This week, on the PRmoment podcast, I’m interviewing Mandy Sharp, founder of Tin Man.
Mandy founded Tin Man in 2013 and it now has a fee income of £1.3m and employs 20 people.
Previously, Tin Man was part owned by Unity co-founders Nik Done and Gerry Hopkinson, but Mandy has recently bought them out and is now the sole owner of Tin Man.
Here is a summary of what we discussed:
How it feels for Mandy owning 100% of Tin Man, having bought out Nik Done and Gerry Hopkinson who previously owned a minority stake
- Why her first job in PR taught her how not to do it
- Why her time at Band & Brown had a big impact on her career
- Why there is a pattern of two founders setting up PR firms
- Why Mandy always knew she’d set up her own business, but was still nervous about it
- Why Mandy has launched a business each time she has been on maternity leave
- How it came about that Nik Done and Gerry Hopkinson became minority partners in Tin Man, despite them not backing the business financially
- Whether Mandy regrets giving equity away in her business
- Whether Tin Man is smaller because Mandy didn’t take a financial investment in the business in the early years
- How and why Tin Man has retained a broad spectrum of consumer sector work
- Why great work for a dull brand can be the most fulfilling
- Why Mandy believes Tin Man has a different approach to creative communications
- What it’s like to be a sole founder of a business, rather than doing it as a pair
- Whether Mandy believes that consumer PR firms in London are gaining market share from other marketing disciplines
- What are Mandy’s three key pieces of advice for potential PR entrepreneurs out there?
- Why you have to take risks when you run a business
- Mandy tells us about her ambitious growth plans for Tin Man to double in size in the next two years and why she’s about to make some senior hires