The tools and pace of venture-backed companies, brought to established firms that want to grow or run more efficiently. For engineering, manufacturing, professional and trade services businesses from around £1m turnover.
Established firms where the owner or managing director makes the decisions.
If you're winning work by word of mouth but not from your website, spending evenings on quotes, or wondering what AI could mean for a firm like yours, we can look at it together.
I'll be straight with you: my 25 years have been in startups, as an operator, an adviser and an investor, not inside a firm like yours. That's the point. Venture-backed companies have to grow fast with small teams, so they adopt new tools early, measure everything and move quickly. I bring those habits and tools to established businesses, alongside the people you already have.
Desk-based research we scope together: your market, your competitors, regulations that could affect you, and who might one day buy a business like yours. UK public data first, every claim checked and sourced.
For example: who else serves your customers, how they do it and what they charge.
Working out together which sector or customer you could go after next, how to describe what you do so the right buyers choose you, and what you could charge. Then extra marketing capacity alongside your team or agency, and tender answers and case studies that help win work.
For example: the plan and bank presentation for moving into a new sector.
Quoting tools, dashboards built from the systems you already use, and AI agents that sort enquiries and draft replies, so the business runs more efficiently. No development team needed. If you have IT people, I can work with them, or directly with you.
For example: a quote calculator on your website that a buyer fills in and that sends you the enquiry.
An experienced outside view on your board: on growth, on the bank, on preparing for a sale, and on what AI could do for the business. A day a month plus board meetings.
Tell me where you want the business to be in a year, and what's in the way.