The co-founder and CEO of Thriva had a chat with me on the pod this week and said something that made me put my coffee down.
“We spent six years wondering why nobody was buying. Turns out we had fifty people who could build the thing and zero who could explain why it mattered.”
Ten years. Brilliant product. Health tech.
Genuinely changes lives. I’ve been a customer for 10 years and it bloody changed mine. And for six of those years, nothing moved.
Not because the product was wrong. Not because the market wasn’t there. Because the one person who could have unlocked the whole thing was never in the building.
He made that hire last week. A decade late. No it’s not a salesperson or a CFO. It wasn’t what you think.
Here’s the conversation.
He also reckons venture capital is killing innovation. I’m not sure he’s wrong.
Three things you can do:
- Grab the book. F**k Plan B covers scaling in more depth, with the practical founder lessons behind customer obsession, honest communication, hiring, small teams and managers who coach.
- Watch the £30m scaling video. Start there if you want the founder-level version of these principles, using Rackspace and Peer 1 as the proof base.
- Subscribe to the newsletter. Get direct, practical thinking on scaling, founder bottlenecks, leadership rhythm and building a company that can run without you in every room and every episode of the podcast first..
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