Hosted by Sophia Wyatt, co-founder of Library of Things, Business (Un)usual examines the assumptions we accept about how business should work. And asks: what if there's another way?
Library of Things started in 2014 as a grassroots experiment that became a globally recognised pioneer of sharing and the circular economy.
Over a decade on, we're steward-owned, mission-locked, and still asking uncomfortable questions about how business actually works. It's time to share what we've learned so far.
This show starts where the press coverage ends. Inside the decisions, the trade-offs, and the structural choices that most never talk about publicly. In each episode, we dig into the assumptions and question the deep design of how companies are owned, funded, built, and run.
Business (Un)usual is for the founders, designers, and leaders who know businesses need to do better.
We're starting with Library of Things' own stories. Then we're going beyond.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
The last in this little mini-series exploring some business unusual, but potentially my favourite.
I sit down with Jane ní Dhulchaointigh, founder of Sugru & one of our Mission Guardians at Library of Things, where she gives a voice to Earth.
She introduces me to a question that guides her: how would Nature do it?
So simple and yet, how often do we ask this question in business?
We start with language, sometimes the best place to, and then go deeper into the design of business, the governance and how she uses her voice for the planet at Library of Things.
Ending with some practical ways we can all start to welcome a little more nature into every business, the ripple effects may well surprise you!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
29 Jul 2026
How do you create a new behaviour?
How do you design against the default? How do you change the deeply engrained behaviour of buying stuff we don't really need to own?
In this episode, we're switching it around & Charlotte, our marketing lead, asks me the key questions about the service design decisions behind Library of Things: the counter to the norm choice of physical space over an app, the shift from shipping container to self-service kiosks, and why peer-to-peer sharing isn't the obvious solution (we looked hard at it, including some memorable advice from Zipcar's Robin Chase).
Together we unpick what it actually took to try to make sharing desirable to the mainstream and why I consider Library of Things a Trojan horse for behaviour change. People come in for a pressure washer or a sewing machine, what they leave with is a completely different relationship with stuff.
And the numbers back it up. Over 16 tonnes of electricals stay in use, not landfill, at every location, every year. 70% of our members go on to repair or reuse after their first borrow.
There's something in here for anyone looking to create behaviour change. Principles that can be applied anywhere.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
19 Jun 2026
Should you build your technology?
These days early-stage founders assume they need to build their own technology. It's the default. Hiring a CTO seems to be the first thing people do.
But what does that assumption actually cost: in money, in flexibility, in the attention you pull away from the mission you set out to solve?
In this episode, I sit down with Rob, our Tech Lead (or CTO) at Library of Things, for something of a public "retro". We trace our journey from Excel spreadsheets and asset management software through to our reluctant decision to build our own platform, and then our own custom lockers.
We get into the open source question (it sounds like a no-brainer; it isn't), how human-centred means creating the right kind of friction, and what it means to design technology around behaviour change rather than transactions.
If you're wondering whether to build, buy, or borrow your tech, this is for you.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
5 Jun 2026
Why don't we repair more?
Why is it more normal to throw something away than to fix it?
In this episode, I talk with Jamie Hillier, our Thing Lead at Library of Things, about why that is and what another way looks like. Over the years, Jamie has made repair central to how Library of Things operates, quietly building a template that other businesses could follow.
We dig into the real story behind broken things: why planned obsolescence is only part of the picture, the genuine trade-offs manufacturers and repairers both have to make, and what it means to design something that can be fixed over and over again.
Jamie shares how he's scaled repair knowledge across a distributed team, the philosophy of care he's developed for the material world, and why the dopamine hit of fixing something might be the most underrated argument for doing it more.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
20 May 2026
Who is business really for?
Most businesses today say they exist for a purpose, one that goes beyond shareholder value. But how do you make sure that happens when push comes to shove? Can you make your mission unbreakable: one that’s able to survive investment, growth, an exit or life beyond the founders? In this episode, co-founder Emma Shaw and I talk about why ownership structure isn’t a legal detail, but a design decision about who your business is really for. We share how Library of Things went from a nonprofit to steward-owned and mission-locked, what it meant for raising funds, and what we’d tell any founder who wants to build something that stays true to itself, whatever the weather.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
6 May 2026
Do you really need to own it?
This first episode explores the question behind Library of Things.
Together with my co-founder, Bex Trevalyan, we tell our origin story.
Not only why and how we started in 2014, but why we built it differently from business as usual. Like our members, we decided we didn't need to own everything.
We didn't trademark. We shared our model with our peers before we'd figured it all out, with tours & toolkits. We built for community before we built for revenue. Embracing the tension between helping a movement whilst also trying to prove a concept.
Twelve years on, we've proved city-wide sharing is possible and share our name with a wider movement of lending libraries in the thousands - all trying to answer that original question: do you really need to own it?
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
16 Apr 2026
Business (Un)usual
Hosted by Sophia Wyatt, co-founder of Library of Things, this podcast examines the assumptions we accept about how business should work. And asks: what if there's another way?
Library of Things started in 2014 as a grassroots experiment that became a globally recognised pioneer of sharing and the circular economy.
A decade on, we're steward-owned, mission-locked, and still asking uncomfortable questions about how business actually works. It's time to share what we've learned so far.
This show starts where the press coverage ends. Inside the decisions, the trade-offs, and the structural choices that most never talk about publicly. In each episode, we dig into the assumptions and question the deep design of how companies are owned, funded, built, and run.
Business (Un)usual is for the founders, designers, and leaders who know businesses need to do better.
We're starting with Library of Things' own stories. Then we're going beyond.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
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