Swingers, Recyclers and YouTubers

I'm back with a bang for Business Leader having just had a refreshing break in the French Alps.

Before I tell you about the new content I've been working on, I've got one video to catch up with, from before my break. It's one of my favourites so far, certainly from a visual point of view.

I caught up with Matt Grech-Smith of Swingers - the crazy golf club the indoor, crazy golf specialists. They have two venues in London, as well as locations in New York and Washington DC, and further global expansion in the works. (In fact, since my interview they announced that they will be opening in Boston.) Last year the company’s turnover was just over ￡50m.

I actually once attended an office party at the West London venue when I worked at the BBC. I consider myself a crazy golf pro but was (fairly) beaten by my office nemesis Richard Kenny .

Check out the backdrop for this interview, I love it:

For those interested in filming... I shot this on my iPhone 15 Pro Max. I did the aerial shots in the sequence of Matt putting with an Insta360 影石 camera. This shoots video in a sphere and you can hold it up high with a selfie stick to get amazing angles, like a drone flying overhead. We filmed this in the morning when it was quiet, but of course we switched on the carousels and neon lights to give the nice backdrop. Matt provided the pictures of the pop-up warehouse which I dropped into the edit.

The videos are always just the tip of the iceberg. If you want the full story of the rise of Swingers, then have a listen to my full conversation with Matt in this Business Leader podcast episode. By the way, all my podcast interviews I record on an ancient iPhone 6! It's all you need.

Another technical point on filming... since upgrading to an iPhone 15 I've had to completely change how I shoot interviews. I used to just always use the Filmic Pro app. But the iPhone 15 brings new lenses and new options. There are so many good apps for filming right now, like Black Magic and Final Cut Camera (both free) and CinemaP3. But my favourite method right now is to use cinematic mode in the native camera app, shooting in 4k. This gives the blurred-out, dreamy background. You can see it in action here, in my interview with Bruce Bratley , the founder and CEO of First Mile | Certified B Corp . It's particularly good in offices, when the backdrops aren't that visually interesting anyway!

First Mile helps more than 30,000 businesses around the UK with recycling solutions including large firms like Pret, Caffè Nero, Netflix and Amazon – but plenty of individual small businesses too, from clothes stores to restaurants. It collects more than 65,000 tonnes of waste every year using zero and low-emission vehicles and electric cargo bikes, which it takes to recycling centres.

One of the ways it drives up recycling rates from clients is by harnessing competition between employees within companies using league tables. It’s become part of its business offer, as Bratley explains in the video.

The podcast will come out in the next few weeks where we cover all kinds of things form his PhD in Environmental Marxism, to his tips on recycling, to his admission that he could have grown the company to a bigger size if he'd followed different principles.

I've got two interviews 'in the can' ready to go out soon. Next Monday's video will be with Ajaz Ahmed the founder and CEO of digital creative agency 雅酷 . I've also recorded a great interview with Jordan Schwarzenberger , the manager of YouTube collective The Sidemen.

Next week I'm up to Edinburgh to record two interviews there.

If you want to pitch me stories the best place is my email, [email protected].

And of course, my usual note, if you want to check out my CEO Secrets book which is packed with business advice, based on my BBC interviews, you can get it here. Use the code 'CEO25' for a 25% discount.

Dougal