Business Innovators Radio - James Cracknell – Founder – Mark Stephen Pooler

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

James Cracknell James possesses a wealth of experience across diverse industries. With a 30-year tenure in finance and capital markets, he has consistently led change initiatives, adopted new business models to match the customers’ needs and devised pioneering solutions to prevailing challenges. Since 2011, he has been actively investing in and nurturing businesses in Essex. He focuses on The Weave, a pioneering startup fostering an ecosystem business model to bolster the entrepreneurial community and arrest founder burnout. As a catalyst for innovation, James was instrumental in developing and delivering the iTeams challenge events for the University of Essex and has delivered and participated in multiple hackathons and sprints. He is an entrepreneur in residence, where he mentors students and facilitates workshops whilst supporting the startup team. Trained in utilising the Business Model Canvas, he holds an MSc in Systems Thinking with a specialisation in systemic innovation.www.wearetheweave.co.uk/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/james-cracknell-founder-mark-stephen-pooler

Welcome to Business Innovators Radio, featuring industry influencers and trendsetters, sharing proven strategies to help you build a better life right now. Welcome to Brilliant Business TV, conversations with leading experts in business. I am your host, Mark Stephen Pula. We have a wonderful guest today, James Krakno. Stay tuned for that. We are streaming live on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube. We're also on the E360 TV network going out to Apple, fire, Android, Roku and many more. We're also on USA Global Radio and Television Network. And we're also streaming to MSPNewsGlobal.com. And we're also on business innovators radio network. So after that big mouthful, let's bring in our incredible guest, James Kratnall.

James, welcome to Brilliant Business TV. Thank you very much indeed Mark and thank you for the invite to come on. I'm really looking forward to a conversation with you, James. So let's get started with our first question. Firstly, just share a little bit about yourself and how did you become interested in systems thinking? My background was very much I failed my exams when I kind of left school and ended into industries. And I first started out in travel and tourism and ended up in finance. But I think my kind of journey through all of this process has been to see either myself as a learning vehicle and taking on board.

I didn't go to university, as I said, so ultimately everything I kind of amassed in terms of learning was through that application of being a lifetime learner. And the second part of that was that when I was at the latter end of my career, I wanted to redefine some of my skill set. So I then started to take a degree in leadership and management at the Open University, and that brought me into touch with the work of people like Peter Senge. And that introduced as well this kind of concept of systems thinking. And it wasn't that I approached it from an academic starting point. I approached it from a practical starting point and understood that the connections that exist within the world of finance, the world of business generally, the complexity, the business

faces, no matter what stage the business is in. Systems thinking and understanding that the organisations that we create are systems in their own right is just something that became a realisation through my academic work. After my degree, I then took a master's in systems thinking, a three-year program, which was again at the Open University, and that contextualised the whole subject, bringing theory and practice into that particular world. But it opened again up some huge conversations with myself about the value of ecosystems, the value of connecting people and connecting organizations

and building that kind of infrastructure. So recognizing that we need to connect the dots more and more and more and become more attuned to actually positioning that within a core purpose, so something that we want to achieve. So that was my introduction to it. It was a long route. It came around through practice, not through academia, but it's fine because I think when we learn, we bring in all of those particular avenues and that reinforces the foundations of our thinking. It's quite a journey you've been on there, James, and it's really interesting work what you're doing as well. And why the weave?

Okay, it's a good question. I've been toying with this for an awful long time in my mind. When I got made redundant in 2011 from a 30-year career in finance. And I recognised that I knew nobody within my region, but equally, I was at an age where I still needed to work. I still needed to earn money. I still needed to do something with my life. And I really wanted to find a way and a mechanism to give back, but also at the same time to develop and grow. So what I started working on within that was the first realization when I got made redundant was that a, like I knew nobody in my region whatsoever, B, I had absolutely no idea or response to the question, what do you do? And that kind of put me into a whole state of apalexia and fear. So going networking in the traditional sense of arriving at a venue, whether it be BNI or just a local networking group or whatever, and then having to commandeer that expression of well, what do you do and find some kind of mechanism to come back to? It was always a challenge.

So what I ended up doing was creating a voluntary organisation called the Colchester Executive Job Club, which was very much the foundation of the weave because it brought together skills, it brought together capacity, it brought together talent that had at the end of the day being parked on a bench somewhere, either at the job center or whatever, and started to say, look, we can do better.

We can actually crystallize that talent to make it ready and available for the region, for the growth of businesses within the region. But it wasn't a realization that the weaver's then going to be materialized out of that, because that journey sort of emerged through my own learning, through the academia that I did. And I got involved in educational businesses. I got involved in retail, hospitality. I got involved in technology-based businesses. I kind of immersed myself in multiple different business models

to actually understand how everything fed through. And it was also a question of pushing myself away from what I'd been conditioned to believe was a finite skill set within finance. And I thought, well, okay, you know, I can move myself forward. So the weave then became this organization of interconnections. And it's that metaphor,

the weaving together of different organizations. I've started to work at the university, bringing innovation events to the university, and we ran ITEMs programs, we run lots of different events on that basis. And at the same time, the university was expanding its entrepreneurial footprint. And I was really, really fortunate to get involved right at the start of that journey as well. So their innovation centre was, I managed that for the university side of it, for a little while and developed their kind of accelerator programs before they recruited their current team. And that again became part of mandate and the wishes within the weave. If you could

encapsulate it's this. It's how do I stop people giving up? You do that through the process of providing them resources, connections, you build that ecosystem of support and you embed it in a holistic solution that allows people to really immerse themselves in a community that really does care. So that's fundamentally why the weave, and that's why it became about. And I do believe that there is room for a real community which nurtures and its members and looks after them and really stands testament to them and waive that kind of banner of their abilities within the regions. I agree. Building connections is so, so important, James, and also building business is really important, but also community. The power of community is so, so powerful. So I really admire the work that you're doing. What is your community building model? Well, we've used the word nurture, and I think this is something. Communities, I think, get the word, gets banded around, and it also gets slightly misconstrued when it applies to business, because people find it very difficult to align that commercialisation with a true community atmosphere. So when we look at certain businesses that have, I think, created almost like a toxic element within that.

Our model is therefore about nurturing, true nurturing. We've got a model which we call feed, which is facilitate, educate, entertain and develop, and we feed our community as much as we possibly can. So we understand at the end of the day that everybody has a life, everybody is a role, they're absorbed in what they're doing within their business. But at the same time, they still need to have a champion behind them, somebody that can actually stand up shoulder to shoulder with them and say, we can support you, can connect you, we can find those resources, whether it's financial,

whether it's technological, whether it's human capital, whatever it is at the end of the day. We can find those resources for you and help you on this particular journey. As a business advisor within the region, and I've been doing that for like 10 years as well, you come across many, many challenges when people are frustrated, either they've not found their right value proposition, they've not found product market fit, but they're on the cusp of discovery. And it's actually standing next door to them and saying, this is the ways that we can do it.

We bring insight. We bring that analysis to that process as well. So we can help them explore what it takes to actually move their business forward. So yeah, so I think from that perspective, our community model, that feeding and nurturing side is something we're really proud of and really supportive of. Being able to support people that way is so, so vital to help people to grow, to expand and having the community is great as well because you're not on your own. Then you've got people who are around you for support as well.

What are the plans for the weave? I think we've did some fundamental shifting around over the last sort of eight to nine months where we've reacquainted ourselves to this mission. of arresting founder burnout. And everything that we're doing is tantamount to that kind of focus. So we're in the process of developing an app that will help people measure and understand what the conditions they're experiencing are and ultimately being able to manage their own health and well-being in the process. So we're in the process of developing that.

But from a community perspective, I think it's that fundamental being relevant to those people and actually proving it and evidencing it through the work that we do. We've got a kind of model of organic growth where we're, even though we're based in the North Essex region, we're around the University of Essex, we're around that kind of area. And that's been our focal point in terms of growth, really, for the last four or five years in terms of the activities we've been doing. The community is an open community. So we want it organically to grow. So anybody from anywhere within the regions, the countries, and we're always interested. in those underserved regions, those regions where micro-businesses do not find the resources

that they ultimately need to break through the barriers of growth and do so in a way which supports them and develops them through, you know, people that want to champion them in that process. So the growth model is organic. It's very much about build the community, show additional value, keep putting resources into that community. We do have a paid-for model. which personalises a lot of that kind of process. So there is money that we aim to develop within that. So we have a club which is called the 1% club, which is very much about taking what we do,

but bringing it down to a personal level. So finding the space to allow people to develop that. And that's a modest contribution per month, but it allows us to actually then build the resources that we can actually put back into the free community. So one of those things that we work on, very specifically for a lot of people is how you talk about your business, the language of your business, that pitch, if you like. But we work with people in that process to really understand

the core elements of their system, their purpose, the elements that they're running, the interactions that they create through their language, and really bring that new level of clarity into their speak and into the talk about what they do. And that to us is really fun. as well. So we will that kind of model as much as we possibly can find mechanisms to allow people to develop their language and to actually grow in confidence and be more aspirational about where they really want to be. Excellent work, really helping people to grow and build and very rewarding work as well, James, for you to see people that you've supported on that journey. So I congratulate you with that. If you could see one impact from your work, what would that be? I think the real impact that we sort of kind of found is that we've changed some of the narrative around the way businesses are being built. We've brought in purpose and sustainability and social impact.

We don't define ourselves as a social enterprise in any shape or form. we are socially impactful, but we are also very interested in that ecological narrative. So I think what we've done is we've raised the visibility of a number of different businesses that have managed to actually then break through into new areas. We've run accelerator programs. We've created pitching events. We've found ways and mechanisms of gaining or giving people the opportunity to access funding. So that growth journey is actually making a material impact in that particular

region, whether it's just one person who came to us and started to talk about a circular business model within that world of clothing, and then they developed their own kind of business. They've now got a unit where they're doing a lot of circular business models and that kind of thing. These are things that we work with people. We don't take credit for their hard work. That's their job. That's what they've done. But we believe that our contribution has opened that doorway a little bit for them and allowed them to walk through and actually create some level of confidence. So there are many businesses that we've helped and support within the region. But I think the biggest thing that we're on that journey to do and do more of is just change the narrative

of containment into aspiration. If we can break the barrier of micro-businesses being, if you like, contained and open up a proportion of them more to an expansive role to actually see a bigger picture and a bigger footprint of what they can create and what they can do, we can change the dynamics of our regions. We can turn them from being barren, desolate places during the day into vibrant entrepreneurial communities. And that for us is something that really makes us want to do what we do. James, if you were to reach out and talk to someone and say join our community, who should get in touch with you? Who should go to www.wee.

We are theweave.com. UK. I think it's anybody that sees themselves as an aspirational entrepreneur who wants to grow, but also grow their capacity, their connections and their roots to capital, whether that be financial, social, ecological, or, you know, intellectual capital. We want to help those people on that particular journey. So if you're in that particular position where you are a sole trader, but you have bigger dreams and ambitions, or you just want to reach out into a community where you feel that there is a real connection

and a drive and you want to be a part of that bigger group, then reach out to us and join us and look at that website. I would encourage everyone to go to we are the weave.co.uk. That's we are the weave. Go.uk. James, I thoroughly enjoyed having a conversation with you today. Thank you so much for being my guest. No, no problem. Thank you very much for the invite, Mark. Very kind of you.

The pleasure's being all mine. Thank you everyone for joining us for brilliance business TV. Conversations with leading experts in business. Until next... Thanks for listening to Business Innovators Radio. To hear all episodes featuring leading industry influencers and trendsetters, visit us online at Business. Businessinnovatorsradio.com today.