Niall Cleaver

We're hiring. Hybrid role. UK-based. No CV needed.

We're building a global brand, and we need your help doing it.

We're looking for a Junior Marketing Executive who is creative, proactive, and ready to get stuck into a broad range of marketing activities.

You'll lead and play a real role in building Thistle's brand presence across social media, email, student communities, and beyond.

And you'll have the space to bring your own ideas to the table from day one.

What we're looking for:

- Experience in content creation.
- Genuine interest in marketing and brand.
- Comfortable with Canva, CapCut and Figma.
- No science background needed, just curiosity.
- Strong writing instincts think human and on-brand.
- Collaboration, you'll work across teams and scientists.
- Energetic, proactive, spot opportunities and act without being asked.

If you think outside of the box, we want to hear from you.

If this sounds like you, apply here:
https://lnkd.in/digrHF8n

Repost ♻️ for more reach, let's get someone hired.

I’m heading to Thailand.

First trip of the year and a special one it is. A trip to meet our ASIA team and partners for our first ever Thistle Distributor meeting.

Anyone in Bangkok lets grab coffee.

See you on the other side.

Building vs scaling a business. What's the difference?

A few years ago, I learned one of the most valuable lesson in business. I left school with qualifications that made it hard for me to get any sort of job.

Luckily, my family ran a business. I jumped in and started learning. And here’s what I learned: There’s a huge difference between building and scaling.

Building a business:

Proving the idea
Short-term survival
Doing everything yourself
Energy, speed & scrappiness

Scaling a business:

Letting go of control
Long-term decisions
Patience, systems & people
Making sure it works without you.
Alignment throughout the whole company.

Building feels exciting. Scaling feels uncomfortable. Both are essential. I didn’t realise how different they both were until I lived them.

But the one thing that never changes between both?
The hard work that comes with it.

I announced we are hiring...

And the application form didn't include "attach your CV".

Why? Because I've been there.

I didn't have the perfect grades. People expect to attach a CV, so they make it look crisp and sound good, but creatives. They show you. They have this obsession.

They're thinking outside of the box.

Through the first phase of the process, we only asked seven questions, one of which is very simple: tell us about an achievement in your past.

And normally, the people who stand out are the people who have built cool stuff, attempted something new, and didn't have a traditional educational route.

These are the creatives I want to be around.

Execution will humble you in more ways than advice ever could.

And this, by far, has been my best realisation.

It's actually scary how much advice is in the world we live in. And normally, it's not the correct advice. The truth is, advice that will improve your business is hard to come by because everyone is sharing an opinion online. 

But there's one thing that beats any advice:

Saying you'll do something and actually doing it.

In my teens, I told myseIf was going to go all in on business, and that meant learning many things I once never knew. How? Real experience.

Less talking, more doing.

I didn't have a background in marketing, I learned.
I didn't have a background in brand, I learned.
I didn't have a background in R&D, I learned.

And here's what I found out...

When you start facing real situations, real problems, and real outcomes, you quickly see who’s telling the truth and who isn’t.

You learn who to trust.

Advice has its place. But execution is what changes things.

I just spent 2 hours yesterday in one of the best meetings of my life!!!

What about? How do we build further on our foundation?

Yesterday was a special day, do you know where you get the team together and you leave feeling excited for what's to come? That's what happened.

It's been a pretty wild couple of months for Thistle, but it always comes back to the same thing. How can we deepen the connection we can have with researchers?

The personal touch.
The real support they deserve.
The professionalism and trust they have in us.

This year, we’re looking at how we double down on that.

We’ve set some big objectives, and the whole team is ready for them. If yesterday was anything to go by, this next phase is going to be an exciting one.

We can't wait to share more on this very soon.

Tomorrow is going to be the day we remember at Thistle...

The day we get the whole team together and announce our next chapter.

Some of you may have seen, but over the past few months, we've been planning, working and executing on the next chapter of Thistle.

And tomorrow we get to share this with the team.

These days are among the most influential and exciting times for an organisation; it's when everyone aligns on clear objectives. Everyone together, understanding the direction we're moving in.

Tomorrow can't come quickly enough!!!

More content on this very soon.

The beliefs I'm following through with this year as a 25 year old.

I’m betting my 20s on these.

Work first, talk later.

Something I’m really focusing on this year. Narrative is useless if the work doesn’t move the numbers. My job is to fix problems, serve customers, and the content that comes from this is just a by‑product of trying to build something real.

Less overthinking, more real tests.

I’ve learned that slow decisions are often more expensive than small mistakes. I’d rather run controlled experiments in the business, get punched by reality fast, and adjust.

Debates and mistakes are a feature, not a bug.

Debates can be uncomfortable, but they sharpen our thinking and raise the bar. The same with mistakes, they hurt in the short term, but they’re how we upgrade the way we operate.

If I can hold onto these, I like my odds.

I used to panic hearing the word strategy in business.

It sounded complicated... but it wasn’t.

I would hear the word and be like that sounds proper technical. I'd just nod like I understood exactly what it meant, when I didn't but now I get it and it's simple.

It's just a plan.

What are the objectives?
What action will you take to hit them?
Which data tells you it's working or it isn't?

We love to make words sound more complicated than they are.

It's easy to overcomplicate things when you hear all of the advice online but it's simpler than you think. If something isn't working don't wait, go and find the reason why.

Try something. Learn. Adapt. Evolve. Repeat.
Just enjoy the process of figuring out.

That's what business is!

Just a 25-year-old from a small county called Warwickshire who decided to go all in on their family business.

I was a typical teenager who went to school, left without the qualifications I needed to get "a decent job", kept playing a little bit of professional rugby, then left with nothing really lined up.

This was such a crucial stage in my life...
It's where I started to learn more about business.

At 21 years old, I was diagnosed with dyslexia, and from that moment, everything started to make sense for me.

The way I learned looked different.
The way I took action looked different.
The way I proceeded things looked different.

Understanding this allowed me to lean into my strengths the creative side, but not just that. It led me to understand the details of running a business.

It's been full of trial and error throughout my entire life, but that's something we all should be looking for. It's where we develop, and now I get to do what I love, helping to continue to scale Thistle with the incredible team.

I’m really enjoying sharing more of this side of my journey.
The raw, honest, unfiltered side.

The best people I’ve learned from all have the same balance:

Patient with the process.
Zero patience for bad work.

I think more businesses need this.

Most people want fast results. They want things to “blow up”. And the moment it stops being exciting, they lose interest. But the people I respect just turn up every day.

They repeat the basics.
They track what’s happening.
They learn quietly.
They improve slowly.

Just a compounding effort.

No matter where you are in business, you’re going to have slow periods. 
Moments where results don’t match what you expected. 
The not-so-glamorous parts no one posts about.

Every business goes through this.

It’s on you to pick yourself back up, take the lessons, and keep moving.

More doing the boring stuff well. 
Over and over again.