Niall Cleaver

I'm 26, have no mortgage and have failed at plenty of things.

And every day I wake up excited for what's to come next.

A few years ago, I stopped playing professional rugby, having no idea what I wanted to do next. I jumped on trends, tried things because other people did. Becasue that seemed cool.

Those new ideas didn't turn into anything.

And I'm thankful they didn't.

I was young, caring what other people thought instead of doing what felt right to me. As I've gotten older, I've made sure this has changed.

I now wake up, excited to work on the two businesses I love.

And get to build them with some pretty cool people.

Of course, it has its moments where you question yourself, but stop stressing about trying things and them not turning out the way you thought. Your 20...

Now's the time to fall short, learn and build what you want.
I want this to be a reminder to you: Life is for living.

Go learn that new hobby. Attempt that new buisness.
Go try things. You'll soon find what you enjoy.

P.S. Personade may or may not be going live this month...

Last year, I launched a business, then paused it.

This year, I became a co-founder of a new one.

And decided to go all in helping scale my family business.

A lot has changed in the past 18 months. Some of it I could control. Some of it I couldn't. But I've always been someone who just gets on with it.

Don't dwell too much on what happened.
Pick yourself up and move on.

It's a trait I keep seeing in successful people:

They're not looking at the problem.
They're looking at the solution.

The second something feels off, they don't wait around. They change it.

Things not going to plan can be tough. But I remind myself I'm 26, still trying things, still figuring it out. That's the point.

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 have 60,000 followers on LinkedIn.

And I've been struggling to find which style of content suits me.

I started posting 4 years ago. I was new to the platform, didn't really understand it all yet, but I started sharing the raw and honest side of developing.

And I've taken some time to look back and see what connected.

I was sharing the real knowledge I gained.
I was sharing the messy middle.
I was taking you bts of my life.

And I really want to go back to this.

I feel so much more confident with the experience I've gained, the knowledge, my capabilities, but I understand how much more I've got to learn and develop.

So we're going to head back to this style of content.

Back to the olden days, but a reinvention of that.

4 years ago, I started documenting on LinkedIn.

Yesterday, I came home from a holiday with people I met here.

It started as a place for me to share my skills, knowledge, and prove myself. That decision changed my life.

I've now:

- Made real friendships
- Built a community of nearly 60,000 people
- Upskilled in areas I didn't even know existed
- Received advice from founders running billion-dollar businesses

That doesn't just happen.

It happens when you decide to put yourself out there and create the change. Because when you do, you change your life. And meet people doing the same.

10 years ago, I was struggling through high school.
7 years ago, I attempted my 3rd business.
4 years ago, I shared my first-ever post.

Today I'm building two businesses I love.

A few years ago. I didn't understand half the things I do now. I was trying things to look cool, all to become a type of person I wasn't.

These moments changed my life.

I was a young kid just trying to figure out life. I've always had big ambitions, but doubted myself. Thankfully, that changed when I got stuck in because I had less time to think.

Getting stuck in forced me to upskill, develop and change.
No time to overthink the next move.
I just made it.

I've realised every failed attempt, every post nobody read, every idea that didn't work out, moved me forward. No matter what you want to do…

If it’s business, hobby, whatever it is. Get stuck in.

It's OFFICIALLY live.

Jo-Rémi and I have been on a crazy sprint these past few months, all building up to today. What started as a random thought is now real life.

Welcome to Personade.

Record one demo video, personalise it for every prospect.
Find leads through LinkedIn, CSV, or our own database.
Build a custom landing page for every prospect.
Report on performance through analytics.

And this is just the start.

It's funny looking back now. Jo and I started building becasue we thought "Why not create some fun little side projects?" Crazy how it turns out.

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.

One of the stupidest pieces of advice I've heard in business.

And it left me wasting years of my life.

You need the perfect strategy before you begin.

Four years ago, I was overcomplicating what strategy meant. I wouldn't start or take any action before I could tell what I thought would work.

But there’s a big problem with that…

You never truly know what will work and what will move your business forward unless you try. Then the strategy becomes clearer: what's working and what isn't. It’s simple.

You make the plan.
You execute on the plan.
You adapt the plan as you go.

It’s the part most people overcomplicate.

So I want this to be your reminder: don’t stress about having the perfect strategy because the best strategies become clearer the more involved you are.

Action is the strategy.

I wanted to "GIVE UP" sitting my English exam...

My parents refused to let me. 7 years later, I passed.

I left school at 16 without the qualification I needed. I was re-sitting my English exam, unsure what I even wanted to do with my life. Teenage years, right.

Business wasn't even in the equation yet.

Year after year, I kept going. And year after year, I kept failing. I struggled with spelling the stuff that came easily to so many people.

But in year 7, I passed.
And got diagnosed with dyslexia.

Talk about a double win. This phase of my life taught me so much.

Staying in the game, being patient, and working hard. When you do, you progress. Maybe not right away. But eventually. And that's what matters.

Good things take time. Remember that.

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.

3 months ago, this was only an idea...

Last month, we launched our first-ever beta programme.

For the past few months, Jo-Rémi and I have thrown everything into building Personade, getting feedback, all with the aim of launching in August.

The goal was simple: invite people into the MVP and see if the idea we believed in is also an idea people want to buy.

It's taken so much longer than we anticipated.

Ideas have failed.
Bugs kept creeping in.
Problems kept showing up.

Frustrating, but it's made one thing clearer.

Anything worth building takes time. Not everything goes perfectly. Things break, pivots have to happen. All for good reason.

So if your progress is taking longer than you thought, be patient. It's not meant to be fast. The small steps, the ones nobody sees, are the ones creating the most change.

P.S. We're launching on Product Hunt next month. If you can follow the page now, it'll make a real difference when we launch.

https://lnkd.in/eSTmyapD

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.

At 22, I made 3 decisions that changed my career.

I never expected it to turn out this way.

1 - Started documenting my journey.

I posted and shared my journey before I felt "ready."
I learned skills that I once didn't know existed.
Fast forward, now 60,000 of you are here.

2 - Networked with people way ahead of me.

I put myself in rooms where I felt small.
I knew I had half the experience everyone else did.
But the knowledge I gained there is what changed my entire life.

3 - Stopped telling myself I'd start tomorrow.

I learned in real time, through real experience.
I learned skills I once didn't know existed.
I stopped making excuses. And I grew.

All of it felt scary in the moment.

4 years later, the scary feels natural. That's just how it works.

Anything new feels uncomfortable until you're inside it. Then, eventually, it becomes second nature. Business, life, or whatever it may be.

Be the person willing to push yourself first.

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 decided to create my first ever LinkedIn post 4 years ago…

I didn't have the "experience." Today, 60,000 of you.

A few years ago, I decided to improve my life. I started to live up to the promises I told myself and one of them was to start learning and sharing the raw, honest side of building.

Just me in the front office going this is cringe.

That was 4 years ago today:

Building two businesses I love
Featured in Articles next to global brands.
Formed a small circle that has changed my life.
Continuing to work hard, develop and grow more.

All of this is because I made a promise to myself.

You'll never have all the answers. There will always be risks, unknowns, and things you can't predict. But starting is what allows you to figure it out.

I hope this encourages you to create.

Last week, I announced that I became a co-founder.

This week, calls booked with people from IBM & Amazon.

Wild seven days. Thank you to everyone who supported the announcement. But one message keeps showing up more than any other: What does Personade actually do?

So here's the customer journey, step by step:

1. Demo.

You upload one demo video (or paste a public Loom link). We'll then pull your potential customer's name and company straight in. Imagine: "Hey Sarah, I checked out Acme..." then the demo plays like normal.

2. Leads.

Search our database of 250M+ contacts, or upload a CSV of people you already know. You can even share your LinkedIn post URL and send it to everyone who commented.

3. Custom landing page.

We design a landing page for you. Your logo, your brand colours, a headline with your name and company, and call-to-action buttons.

Want to skip the manual setup? Drop in your website URL and we'll pull your logo, brand colours, and homepage copy automatically. Save any brand setup as a preset for future campaigns.

4. Analytics.

Track open rate, plays, 25/50/75/100 percent watched, CTA clicks, and bookings. Repeat views from the same visitor are deduplicated, and your own previews never pollute the numbers. You'll get an email the moment a lead goes hot (75%+ watched, or clicked), one per booking, and a Monday digest. All toggleable in settings.

And this is only the start. We've got a lot planned, but right now we're focused on receiving the feedback from our beta group ahead of the official launch.

Drop me a message.

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.

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!

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.