How to Build Systems So Good Your Business Runs Without You
How long can your business run without you? In hours please. A client told me about his modus operandi on Monday. 40 adults in a car park at 8:40 because one bloke had the keys and was, by his own account, “nearly there”. Nobody was cross. You can’t be cross with the only man who […]
What I learned watching 12 founders sell.
Every office has a good pair of scissors. Everybody knows whose drawer they live in. That person goes on holiday and the whole place is cutting cardboard with a Stanley knife. There’s a second pair in a cupboard somewhere. Blunt. You’re that drawer. Not for scissors. For pricing, for the awkward client, for the hire nobody […]
Scaling is hard until you fix these 5 things
Running your company isn’t just getting harder. It’s getting slower. A decision that used to take you a day now takes 3 weeks. Nothing about it got more difficult. It’s just sat in a queue behind everything else in your head. Every sign-off, every discount, every hire below your senior team, every pricing call nobody […]
The founder CEO must own AI
Your team may be saving time with AI while the business sees little benefit. Learn where to focus your attention, how to tackle your biggest constraint and what only you can lead.
£5M to £35M in 3 Years | Steve Sharp, NUVO | E373 | Steve started on his own business at 21. There’s 400 of them now
I was chatting to Steve Sharp , CEO and founder of Nuvo, on the pod this week. An accountancy firm in Derby, 400 people, built by buying up the practices whose partners wanted to retire. He left school at 16, qualified at 20, the youngest in the country that year, and set the firm up […]
80% of businesses never sell. The hedge that taught me more than any business exit book.
Happy wife, happy life. The business runs better on it too, I’ve found. So you’d think I’d have got this one right. Geri wanted the neighbours screened off. Something about sunbathing, and the peeping toms next door getting an eyeful. Said it was a man’s job.I said leave it with me. 240 bare-root whips, in […]
Best founder coaches in the UK (2026)
Six UK founder coaches who have actually built companies, ranked by stage fit. Who suits venture-backed startups, who suits scale-ups past 30 people, and what it costs.
Missionaries versus mercenaries. The senior leader hiring framework. Why 40% of senior hires fail within 18 months.
40% of senior hires are gone within 18 months (Heidrick & Struggles). A hiring process that tests motive and collaboration before you make the offer.
How to coach managers into leaders. (Without doing their job for them)
Coaching is not redoing the work. It is telling people the standard, then letting them meet it. Here is how to coach managers into leaders without taking the job back.
E372 | Oliver Cummings: left Goldman Sachs for a 4-person startup. built a 60,000 expert network
Oliver Cummings left Goldman Sachs for a four-person startup and built a 60,000-expert board network. The test he uses on leaders is the one many hiring processes skip.
