Lock-In by HappyStack 🥞
Welcome to the Lock-In - a podcast where we lock the doors of our favourite pub to bring you an unfiltered chat with some of the world’s top E-Commerce Founders. Each episode our hosts Jack, Jamie, Joe and Dan sit down with some of the biggest and best minds in entrepreneurship - pulling back the curtain to share the stories, playbooks and mistakes they’ve experienced while building 8 & 9 figure brands.
Episodes
Ireland's Next Billion-Dollar Makeup Brand (She Owns All of It)
This week, we sit down with Aimee Connolly, the founder behind Sculpted by Aimee — the Irish makeup brand on track to become Ireland's first billion-dollar beauty business, still 100% owned by its founder.___Follow us across our socials:Twitter: https://x.com/happystackhqLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/happystackhqInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/happystackhq___Check out the HappySt
She Made €70 Million For Dior Solo | Now She's Building Her Own Fashion Empire
This week, we sit down with Ashley McDonnell, the Galway-born founder building Ireland's first luxury goods group (VYKO) after a decade inside LVMH and Puig.Ashley walked into Christian Dior at 22 as a data analyst, ended up doing €70 million in solo travel retail sales, then spent five years scaling Puig through Europe's biggest IPO of 2024. Now she's back home and raising €50 million
How She Built a £12m Empire After Dragons Den Rejection | Lucie MacLeod
This week, we sit down with Lucie MacLeod, the founder behind HairSyrup the Sunday Times Founder of the Year who built a built a million pound empire after being rejected by all 6 dragons on Dragons Den.Lucie's story is chaos turned into strategy. She started mixing hair oils in mustard bottles in her student kitchen, gave away her formula on TikTok, then deleted her viral account. When thousands
How they built a $100m / year pet food business | Spot & Tango
This week, we sit down with the founders of Spot & Tango, one of the few DTC brands that scaled to nine figures without chasing growth at all costs.Russel and Dylan break down how they went from cooking dog food in their kitchen to building a $100M/ year pet food company, why they chose to own manufacturing instead of outsourcing, and how they perceive profitability as a responsibility and not
Lukas Pakter: Nearly Bankrupt to 100k/Day | He Took The Deal Everybody Said No To
This week, we sit down with Lukas Pakter, the 24-year-old founder behind Haus, Trybe, and Outliers. Lukas has built a personal brand generating millions in revenue, and in this conversation he walks through his actual playbook—why audience quality matters more than size, and how the right mentor helped him scale from £100K a month to £100K a day.We cover his approach to content, the systems he's b
She Scaled Odd Muse to £30m - It Nearly Broke Her | Aimee Smale
This week, we sit down with Aimee Smale, the inspiring founder behind Odd Muse. In four years she's taken the cult British womenswear brand from a bedroom startup to a £30m business. Aimee opens up about spotting the gap in the market for accessible luxury, quitting ASOS without a plan, and quite literally dismantling her bed to make room for a desk. From making £10 logos and packing orders hersel
Founder Roundtable: Acquisition Strategies That Actually Scale in 2025
Season 3 kicks off with a heavyweight episode.This week, we’re joined by three operators who’ve collectively spent more than £100 million on Meta in the last 18 months - and who sit behind some of the UK’s fastest-growing consumer brands.Jack Rubin, founder of Purdy & Figg, the DTC cleaning brand now generating £50M+ in annual revenue.Olly Hudson, a co-founder of Soar With Us, the UK’s largest
From £0 to £10m Per Year Selling Jewellery At 27 | Olivia Jenkins
Meet Olivia Jenkins - the founder behind the fastest-growing jewellery brand in e-commerce.In 2020, she was burnt out, broke, and dealing with the recent loss of her mum. Alongside her partner Jack, she channelled this grief to start D. Louise — a multi-million pound jewellery brand now loved by thousands of women across the UK from Molly-Mae to Maya Jama.In this unfiltered episode, Olivia shares
She Scaled Steven Bartlett to 1 Billion Listens - Here's Why She Left | Grace Andrews
Meet Grace Andrews, the 28-year-old Marketing Director behind the world's biggest podcast - Diary of a CEO. Grace joined Steven Bartlett as DOAC's third employee in 2020 when the podcast had just 8,000 subscribers. Through trial, error, and in Grace's own words 'lots of naivety' she built the marketing playbook that scaled the brand to more than 1 Billion listens in just four years. In our chat wi
Meet The Marketing Genius Who Turned Ryanair Into Social's Funniest Brand
Meet Michael Corcoran and Dave Morrissey. Mates, drinking buddies, and two of the UK's leading social marketers. Michael is the marketing genius who turned Ryanair into the world's leading airline on social, clocking up more than 1 billion organic impressions in 12 months. Now he's building Slice, a consultancy agency where he's helping some of the UK's top brands cut through t
The Sports Stars Building A Multi-Million CBD Empire | George Kruis & Dom Day
Bio.George Kruis and Dom Day aren’t your average founders, they’re former international rugby stars who went from scrums and stadiums to supplements and Sainsbury’s. As ex-Saracens teammates, their journey from elite athletes to co-founders of wellness brand ‘FourFive’ is full of unexpected pivots, hard-won lessons, and big wins in both the worlds of e-commerce and retail.In this episode, George a
How This 25 Year Old Built A $100k/Day Brand on TikTok | Daisy Kelly
TikTok isn’t just for lip-syncing teens anymore. In the last three years, a host of social-first brands have broken-through to become multi-million pound businesses. Their secret? Content. And nobody in the beauty space does it better than Daisy Kelly and Glow For It. In just four short years, Daisy has taken Glow For It from a small side-hustle in her mum's kitchen, into a brand doing six figures
Spencer Matthews: He Overcame Addiction to Build a Global Drinks Brand
Some know Spencer Matthews as a Reality TV Star. Others know him as a World-Record Holder. But beyond the public eye, Spencer's journey over the last few years from overcoming addiction through to founding 'clean alcohol' brand CleanCo is one fit for a movie. Spencer is the latest guest into the pub, and this one is (quite literally at times) barking mad. Sharing stories from his early
He Built A £50M / Year Fragrance Business From His Bedroom - Connor Martin of The Essence Vault
Some of the world's best ecom brands were founded by a bullish founder from the comfort of their bedroom. But, Connor Martin must be the first to manufacture and sell fragrances from his!Connor founded The Essence Vault in 2019, with humble beginnings at local street markets in Belfast. He's since grown the brand to be the UK's largest online fragrance business, turning over more than £50 million
He's Made $100M Selling Lemon Water | Yanni Hufnagel from Lemon Perfect
Yanni Hufnagel isn’t your typical founder. He’s a former basketball coach that brings energy and motivation to the business world in a way we haven’t seen before. Yanni found his niche with the refreshing lemon water drink, Lemon Perfect, now the fastest growing enhanced water brand in the US. From seeing his product stocked in major chains like Whole Foods and CVS, to bringing Beyonce on board as
Almost Home: The Rising Streetwear Label Valuing Authenticity Over Profitability
In a world where new fashion brands are started every day, authenticity is rare. But Luke Murphy and his brand Almost Home, have it in droves. He’s prioritised creativity above all else, designing pitch-perfect products for his community, and prioritising the long term game, over short term monetary gains.From collaborating with industry giants like Cole Buxton and UVU, to seeing Rio Ferdinand rep
Creator Marketing: Ultimate Playbook with Andy Cloyd & Anders Bill
60% of marketers say influencer marketing delivers a higher ROI than traditional channels.Not only does creator marketing work - it’s essential for building a profitable, sustainable brand. The challenge? It’s overwhelming for marketers without experience, and the landscape is always changing. That’s where today’s episode comes in.Andy Cloyd and Anders Bill, the brains behind Superfiliate, help th
Dinner with Grace Beverley: Building An Empire Before 30
Owning a business is no easy task. But imagine running four successful businesses before the age of 30. Grace Beverley is the 28-year old entrepreneur, podcaster and social media star behind a multi-million pound empire. Since building fitness app Shreddy as a student at Oxford, Grace has gone on to launch and scale activewear brand TALA - raising more than £5mn in funding in the process
Dan Nugent - Starting From Scratch After Scaling To Seven Figures
Dan Nugent is no stranger to the world of building brands. Back in 2017, fresh off the birth of their first child, he founded Ambr Eyewear alongside his wife Sacha. The couple built the blue light eyewear brand to 7 figures from their kitchen, winning a host of awards and sealing some lucrative retail partnerships along the way. The Post-Covid ecom collapse left Ambr Eyewear in turmoil, like
Ryan Babenzien - Jolie's Framework to Building a DTC Unicorn
Ryan Babenzien doesn't just follow e-commerce trends - he invents them!A veteran of the footwear and streetwear industry, Ryan has a long-history with brand building and e-commerce. In 2014 he founded the first digitally-native sneaker brand, Greats - a brand which he exited to fashion giant Steve Madden in 2019. Not one to chill on the beach and bask in his own success, Ryan immediately started J
Matt Kelly - Scaling Spacegoods from Zero to £12 Million in 2 Years
Here we go, Episode One of Lock-In - and it's a cracker! Our guest this week is Matt Kelly, the founder of Spacegoods - Europe's fastest growing all-in-one Mushroom Coffee blend. His journey through e-commerce has been an absolute rollercoaster, from dropshipping ripped jeans, to building two 8-figure brands before both ultimately entered administration in 2021. It's the learnings he took from the
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