Brunch with Sir Richard Branson

Just over a month ago, GoSweat’s CEO, Alex Hind, had the chance to dine out with one of British business greats, Sir Richard Branson.

Having won a regional pitching competition and being awarded £5000, this was the icing on the cake. Unfortunately, this was a brunch date, so there was no cake, only the kind of 5 star canapes Sir Richard Branson is probably used to.

The Morning

A frantic bit of ironing, mirror checking and arriving far to early was expected. Fortunately, Alex was not alone in this and he met some of the other great founders there, Storage Shepherd, Coroflo and TapSOS to name a few. The team behind the event, Virgin Voom, shared that Sir Richard Branson was running a bit late, due to some minor interview he was having, with Radio 2 (priorities)!

Brunch with Branson

Having just returned from climbing with the family in Morocco, Sir Richard Branson was intrigued and excited to know more about GoSweat. His personal love of Kite Boarding and self confessional lack of affection to gyms ‘I shouldn’t have said that, seeing as I own a gym chain’, only fueled his desire to know more. Everybody had their chance to introduce themselves and what they are working on, with Sir Richard Branson asking direct, and often slightly off the wall questions, to the founders.

This was followed by a round of photos, more questions, before Sir Richard Branson was rushed off to announce Virgin’s investment in Hyperloop One.

He took one of GoSweat’s signature orange T-shirts, although I’m yet to see him wearing it whilst out sweating, but we can dream!

The Takeaways

The meeting gave Alex a lot to think over, both in how to develop GoSweat, but also how to interact with people who work with large corporations. The language and interaction techniques are so very different when talking about Start-ups, and should you ever get the chance to meet a entrepreneur giant, think carefully about what you ask.

Alex naturally asked ‘What makes you Sweat?’