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/

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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

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

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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

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/

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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