He built a 1,000-person festival in 7 months with no audience

Andy Coleman has spent the last 21 years starting things, breaking things and fixing them, on rinse and repeat. He became the youngest landlord in the Greene King estate in his early twenties, went on to build and run pubs, bars, a roofing business, a women's clothing chain, an events company and a content creation agency, and most recently launched BizzFest, a festival-style business event that went from an idea on a retreat to 1,000 people, three stages and 40 speakers in a field within seven months.

Andy Coleman joins hosts Jack Frimston to talk about what actually happens when you build a career out of jumping into things other people would call reckless. He explains why he never learned to delegate until a manager called Ben forced the issue, why the smoking ban was the moment he learned to "jump before you're pushed" in business, and why the businesses that failed for him were never killed by some outside disaster, they just got dragged on too long after he already knew. He breaks down the exact framework he uses to decide whether to pivot or shut something down, why he refuses to call it quitting, and why giving someone terrible food poisoning taught him more about customer trust than almost anything else in hospitality. Then he gets into how BizzFest actually got built: why he spent money before the brand had any trust to spend it on, why ticket sales for a first-time event barely move until the final 48 hours, and what it was like hosting a fireside chat with Andy Coulson and Jamie Laing having never done one before in his life.

Along the way: the ChatGPT prompt Andy wrote in the bath the night before interviewing Jamie Laing on stage, the "burn the boats" story that talked him into doing it anyway, why he thinks most business failure feels like getting cut from the school basketball team, and the charity worker who told him a single day at BizzFest changed his life.

Chapters

00:00:00 Welcome to the Show: Meet Andy Coleman, Serial Entrepreneur

00:01:37 The Youngest Landlord: Starting a Business at 21

00:04:51 The Resilience Factor: Why Andy Didn't Fail

00:06:09 Learning to Delegate: The Seven-Year Struggle

00:07:20 The Smoking Ban Pivot: Knowing When to Jump or Be Pushed

00:07:55 Building an Ecosystem: From Pubs to Bars to Clothing Shops

00:10:15 Customer Experience Masterclass: The Power of Fixing Mistakes

00:15:12 Defining Success: Happiness Over Everything