Jimmy's Jobs of the Future
Cassandra Stavrou - Kickstarting a British snack revolution and the importance of International Women's Day
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Episode notes
Today's interview is with Cassandra Stavrou, co-founder of Proper.
One of the top female entrepreneurs in the UK, Cassandra helped to kick-start the revolution in the snacking industry that has gripped the UK for nearly a decade.
I've been incredibly excited for this episode and Cassandra shares candidly her experience on everything from founding an iconic British Brand to being a female founder in a male-dominated world.
This episode is part of our campaign for International Women's Day. You can see our other bonus episodes on our podcast page, each one shining a light on the amazing female entrepreneurs we've had on the show.
In this episode we discuss:
- What is behind the name proper- and how it formed the company's ethos
- Why Cassandra is obsessed with an emphasis on product and following the advice of ‘keeping the main thing, the main thing’.
- The moment She thought ‘I have something here’ and how people can scale their lockdown hobbies
- How Top Gear gave her the inspiration for her first product
- What Cassandra had to go through to get that initial £10,000 to start the business- and her low moments in this journey
- The things that drive Cassandra toward success
- Her first hire at Proper and the importance of prioritizing sales
- What the next ten years of food innovation will look like
- Jobs of the future in food
- How to maintain culture when growing so fast and the problems of over-complicating culture
- Becoming a B-Corp so early on
- Mentors on her journey
- The importance of international women’s day
- Hiding her pregnancy during negotiations to sell her business
- Pass the mic- the entrepreneur Cassandra wants to shine more light on