Steve Roe on running Hoopla Impro and learning the art of delegation - a podcast by Steve Whiteley

In this conversation I chat to the founder of Hoopla, Steve Roe (https://www.hooplaimpro.com).

Steve co-founded Hoopla in 2006 with his friend Edgar Fernando and they started running improv classes and courses.

Hoopla are the founders of the UK’s 1st improv comedy club. Recommended by The Guardian, The Independent, Time Out, The Evening Standard, The Daily Telegraph and more. Prior to covid, their theatre had shows performing 7 nights a week featuring people who have trained with Hoopla. Hoopla also provide corporate training for clients including Google, Facebook, Accenture, Apple, London Business School, Comedy Central and more.

We kick things off talking about Steve's new exercise regime after having covid. He explains how he co-founded Hoopla and eventually walked out of his full-time job in TV, to commit to growing it as a company. Steve warns why not to full into the trap of being the impoverished artist and we agree how temping can be a meditative process. Steve also breaks down the pros and cons of growing a company organically and not taking investment.

He talks about the struggle of transitioning from being a performer to having to take a step back to run the business. Steve explains his circle decision making process, which helps him decide which projects to work on. He emphasises the importance of focussing on the audience and what’s fun or you, rather than being worried about the competition. Steve talks through how and why Hoopla opened their own improv venue. What to do when you get to the end of your 5 year plan. Why he took a management course with Open University and what the key takeaways he learned from it were. How he got better at delegating. He breaks down the 5 why’s you need to ask yourself before launching something new.

Steve also describes the healthy state of the UK improv scene pre-covid and believes it is on track to compete with the US. He explains why, he does the Alexander technique, why he did hypnotherapy during covid, his annual birthday ritual, why he loves going on solo walks and loads more!

If you like this episode please do rate and review the podcast on Apple.

Happy listening :)

Steve - @offkeysteve

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