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Best way to scale? Your peers have the answers.
This is the podcast for scaleup founders looking for insightful, actionable wisdom from some of the best operators around. Each week we’ll explore one secret that other founders and experts are using right now and how to implement it.
It’s practical wisdom to build the company AND life you want. Hosted by renowned founder coach and advisor James Johnson.
You’ve survived to £1m, now let’s scale to £10m+.
169 Episodes
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At a VC, deals are literally the business. But Rachel Townend's philosophy? People first, always. As Chief of Staff and General Partner at Illuminate Financial - employee #1, 12 years, fourth fund, Rachel's watched what happens when founders get this right versus wrong. Her take: Without the right people in the right seats, you can't do deals. It's a multiplier effect. Good people attract good people. Get the first hires wrong and everything compounds negatively. This episode breaks down how ...
Most VCs work non-stop and still feel like they're failing. They do 2x the deals of their peers. They're at every event. And they still feel like they're not doing enough. What James Johnson and Freddie Birley reveal in this episode is what VCs won't say publicly: the loneliness, the ambiguity, the constant feeling of underperforming despite objectively crushing it. What drives this? Founders want freedom. VCs want peak performance. When you're optimizing for achievement but venture's ambigui...
You spent a year building a feature. Someone just replicated it in a day using AI. This isn't hypothetical. Roei Samuel is watching it happen in real-time. As founder of Connected - a marketplace helping 5,700 fractionals work with scale-ups - he's spinning up products daily that took his team a year to build in 2020. His conclusion? Unless you're building quantum computing or genuine deep tech, your technology moat is dead. AI killed it. Here's what makes this different: Roei isn't being dra...
"What do I do if my investors tell me to fire a bunch of my team?" Alex sent this question to the Peer Effect Post Bag. And the answer from James Johnson and Freddie Birley cuts deeper than "evaluate your team." This is Season 6, Episode 1 of Post Bag—where founders, CEOs, and leaders submit their hardest questions and get straight answers from two coaches who've worked with dozens of scale-ups. No fluff. No corporate speak. Just practical takes on the problems that keep you up at night. Here...
You've got £250K in the bank. You're profitable. Everything looks fine. Then your VAT bill hits and you're scrambling. Or a major client payment is 60 days late and suddenly you can't make payroll. Marc Obrart has seen this exact scenario play out dozens of times. As co-founder of Fin House, he provides finance teams and CFOs to 50+ scale-ups. And the pattern he sees most often? Founders managing by their bank account instead of understanding the two stories every business tells. Here's what ...
PR feels like an unquantifiable luxury when you're trying to hit profitability. But Harrison Duhr has helped hundreds of startups use media to drive actual business outcomes - fundraising, hiring top talent, and landing ideal customers. As Head of North American Brand at London and Partners, Harrison's secured coverage in CNBC, Bloomberg, Fortune, and TechCrunch for startups scaling between the UK and US. But his approach completely flips the traditional PR playbook. Here's what makes this di...
After 9 conversations with entrepreneurs and business leaders, three patterns emerged about scaling successfully. In this Season 5 recap, I share the key lessons from conversations with founders like Mark Shepherd (Gathr), George Sullivan (Sole Supplier), and Gaurav Bhattacharya (Jeeva AI), plus insights from Darcy Martin (Outward VC) and Steve Duncan (C Studios). The 3 patterns: Pattern 1: Vulnerability is the unlock, not the weakness Mark launched a 10,000-member community with a LinkedIn p...
LinkedIn feels noisier than ever. AI posts, surface-level expertise, endless scroll. So is it still worth your time as a founder? James Johnson and Freddie Birley tackle the question: should you still be posting on LinkedIn in 2025, or is there a better way to build your personal brand? The honest answer: It depends on what you're trying to achieve. Are you building for speaking opportunities? Attracting clients? Hiring talent? Or just holding yourself accountable to write? The strategy chang...
Your VCs have hidden value beyond capital. Most founders never ask for it. D'Arcy Martin has been Head of Platform at Outward VC for six years. She's watched hundreds of funding rounds close. And there's one pattern she sees: founders who treat VCs like a bank account versus founders who extract every ounce of value. The difference? They ask. In today's episode, I'm joined by D'Arcy Martin, who sits at the intersection of founders, LPs, and portfolio companies at Outward VC. Her job is connec...
"You're in it together, then you're on a pedestal, then you're a statue." In this Post Bag episode, James and Freddie Birley tackle one of the most honest questions we've received: Why does success often feel more isolating than the early startup days? From sitting in rubbish pubs with your first team believing in the vision, to suddenly being on a pedestal where everyone expects you to have all the answers, to becoming a "company relic" that new hires have never even met - the journey of sca...
Your business is running you. Not the other way around. Steve Duncan spent 20 years in the same company but built three different businesses. His secret? He stopped playing defense and started playing offense. Here's what that actually means: You're either dictating what happens in your business, or you're reacting to everything thrown at you. One feels like control. The other feels like drowning. In today's episode, I'm joined by Steve Duncan, Managing Director of C Studios. After starting a...
"How do you separate your identity from the company's success or failure?" That's Alex's question – and it's one every founder grapples with, especially in those vulnerable early stages. Welcome to the Peer Effect Post Bag, where James Johnson and Freddie Birley tackle your toughest founder questions. This week, we explore the dangerous trap of calling your business "your baby," why that language might be taking critical options off the table, and how to create healthy separation between your...
"We were adding customers, losing customers, adding customers, losing customers. We were stalling." Gaurav Bhattacharya had $2.5M ARR and 50 customers. On paper, things looked fine. But momentum wasn't there. Instead of pushing harder, he split his company in two – and nine months later, Jeeva AI had 10,000 users and 300 enterprise customers. In today's episode, I'm joined by Gaurav Bhattacharya, Founder and CEO of Jeeva AI. After successfully exiting his first healthcare AI startup, Gaurav s...
"When everything looks like it's working, how do you avoid getting complacent?" That's Sarah's question - and it's the dream problem most founders wish they had. Welcome to the Peer Effect Post Bag, where James Johnson and Freddie Birley tackle your toughest founder questions. This week, we explore what happens when you finally reach that rare moment where nothing's on fire, your team is stable, clients are happy, and your numbers look good. The question is: how do you use that gift of time w...
"78% of salespeople miss their sales targets. That means your entire revenue forecast is riding on just 22% of your team." That's the brutal reality Matt Milligan discovered after spending years in go-to-market transformation – and it's what drove him to build Uhubs, a company that's now helping teams achieve 83% increases in revenue per head. In today's episode, I'm joined by Matt Milligan, CEO and Co-founder of Uhubs, Forbes 30 Under 30 honouree, and former professional golfer. After playin...
"We're profitable, but VCs keep approaching us. Should I take their money or stay independent?" That's the question from Neil that kicked off this Post bag episode – and it's one that keeps founders up at night. Welcome to the Peer Effect Post bag, where James Johnson and Freddie Birley tackle your toughest founder questions. This week, we dig into the VC funding vs bootstrapping debate, exploring why profitable founders still consider taking investment and what really matters when making thi...
"The realisation that I wasn't the best person for the job anymore was a big one." Kate Sikora hit the 8–10 person tipping point in her business and realised everything had to change, including herself. What followed was a three-year journey from Kate 1.0 to Kate 3.0, transforming not just how she led, but the entire trajectory of Noble Performance. In today's episode, I'm joined by Kate Sikora, Managing Director of Noble Performance, a Bristol-based SEO and search agency. After growing the b...
"What got you here won't get you there." James Johnson and Freddie Birley tackle the question: How do you scale yourself as a leader without losing what made you effective in the first place? In this Post Bag episode, James and Freddie explore the tension between staying authentic and evolving as your company grows. They unpack why some founders thrive in the scaling phase while others feel completely drained, how to design your role around what energises you (not what you "should" do), and w...
"I don't want to live a stressed out human experience. Mental health isn't a luxury – it's survival." Asim Amin built Plumm, a Series A HR platform with 40+ team members, after standing on his balcony three nights in a row contemplating suicide. His journey from that dark place to building the future of work reveals a truth most founders won't admit: the mental health crisis is real, it's hidden, and it's getting worse. But there's a path forward that combines AI innovation with genuine care ...
"I'm struggling to let go of control as we grow. How do I trust my team without everything falling apart?" Elizabeth's question exposes the founder's dilemma: you can't scale by doing everything yourself, but delegation feels terrifying. James Johnson and Freddie Birley tackle the pendulum swing from idealistic trust to micromanagement - and how to find equilibrium. In this Post Bag episode, James and Freddie explore why founders feel out of control, why that drives destructive behaviors, and...
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