She Spent Her Life Savings on a San Francisco Sabbatical. Then She Built This. | Scale HER Up

In this episode of Scale HER Up, Brenda Hector is joined by Alison Gray — founder of Skillfluence, a company that helps entrepreneurs, business leaders, and academic researchers get their ideas out into the world. Alison had a good job. She ran a project that was so successful it got absorbed into a big organisation. She found herself getting worse at her job, not better. So she took a sabbatical to San Francisco with her partner — six months, life savings — and studied entrepreneurial strategies at Stanford, training design at Berkeley, and public speaking at Toastmasters. She came back knowing she needed to build something. Left her job on a Friday. Started at Entrepreneurial Spark on the Monday. Skillfluence now has 12 core staff, 30-plus associates, and runs accelerator programmes across the UK. There's a cohort of 30 female business leaders in the Highlands and Islands right now with a WhatsApp group she describes as absolutely buzzing. This conversation covers a lot of ground — recruitment, AI, productizing, COVID, shiny object syndrome, and why the real barrier for most people isn't knowledge. In this episode: 00:00 — Introduction 01:00 — What Skillfluence does: founders, entrepreneurs, researchers 02:00 — The approach: workshops, coaching, cohorts, online tools, guest speakers 03:00 — 30 female business leaders in the Highlands and Islands — and a WhatsApp group that's buzzing 03:30 — 12 core staff, 30+ associates, a portfolio of mentors 04:00 — How it started: a successful project gets mainstreamed, and Alison struggles in a big organisation 05:30 — The sabbatical: San Francisco, six months, life savings, Berkeley, Stanford, Toastmasters 06:30 — Coming back and going back to the job — but knowing she couldn't stay 07:00 — Left on Friday, started at Entrepreneurial Spark on Monday 07:30 — Always intended to grow a company, not just freelance 08:30 — Being opportunistic: pros, cons, and the zigzag problem when you've got a team 10:30 — Building the team: starting with associates, learning that not everyone wants a permanent job 11:30 — The first hire: why operations came first for a training business 13:00 — Recruiting for real skills: the process Alison designed 14:00 — Cover letters, three-minute videos, online interviews, and the surprise task at in-person stage 17:30 — The AI candidate in an online interview 18:30 — AI in business: where it helps, where it takes away, and what still needs to be human 22:00 — COVID: all the programmes fell off a cliff, and being one month ahead 23:30 — The challenge of productizing something deeply tailored 26:00 — "It's not the knowledge. It's actually doing something." 27:30 — Advice to founders and women starting or scaling a business 29:00 — On regrets: "I'm quite future-focused" 30:00 — Scale Her Up Pump Up Playlist: Titanium, David Guetta ft. Sia Scale HER Up is the podcast for female-led businesses ready to grow to seven figures and beyond. Each episode features real stories, tools and tactics to help you build a business that supports the life you want. Only one in three UK entrepreneurs are female — and men are still five times more likely to scale beyond £1 million in turnover. When we change that, we add £250 billion to the UK economy. Ladies, you can do it. #ScaleHERUp #WomenInBusiness #FemaleEntrepreneur #Entrepreneurship #StartupScotland #WomenInBusiness #WomenSupportingWomen #AcceleratorProgram #BusinessCoaching #SkillDevelopment