A ProductivityBears Show
Unscripted Bears
A business podcast hosted by Damian Sirso and Joel Bailey-Wilson
What Actually Works In Your First Year | Episode 01
Damian went from a genetics lab to building a community for young entrepreneurs, Joel trained inside the mortgage industry then left to start his own brokerage. Episode one is what it actually took to get going: validating an idea without a 50 page business plan, why marketing too early backfires, and the sales argument we never settled. Listen on spotify for full experience!
Your hosts
Two people building in public
Damian Sirso
Host
Founder of ProductivityBears. Spends most of his week with early-stage founders, which is where the questions on this show come from.
Joel Bailey-Wilson
Co-Host
Founder of MetaMortgages. He is the go-to-expert when it comes to real estate and mortgages, and has built his company over the last 3 years.
What the show is
The unfiltered business podcast for early-stage founders
Most founder podcasts give you the polished version, told years after the fact. This one sits with people still in it.
The founding path
Why they started, what the leap actually cost them, and the early decisions that turned out to matter more than they looked at the time.
Real workflows and systems​
How they operate day to day. The routines, the tools, the numbers they watch, and the boring simplicity behind most of it.
The bit nobody posts
Setbacks, doubt, burnout, and the pressure to pick one lane. The parts of building that get left out of the any LinkedIn announcements.
The Hack
Meet someone here first, then meet them at an event
Starting a conversation is the hardest part of networking. Listen to an episode and you already know what someone is building, how they think, and what they’re wrestling with. That is your conversation starter handed to you before you walk in the room.
The Back Catalogue
Every Podcast Episode
Episode 01
What Actually Works In Your First Year
No guest · 77-minutes
Damian went from a genetics lab to building a community for young entrepreneurs, Joel trained inside the mortgage industry then left to start his own brokerage. Episode one is what it actually took to get going: validating an idea without a 50 page business plan, why marketing too early backfires, and the sales argument we never settled.
Episode 02
From Employee To Owning 100%
Lucas Rizzo · Releasing on 25 Oct 2026
Lucas was an employee at a food brand when it ran out of money, so he and his fiancée took a personal loan to save a company he didn’t own yet, and within a month he owned all of it. We get into the takeover, the 17-hour kitchen shifts, the metrics that actually matter on thin margins, and what investors are really looking for.
Episode 03
From £50 To Feeding Seven Boroughs
Chris Fleming · Releasing on 29 Nov 2026
Chris and his co-founder Nate started The Meal Team in Chris’ parent’s kitchen with £50 each, after losing 50kg between them and getting fed up with the food options for anyone trying to eat well. Ten years on they’re doing meal prep, corporate catering, and feeding children across seven London boroughs through the government’s holiday food programme.
Come to an event
The show is the digital half. The other half happens in person in London, and that’s where the conversations you hear here carry on.
Be on the show
We feature community members building something real. If that’s you and you’ve been at it a while, tell us what you’re working on.
Together, we build the extraordinary.
Unscripted Bears is a ProductivityBears show.