Case Studies

Other people's businesses are the cheapest place to learn. The wins and the wrong turns are already paid for. The work is to read carefully and take what's useful.

You'll find two kinds of case studies here. Work with our own clients, where they're happy to share what changed. And businesses out in the wider market, ones doing things well, and ones that got something important wrong. Both are worth your time.

A founder at a desk on a phone call with a notepad and laptop in front of him, daylight through a window

The firm that stopped chasing leads and grew anyway

A composite case study of a 16-person services firm that cut its paid channels in early 2025, narrowed its positioning, and grew faster in the eighteen months that followed than it had in the previous three.

A founder at a desk with printed role descriptions and a hand-sketched org chart spread across the surface in afternoon window light

Scaling people without scaling structure

A composite case of a 35-person services firm whose founder doubled headcount to keep up with demand and watched delivery slow, quality drop, and senior leaders quietly disengage. The diagnosis, late, was structural.

A founder in his mid-forties at a kitchen table on a Sunday afternoon, jumper sleeves pushed up, half-finished mug of tea, phone face-down, open notebook with handwritten notes, late afternoon light

The founder who couldn't pass the August vacation test

A composite case study of the predictable arc that consumes services founders across the £1m to £5m revenue band. Five stages, the August vacation test that exposes it, the misdiagnosis that costs a year, and the move that breaks the trap.

A founder at a desk with papers showing org chart sketches and printed role descriptions, mug and pen nearby in late afternoon light

The firm that doubled its headcount and got slower

A composite case of a services firm that grew from twenty-five to fifty staff in eighteen months and watched cycle times grow, quality complaints rise, and senior leaders disengage. Why it happened and what unblocked it.

A small senior team around a meeting room table mid-discussion, charts and a laptop visible, mugs and a coffee pot in late afternoon light

The firm that stopped chasing leads and grew anyway

A composite case of a sixty-person services firm that cut paid spend, narrowed its ICP, and grew faster in the next eighteen months than it had in the previous three. The bet, the discomfort, and the maths.

A founder at a kitchen table on a Sunday afternoon with a half-finished mug, phone face-down, and an open notebook, late afternoon light

An anatomy of the £1m to £5m founder trap

A composite case study of the predictable arc that consumes services founders across the £1m to £5m revenue band. What forms the trap, when the founder usually notices, and what unblocks it.

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