reveals why 80% of his time on a kidnapping case was spent dealing with the crisis within the crisis (internal politics, egos, competing demands, silo thinking—not the kidnappers), why the conflict call with bad guys is essential (managing expectations when they want £10M but you're offering £250K), and the immediate action drill he learned after threatening grieving parents in his first case. He shares why most leaders spend their time dealing with internal politics rather than customers, why feeling seen-heard-understood is the only thing people want in a negotiation, and why resilience isn't something you hashtag on a mug—it only comes from doing hard things and being uncomfortable. Plus: how he went from Scotland Yard detective inspector avoiding paper cuts to three live kidnaps in his first week in the private sector, and why the All Blacks' motto "don't be a dick" is actually brilliant negotiation advice. What you'll learn: ⚔️ Why conflict is essential (embrace difficult conversations without being belligerent) 🎯 The empathy loop: demonstrate understanding first, it's not about you ⏸️ The immediate action drill: interrupt pattern, ride the 90-second cortisol wave, ask better questions 🧠 Why you don't need trigger warnings (develop skills to handle anything, don't control others) 🚫 Why rushing to solve problems is dangerous (buy time, find the real issue) 👂 How to listen at level five (not for gist or to argue, but for what's really being said) 💡 Why 60% of sales don't close (people think it's too risky for them personally, not the company) 📊 The crisis within the crisis (80% of time spent on internal politics, not the bad guys) Book recommendations: Legacy - James Kerr - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Legacy-All-Blacks-James-Kerr/dp/1472103536 Awaken the Giant Within - Tony Robbins - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Awaken-Giant-Within-Immediate-Emotional/dp/0671791540 How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie - https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0091906814 About the Guest: Scott Walker is a kidnap-for-ransom and extortion negotiator who's spent the best part of 20 years having a ringside seat into what makes human beings think, feel, and act—particularly in times of stress, overwhelm, challenge, and conflict. Over 300-plus cases (including piracy and extortion) across every major continent, and touch wood, every single person came back. That's a 100% personal success rate in an industry where the global average over 50 years is 93%—better than the All Blacks' win rate at roughly 90%, and vastly better than most salespeople's 30% close rate. Connect with Scott Walker - https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottaw/ -------- Sign up to receive our weekly Curious Leadership newsletter: https://subscribe.monkhouseandcompany.com Follow Dominic on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse Chapters: 00:00 Introduction to negotiation and life skills 03:09 Personal anecdotes about family and negotiation 14:08 Aligning with clients to uncover real issues 21:11 Developing resilience and managing emotions 25:37 Techniques for emotional control and effective questioning 29:12 Journey from the police to a negotiation career 36:54 Handling difficult workplace conversations 40:25 Book recommendations and learning influence skills 44:44 Final thoughts and closing remarks