The transition from dealing directly with a product to becoming a manager of people can be a challenging one for many founders. In this week’s episode of This Much I Know, Carlos is joined by Emily Brooke – Co-founder of Beryl – the company on a mission to get more people cycling and to transform cities. Listen in as Emily uncovers how that mission has evolved over time and her own transition from getting her hands dirty with product development to developing people, all while striving to build a purpose-driven business.
Emily’s journey to inventing Beryl and launching its first, now iconic, green laser light, wasn’t the most obvious one. After dropping out from a physics degree at Oxford, where she struggled with the lack of tangibility the course provided, she went onto study Product Design in Brighton. It was during that time she started to research why there was such low uptake of cycling in urban cities and created Beryl to help address some of the key barriers.
Now the Beryl laser light can be seen across all Santander Cycle bikes in London and has also been adopted by cycle hire schemes in a number of other major cities. After raising more than £100,000 on Kickstarter for the laser light, Beryl has gone onto launch its own cycle hire scheme – Beryl Bikes.
Tune in to hear some of the biggest manufacturing and commercial hurdles the team has faced over the last seven years and why Emily believes strongly in the need to build businesses with purpose.
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