Everyone thinks Steven Bartlett's personal brand was built on talent. It was built on 200 posts a month.

Most people post once a week, check the likes after half an hour and delete anything that flops. Behind The Diary of a CEO, every decision started with one question: "what's the data?" Every guest got an essay's worth of research, the awkward silences were left in, and content was tested on TikTok before it ever reached Instagram.

Holly Hayes started in Steven Bartlett's kitchen with a login, a password and his accounts, when the whole team was about five people. As his brand manager she posted around 200 pieces of content a month, made LinkedIn the "golden child" of his brand, and now builds personal brands for founders and creators. She is honest about why most content never gets seen.

In this episode:

◼️ How Steven Bartlett's personal brand was built... 200 posts a month, LinkedIn first, and talking about the things other founders wouldn't

◼️ The Diary of a CEO details nobody notices, from the scent of the room to an essay's worth of research on every guest

◼️ Why holding a silence is an under-trained skill, especially for women

◼️ Brand pillars explained: how to niche down without losing your personality

◼️ The biggest content mistake: saving the best part for the end instead of the first five seconds

◼️ Why repetition isn't boring, and how one well-worn topic hit 200,000 views in 24 hours

◼️ "What's the data?" The metrics that actually matter: watch time, profile views, skip rate and shareability

◼️ The founder spending £15,000 a month on Meta ads with nothing to show for it, and what was really broken

◼️ Which platforms to prioritise, why your LinkedIn company page gets ignored, and why a pretty feed doesn't matter

◼️ Only getting six likes? How to find what's broken, and why you should never delete a post after 30 minutes

Nobody cares about your content… But you can give them a reason to.

Chapters:

00:00 Meet Holly Hayes, Steven Bartlett's former brand manager

01:24 200 posts a month: the brief behind Steven Bartlett's brand

03:06 Why LinkedIn was the "golden child"

05:01 Is LinkedIn still a white space?

06:28 The Diary of a CEO details nobody notices

09:25 The power of holding a silence

12:25 Great content vs average content

14:30 "Pretend nobody cares"

17:48 Brand pillars explained

19:40 Niche down or show every side of you?

23:59 The biggest mistake: your first five seconds

25:52 Is AI making content worse?

28:18 Why repetition builds a brand

33:15 "What's the data?": the metrics that matter

35:35 Shareability: the free paid ad

37:35 £15,000 a month on ads and no return

39:35 Which platforms to prioritise

42:14 Why your LinkedIn company page gets ignored

43:36 Should you stress about a pretty feed?

48:33 Posting more: expanding your surface area for luck

50:59 How to post more without burning out

54:42 Only getting six likes? What's broken

59:27 Why a personal brand is freedom

1:01:16 Visual repetition and recognisable content

1:07:29 Post while you're excited about it

1:14:43 Save or Splurge

What's the one thing stopping you from posting more? Tell us below 👇

Subscribe to @hgfpod for new episodes every week.

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The diamond industry told us diamonds are rare. They're not, and the moment you buy one it can lose 40% of its value.

A mined diamond and a lab-grown one are chemically identical. A certified gemologist cannot tell them apart without a machine, and the machine still gets it wrong. One of them costs three to four times more, and loses around 40% of its value the moment you buy it.

Jessica Warch grew up inside the Antwerp diamond trade, where her parents still work. She left to build Kimaï, took Diane von Fürstenberg as an investor and opened stores in London and Paris. She is blunt about what you are actually paying for.

In this episode:

◼️ The diamond industry explained... who controls the supply, who sets the price, and why diamonds were never actually rare

◼️ Lab-grown vs mined diamonds: chemically identical, and even specialist machines can't always tell them apart

◼️ Is a diamond a good investment? Why a mined diamond can lose around 40% of its value the moment you resell it

◼️ Why the average Kimaï engagement ring is about £5,000, and what the same ring would cost with a mined diamond

◼️ The cold email to Meghan Markle's circle that led to 100 articles in one day, with almost no stock to sell

◼️ Raising $2 million "way too early", and the branding agency mistake she'd never make again

◼️ How Diane von Furstenberg became an investor, sitting on her floor showing Jess her own jewellery

◼️ Why some magazines won't feature lab-grown diamonds, and the word Kimaï isn't allowed to use on its own

◼️ How she runs the business with Claude Code, from sales reports to checking supplier invoices line by line

Diamonds are forever… But overpaying for them doesn't have to be.

Chapters:

00:00 The truth about diamonds

01:39 From Antwerp's diamond trade to lab-grown diamonds

03:30 What the diamond industry doesn't want you to know

04:50 Is a diamond a good investment? (You lose 40%)

05:42 Lab-grown vs mined diamonds: is there any difference?

08:54 From 2% of the market to engagement ring favourite

09:17 Are lab-grown diamonds actually sustainable?

10:54 Bridal: 50–60% of sales and a £5K average ring

15:19 Starting a jewellery brand on the side of a full-time job

16:57 The cold email that got Kimaï on Meghan Markle

18:40 100 articles in a day: the Meghan effect

21:55 From online-only to opening retail stores

24:10 Raising $2 million "way too early"

26:01 Founder mistakes: branding agencies and hiring

28:24 How Diane von Furstenberg became an investor

30:28 Why Kimaï went on Dragons' Den

33:01 Why magazines won't write about lab-grown diamonds

35:44 The word "diamond" they're not allowed to use

36:42 Marketing without influencers

42:01 How to make a co-founder relationship work

44:25 Running a business with Claude Code and AI

47:35 Best business advice: never take no for an answer

50:12 How much should founders pay themselves?

52:10 Save or Splurge

Would you choose a lab-grown diamond for your engagement ring? Tell us below 👇

Subscribe to @hgfpod for new episodes every week.

💜 Stream on Spotify: https://tr.ee/hgfspotify

💜 Stream on Apple Podcasts: https://tr.ee/hgfapple

💜 Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hgf/

How do you pay for an Oscar-winning documentary on your own credit card? Why does the person carrying the legal and financial risk of a film get the least credit for it? And why does a $6 million film need an $18 million campaign to win Best Picture?

Odessa Rae is the Oscar-winning producer of Navalny, and she funded the first four months of it on her own credit card. She walks Poppy through how the money works, from who funds a film to who owns it at the end, and what winning an Oscar actually costs.

In this episode:

◼️ The $90,000 of credit card debt that funded the first four months of Navalny

◼️ How film financing actually works, from the investor's premium to the points on the back end

◼️ Why the IP of a film sits in its own company, and why an investor never owns a piece of it

◼️ Three days of Navalny's last interview sit in a vault, and the filmmakers have no right to them

◼️ Why the Best Picture Oscar goes to the producer, and why the industry still treats producers as staff

◼️ What an Oscar campaign really is, and why you fly to a city to screen for two voters

◼️ Why the money for an Oscar campaign has to be raised as donation rather than investment

◼️ What a film costs to make now, and why AI is pulling that number down every year

◼️ Why she was followed for six months after Navalny died

◼️ How she actually finds investors, and why she keeps the ones she likes

💜 Stream on Spotify: https://tr.ee/hgfspotify

💜 Stream on Apple Podcasts: https://tr.ee/hgfapple

💜 Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hgf/

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