70 people, 56 hours 44 minutes, more than £5,500 for Talk Club, and one question: “How are you? Out of 10?”

Bristol podcast host Ollie Tiramuragan Collard has set a new world record for the longest interview marathon, interviewing 70 business leaders back-to-back for 56 hours and 44 minutes.

The challenge took place at Films at 59 in Bristol from 11 to 13 September, exceeding the previous record by more than 34 minutes.
As co-founder of the Founded & Grounded podcast, Collard has spent seven years exploring the human side of entrepreneurship.

Every interview began with Talk Club’s simple question: “How are you? Out of 10?”

Founders spoke candidly about loneliness, anxiety, burnout, failure and the pressure to look in control. A 2025 Sifted survey of 138 European founders found that only 6% reported no mental-health issues in the previous year.

For Collard, the cause is personal. He has been running his own business since 2018 and earlier this year joined a Talk Club therapy group after dealing with the isolation and anxiety that came with entrepreneurship.

“I walked into a room full of blokes I’d never met, nervous as anything, and talked about things I’d never said out loud,” said Collard.

“It was the most liberating thing I’d done in years.”

The attempt almost didn’t happen. Collard’s grandfather, David, had died just three weeks earlier. After two and a half hours’ sleep, he woke on Friday seriously considering cancelling.

Two things got him into the chair: more than 130 people who had given up their weekend to support the attempt, and the memory of the grandfather he had just lost. So he stopped thinking and started.

By the second night, Collard was hallucinating and suffering intense stomach cramps. Two combat medics, Chris and Anna Lee of 1st Defence Medical, remained on hand throughout, with the authority to stop the attempt at any point.

“They were my guardian angels,” said Collard. “Without them, I couldn’t have done it.”

As exhaustion set in, two of his best friends stepped in for interviews. His children made surprise visits, and family, friends and celebrities sent motivational videos. One founder arrived as a Power Ranger, and the final guest came in full medieval armour.

When Collard passed the previous record, the person sitting opposite him was his wife, Kat. When he first told her the idea, she had said no, worried what two days without sleep would do to him. This time, she was there to tell him how proud she was.

“Sometimes people need someone to stop, listen and ask how things really are,” said Collard. “This challenge wasn’t really about me staying awake. It was about making sure these conversations were heard. The record is done. Now the real work starts.”

When it ended, Collard took the lift out of the basement studio and saw daylight for the first time in almost three days. “It was the most surreal feeling,” he said. The medics drove him home in their ambulance, where he slept for nine and a half hours.

Ben Akers and Gavin Thorpe, co-founders and co-CEOs of Talk Club, said: “When Ollie came to us with this crazy idea, we leapt at being involved. And he did it. It embodied true mental fitness and resilience.”

Kim Palmer, founder of Clementine, said: “Spilling your guts about what it’s like to be a founder is hard. I usually do this in my kitchen with my husband, not live for the world to see. But speaking so frankly is like therapy. A problem shared is a problem halved.”

The team now wants to develop a documentary about founder mental health and is seeking a producer and funding. The 70 interviews are planned for release as podcast episodes from 2027. Donations to Talk Club remain open at https://www.justgiving.com/page/beheard.