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In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent is joined by Rodica Murphy, founder of RM Sustainability, to explore how she is helping fashion and textile SMEs tackle the growing complexity of sustainability compliance. Rodica works primarily with businesses employing 20+ people and turning over £2m+, acting as an outsourced implementation partner rather than simply providing high-level advice. We explore the challenge of turning regulation into practical action, including the growing demands created by EU sustainability legislation and pressure from larger corporate customers. Rodica also shares some of the more innovative projects she has been involved in, from repurposing counterfeit clothing with Central Saint Martins to creating "Sewing Circles" that develop practical skills and employment opportunities for women from disadvantaged backgrounds. The conversation also moves into the challenge of scaling a specialist consultancy. Rodica's current retainer model creates strong recurring revenues and deep client relationships, but inevitably creates a capacity ceiling when revenue remains closely linked to the founder's time. Attempts to move towards outcome-based pricing have highlighted an interesting issue: clients may happily pay the same overall amount monthly while resisting a larger upfront project fee. One possible route beyond that constraint is the Impact Ledger, a developing service that converts raw sustainability and waste data into a single audit-ready report. Over time, Rodica sees potential for this to evolve from a service into a scalable software product. We also discuss why Rodica is deliberately choosing measured growth rather than rapid expansion, prioritising expertise, reputation and deep client relationships while deciding whether the future business should become a mini-agency, a network of specialists or something increasingly product-led. In this episode we discuss: • Why sustainability compliance is becoming increasingly difficult for SMEs • The difference between sustainability advice and practical implementation • Turning waste and compliance challenges into creative opportunities • The strengths and limitations of a time-based consultancy model • Why outcome-based pricing can be harder to sell than expected • The challenge of separating revenue from founder time • Productising expertise through the Impact Ledger • Choosing deliberate growth rather than chasing headcount • Why simple business fundamentals such as SLAs, payment terms and direct debit matter The one key thing The expertise that creates a successful consultancy can eventually become the thing that limits its growth unless that knowledge is turned into a repeatable process, product or system. Standout message The mathematically better pricing model isn't necessarily the commercially easier model for your customer to buy. Smart90 and the G90 Summit Most founders I speak to feel busy but frustrated. Plenty is happening, but they are not moving forward at the rate they want to. Success creates more options, pulling founders and their teams in different directions. More than 500 ScaleUp Radio interviews have reinforced one lesson: the founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That's what the G90 Summit is designed to help with. A structured half-day where you cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days, and build the rhythm to make sure they do. From the frustration and chaos of more, through the discipline of less, to the rhythm of done. Quarterly. Virtual. £97 per seat. smart90.co.uk/summit   Rodica can be found here: https://www.rodicamurphy.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodicamurphy/   Resources: Back Row podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/0wpDOgcuWKjpH9WxklNqI4?si=a7e09b64ade54b7d A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/a-court-of-thorns-and-roses-sarah-j-maas/7dff7a44f1c0144d?ean=9781526694065 Greenly - https://greenly.earth/ Motion - https://www.usemotion.com/ Todoist - https://www.todoist.com/

In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent talks to Ken Scales, founder of Scalesology, about the challenges of growing a technology consultancy, removing the founder as the operational bottleneck and creating more predictable, recurring revenue. Ken's journey is an interesting example of what happens when a successful service business reaches the point where simply winning more projects is no longer enough. Scalesology has spent years helping businesses connect technology, data and systems. But project work inevitably creates peaks and troughs. That led Ken and the team to look at how they could turn knowledge developed through individual client projects into something much more scalable. The result is Syncology, a SaaS platform designed to connect disparate data sources, including CRM and ERP systems, through a common data model. It represents a significant shift in the business: taking intellectual property developed through years of client work and turning it into recurring revenue. And that transition is just one of several scaling challenges we explore. From founder dependency to operational discipline One of Ken's biggest changes has been handing responsibility for day-to-day operations to a COO. Rather than trying to stay involved in everything, the business now uses a modified version of EOS and Traction, supported by weekly pulse meetings, scorecards and clear individual accountability. One phrase from Ken particularly stood out: "Everyone should have a number." The principle is simple. People need to understand what they are individually responsible for and how that measure contributes to the wider objectives of the business. That structure has enabled Ken to spend more time on strategy, sales and the future of the company without losing visibility of what is happening operationally. Solving the founder-led sales problem Sales has been another major scaling challenge. Like many technically experienced founders, Ken found that he naturally acted as the translator between the commercial problem a customer was describing and the technical solution Scalesology could provide. The difficulty was trying to recruit somebody who could replicate all of that experience. Eventually, the team stopped trying to find a clone of the founder. Instead, they developed what Ken describes as a "peak and pass" approach. Salespeople identify the opportunity and understand the problem before bringing in the right technical expertise to help develop and close the solution. It allows the sales process to become more repeatable without pretending that every salesperson needs years of technical experience. Escaping the consulting treadmill Project businesses often suffer from the same challenge: revenue arrives in waves. A major project finishes and suddenly the business needs to replace that income. Ken describes two ways Scalesology has addressed this. The first is through retainers that provide clients with ongoing access to the people who understand their systems. The second is more fundamental: turning repeatable solutions developed for individual customers into products. That thinking led directly to Syncology. Rather than continually building individual point-to-point integrations, Syncology provides a platform through which different systems and data sources can connect. The ambition is to create a more scalable business with recurring revenue alongside the existing consultancy operation. AI as an opportunity rather than simply a threat Ken also talks about the rapid development of AI and the impact it is having on software and technology businesses. Rather than viewing AI purely as something that will replace existing services, he sees it as an opportunity to change how those services are delivered and create new products. One example is Syncology's AI Control Center. The concept is to redact sensitive information before data is passed into an AI model, helping organisations in regulated industries explore AI while protecting personally identifiable or sensitive information. It is another example of Scalesology looking at a client problem and asking whether the solution can ultimately become something repeatable and scalable. Culture before process Ken's approach to scaling has also been heavily influenced by culture. Scalesology established four core values with its first two employees: Commit to the Cause Treat Others Like You Want to Be Treated Focus on the Leading Edge Celebrate the Journey Those principles have remained part of the business as it has developed. Alongside culture has come increasing operational discipline, including weekly scorecards, individual measures and 30, 60 and 90-day plans when bringing new people into the business. Networking: give before you get Towards the end of the conversation, Ken shares a very practical approach to networking. Rather than immediately asking what somebody can do for him, he starts with two questions: How can I help you? and Who would you like to meet? Helping first builds trust and, in Ken's experience, naturally creates reciprocity. It is a simple approach that founders relying on networks, referrals and relationships can put into practice immediately. The one key thing… If your growth still depends on the founder personally delivering, selling or solving every problem, scaling means finding the repeatable system behind what you already do well. For Scalesology, that has meant clearer operational accountability, changing the sales process and turning years of bespoke integration work into a scalable product. In this episode We cover: Moving from project revenue towards recurring income Productising expertise developed through client work Delegating operational responsibility to a COO Using scorecards and weekly rhythms to create accountability Why "everyone should have a number" Moving beyond founder-led sales Scalesology's "peak and pass" sales model Using 30, 60 and 90-day plans when hiring The development of Syncology Creating safer routes to AI adoption for regulated businesses Building culture around clear company values Why Ken approaches networking by giving before asking Smart90 and the G90 Summit Before we get into it, most founders I speak to feel busy but frustrated. There is plenty happening, but they are frustrated that they are not moving forward at the rate they want to. Success creates more options, pulling founders and their teams in different directions. Here is what more than 500 interviews on ScaleUp Radio have taught me: The founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That is what the G90 Summit is for. It is a structured half-day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days, and build the rhythm to make sure they do. From the frustration and chaos of more, through the discipline of less, to the rhythm of done. Quarterly. Virtual. £97 a seat. Visit Smart90.co.uk/summit.   Ken can be found here: [email protected]   Resources: Built To Sell by John Warrillow - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/built-to-sell-creating-a-business-that-can-thrive-without-you-john-warrillow/d0d51f969be59f14?ean=9798256105150 Manus - https://manus.im/

In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent is joined by Dave Christie of Flourish Foundry for a conversation about one of the biggest challenges facing owner-managed businesses: how do you build a business that can grow beyond you? Flourish Foundry works with founders to help them regain control of their businesses, focus their time where it creates the greatest value and learn to delegate effectively. In fact, Dave describes the ultimate goal as helping founders make themselves increasingly redundant from the day-to-day running of their businesses. It is a conversation that gets into the practical realities of scaling rather than simply chasing growth. Dave talks about why founders need to understand their numbers before making hiring and investment decisions, why systems and SOPs matter if you want to delegate, and why your first hires should often have strengths that complement rather than replicate your own. We also explore the role of fractional specialists as a business grows. Rather than immediately building a large permanent team, founders can potentially access several different areas of expertise without carrying the cost of several full-time senior people. There is also a fascinating discussion about positioning. Trying to appeal to everybody can feel like the safest route to growth, but Dave argues that narrowing your audience can actually help create a much stronger community. Speaking clearly to the people you really want to work with inevitably means some people will decide you are not for them. That can be a strength rather than a weakness. Dave also shares a useful example of what happens when founders ask the wrong questions. After asking an audience whether they would be interested in a new community, Flourish Foundry invested in a dedicated online platform. The problem was that the audience already had tools such as WhatsApp and did not want another system to log into. The lesson was not simply that the idea failed. It was that they had validated the concept without properly validating the behaviour required to make it work. That leads to one of the standout questions from the whole conversation: "What is this for?" Before committing time, money or energy to another initiative, founders can ask what the activity is actually designed to achieve and whether it contributes meaningfully to the goals of the business. In this episode, we discuss: • Why scaling requires founders to progressively let go • Knowing your numbers before hiring or investing • Building systems and SOPs that make delegation possible • Hiring people with complementary strengths • Using fractional specialists as an alternative to immediately building a large team • Why trying to sell to everyone can weaken your positioning • The commercial realities behind winning a major retail order • Why founders sometimes believe the normal rules of business don't apply to their brand • The difference between validating an idea and validating customer behaviour • Why imperfect delegation can be better than founder dependency • Treating failure as useful information rather than simply a setback • The power of asking, "What is this for?" The standout message The founder shouldn't remain the person everything depends upon. Scaling means creating the numbers, systems, people and trust that allow the business to operate without everything coming back to you. And sometimes that means accepting that somebody else will do something differently from you, rather than insisting they do it exactly as you would. The one key thing If you want to scale, start identifying what the business needs to stop depending on you for. Look at the activities consuming your time, particularly the ones you dislike or where someone else has stronger skills. Systemise them, delegate them and gradually move your own attention towards the work where you create the greatest value. Before you get into the episode Most founders I speak to feel busy but frustrated. Plenty is happening, but they're frustrated that they aren't moving forward at the rate they want to. Success creates more options, pulling founders and their teams in different directions. Here's what more than 500 interviews on ScaleUp Radio have taught me: the founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That's what the G90 Summit is for. It's a structured half-day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days, and build the rhythm to make sure they do. From the frustration and chaos of more, through the discipline of less, to the rhythm of done. Quarterly. Virtual. £97 a seat. Smart90.co.uk/summit   Dave can be found here: https://www.flourishfoundry.co.uk/ [email protected] https://www.linkedin.com/in/flourishfoundry/   Resources: Founder First by Dave Christie - https://amzn.eu/d/0ioGvEfg The Built To Sell Podcast - https://builttosell.com/podcast/ Turn The Ship Around! By L David Marquet - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/turn-the-ship-around-a-true-story-of-turning-followers-into-leaders-l-david-marquet/0f7fc84166e13719?ean=9780241250945 Go for No! By Andrea Waltz and Richard Fenton - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/go-for-no-yes-is-the-destination-no-is-how-you-get-there-andrea-waltz/85e01400f1264c85?ean=9781467652698

How do you make sure technology is actually helping you scale your business rather than simply giving you more things to spend money on? In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent is joined by Tim Ng, an experienced technology leader and fractional CTO with more than 20 years' experience across startups, larger organisations and sectors including FinTech, Digital Health and MarTech. The conversation explores what a fractional CTO actually does, why growing businesses need to think about technology as a strategic investment rather than simply a cost, and how the rapid adoption of AI is making good technology governance more important than ever. Tim makes an important distinction between somebody responsible for developing technology and the role of a CTO. A CTO should be thinking beyond the code: understanding where the business is heading, deciding which technology investments will support those objectives, identifying risks and helping the leadership team make better decisions. And AI has raised the stakes. The opportunities are enormous, but so are the risks of adopting tools simply because they are available. Tim talks about rising AI costs, data security, shadow IT and the danger of replacing people with automation before the technology has actually proved capable of doing the job. His approach is much more pragmatic: start with the business objectives, understand where technology can genuinely help and keep a human in the loop. We also explore Tim's own founder journey and one lesson that will resonate with many growing business owners: delegate earlier. Like many founders, Tim initially believed he needed to remain closely involved to maintain the quality of the work. Over time, he realised that this very instinct could become one of the biggest constraints on growth. Tim also explains the thinking behind CTO in your Pocket, designed to make strategic technology expertise accessible to startups and SMEs that may not yet be ready for a full fractional CTO engagement. It combines AI-powered guidance with access to a human CTO and tools including code auditing and contract IP scanning. In this episode, we explore: • What a fractional CTO actually does and how that differs from managing software development • Why technology spend should be connected directly to business objectives • How AI can inadvertently scale problems as quickly as it scales productivity • The growing risks around AI costs, data security and shadow IT • Why businesses need a human in the loop when adopting AI • Why regulatory considerations need to come before building technology • The danger of replacing people with AI before proving the technology works • Why founders can become their own constraint on growth • Tim's lesson about delegating and expanding the team earlier • How CTO in your Pocket is attempting to bring strategic technology support to smaller businesses The standout message Technology should follow the business strategy, not become the strategy. AI makes it easier than ever to build, automate and experiment. But more capability also creates more options. Without clear priorities and governance, businesses risk spending faster, creating more complexity and scaling the wrong things. The one key thing... Don't use AI simply because you can. Start with what the business needs to achieve, then decide where technology can genuinely help you get there. That means having clear objectives, appropriate guardrails and human oversight rather than allowing the availability of new tools to dictate your priorities. From more, to less, to done Before we get into it, most founders I speak to feel busy but frustrated. Plenty is happening, but they're frustrated that they aren't moving forward at the rate they want to. That's because their success leads to more options, pulling them and their teams in different directions. Here's what more than 500 interviews on this show have taught me: the founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That's what the G90 Summit is for. It's a structured half-day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days, and build the rhythm to make sure they do. From the frustration and chaos of more, through the discipline of less, to the rhythm of done. Quarterly. Virtual. £97 a seat. Find out more at Smart90.co.uk/summit.   Tim can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tkcng/ Technology Check on CTO In Your Pocket - https://www.ctoinyourpocket.com/scaleup   Resources: Turn The Ship Around! By L David Marquet - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/turn-the-ship-around-a-true-story-of-turning-followers-into-leaders-l-david-marquet/0f7fc84166e13719?ean=9780241250945   Find Your Why by Simon Sinek - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/find-your-why-a-practical-guide-for-discovering-purpose-for-you-and-your-team-david-mead/6ac82c1a0e64188e?ean=9780241279267   The Chimp Paradox by Prof Steve Peters - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-chimp-paradox-the-mind-management-programme-to-help-you-achieve-success-confidence-and-happiness-the-million-copy-bestseller-prof-steve-peter/ee209c7d88f99365?ean=9781785042447   Claude - https://claude.ai/new ChatGPT - https://chatgpt.com/ Notion - https://www.notion.com/ Obsidian - https://obsidian.md/

In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, host Kevin Brent is joined by Michaela Cusack, solicitor and co-owner of NBR, to explore what really happens when you acquire an established business and then set about changing its direction. Michaela and her business partner Matt acquired NBR in 2020. They were stepping into an unfamiliar intellectual property sector, taking responsibility for a long-established team and, almost immediately, dealing with the impact of Covid. Their rationale for the acquisition was compelling. Through Matt's work in mergers and acquisitions, they had seen how businesses with well-protected intellectual property could be more attractive to buyers and potentially achieve higher valuations. They saw an opportunity to build a business helping owners recognise, protect and develop those assets. But acquiring the business was only the beginning. One of the most interesting lessons from Michaela's story is what happened when they initially tried to change too much at once. Multiple projects competed for attention and progress stalled. The answer was greater focus: concentrating on core intellectual property services, moving away from non-core activities such as company formations and becoming much more disciplined about deciding which initiatives deserved resources. Today, new projects are given clear three and six-month review points, with KPIs used to determine whether they should continue. It is a lesson that will resonate with many growing businesses: doing more does not necessarily mean progressing faster. Focus can be a growth strategy in its own right. Buying a business without seeing everything Michaela also talks candidly about the acquisition process and what she would do differently today. The acquisition was funded through personal savings and business loans, with most of the purchase price paid upfront and the remainder staged through the first year. Financial due diligence was important, but Michaela discovered that accounts and reports cannot tell you everything about how a business actually operates. With hindsight, she would have spent more time physically observing the business and talking to the people who understood its day-to-day workings. That experience has also changed the way NBR approaches suppliers and partners. Recommendations alone are no longer enough. References are checked and greater due diligence is carried out before important relationships are established. Bringing an established team with you Another potential risk was the team. Some employees had worked together for more than 30 years, yet there were no contractual arrangements tying them into the business following the acquisition. Rather than attempting to manage that uncertainty through control, Michaela and Matt concentrated on transparency. They shared their plans, talked openly about business performance and worked to build trust with the existing team. It is a useful reminder that acquiring a company means acquiring far more than its customers, accounts and systems. You are also taking responsibility for its accumulated knowledge, relationships and culture. Making intellectual property accessible NBR now operates two distinct service models. Its Business Zone Protection service provides smaller businesses with an affordable entry point into protecting their trading identity, while its consultative work covers areas including trade mark and design searches, UK and international registrations, monitoring, IP audits, licensing and commercial agreements. The broader ambition is to make intellectual property easier for SME owners to understand. That feeds directly into NBR's growth strategy. Rather than simply selling professional services, the business is building authority through education, including webinars, guides and IP audits delivered with trade associations and organisations such as the Department for Business and Trade. The principle is straightforward: help potential clients understand the problem before asking them to buy the solution. Knowing when to say no Growth has also meant becoming clearer about the clients, suppliers and opportunities that are right for the business. Michaela discusses the importance of being prepared to decline work when the fit is wrong and of avoiding referral arrangements driven by financial incentives rather than what is best for the client. That clarity of boundaries is another form of focus. AI still needs a capable human Michaela's thoughts on AI provide another standout moment in the conversation. NBR is exploring AI carefully, with particular attention to data security and human oversight. But Michaela makes an important distinction: putting a human in the loop is only useful if that person has sufficient knowledge to recognise when the AI is wrong and challenge its output. Human oversight is not simply checking what AI produces. The human needs the expertise to question it. That is particularly relevant in professional services, where an output that looks convincing can still be inaccurate. What you'll hear in this episode Kevin and Michaela discuss: • Why Michaela and Matt decided to acquire NBR • What M&A taught them about the value of intellectual property • Funding and structuring an acquisition • What traditional due diligence failed to uncover • Taking over a team with decades of shared history • Why trying to tackle too many projects slowed progress • The decision to focus NBR entirely around IP • Using KPIs and deadlines to stop weak projects consuming resources • Building trust through education rather than simply selling • Why NBR carries out more due diligence on suppliers and partners today • Learning to say no to clients who are not the right fit • Growing capacity without losing expertise • The opportunities and risks presented by AI • Why genuine human oversight requires expertise The one key thing Focus is not about having fewer ambitions. It is about making sure the things that matter actually get done. Michaela's experience of acquiring and reshaping NBR demonstrates the cost of trying to pursue too many initiatives simultaneously. Their progress accelerated when they became clearer about the core business, set measurable deadlines and became willing to stop activities that were not delivering. For ScaleUp leaders, that may be the biggest takeaway from this conversation: choose fewer priorities, give them proper attention and be disciplined enough to stop what is not working. From more, to less, to done Before we get into the episode, most founders I speak to feel busy but frustrated. There is plenty happening, but they are not moving forward at the rate they want to. Often, success itself creates the problem. More success creates more options, pulling founders and their teams in different directions. Here's what more than 500 interviews on ScaleUp Radio have taught me: the founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That's what the G90 Summit is for. It is a structured half-day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days, and build the rhythm to make sure they do. From the frustration and chaos of more, through the discipline of less, to the rhythm of done. Quarterly. Virtual. £97 a seat. Find out more at Smart90.co.uk/summit. Make sure you don't miss future episodes by subscribing to ScaleUp Radio wherever you like to listen to your podcasts and giving us a follow. And if you know someone with an interesting ScaleUp story, you can nominate them as a future ScaleUp Radio guest.   Michaela can be found here: https://nationalbusinessregister.co.uk/ [email protected]   Resources: Profit First by Mike Michalowicz - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/profit-first-transform-your-business-from-a-cash-eating-monster-to-a-money-making-machine-mike-michalowicz/e25b263b79b27e07?ean=9781399643061 High Level - https://www.gohighlevel.com/

What does your business really promise its customers – and would your team, your suppliers and your customers all give the same answer? This special edition of ScaleUp Radio was recorded live at our latest ScaleUp Club, where we explored the theme "Brand Promise: Say it, mean it, live it." Rather than our usual one-to-one conversation, this episode brings together three parts of the ScaleUp Club session: an AI Pulse update from Paul Rhodes of Green Gorilla Software, some thoughts from Kevin Brent on why brand promise is a strategic issue rather than simply a marketing one, and a practical Q&A with returning ScaleUp Radio guest Jake Young, founder and CEO of The Food Guys International. First up: Paul Rhodes and the AI Pulse Paul opens the session by tackling something that is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: AI slop. As AI makes it easier to produce more content, Paul argues that businesses risk producing communications that all sound the same – and, more importantly, losing the human voice that made them distinctive in the first place. His standout message is simple: "AI does the filing. But it should never do the voice." Paul shares three practical ways businesses can use AI without surrendering their authenticity. Build an insight library from customer conversations, capturing the language customers actually use to describe their problems, frustrations and objections. Build a story bank from the real experiences that already exist inside the business, rather than asking AI to invent generic content. And build a messaging bank that brings those customer insights and authentic stories together into consistent communications. There is a useful challenge here for any founder: take a recent customer conversation and find three phrases your customer used that you would never have written yourself. Those phrases could be far more powerful than the polished marketing language you are currently using. Brand Promise: Say it, mean it, live it That leads naturally into this ScaleUp Club's main theme. Every business already makes a promise, whether it has formally written one down or not. Your brand isn't simply your logo, visual identity or strapline. It's what people conclude about the business from what actually happens when they deal with you. We explore a simple three-part test: Say it. Can you clearly articulate the promise you are making – and is it distinctive enough that a competitor couldn't simply say exactly the same thing? Mean it. Are you genuinely prepared to make decisions based upon that promise, even when doing so costs you something? Live it. Is that promise consistently delivered through your people, processes, suppliers and customer experience – particularly when the founder isn't there? That final point is where brand promise becomes a ScaleUp issue. A powerful promise that only the founder can deliver isn't yet a scalable asset. Q&A with Jake Young Returning ScaleUp Radio guest Jake Young joins us to take that discussion into the realities of scaling. Jake is founder and CEO of The Food Guys International, working with founder-led restaurant, food and beverage and hotel groups to move from founder-dependent businesses towards systems-led organisations that are better equipped to scale, attract investment or ultimately be sold. And his central point is that brand runs much deeper than marketing. If you make a promise around quality, service, sustainability or anything else, it has to flow through the operating model, people, supply chain and economics of the business. As Jake puts it, you first need to understand what it means to win within your four walls. Only once you can consistently deliver that experience internally does it become something you can successfully replicate elsewhere. The discussion explores the common founder belief that "nobody can do what I do". Jake doesn't necessarily dispute that initially. Instead, he asks the more important question: how do you make what you do trainable and transferable? That's the difference between replacing one bottleneck with another person and actually building a system. The Q&A also covers: • Why documenting a founder's knowledge is essential to removing founder dependency • How to identify whether a bottleneck is caused by technical expertise, control or process • Why transferring responsibility to another individual isn't the same as creating a system • How service businesses can turn expertise into defined, trainable offers • The role of an "executive sponsor" when clients are reluctant to let go of the founder • How to assess suppliers as genuine scaling partners rather than simply looking for the cheapest price • Why consistency, responsiveness and quality can justify paying a supplier a premium • How the appropriate unit of scale changes according to the business model • Why scaling sometimes requires changing the revenue model rather than simply selling more of the same thing • The importance of deciding what you ultimately want the business to become before deciding how far or fast it should scale The one key thing... A brand promise only becomes a scalable asset when the business can deliver it consistently without depending upon the founder. Saying it is marketing. Meaning it influences the decisions you make. Living it means building the people, processes, suppliers and systems that make the promise true every time. And that is what makes it transferable and scalable. Before you go Most founders I speak to feel busy but frustrated. Plenty is happening, but they're frustrated that they aren't moving forward at the rate they want to. Success creates more options, pulling founders and their teams in different directions. Here's what more than 500 interviews on ScaleUp Radio have taught me: the founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That's what the G90 Summit is for. It's a structured half-day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days, and build the rhythm to make sure they do. From the frustration and chaos of more, through the discipline of less, to the rhythm of done. Quarterly. Virtual. £97 a seat. Smart90.co.uk/summit Make sure you don't miss future episodes by subscribing to ScaleUp Radio wherever you like to listen to your podcasts – and give us a follow. You can also nominate a guest for ScaleUp Radio if you know someone with an interesting ScaleUp story.   Jake can be found here: [email protected] https://thefoodguys.co/ https://symari.com/

What happens when you spot a problem in your own life, create a solution at home, and gradually discover there could be a much bigger business hiding inside it? In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent talks to Carole Duck, founder of Duxanall Dogbedz, about building a product-led business from the kitchen table, bootstrapping its growth and finding opportunities to move from a handmade product towards a more scalable and potentially higher-margin business. Carole's original product came from a very practical problem: a puppy that kept chewing expensive dog beds. Her solution was a raised, slot-together wooden bed with a machine-washable hammock-style fabric base. It can be flat-packed for travelling or storage and comes with what Carole calls her "fur-ever" guarantee, including replacement parts for chew damage. Seven years in, she says nobody has yet needed to claim against that guarantee. But this conversation goes well beyond dog beds. Carole talks openly about starting small, receiving a £500 grant that helped her increase production, moving from her kitchen into a dedicated garden workshop and experimenting with different routes to market, from markets and social media to online sales and retail. One particularly interesting part of the discussion is pricing. Carole's approach has been deliberately simple: material cost multiplied by two, plus £20 for her own wage. The logic behind the multiplier was to generate enough money from one sale to fund materials for two more beds. As the business develops, however, there is an interesting strategic question around where the greatest value lies. That can be seen in the development of the Barlow Bed for very large breeds. The idea emerged after a standard bed bowed under the weight of a St Bernard. Rather than simply seeing a product failure, Carole spotted a different customer need. The resulting design uses much heavier 4x4 timber, steel crossbars and specialist wicking fabric designed to improve airflow. Carole says owners of breeds such as St Bernards can spend between £400 and £800 on suitable orthopaedic beds. That creates the potential for a very different premium niche from the original product. Perhaps the most striking part of Carole's story, though, is what she ultimately wants the business to achieve. Her ambition is to create a factory in Little Hulton, Salford, providing flexible employment for women returning to work who may otherwise struggle because of childcare, health or other barriers. Her vision includes a flexible "timeshare" approach to working hours and even an on-site crèche. It is a useful reminder that scaling a business does not necessarily have to be about size for its own sake. A clearer purpose can help determine what you want the business to become and therefore what needs to change to get there. In the conversation We explore how Carole turned a personal frustration into a commercial product, why demonstrating the product face-to-face has been so valuable, what a £500 grant meant at an early stage, the realities of pricing a handmade product, using useful content rather than constant selling to build engagement, identifying a premium niche, and the challenges of moving from founder-led production towards a genuinely scalable operation. We also discuss Carole's much bigger ambition to use the business to create flexible employment opportunities in her local community. The standout message A problem can become an opportunity when you stop treating it simply as something that went wrong. The Barlow Bed is a great example. A standard product struggling under the weight of a St Bernard exposed an underserved customer with a very different need and potentially a much higher willingness to pay. The one key thing The one key thing to take away from this episode is to look closely at where your customers are stretching the limits of what you currently offer. That may be where your next, and potentially more valuable, market is hiding. Before you get into the episode Most founders I speak to feel busy but frustrated. Plenty is happening, but they are frustrated that they are not moving forward at the rate they want to. Success creates more options, pulling founders and their teams in different directions. Here's what more than 500 interviews on ScaleUp Radio have taught me: the founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That's what the G90 Summit is for. It is a structured half-day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days, and build the rhythm to make sure they do. From the frustration and chaos of more, through the discipline of less, to the rhythm of done. Quarterly, virtual, £97 a seat. Smart90.co.uk/summit   Carole can be found here: https://duxenalldogbedz.co.uk/

In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent is joined by Peter Laughter for a fascinating discussion about distributed leadership, why traditional command and control management is increasingly becoming a constraint on growing businesses, and what leaders can do instead. Peter knows the command and control model from experience. He grew a staffing business from around $500,000 to $12 million in revenue in five years. But that success eventually exposed a problem familiar to many growing businesses: when too many decisions and too much responsibility sit with the person at the top, the leader can become the bottleneck. For Peter, one of the turning points came when his business suffered a dramatic fall in candidate reviews. His instinct was to devise the solution himself. But an employee called Becky challenged his approach and suggested something much simpler: manage candidate expectations better from the outset. It worked. And it helped Peter recognise something important. The answers to a business's problems often already exist somewhere within the organisation. The leader's job isn't necessarily to provide those answers, but to create an environment in which they can emerge. That idea sits at the heart of distributed leadership. Peter argues that this becomes even more important in what he describes as an "age of acceleration". AI and other rapidly developing technologies are creating challenges and opportunities at a speed and complexity that make it increasingly unrealistic for one person, or even one senior leadership team, to have all the answers. Instead, businesses need structures that allow decisions to be made closer to where the knowledge sits. Importantly, this doesn't mean abandoning structure. Peter compares distributed leadership to jazz. It may sound spontaneous, but great improvisation happens within a strong framework. In the same way, distributed leadership is about creating enough structure for people to exercise judgement, contribute ideas and take responsibility without descending into chaos. We explore examples including Haier, Morning Star and W. L. Gore & Associates, and how organisations have created systems that allow leadership, innovation and decision making to emerge throughout the business. Peter also introduces his 3D framework: Discover, Define and Do. Discover Start with a meaningful question and gather perspectives from the people closest to the issue rather than assuming the leadership team already knows the answer. Define Understand the skills, interests and assets that exist across the team, and bring together the people who can contribute to solving the problem. Do Choose a meaningful but achievable result, work towards it in short sprints, and then review what worked, what was learnt and what new capabilities were created. It provides a practical way for leaders to experiment with distributed leadership without attempting to redesign their entire organisation overnight. There is also a provocative discussion about AI. Peter believes many large organisations risk making a fundamental mistake by treating AI primarily as a mechanism for reducing headcount. In doing so, they may remove people who possess critical organisational knowledge while simultaneously creating a pool of experienced, AI-enabled talent capable of joining or creating smaller disruptive competitors. For SME leaders, that potentially creates an enormous opportunity. One standout message Devolve decisions to where the information sits. If the person closest to the customer, problem or opportunity has better information than the person at the top, forcing every decision upwards doesn't create control. It creates delay. In this episode we discuss • Why command and control leadership increasingly makes the leader the bottleneck • Peter's journey from growing a staffing business rapidly to questioning his own leadership model • How one employee's simple solution changed Peter's thinking about leadership • What distributed leadership actually means in practice • Why distributed leadership requires structure rather than an absence of structure • What jazz can teach us about autonomy and collaboration • How Haier, Morning Star and W. L. Gore have approached distributed decision making • Peter's Discover, Define, Do framework • How to experiment with distributed leadership without creating organisational chaos • Why leaders need to discover the capabilities already sitting within their teams • The danger of using AI purely as a cost cutting exercise • Why disruption of large organisations could create significant opportunities for SMEs The one key thing... The one key thing is that scaling doesn't require the founder to become better at having all the answers. It requires them to build an organisation capable of finding answers without everything having to come through them. For any owner manager who feels that too many decisions still land on their desk, Peter's challenge is worth considering: is maintaining control actually protecting the business, or has it started restricting its ability to grow? From more, to less, to done Before we get into the episode, most founders I speak to feel busy but frustrated. Plenty is happening, but they're frustrated that they aren't moving forward at the rate they want to. Success creates more options, pulling founders and their teams in different directions. Here's what more than 500 interviews on ScaleUp Radio have taught me: the founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That's what the G90 Summit is for. It's a structured half day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days, and build the rhythm to make sure they do. From the frustration and chaos of more, through the discipline of less, to the rhythm of done. Quarterly. Virtual. £97 a seat. Find out more at Smart90.co.uk/summit.   Peter can be found here: [email protected] https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterlaughter/

In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent is joined by Caroline Chilley and Harriet, co-founders of Boutique Housekeeping, a business that is changing the way busy families think about support in the home. Boutique Housekeeping sits in the space between a traditional cleaning service and employing full-time household staff. Its house managers provide a much broader service, helping with housekeeping, tidying, laundry, shopping, meal preparation, errands and PA-style tasks. But this conversation is about far more than housekeeping. It is a fascinating ScaleUp story about finding the right positioning, creating a repeatable methodology, building a culture that attracts the right people and, crucially, recognising when the founders themselves need clearer roles. Caroline started the business around ten years ago after spotting a gap while working in care. Growth was deliberately steady for much of that period as life circumstances shaped the pace of the business. More recently, however, things have accelerated. One of the biggest changes came when Caroline and Harriet adopted the Visionary and Integrator model described in Rocket Fuel. Caroline took the Visionary role while Harriet became the Integrator. That clearer division of responsibility has helped unlock a new phase of growth. One standout message from the conversation is that the biggest competitor is often not another business at all. It is the status quo. For Boutique Housekeeping, that means families continuing to struggle on, trying to manage everything themselves. For many growing businesses, the same principle applies. The challenge is often helping customers recognise that the way they are currently doing things has a cost. From cleaning service to home management An important turning point came through one of Boutique Housekeeping's early clients. By observing how a highly organised household worked, Caroline and Harriet began to understand that the real value was not simply in completing individual household tasks. It was in creating an environment that worked consistently without the family having to think about everything. That insight eventually became their Calm Code. The five stages are: Space Remove clutter and create space, with a clear home for everything. Order Organise those spaces so that things are easy to find, use and put away. Clean Once the home is organised, establish the standard required to keep it clean. Provision Make sure everyday essentials are available before they are needed, avoiding unnecessary last-minute problems. Systems Introduce routines that reduce the number of decisions the household needs to make. The goal is not simply a tidier home. It is to reduce the mental load carried by busy families and release time and attention for the things that matter more. There is a strong business lesson here too. Systems become valuable when they remove repeated decisions and allow people to focus their energy where it can make the greatest difference. Scaling through people rather than simply adding people Boutique Housekeeping's growth model depends heavily on finding the right house managers. Their recruitment process focuses on experienced, highly motivated people who are capable of taking responsibility rather than waiting to be told what to do. Many have previously held management positions. Once recruited, house managers are supported through the Boutique Housekeeping Diploma, helping the company create a consistent standard of service as it grows. That combination of recruitment, training and culture matters. Caroline and Harriet want their team to have autonomy and to focus on outcomes for the client. Communication between the founders, house managers and clients is supported through Slack, while a dedicated "Superstar Moments" channel shares positive client feedback and celebrates examples of great work. The roles themselves have also been designed around the realities of people's lives, including opportunities to work around school hours. That creates an interesting alignment between the needs of Boutique Housekeeping's employees and many of the families they serve. Founder roles and the Visionary Integrator relationship Another important part of the conversation is Caroline and Harriet's working relationship. Around 18 months ago they introduced the Visionary and Integrator structure. Caroline focuses on vision, ideas and where the organisation is heading. Harriet focuses on turning those ideas into execution and making sure the organisation can deliver. After around a decade of relatively steady development, this change has played a significant part in accelerating growth. The next leadership challenge is already appearing. As the organisation becomes larger, Harriet can no longer be the point through which everything flows. Boutique Housekeeping is therefore starting to introduce another layer of management. It is a challenge many ScaleUp businesses eventually encounter. The structure that gets a business to one stage is rarely the structure that will get it to the next. The ambition Boutique Housekeeping's five-year ambition is to build a national UK presence. Alongside the commercial goal is a broader purpose: to increase the status and recognition of professional domestic work and create worthwhile careers for the people delivering it. Longer term, Caroline and Harriet can see the potential to build the foundations of a global service. In this episode we discuss • How Boutique Housekeeping identified the gap between cleaning and complete household management • Why the status quo can be a bigger competitor than another company • Moving from selling tasks to selling a valuable outcome • How the Calm Code became a repeatable service methodology • Why systems reduce both operational friction and mental load • Recruiting people with the ability and confidence to take ownership • Using training to protect quality as a business grows • Creating a culture built around autonomy and positive reinforcement • Caroline and Harriet's Visionary and Integrator relationship • Why clearer founder roles helped accelerate growth • Adding a new management layer as the organisation scales • Boutique Housekeeping's ambition to grow nationally and ultimately internationally The one key thing The one key thing is that scaling became easier when Caroline and Harriet stopped relying purely on themselves and deliberately created clarity around the model, the people and their own roles. A repeatable methodology gives customers a consistent experience. Training gives good people the confidence to deliver it. And clearly defined leadership roles allow founders to spend more time doing the work where they add the greatest value. That combination is what starts turning a founder-dependent business into a genuinely scalable one. Smart90 and the G90 Summit Before we get into the conversation, most founders I speak to feel busy but frustrated. There is plenty happening, but they are frustrated that they are not moving forward at the rate they want to. Success creates more options, and those options start pulling founders and their teams in different directions. Here is what more than 500 interviews on ScaleUp Radio have taught me: the founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That is what the G90 Summit is for. It is a structured half-day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days and build the rhythm to make sure they do. From the frustration and chaos of more, through the discipline of less, to the rhythm of done. Quarterly. Virtual. £97 a seat. Smart90.co.uk/summit   Caroline & Harriet can be found here: https://www.boutique-housekeeping.co.uk/ How well is your home supporting your success? Is your home helping you succeed or constantly tripping you up? Take the assessment and receive 6 quick wins you can implement immediately so that your home life becomes the support you deserve in achieving your dreams. https://caroline-dexrrxet.scoreapp.com   Resources: Traction by Gina Wickman - https://www.waterstones.com/book/traction/gino-wickman/9781936661831 They Ask You Answer by Marcus Sheridan - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/they-ask-you-answer-a-revolutionary-approach-to-inbound-sales-content-marketing-and-today-s-digital-consumer-marcus-sheridan/bb2de60a974b71da?ean=9781119610144 Tony Robbins - https://www.tonyrobbins.com/ Slack - https://slack.com/intl/en-gb

What happens when the thing that got your business growing becomes the very thing stopping it from scaling? In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent is joined by Thom Van Dycke to explore a challenge that will be familiar to many founder led businesses: growth initially comes because of the founder's network, relationships, energy and ability to sell. But eventually, there are only so many people the founder knows and only so many hours in the day. At that point, the founder can become the bottleneck. Thom's own journey into business is unusual. After spending around 20 years as a pastor, he left ministry in 2020 and moved into entrepreneurship. Starting as a copywriter, he reached $10,000 a month by his fourth month before gradually evolving his business towards working with established founder led companies. Today, his approach centres on helping businesses develop their own frameworks for positioning, marketing, sales and lifetime value rather than blindly following somebody else's blueprint. One phrase captures that philosophy particularly well: "Adapt, don't adopt." There is no universal formula for building a successful business. Geography, background, customers, market conditions, team and the founder themselves all change the answer. The founder's plateau One of the big themes in our conversation is the point where founder driven growth stops working. In the early days, being highly sales focused can be an enormous advantage. Founders use their personal relationships, reputation and energy to win work. But eventually the network runs out, the diary fills up and capacity becomes the constraint. Scaling then requires something different. The business has to become capable of generating opportunities, converting them and serving customers without everything passing through the founder. Thom shared the example of one client who, after just two months of working on this transition, was able to take their first weekend off in three years. That is a useful reminder that scaling is not simply about increasing turnover. It is also about creating a business that no longer depends on the founder being permanently available. Four frameworks for sustainable growth Rather than prescribing a generic blueprint, Thom works around four areas: Positioning What genuinely makes the business different and gives customers a reason to choose it? Marketing How does the company consistently attract the right opportunities rather than simply more enquiries? Sales How does the business create a repeatable way of converting those opportunities without relying entirely on the founder? Lifetime Value How does the business continue creating value through repeat work, referrals and re engaging previous customers? The important point is that these frameworks need to fit the business rather than forcing the business to fit somebody else's system. Positioning is about much more than marketing One of the standout parts of our discussion is the role positioning plays throughout a business. Strong positioning can support better pricing because customers understand why the company is different. It can help with recruitment because potential employees understand what the organisation stands for. And it can improve consistency because the whole team has a shared answer to the question: why should somebody choose us? But that only works when positioning moves beyond the founder. If only the owner can explain what makes the company special, the business is still dependent on the owner. The whole team needs to understand it, believe it and be able to communicate it. Scaling means becoming a leader Thom identifies three important ingredients for making that transition: True leadership Investing in people and culture rather than simply directing activity. Humility Being prepared to ask the team for feedback and hear answers the founder might not necessarily want to hear. Positioning Creating a clear shared understanding of what makes the business different. Together, these help the founder move from being the person responsible for everything towards becoming the person who creates the environment in which others can succeed. The opportunity in "AI proof" businesses We also discuss Thom's focus on founder led businesses such as skilled trades, often with teams of around eight to ten people. These businesses can face a very different set of scaling challenges from technology businesses or solopreneurs. Demand may not be the problem at all. Instead, they may be struggling with capacity, finding good people and protecting margins. Thom talks about businesses where margins can be around 2% when an industry benchmark may be closer to 8%. He also makes the point that marketing does not just have to attract customers. In businesses affected by talent shortages, it may also need to attract employees. And because the underlying skilled work is much harder for AI to replace, these businesses potentially have significant long term resilience. The one key thing The one key thing from this conversation is that scaling starts when the founder stops trying to be the answer to everything. The founder's energy, relationships and skills may have created the growth, but the next stage requires leadership, trust, clear positioning and repeatable systems that other people can use. Or, in Thom's words: Adapt, don't adopt. Build the approach that fits your business rather than copying somebody else's blueprint. Smart90 and the G90 Summit Before we get into it, most founders I speak to feel busy but frustrated. Plenty is happening, but the business is not moving forward at the rate they want. Success creates more options, and those options can pull founders and their teams in different directions. Here's what more than 500 interviews on ScaleUp Radio have taught me: the founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That is what the G90 Summit is designed to help with. It is a structured half day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days, and build the rhythm to make sure they do. From the frustration and chaos of more, through the discipline of less, to the rhythm of done. Quarterly. Virtual. £97 a seat. Smart90.co.uk/summit Make sure you don't miss any future episodes by subscribing to ScaleUp Radio wherever you like to listen to your podcasts. You can also nominate someone with an interesting ScaleUp story to join Kevin on a future episode.   Thom can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thom-van-dycke/   Resources: My Burning Story by Minister Sarudzai Dorcas - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/my-burning-story-minister-sarudzai-dorcas/687cc15f27d3f125?ean=9781496977083 Alex Hormuz - https://www.acquisition.com/team/bio-alex The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-culture-code-the-secrets-of-highly-successful-groups-daniel-coyle/10dede03413631bf?ean=9781847941275

In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, host Kevin Brent is joined by entrepreneur Rachel Hill, whose journey takes us from building and selling a multi site childcare business to breathing new life into a closed model village and launching a new consumer brand almost by accident. Rachel started Hillside Childcare at just 26, converting a granny flat into a 16 place nursery as a way of helping to pay a new mortgage. That first nursery eventually became a four site operation looking after 299 children. What makes Rachel's story particularly interesting is not simply the growth. It is what she learnt about making a business repeatable, creating a strong culture, managing one of the largest costs in a people intensive business and, ultimately, building a company capable of operating without her. That last point became particularly important when Rachel decided to sell. After years of being the person everyone turned to when something went wrong, the pressures following COVID left her questioning whether she still wanted to be the one responsible for fixing every problem. The decision to sell came remarkably quickly. During a dog walk, Rachel decided it was time. Rather than formally taking the business to market, she approached an established buyer directly through LinkedIn. Five months later, the deal was complete. Rachel handled much of an intensive due diligence process herself because she wanted to protect her staff and families from unnecessary uncertainty. She also rejected the first offer, negotiated a price she was comfortable with and ultimately achieved a clean exit with a one off payment and no requirement to remain with the business. One of the standout lessons from the conversation is this: A business that can operate without its owner is not only easier to run. It can also be considerably more valuable when the time comes to sell. Rachel had developed systems, policies, procedures and a management structure that meant Hillside was not completely dependent upon her day to day involvement. That independence became an important asset during the sale. But selling Hillside did not mean Rachel stopped being entrepreneurial. While the sale was taking place, she bought Bondville Model Village, a closed and run down one acre attraction containing around 200 miniature buildings. Rachel saw the potential in an underdog. After months of renovation, Bondville reopened, but the first version of the business model was not right. Trying to operate throughout the year meant the winter numbers simply did not work. Rather than persist with the original plan, Rachel changed it. Bondville became a seasonal attraction, creating a business model better suited to customer behaviour and the economics of the site. That willingness to change direction appears again in Rachel's latest venture. Unable to find the right candles for Bondville's gift shop, she created her own. The result was 45 by Rachel Hill, a range of candles inspired by the model village, each incorporating a miniature keepsake and its own story. They repeatedly sold out, leading Rachel to explore how the range could grow beyond Bondville through a dedicated Shopify store. In this episode Kevin and Rachel discuss: • How a 16 place nursery became a four site childcare group serving 299 children • Why replication and strong operating systems were critical to growing Hillside • How Rachel maintained consistency as the business expanded across multiple locations • Why staffing became one of the toughest challenges in the business, particularly after COVID • The importance of culture and creating genuine buy in from the team • Why Rachel closely monitored staff wages as a percentage of turnover • The pressures that come when the founder remains the organisation's ultimate problem solver • What finally prompted Rachel to sell Hillside • Why she chose an off market approach rather than putting the business openly up for sale • How she approached a potential acquirer directly through LinkedIn • What five months of due diligence looked like from the seller's side • Why Rachel kept the sale confidential from the wider team during the process • How she valued the business using profit multiples and property values • Why being prepared to reject the first offer mattered • The value of building a company capable of running without its owner • Why Rachel bought a closed model village while simultaneously selling another business • How Bondville was renovated and relaunched • Why Rachel abandoned the original year round operating model • The importance of accepting quickly when the economics of an idea do not work • How a product created to solve a problem in Bondville's gift shop became a new business opportunity • Why Rachel believes entrepreneurs should benchmark themselves against the best rather than simply comparing themselves with local competitors • The value of hiring people who are stronger than you in the areas where you are weak The one key thing Build the business so that it does not need you. Rachel's experience with Hillside demonstrates why owner independence matters long before an exit is being considered. Systems, procedures, capable managers and a strong culture helped Rachel grow across multiple sites. They also meant that when she eventually decided to sell, the buyer was acquiring a functioning business rather than simply buying Rachel's job. For any owner manager thinking about ScaleUp, that creates an important question: If you disappeared from the business for three months tomorrow, what would stop working? The answers are likely to point directly towards the systems, people and responsibilities that need attention next. Rachel's ScaleUp philosophy Rachel describes her approach as "go big or go home." Rather than benchmarking yourself only against the businesses around you, she believes in looking at the organisations doing something exceptionally well and asking what can be learnt from them. Equally, founders do not have to be good at everything. Rachel recognises her own strengths as creative and entrepreneurial and brings in people who can handle areas where she is weaker, including technology. That allows the founder to spend more time doing the things where they can create the greatest value. Before you listen Most founders I speak to feel busy but frustrated. Plenty is happening, but they are frustrated that they are not moving forward at the rate they want to. Their success creates more options, pulling them and their teams in different directions. Here is what more than 500 interviews on ScaleUp Radio have taught me: The founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That is what the G90 Summit is for. It is a structured half day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days and build the rhythm to make sure they do. From the frustration and chaos of more, through the discipline of less, to the rhythm of done. Quarterly. Virtual. £97 a seat. Visit Smart90.co.uk/summit Listen to the episode Listen to the full conversation with Rachel to hear the story behind Hillside Childcare, the realities of selling a business, the reinvention of Bondville and the entrepreneurial thinking behind 45 by Rachel Hill. Make sure you do not miss future episodes by subscribing to ScaleUp Radio wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you know somebody with an interesting ScaleUp story, you can nominate them as a future guest for ScaleUp Radio.  Rachel can be found here: Instagram - @Rachel_Merry_Hill Connect with Bondville Model Village Bondville Model Village (VisitBondville.com) Instagram - @BondvilleModelVillage_ Facebook – Bondville Model Village

In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, host Kevin Brent is joined by John Readman, founder of ASK BOSCO and Modo25, to explore what it really takes to turn a big idea into a focused, scalable business. John's journey offers a particularly useful lesson for founders: sometimes scaling isn't about doing more. It's about narrowing your focus. ASK BOSCO was created to tackle a problem familiar to many e-commerce businesses. Marketing teams can see return on ad spend, finance teams can see profitability, and platforms such as Google, Meta and TikTok all report their own versions of performance. But those numbers don't necessarily add up to a clear answer to the question that really matters: Where should we spend our next pound to generate the most profit? ASK BOSCO brings those disparate sources together, de-duplicates the data and helps businesses connect marketing activity with commercial performance. But the technology is only part of John's ScaleUp story. One of the standout moments in our conversation is John's account of being told that ASK BOSCO's original strategy was simply too broad. Rather than defending the original plan, the team listened, narrowed its focus and rebuilt the proposition around the Shopify ecosystem. That decision created a much clearer route to market and helped underpin a £4.1 million investment from Gresham House Ventures. The standout message Focus can be a growth strategy. The temptation when building an ambitious business is to serve more markets, add more features and pursue more opportunities. John's experience suggests the opposite can sometimes create far greater value: choose the market where you can win, remove friction and execute relentlessly. We also explore the people and culture behind the businesses. John talks about creating a high-performance environment based on trust, transparency and accountability. That includes a four-day working week on full-time pay, measuring people on outputs rather than hours, monthly visibility of KPIs and even creating a deliberate "not-to-do" list. There's an interesting influence from military discipline too: punctuality, clear processes, teamwork and people knowing what's expected of them. In this episode, we discuss: Why marketing ROAS and actual business profitability can tell very different stories How ASK BOSCO creates a clearer view of marketing performance Why linking product profitability to individual campaigns matters The decision to pivot from a broad analytics proposition to a Shopify-first strategy Why external advice can be invaluable when it challenges your assumptions Raising £4.1 million in venture capital and what investors bring beyond money Building a scalable SaaS model through the Shopify ecosystem Why human onboarding and support can be a competitive advantage in an increasingly AI-driven market Using a four-day week to focus on outputs rather than inputs Creating a "not-to-do" list to protect strategic focus Using a small number of annual "Big Rocks" to create alignment How transparency, discipline and trust shape company culture John's longer-term ambition for ASK BOSCO The one key thing... Scaling often means having the confidence to choose less. ASK BOSCO became more investable and potentially more scalable when the team stopped trying to solve the problem for everybody and committed to a clearly defined ecosystem. For founders facing dozens of apparently good opportunities, John's story is a reminder that the question isn't simply "What could we do?" It's "What should we deliberately choose not to do so we can execute the things that matter?" From more, to less, to done Most founders I speak to feel busy but frustrated. Plenty is happening, but they're not moving forward at the rate they want to. Often that's because success creates more options, pulling founders and their teams in different directions. More than 500 interviews on ScaleUp Radio have reinforced something important: the founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That's what the G90 Summit is for. It's a structured half-day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days, and build the rhythm to make sure they do. From the frustration and chaos of more, through the discipline of less, to the rhythm of done. Quarterly. Virtual. £97 a seat. Smart90.co.uk/summit Listen to the full episode to hear John's ScaleUp journey and the lessons he's learned from building, focusing, funding and leading growing businesses.   Resources: Black Box Thinking – Matthew Syed (World of Books website) The One Minute Manager – Kenneth Blanchard (World of Books website) Who Moved My Cheese – Spencer Johnson (World of Books website) Fish – Stephen C. Lundin (World of Books website) PODCASTS Leaders on Shopify (John Readman's own podcast.) Built to Sell – John Warrillow The Prof G podcast with Scott Galloway Acquired.fm    CONTACT   [email protected]   LinkedIn.com - John Readman

What makes your business genuinely different? And, more importantly, could your team explain it without you in the room? In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent talks with Simon Bowen about the Models Method, the power of visual thinking, and why growing businesses need to codify the distinctive thinking that sits behind what they do. Simon argues that many founder-led businesses have something genuinely special, but much of it remains locked inside the founder's head. As the business grows, that thinking can become diluted internally. The result is that customers increasingly struggle to see the difference externally, leaving price as the easiest point of comparison. One of the standout messages from the conversation is: Internal dilution leads to external commoditisation. Simon describes a company's distinctive thinking as its source code. Marketing and sales may be the visible interface, and processes may determine how work gets delivered, but underneath them sits the way the business thinks about problems and creates value. The challenge for a scaling business is to capture that thinking so other people can understand, communicate and apply it consistently. In this episode, Kevin and Simon explore: Why founders often find it difficult to articulate how they think rather than simply what they do How failing to codify a company's genius can lead to internal dilution and ultimately commoditisation Why visual models can become a shared vocabulary across a growing organisation Simon's Iceberg Model, moving from the customer's known problem through the hidden problem to the deeper, often unarticulated, "ache" Why identifying that unknown problem can move a customer conversation away from price and towards value The three ingredients of an effective model: geometry, content and choreography How models can help leaders facilitate difficult conversations without making the discussion personal Simon's Conflict Resolution Matrix and the four positions of Prisoner, Sniper, Student and Volunteer The idea of a Genius Model as the source code for how a company thinks Simon's 20/80/20 framework: created thinking, curated solutions and the way they are uniquely integrated Why codifying founder knowledge matters increasingly as a company scales and more people become responsible for delivering its value The one key thing… If the thinking that makes your company special exists only in the founder's head, it becomes harder to scale without diluting it. Codify that genius so your team can understand it, communicate it and reproduce it. There's also a powerful lesson here about customers. What they initially ask you to solve may only be the tip of the iceberg. Businesses that can identify and articulate the deeper problem customers feel but cannot yet name become sense-makers, and that can fundamentally change the value conversation. A question for your next 90 days What part of the value your business creates still depends too heavily on knowledge or intuition sitting inside your head? Most founders I speak to feel busy but stuck. Plenty happening, but no real clarity on what matters most this quarter. Here's what more than 500 interviews on this show have taught me: the founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That's what the G90 Summit is for. A structured half-day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days, and build the rhythm to make sure they do. Quarterly, virtual, £97 a seat. Smart90.co.uk/summit Make sure you don't miss future episodes by subscribing to ScaleUp Radio wherever you listen to your podcasts, and nominate a guest if you know someone with an interesting ScaleUp story.   Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for. If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/kevin You can get in touch with Kevin here: [email protected]   Simon can be found here: https://www.modelsmethod.com/ [email protected] https://www.youtube.com/@TheWisdomOfShow_withSimonBowen

This episode of ScaleUp Radio is a little different. We're taking you inside one of our monthly ScaleUp Club sessions, where members get the opportunity to explore some of the challenges that come with building and scaling a business, share their experiences and put questions to our guest. This month, our main theme was Aligning Personal & Business Goals, and we welcomed back James West, co-founder of ONLE, for a Q&A about building a business that supports the life you actually want to lead. We also had an AI Pulse update from Tim Winstanley, looking at AI watermarking, the implications for businesses using AI-generated content, and why every business needs to start thinking seriously about its AI policy. When the business starts running your life For many founders, one of the original attractions of starting a business is freedom and control. Yet, as the business grows, it can produce exactly the opposite. James and his wife and co-founder Kelly created ONLE partly because they wanted greater control over their lives. Their personal circumstances, including caring for a daughter with severe special needs, meant that flexibility wasn't simply a nice-to-have. But as ONLE grew, James and Kelly found themselves personally hosting all the networking meetings. The business they had created to provide greater freedom was filling their calendars and making holidays and strategic thinking increasingly difficult. It is a challenge many founders will recognise. The discussion explored the importance of turning the usual planning process around: rather than deciding what the business needs and fitting your life around it, start by defining what you want your life to look like and then ask what the business needs to become to make that possible. Practical tools discussed included: A Balance Wheel, scoring different areas of your life from 1 to 10 each quarter and identifying where attention is needed. A Bucket List, bringing personal ambitions into annual and quarterly planning rather than putting them off until some undefined point in the future. Extending the same thinking to your team, understanding what individuals want to achieve and finding ways of connecting those aspirations with the goals of the business. Scaling ONLE beyond its founders James also shared how ONLE tackled one of the classic barriers to scale: too much of the customer experience depending on the founders. Their answer has been the Pod Owner model. Rather than James and Kelly personally nurturing every networking group, responsibility is delegated to local pod owners. An important distinction emerged from the conversation: running a meeting and nurturing a community are not necessarily the same skill. ONLE therefore looks for people who naturally make newcomers feel welcome and who want to build relationships within their communities. It is a useful example of a wider ScaleUp lesson: delegation isn't simply about giving somebody your tasks. It can mean designing a model where the right people take ownership of the things they are naturally better placed to do. AI Pulse: watermarking, trust and the value of expertise Tim Winstanley's AI Pulse brought a very different issue into the room: the developing world of AI watermarking and what greater transparency around AI-generated content could mean for businesses. The discussion explored the prospect of statistical fingerprints being embedded within AI-generated text, allowing content to be identified as AI-generated even after it has been copied and pasted. That raises an important question for businesses. If AI-generated content can increasingly be identified, how will customers interpret that label? The issue isn't necessarily whether the work is good or bad. It is about credibility, transparency and whether a business can demonstrate that appropriate human judgement has been applied. The discussion highlighted the importance of developing a clear AI policy, including approved tools, human review, disclosure and appropriate safeguards around business and client data. One member shared their experience of implementing a comprehensive AI policy, restricting use to an approved tool, training the team, adapting client terms and conditions and requiring third-party suppliers to follow appropriate policies. The one key thing… Start with the life you want to create, then build the business that can deliver it — rather than allowing the business to dictate the life you're able to have. James and Kelly's experience with ONLE is a good illustration. Scaling wasn't simply about growing the networking business. It was about redesigning it so that growth no longer required the founders to be present everywhere. And perhaps that's one of the most useful questions any founder can ask: Is the business you're scaling taking you closer to your definition of success, or further away from it? From busy to focused: the G90 Summit Most founders I speak to feel busy but stuck. Plenty happening, but no real clarity on what matters most this quarter. Here's what more than 500 interviews on this show have taught me: the founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That's what the G90 Summit is for. It's a structured half-day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days, and build the rhythm to make sure they do. Quarterly, virtual, £97 a seat. Find out more at Smart90.co.uk/summit.

In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, host Kevin Brent is joined by Suzie Siddall, CEO of Opus International Products, a Warwickshire-based precision engineering and manufacturing business working across automotive, aerospace, defence, industrial and medical sectors. Suzie's story is one of leadership through significant change. Having moved from Managing Director to CEO following the death of the company's founder in 2024, she has had to balance continuity with the need to reshape the business for its next stage of growth. Today, Opus has a team of around 33 people and significant UK manufacturing capability across CNC machining, injection moulding and vacuum casting. The business has grown from its original sourcing model into a sophisticated manufacturing operation supporting customers from prototype and engineering development through to production. But this conversation is about much more than manufacturing. It explores what happens when a leader has to move away from being involved in the day-to-day operation and start thinking differently about strategy, governance, risk and the future of the business. From operational leader to CEO One of Suzie's biggest challenges has been making the transition from Managing Director to CEO. Rather than simply taking on more operational responsibility, she recognised that the business needed her to spend more time looking ahead. An important part of that transition has been the creation of a formal Board of Directors, combining members of the internal leadership team with external experience and challenge. The board now meets monthly, focusing on strategy, business trajectory and the trends behind the numbers rather than simply reviewing operational activity. It is an interesting lesson for any growing owner-managed business: better governance is not about adding bureaucracy. Done well, it creates the space and challenge needed to make better strategic decisions. Diversification without abandoning what works Automotive has historically represented around 75–80% of Opus's revenue. That concentration has helped build the business, but it also creates risk when the automotive market becomes volatile. Suzie and the team have therefore set a clear strategic objective: bring automotive down to around 40% of total revenue. Crucially, the plan is not to shrink the automotive business. Instead, Opus intends to grow its work in sectors including MedTech, defence, marine, off-highway and aerospace so that the overall business becomes larger and more diversified. The team has approached diversification systematically, looking at where investment is expected over the next five years and identifying sectors where Opus's existing capabilities can transfer successfully. Its IATF 16949 automotive accreditation and experience of high-tolerance, quality-critical manufacturing provide a strong base, while further accreditation, including AS9100, forms part of opening additional opportunities. Don't diversify just because a market looks attractive A particularly useful lesson from Suzie is the importance of understanding what capabilities can genuinely transfer into a new sector. Moving into a new market is not simply a sales exercise. It requires understanding the standards, accreditations, buying processes, networks and expectations of that sector. Opus has therefore combined market analysis with networking and sector engagement, including involvement with Make UK Defence. That creates a useful principle for other scaling businesses: diversification works best when there is a strong overlap between an attractive market and something your business already does exceptionally well. Helping customers cross the "valley of death" One of the standout messages from the conversation is Suzie's description of the gap between designing something and being able to manufacture it successfully at scale. That is where Opus aims to become much more than a component supplier. The business works collaboratively with customers to solve manufacturing challenges, taking projects from concept and prototype towards repeatable production. For Suzie, those customer partnerships are an important differentiator. Rather than simply waiting for a drawing and producing a part, the team wants to understand the problem the customer is trying to solve and contribute its engineering and manufacturing expertise. Standout message: The strongest supplier relationships are built when you stop simply supplying what a customer asks for and start helping them solve the problem behind it. Hiring for attitude Suzie also talks about the people behind the business. Opus has deliberately built a mixture of experienced team members and younger people and apprentices coming into manufacturing. Her recruitment philosophy is straightforward: hire for attitude and willingness to learn, because technical skills can be taught. That philosophy is supported by an open culture where employees have access to senior leaders, lessons learned are shared and people can see the connection between the work they do and the finished products created for major brands. The use of external HR also gives employees access to an impartial source of support outside the management structure. Leadership through difficult circumstances Running throughout the conversation is the subject of resilience. Suzie's move into the CEO role came in exceptionally difficult circumstances, yet one of her priorities was maintaining stability for the team while continuing to move the company forward. External advice, openness with employees and the willingness to bring new perspectives into the business have all played an important role. Rather than believing that being CEO means having every answer, Suzie has deliberately surrounded herself with people who can challenge her thinking. For scaling leaders, that may be one of the most valuable lessons from the episode. The one key thing Growth is not just about winning more of the same work. Sustainable scale comes from deliberately reducing concentration risk, building leadership around you and creating the space to work on where the business needs to go next. In this episode, we discuss Suzie's transition from Managing Director to CEO Leading a business through significant personal and organisational change Why Opus introduced a formal Board of Directors Moving from operational management towards strategic leadership Why external challenge can improve decision making Reducing dependence on a single market Opus's strategy for moving from 75–80% automotive revenue towards 40% Identifying attractive new sectors without losing strategic focus Transferring manufacturing capabilities into MedTech, defence, marine and aerospace The importance of accreditation when entering new markets Building genuine partnerships with customers Helping clients bridge the gap between product design and production Hiring for attitude rather than skills alone Developing apprentices alongside experienced employees Transparency, communication and maintaining team stability Why resilience and outside support matter when leadership gets difficult About Suzie Siddall Suzie Siddall is CEO of Opus International Products, a UK precision engineering and manufacturing company based in Leamington Spa. Opus supports customers from engineering development and prototyping through to production, with capabilities including precision CNC machining, injection moulding and vacuum casting. The company has traditionally had a strong position within premium automotive manufacturing and is now deliberately expanding its presence across sectors including defence, medical, aerospace and industrial applications. Smart90 Most founders I speak to feel busy but stuck. Plenty happening, but no real clarity on what matters most this quarter. Here's what more than 500 interviews on this show have taught me: the founders who scale choose less, and deliver all of it. That's what the G90 Summit is for. A structured half-day where we cut through everything competing for your attention, agree the three to five things that must happen in the next 90 days, and build the rhythm to make sure they do. Quarterly. Virtual. £97 a seat. Find out more at Smart90.co.uk/summit. Don't miss future episodes Make sure you don't miss any future episodes by subscribing to ScaleUp Radio wherever you like to listen to your podcasts, and why not give us a follow. You can also nominate a guest for ScaleUp Radio if you know someone with an interesting ScaleUp story. Explore the full ScaleUp Radio archive and find details of future episodes through Smart90.co.uk/scaleup-radio. The description of Opus's current capabilities and diversification direction is also supported by the company's current site; its May 2026 announcement specifically describes the new board as supporting governance, strategic growth and sector diversification. Suzie can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzie-siddall-2436ba47/ https://www.opusproducts.com/ https://www.instagram.com/suzie_opus/   Resources: How to Be Sad by Helen Russell - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/how-to-be-sad-the-key-to-a-happier-life-helen-russell/b4ab79ef582e4fe1?ean=9780008384593&bkshp-astro=t