Elliot Moss
That was Donal Byrd with Jelly Roll. Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guest today is serial entrepreneur, Mike Welch OBE, founder of Blackcircles.com and Tirescanner.com, the online tyre retailers. Adopted as a baby and growing up in Liverpool, Mike struggled with dyslexia at school and left aged sixteen with few GCSEs. Working as a tyre fitter in a city garage, he spotted a gap in the market and set up his own tyre business from his childhood bedroom, supported by a £500 grant and nightshift work in a local Tesco. After selling his business to Kwik Fit, where he was hired as the group’s first head of e-commerce, Mike launched his second business, Blackcircles.com, in 2001, the world’s first click to fit tyre retailer, which Michelin acquired fourteen years later for £50 million. Taking his e-commerce skills to the US, Mike launched Tirescanner.com in 2019, before partnering with an American tyre distributor and becoming President and CEO of Tirebuyer.com. They are now one of America’s largest online tyre retailers with over 18,000 installers across the US of A. Mike joins me in just a few minutes to talk about all of this and why he launched his charity, The Welch Trust, supporting children and young people. And the music in today’s Jazz Shapers comes from Allen Toussaint, Kamasi Washington, Tito Puente and here’s Curtis Mayfield with Move On Up.
What a fabulous start to the show. Not only Donald Byrd with Jelly Roll but Curtis Mayfield there with Move On Up. Apparently, a bit of a hit with my Business Shaper today, it’s Mike Welch OBE. Hello. I’m so happy we can make this happen because I’ve mentioned America and we’re doing this via Miami and I’m here in London and this is technology in action. And Curtis Mayfield is a bit of a hero of yours.
Mike Welch
Hi Elliot. That’s a favourite of mine, I absolutely love it. This is one of those go-tos for me, just to kind of tune up the day. I mean that very much kind of been a set the temp for the day, for the week and get the music going so, whether it’s kind of Pavarotti or Curtis Mayfield or you know there’s a whole plethora of go-tos I’ve got but that’s one of the big ones for me.
Elliot Moss
What time does the day begin for you?
Mike Welch
Well at the moment when the baby wakes up, so it’s kind a, it’s bottles at 4.00am at the moment and then as long as you…
Elliot Moss
I can see Mike’s face here by the way, he looks pretty healthy for a bloke who has been getting up at 4.00am and of course everyone will be going yes but he doesn’t have to do anything at 4.00am and now, unless you are going to tell me you are actually doing some feeding.
Mike Welch
Absolutely doing the feeding.
Elliot Moss
Good.
Mike Welch
The bottles get poured, and the baby’s happy and then we’re onto the next.
Elliot Moss
So look, as I mentioned in the introduction, a bit of a start to life that isn’t quite as pleasurable as once you’ve got through your slumbers and the 4.00am feed is done. An incredible background and for you to have come from that into, you know you being a super successful guy, are you here because of your childhood or is it just a fact? What relationship does it have to the fact that Mike Welch is this super driven and super successful fellow?
Mike Welch
That’s very nice of you to say. I mean, I kind of feel like there’s certainly been a drive there to kind of prove and to, you know to try and kind of make a mark. I think it would be, I’d be over stretching to say that you know, I kind I knew anything of the early days in terms of the fostering and the adoption, it’s more a case of you know, as long as I can remember, I felt really lucky to have been you know taken into a loving family and the value I attributed to my mum and dad from a very, very early age was ginormous, it was massive and I mean, my appreciation for them is beyond you know anything that that I guess what any more straightforward kind of child type scenario might seem to be so, so yeah, I mean I appreciated very early on and I was certainly driven, there was a drive really just to try and kind of, I don’t know pay back or prove that you know I was at least as good as the rest. That was a bit of a kind of chip on my shoulder I think at an early age and you know thankfully managed to shape that through my twenties.
Elliot Moss
At what age did you know you were adopted, Mike? Do you remember?
Mike Welch
As early as I can remember, I mean I think probably five, mum and dad kind of would tell, I mean they were amazing to let me and my brother because my brother is adopted as well, we’re not siblings in terms of blood siblings but we were told early and we were told you know the whys and the wherefores so we were, we were never guessing but it certainly helped frame motivations in life looking forwards. And we, you know subsequently we’ve spent a lot of time through our, I think we’ll come to it, but our charitable trust, helping adoption and fostering causes and we’re taking a lot of pleasure out of that so, I think being prepared for later life, to really turn that into a positive and be able to give a lot back to those causes has been great, it’s been a real help for me.
Elliot Moss
And on, on the other side of it, from a business point of view, you started literally on the shop floor, you know some people talk about how that experience, regardless of and I know you worked very hard as well to do some University courses and stuff like that but the shop floor, the shop floor side of it, tell me how when you were there at the beginning, did you think yeah, I’m going to run one of these, I’m going to run a business like this one day or was it more basic than that? Were you just happy to have a job?
Mike Welch
Well this will sound too cliché but I kind of always felt like I was on a route to doing something much bigger and I never, you know it wasn’t a write down in a journal, you know we see today there’s all this motivational toys all very good for kids starting out in business but I just kind of knew I was going to do something. I didn’t know kind of how or where or why, I just knew that I would get there and I didn’t even know where there was but I knew I would get there.
Elliot Moss
I’m going to find out much more about why you knew that you were going to get there in a moment. We’ve got some music coming up right now though here on Jazz Shapers. I’m with Mike Welch, he’s my Business Shaper today. This is Allen Toussaint coming up right now with Yes We Can Can.
Allen Toussaint there with Yes We Can Can, don’t think we’ve played that here on Jazz Shapers before, how good was that? Mike Welch is my Business Shaper, beamed in all the way from sunny Miami to London via the world and we’ve been talking about starting off on the shop floor fitting tyres to this person who’s sold at least one business, in fact two businesses, how many businesses is it, two or three, I’ve just realised because it’s a few that I’ve mentioned. He started young.
Mike Welch
Three.
Elliot Moss
Is it three, isn’t it? Yeah. Crazy. The bit I wanted to pick up on, as I mentioned, that just knew that things were going to be different and you said you didn’t even know what that meant at that point. Where was that belief from, Mike? What did that look like to you when you were younger?
Mike Welch
I think it was a determination probably. I think sometimes if you’ve got too many choices, it can make decisions quite difficult, I know that sounds kind of quite a basic comment but you know from my perspective, schooling was difficult, you know mathematics was a big issue for me with the dyslexia, so I had to find my own way and actually getting out and getting a job and starting to kind of to earn some money and get some motivation from being out there and doing something was big for me so, you know I think I set my sights then on what could I do next here? My leverage really was the knowledge that I was gaining from, at that point, stacking the tyres and installing the tyres and then buying the tyres and I was thinking well, I was made redundant actually in that job so then it was okay so what’s next? I started to buy tyres from the supplier who was supplying the garage I was working at and selling to my pals and they guy was good enough to give me ten days’ credit so I was taking the cash and then paying him and then I started a small specialised mail order tyre business and then, and then it was okay, how do I scale that and it, it was very much linear, sort of this is what I need, how do I get it and then going to The Prince’s Trust because I’d read about that, I actually read about that at the Job Centre, it was one of those, one of those weeks, you know, it was always, am I going to need to get a job now, am I going to need to kind of get some support now and read a flyer on The Prince’s Trust, went to see those guys, Dragons’ Den type set up, take your business plan, you see a few folks there, get some input from them and then luckily they said look, we’ll help you, so they gave me a grant for £500, I bought a computer, I built a website because there was software on the computer that helped me build a website because then I didn’t need to take ads in magazines because they were too expensive and I could change the prices quickly. So I took strip ads in the magazines rather than page, you know half page ads and it cost me you know a fraction of the price and people would go to the website address and I would change the prices constantly and we just kind of built from there but it was very, it felt like it was step-by-step, you know learn a bit more, do a bit more but I guess there was no real, there was no ceiling to it for me, it just felt like I needed to keep moving forward and frankly, I’d nothing to lose, I’m seventeen and I’m at the back of my mum and dad’s house and you know I’ve got a dial up network, a computer, a tyre supplier, some customers, some strip ads in a magazine and I’m getting phone calls and I’m selling tyres, I mean, doesn’t get any better.
Elliot Moss
But you say you’ve got nothing to lose and yet you’re a teenager and you’re doing these things, you said like one step, it sounds like it’s one foot in front of the other and you keep on building and you’re getting deeper and deeper knowledge of how the offline world might become an online world and how the two might come together and I can see that happening but there must have been a bit of stress, you must have been going what if this doesn’t work, what am I going to do next?
Mike Welch
Not at all.
Elliot Moss
Nothing?
Mike Welch
Not at all because…
Elliot Moss
Have you always, have you retained that, that sense of I don’t need to look down, I don’t feel like I’m on a highwire, I’m just doing it, I’m just putting one step in front of the other, one foot in front of the other?
Mike Welch
Probably the anx… any anxiety, which I’ve certainly had my fair share and a bit more, comes from accountability and responsibility more than it does my personal failure or ego or you know, when we do things, we try and do them for the betterment of the stakeholders, customers, it’s not, you know this is about how can we do something good, fun, different, whether it be the charity, whether it be business. Certainly back then, my drive was about learning and then reinvesting that, I was enjoying learning and then I started to read books, I started to just consume biographies of business heroes and I just couldn’t read enough and at school, I didn’t read at all because I couldn’t, I couldn’t really, in terms of you know the curriculum was a challenge but actually what I found was, when I enjoyed the subject matter, I could just eat knowledge and that really became my hobby, I didn’t do much else really, it was all about my hobby was my work, was my future and then I think you lose yourself in that you know, it’s like anything, if you enjoy it then certainly one of the things I’ve been acutely aware of through my career is, where my shortcomings are, things I don’t know, things I don’t understand and as things got possibly to your point, a little bit more, stakes got a bit higher, you know the business was growing, we had to do tax returns, we had to do, in the end we had you know audited accounts, we had you know it was a much more business-like, I started to surround myself with people who could help me and I’ve always done that, whether it be at Blackcircles, I wrote a letter to Sir Terry Leahy, he was the CEO of Tesco, you know and asked him, possibly naively, could you help me with retailing? I sell tyres on the internet, I don’t think I’m a very good retailer. He afforded me some time and he has become a great friend and he was an investor and I think if I kind of look back at where I’ve really had the help and the leg up, if you like over time to supplement wherever my shortcomings or my lack of knowledge may be, it’s been by just reaching out and asking people and my, you know, the people I will ask and the people who have helped me and supported me over the years have been right at the top of the tree really and I’ve not been encumbered with, well they might not come back to me or why would I put myself in that predicament, I just called up or wrote a letter or and I’ve been very fortunate that people have helped me and supported me and I certainly today, I try and do the same, if I can, for others.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me to find out much more from my Business Shaper today, it’s Mike Welch and the serial entrepreneur who keeps working out how to go and sell another company for even more than the last one so, stay with me to find out the secret for that one. Right now though, it’s time to hear a taster from the Mishcon Innovation Series, which can be found on all the major podcast platforms. Natasha Knight invites business founders to share their industry insights and practical advice for those of you thinking about getting into an industry and starting your very own thing. In this clip, focussed on retail, we hear from Taymoor Atighetchi, Founder and CEO of Papier, an online stationery brand.
You can hear all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and indeed you can hear this very programme again with Mike if you pop Jazz Shapers into your podcast platform of choice or if you have got a smart speaker, why not ask it to play Jazz Shapers and there you will find a taster of our recent shows. But back to today, it’s Mike Welch OBE, Founder of Blackcircles.com and Tirescanner.com, the online tyre retailers. So, Blackcircles obviously, you know your first business, you’re about, if I worked out, about 19 or 20 when you sold it to Kwik Fit, give or take, you’ve got another one that you sold sort of seven or eight years ago for a significant amount more but that’s not enough because you carry on going with this huge business which kind of came together in Tirescanner. Are you happier building the thing or managing a business of scale? Because you’ve built it quite a few times and you’re a grafter and you like a challenge. Is there any such thing as it being a bit too easy and too predictable for you?
Mike Welch
Oh, definitely not. I mean, I don’t think it’s ever easy. In fact, every single time, it’s different. Again, we, when we moved to The States, I mean I actually, I promised my wife this would be the last go at this but it was much more…
Elliot Moss
What have you got to prove, Mike? What have you go to prove?
Mike Welch
Well, and it was much more straightforward because we, I think and I probably quote, we’ve got the blueprint, I mean, absolute nonse… I mean the reality is that I think that the understanding your market, understanding your industry, your route to market, your business model, certainly helps, so it’s allowed us to get to the kind of the nub of the matter and move the initiatives and the business forward more efficiently, with less errors but, I mean the US in particular, it’s, it’s such a big market and you know some of these States are like different countries in terms of the tax positions and the way you go to market and some of the kind of legal positions.
Elliot Moss
And culturally I imagine.
Mike Welch
And culturally.
Elliot Moss
Even the southern, the southern states are going to be very different to the east, to the west and to the north flyovers and all that.
Mike Welch
Completely. I mean, in Minnesota today, we’ll be selling lots of winter tyres, snow tyres and in Florida, we won’t, you know, it’s a completely different kind of set of markets and approach but to your point, in terms of the build and managing lead, I’ve enjoyed I guess transitioning to more of a develop and lead approach with a great team of people. I think in, certainly in the early days when you’re having to do everything yourself, yeah it’s useful because you certainly, you know where everything is and you know kind of the buttons and the levers and understanding how your business operates is really important but to be able to scale, and frankly enjoy the scaling, and getting you know building a big business, you need to have great people and then you need to learn to lead and you need to learn not to be up, you know shoulder deep in every initiative problem and that’s been a journey for me and it’s not been easy but bringing sort of mentors and support into Blackcircles, I think really helped equip me for that, it was some of the best in the business as I said earlier, like Sir Terry Leahy at Tesco, were a real inspiration to me and…
Elliot Moss
What would he have said, I mean if you have one thing that from all the times you’ve spoken to Sir Terry and spent time with him, what would you put as the number one piece of advice for people that are running businesses?
Mike Welch
Own your numbers. And get underneath your numbers and actually, probably nothing, nothing beyond that. I mean that was a lesson that I learnt part way through Blackcircles. I could read the numbers off the page but actually understanding why that looked slightly different to that and the trigger was for that, the behaviour of the numbers and where the intrinsic links were between the investment, the output performance, the margin, the, he taught me, that was a tipping point for me, that was all of a sudden maths and dyslexia wasn’t a crutch anymore, I became an expert at my numbers and then I started to run my business and that, in the tyre industry, where we have lots of moving parts and you know literally, in terms of you know variables on pricing, on availability, on logistics, it’s really, really important so, so yes, so taking the knowledge and reinvesting that and the guidance in reinvesting that and I think that the team I had around me, Graeme Bisset, who was my chairman, who was the CFO of Kwik Fit for many years, these guys, I think they stuck around and they helped me because they saw that the advice they gave me, I was actually practically using it and we were getting the benefit of it, it wasn’t just chats over a cup of coffee, it was, it really was school for me.
Elliot Moss
Own your numbers. Don’t forget that bit of advice. It’s very worthwhile to focus on that. Mike Welch is my Business Shaper, he’ll be back in a couple of minutes but first, we’ve got some more music here on Jazz Shapers, it’s Kamasi Washington featuring Patrice Quinn with The Rhythm Changes.
Kamasi Washington there, featuring Patrice Quinn with The Rhythm Changes. Mike Welch is my Business Shaper, been talking about owning the numbers. Of course, beyond the numbers Mike are the people and you’ve touched on these people, these great people that you said, you know, they knew that they were, they were giving you advice, you were listening. I reckon you’ve got pretty high expectations of yourself, just having met you all of a few minutes ago and I’m just reading your story, it looks like you are tough on yourself and you talked about you know that the inevitable chip that you would have had because of your own childhood but then that morphs into this really determined guy. What are your expectations like of other people and the people that work for you?
Mike Welch
I think the bar’s high and I think that it’s important, certainly initially at Blackcircles, which was really my first experience of building a team, I’d say probably unnecessarily high in some instances and again, it’s learning, understanding where other people’s talents lie, where their limitations are and that, I guess that’s leadership so, to your point earlier about are you building the business, are you managing and running the business and I think that’s the difference and so latterly, you know being able to first of all bring the right people in who are going to gel, where the chemistry is right, where you can because you know, you’re probably likening it to a football team couldn’t you. So I mean some football teams out there at the moment who are working particularly well.
Elliot Moss
There’s only one team in London, Mike, there’s only one team in London and they don’t wear white and blue.
Mike Welch
Yeah, sure. So, that team in particular, it’s a team effort and I think that that’s the difference, I think if you can get the right… because building a business, it’s a lot more about leading from the front, you know whacking through the park, you know getting the job done and then we’ll count the fatalities at the end and it, for want of a better expression, that’s kind of sometimes what building a business can be like, particularly a start up but moving to that you know transitioning to that leadership and having really talented people and making sure they have the right support, you kind of accommodate their growth and their development that I found can be transformational. And actually, it means that it’s not always an exhausting effort, you know we can actually win and we can have fun and we can, you know we don’t need to be on our knees at the end of the task or the initiative or the year or whatever, we can actually do this in a really much more efficient way so, that’s probably the, one of the biggest takeaways from Blackcircles for me is, if I’m going to do this again, I need to be able to be much more efficient and be a much better, more informed leader and then people will want to work with me – I say with me rather than for me and I think that’s an important differentiation.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for my final chat with Mike and we’ve also got some Tito Puente for you here on Jazz Shapers. That’s in just a moment, don’t go anywhere.
Tito Puente, Mambo Gozon, which is appropriate, sort of, because I’m talking to Mike Welch and he’s in Miami and there’s lots of Latin music there – what a terribly, a terribly tenuous link but I mean I love Miami, Mike, as I was telling you earlier so, I don’t really care. We’ve got a few more minutes and I just want to talk to you about your values because they kind of, for me, permeated everything you’ve talked about from the moment we started talking, and that’s around determination, that’s around caring, that’s around your own leadership journey, that’s around your humility, I just get a feel for you as a human and there’s a, and then there’s a lot of other evidence if you like that you do think about things deeply, beyond making a buck and that’s, whether that’s The Prince’s Trust that you’ve been involved with, whether that’s and I want you talk briefly about The Welch Group and specifically The Welch Trust. What is it that is so important to you about doing the right thing? Why do you care so much?
Mike Welch
I think the important thing to me is whatever we do, whether it be the business, whether it be charity, you know we do the best we can possibly do or I can possibly do and often that means being all in. I’m in with my heart and soul and I’ve kind of always been like that and probably to a fault because that certainly brings, there’s a moral responsibility that I feel with everything that we embark on, in terms of getting it right and doing the best we can possibly do. I don’t want to do anything that delivers any less than a 100%, however that manifests itself, whether it be business outcome or whether it be an impact on a particular charitable initiative and that carries with it, we talked earlier about anxiety and stress, that probably carries with it the biggest burden of anxiety and stress but it is self-imposed because you know we want to get things right. Whatever it is that I’m doing, I don’t want to be half-baked with it because otherwise it’s, I feel like it’s pointless doing it.
Elliot Moss
Yeah. And then let me ask you. No and that makes perfect sense and you’re an all-in kind of guy and I get that from a business point of view, from values and charity and you’ve talked a bit and I’ve read a bit about you saying, you know I wish I had talked to myself earlier and told myself to enjoy life and enjoy this experience because it’s a privilege and all of that. How about family as well now because obviously look, you are in this fabulous position where you’ve got security and you’re able to choose what you do more than you were twenty years ago, for sure, have you got a vision in mind in terms of balance so that Mike is working less, that Mike has more time with the family or is it, is it frankly all wrapped up in each other anyway? Does that not make much of a difference?
Mike Welch
No. No, it’s a great question, I think there’s a real clear demarcation between what I felt was the motivation and drive before and I think within some of that there’s this misconception that what you’re doing is for yourself, you know for your whether it be to prove or to build or and actually, I think, I think some of it is probably to try and justify to others and I think that we’re in a particularly, in this day and age, there’s a perception that we’ve got to perform and adhere to a certain standard or we’ve got to try and hit certain, you know because that’s a minimum, right, because we see it all the time, social media, it’s like everybody’s doing brilliant aren’t they? You know, so certainly my, the position today, I’ve got three kids, three very young kids and we are in the fortunate position we can choose what we do to a certain extent, whether it be business or whatever else, so the time we invest and frankly the finances we invest, if that’s appropriate in whatever we’re doing, needs to be with an outcome that I can measure as the right level, the right sort of success and outcome and that is not necessarily making some dollars or it’s not necessarily measured against somebody else’s measurement of what success can or looks like in the textbooks or in the social media realm. So I’m definitely making more decisions now about okay, what are the right things to do for a bigger impact that’s different? So the charity has taken a much bigger role in myself and my wife’s future looking investment of our time and energy because we want it to and you know there are things that we want to do and do you know what, frankly I don’t, in most cases, I don’t really worry about what anybody thinks about that externally, I mean it’s about how can we have the biggest impact and that feels great and that’s a dividend you know and we’ve got some amazing things we’re working on and we’ve got sort of a partnership with a really high profile charity that we’re hoping to announce later this year – or we might not announce it, you know. We will announce it if the benefit of that is we can get you know more of the great stuff done that we want to get done but setting these things up so we can help where help is required and that makes us feel amazing, is the outcome we want to achieve and that, you know I’m 44, as the years kind of pass me by looking forward, I want to be banking, again for want of a better term because this is the bank of feel good, this is the bank of social impact, this is the bank of things that you know you’re privileged to be able to invest in and have an impact on. That’s got to be filling up and you know I’ve got to be able to look back and feel great about that and, as I say, we’re in a great position to be able to have an amazing impact in some of the areas that are important to us and we’re going to do that in a really meaningful way and that probably will run alongside selling some tyres online as well.
Elliot Moss
Keep that going. It’s been brilliant talking to you Mike, thank you and thank you for being so open with me as well and good luck, I’m sure you will continue to make huge impacts, both selling a few tyres as you said and in some of the maybe the more meaningful ways, although let’s not underestimate the power of the numbers and the power of that number to enable you do all the other things. Just before I let you disappear into the sunset, literally, he says, jealously, what is your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Mike Welch
The song choice is Feeling Good by Nina Simone. It’s a go-to for me, it really over the last twenty years has picked me up on a number of occasions and it really talks to courage, hope and perseverance, I would say as kind of three, three words that I certainly think about when I think about this tune.
Elliot Moss
Nina Simone there with Feeling Good. The song choice of my Business Shaper today, Mike Welch. He talked about nothing to lose, it’s a theme that’s emerging in this season, he had absolutely nothing to lose and therefore he went for it at the age of seventeen. Reach out and ask though, he said, really important that when you don’t know the answer to something, when you want to find out, ask people outside of your business, ask people so they can become your mentors or simply your advisors. Own your numbers, the number one bit of advice about making the business work and those were from Sir Terry Leahy, his mentor, who used to run Tesco. And finally, that sense that I got from Mike right the way through our conversation, if you are going to be in, you’ve got to be all-in, what a fantastic life mantra.
You can hear my conversation with Mike all over again whenever you would like to as a podcast, just search Jazz Shapers or you can ask your smart speaker to play Jazz Shapers. Alternatively, you can catch this programme again Monday morning just before the Jazz FM Breakfast at 5.00am.
We are back next Saturday with my next Business Shaper, Tim Fung, Founder and CEO of Airtasker, an online and mobile marketplace connecting people who need work done with people who want to work. Up next after the news at 10.00, Nigel Williams with great music, interviews and live sessions too. That’s it from me and Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
You can hear our conversation with Mike all over again whenever you’d like to as a podcast, just search Jazz Shapers or you can ask your smart speaker to play Jazz Shapers. We are back next Saturday with my next Business Shaper, Tim Fung, Founder and CEO of Airtasker, an online and mobile marketplace connecting people who need work done with people who want to work. The Jazz FM Breakfast is up next with Nigel Williams. Have a great one and I’ll see you on Saturday.
On this Saturday’s Jazz Shapers, I am joined by the Founder of Blackcircles.com and Tirescanner.com, the online tyre retailers. Mike Welch is my guest. I’m Elliot Moss and I’ll have more of that alongside the music of the shapers of jazz, soul and blues this weekend.
On this Saturday’s Jazz Shapers we heard from Mike Welch OBE, Founder of Blackcircles.com and Tirescanner.com, the online tyre retailers. That programme is now available for you to listen to again as a podcast and through your smart speaker, just search or ask for Jazz Shapers or you can hear it again nice and early Monday morning, 5.00am.
Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guest today is Mike Welch OBE, Founder of Blackcircles.com and Tirescanner.com, the online tyre retailers.
We’re back next Saturday with my next Business Shaper, James Gordon, Founder of DiGiCo and the CEO of Audiotonix, creators of digital mixing consoles for live sound, theatre and broadcast.