World Bicycle Relief

World Bicycle Relief mobilises communities in rural regions around the world to thrive with life-changing bicycles. World Bicycle Relief has a goal to reach 1 million bicycles and empower 5 million people 🚲

Advisory Board Member

Various Companies & Startups

I work with forward thinking Founders & CEOs to build & scale their revenue and AI-Led GTM engines.      I am a GTM Advisor, Board Member, Angel Investor, & Mentor to many companies, organisations, & people helping them: scale revenue, increase brand awareness, and architect GTM strategies 🚀🚀🚀

I take an active role in highlighting women in leadership. 

𝐁𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫, 𝐀𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫, & 𝐆𝐓𝐌 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫
➡️ 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐁𝐢𝐜𝐲𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐟 : 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐁𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 : Using Mobility to Improve lives around the world
➡️ 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐛𝐞𝐬: 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 & 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫 on all things Marketing, AI, Digital Revenue, & Leadership
➡️  𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞: A group of Angel Investors made of former scale-up operators that discuss deals and strengthen the community of angel investment knowledge
➡️ 𝐂𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐁𝐞𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬: 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐁𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫: Helping migrants to the EU get started with their careers in tech 
➡️ 𝐍𝐞𝐱𝐮𝐬: 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫: Advisor for Nexus, an all in one FemTech/ Health App 
➡️ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐌𝐎 𝐀𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞: Thought Leader, Writer, and Advocate of Marketing Leaders around the world. 
➡️ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞 𝐀𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞: Thought leadership for Revenue Marketing and scaling digital revenue 
➡️ 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐑𝐨𝐲𝐜𝐞: Advisory Board Member

𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐲 & 𝐌𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩
➡️ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫: 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫 & 𝐌𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐫 : Focusing on the advancement of women in leadership 
➡️ 𝐅𝐞𝐦𝐦𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞: 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫 & 𝐌𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐫: Focused on leadership skills for women and advancing women in leadership roles 
➡️ 𝐖𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐚𝐚𝐒: Member and Advocate- Highlighting Women in SaaS and topics in SaaS leadership 
➡️ 𝐅𝐞𝐦𝐦𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞: Advisor & Mentor: Advancing women in leadership through mentoring and functional advisory

GTM Advisor, Board Member, & Angel Investor

Coders Beyond Borders

Coders Beyond Borders is a tech community founded with the purpose of empowering newcomers across Europe with essential tech skills and facilitating their integration into the tech industry.

Resourcify

- Raised €14M Euro Series A with 75 FTEs
Leading all Commercial Teams including: Marketing, Revenue ( Pre-sales, Sales, & After-Sales), Revenue Operations ( Rev-Ops), & Customer Success/ Account Management in addition to the largest Business Unit representing 40% of all Headcount

Resourcify is on a mission to enable a zero-waste future and promote a circular economy! ♻️♻️♻️ 
Dubbed the ‘Reverse Amazon’ by Forbes, Resourcify is creating a zero waste future and promoting a circular economy where materials are recycled and reused. The platform is already used by leading enterprises in Europe, including McDonald’s and Johnson & Johnson, in addition to some of the largest companies in Resourcify’s home market of Germany, including Hornbach, REWE, and Frankfurt Airport.

Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) | Commercial Leader & Revenue Leader

Latana Brand Tracking

During my tenure we achieved a €36M Series B funding round
• Scaled the company from 30 FTEs to over 100+ FTEs
As the Chief Growth Officer ( CGO) & Chief Marketing Officer ( CMO) I lead all Commercial Teams including: Marketing, Pre-Sales, Sales, & Customer Success representing over 50%+ of all headcount 
• Created an inbound demand generation/customer acquisition engine which has accounted for more than 80%+ of total Revenue (ARR/MRR) for the past 3 years. 
• Achieved a 130%+ Net Revenue Retention (NRR).

B2B Mar-Tech: Latana is an AI-Powered B2B SaaS brand tracking and consumer insights platform which helps brands make better marketing decisions through market research data. Latana uses an advanced algorithm to accurately track consumer perception across more than 100 countries and 1000's of target audiences worldwide. 

Latana is the proud winner of several market research, technology, and data awards. It has been named the “6th Fastest Growing Startup in Germany” and the “Most Innovative Market Research Startup in Europe.” Since its inception, Latana has generated over a billion answers from people in more than 100 countries. The resulting data is cited in over 2.000 news articles globally, including The Economist, Le Monde, The Guardian, South China Morning Post, El Pais, The Financial Times, Vice Magazine, The Washington Post, Der Spiegel, & Business Insider.

Chief Growth Officer (CGO) & Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)| Commercial Officer

Crimson Education

Crimson is one of the top Unicorns from NZ/AU with a $1Billion+ Valuation & 1000+ FTEs. 
 • SLT ( Senior Leadership Team) Member driving acquisition and growth strategy for international markets
• Digital Revenue Leadership for 20+ markets & 5+ product lines achieving 110%+ YoY growth targets
• Leadership of Global Marketing & Digital teams
The company has Larry Summers (former US Treasury Secretary and Former President of Harvard University) on its advisory team.

Vice President Marketing ( VP Marketing) | Digital Growth | Revenue Growth 

GoDaddy

Achieved IPO & is now a $1Billion+ Revenue & 5,000+ FTEs
• Led Revenue Marketing, & Product Discovery Strategy to Executive Team & Board driving 13 Million Subscribers and $500 Million in Revenue 
• Developed 2 Patents on Revenue Optimisation in E-commerce environments
• Spearhead the launch of the Website Building Product to reposition the GTM of the company
• Cross Functional Leadership of Marketing, Sales, Product, CX, & User Experience

B2B SaaS & E-Commerce company focused on services for small business (SMBs) across the world. GoDaddy is the world’s largest domain registrar, the world’s largest web host, and a leader in B2B SaaS website building.

E-Commerce Revenue Growth & SaaS GTM Leadership | International Expansion

The Poverty Museum

As a special initiative of Professor Muhammad Yunus, I had the honour of working with the founding members of the Poverty Museum connecting businesses and organisations to help move forward one of the most pressing social issues of our time: poverty eradication. Based upon his Nobel Prize winning work, the goal of the Poverty Museum is to weave a fabric of solutions, stories, players, and pathways that will bind us together as we pursue the end of poverty!

Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)- a Grameen Social Business 

Intuit

** Taking Quickbooks Accounting Software from a physical product to a fully functional Digital SaaS Platform
• Led GTM for the launch of Quickbooks ( converting a physical product into a SaaS platform)
• Drove Acquisition to over 1 Million New subscribers
 Intuit is a 130B+, 14,000 FTEs+, B2B SaaS software company focused on accounting, payroll, payment, and invoicing. Intuit is the market leader in North America. Intuit's flagship products are: Quickbooks, TurboTax, CreditKarma, and MailChimp.
• Cross Functional leadership between Marketing, Sales, Business Development, Product & Product Marketing
• Led insights to Executive Committee for International Expansion

Global Product Discovery, Marketing, & Strategic Partnerships | GTM

Amazon

• Led all Marketing and GTM for 68 Export Markets for Amazon's International Expansion 
• Drove Revenue to $1 Billion USD from scratch
Amazon is a $1T Revenue +, 1M FTEs+, E-commerce company and the world's largest online retailer. Amazon accounts for over 40% + of all US online retail sales and over 13% + of the world's online retail sales. Amazon strives to be  “Earth’s most customer-centric company.”
• Cross functional team leadership between Marketing, Product, &  Supply Chain
• Became a Bar Raiser for Amazon :https://www.aboutamazon.eu/news/working-at-amazon/what-is-a-bar-raiser-at-amazon

International Expansion Strategy & Cross Border Trade | Revenue Growth

🚀 I scale both B2B SaaS & D2C Tech Companies | CMO, CCO, & CRO | Keynote Speaker | GTM & AI Growth Engines

I am a GTM executive building global brand and revenue strategies across B2B SaaS, D2C tech, and investor-backed scale‑ups. I have a track record of architecting and leading revenue-generating engines for some of the world's most successful technology brands, including Amazon, Intuit, and GoDaddy. I have also scaled 3X start-ups including 1 unicorn 🦄.  I advise Founders, CEOs, & Investors on GTM & Growth Engines enabling them to build their Go-to-market strategies and scale their companies. 

My experience focuses on: Digital Revenue Growth, AI Marketing, Brand, AI GTM, AI Demand Generation, Sales, & International Expansion in both technology scale-ups & larger corporations. I was recognised by Crunchbase, along with other prominent technology leaders, as one of the most influential women in sales, highlighting my ability to use an inbound demand generation engine to scale digital revenue growth. I have a passion for Brand Awareness & Content to drive revenue and have been featured in Forbes, VentureBeat, The Drum, and other leading media and publications. I am also a frequent keynote speaker and podcaster with communities including: SaaStock, Turing Fest, SaaSiest, ARRtist, SheCanCode, CMO Alliance, Cognism, and many others. 

I am passionate about scaling purpose- driven tech, using technology to give back to the community and mentoring the next generation of leaders. I hold multiple board and advisory roles including: World Bicycle Relief, The Female Factor, Coders Beyond Borders, and The Revenue Marketing Alliance among many others. I have a special interest for advancing the conversation around women in leadership and diversity at the executive level.

✅ Follow me for actionable insights on: 

➡️ GTM & AI Growth Strategy in both B2B SaaS & D2C
➡️ Commercial Leadership & Revenue Scaling
➡️ Marketing & Brand Positioning
➡️ AI in Marketing & Content Engines 
➡️ Women in Leadership & Women in Tech

Angeley Mullins

A small gesture with big impact ❤️ Last week the incredible team at Mango Partners surprised me with flowers…not just as a gift, but as a symbol of belief. Belief in entrepreneurship... belief in my vision to empower Founders and CEOs with industry defining GTM strategies, help them scale revenue, and support them in fundraising investment. Belief in the dreams that I am helping founders bring to life. 🚀 

At Aetheris Ventures, I am on a mission to transform how founders approach their go-to-market strategies, to enhance how they lead, and to secure the funding that turns ideas into impact & purpose. The path is not linear, but it's meaningful. When you find people in your life and in your network who see you championing your dreams, hold onto them. Those are your people. Those are the relationships and partnerships that matter.

To every #founder out there: surround yourself with people who celebrate your wins, honours your journey, and believes in your vision... and when you see someone chasing their dreams? Be their “flowers”.  Be their reminder that what they're building matters. 🌹 

Thank you Sophie Ludwig, Henri Nölle, Fabian Mars, and the team at Mango Partners for this small gesture with so much heart ❤️ 

A shout out to all the amazing founders across so many countries who are chasing their dreams while also inspiring others to achieve theirs: w/ Ekaterina Parashina, Ale Wiecek Rojo, Heiko Burdack, Steven Lewandowski, Angela Scott, Katharina Lindner, Macklin Buckler, Fernanda Bosmediano, Daniel Wong-Sauer, Cristian Dina, Daniel Deaconu, Anais Cisneros, Cassie Yusofi, Leslie Greenwood, Franziska Heyde, Rahma Hassan, Vera Matisovits, Marijana Gligoric, Bianca Praetorius, Mayuri Reddy, Ishaan Pulast, Adriana Richter, Hale Doganci PCC, Kunal Dhabhai, Magdolin Harmina, Michaela Munitzk, Adriana Carmona Beltran, Ömer Yetimoglu, Sina Landorff, Andrea Brandt, Vessela Krissel, Dr. Nora Timme, Sarah Anto, MBA, CPA, Leonie Moos, Neha Agarwal, and so many others!!! 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
👋 Hi, I'm Angeley! I work with Founders & CEOs to build & scale their AI Marketing and Revenue Engines. I am also a public speaker and love inspiring audiences around the world about the future of technology and women in leadership
🔗 You can learn more about me here: https://lnkd.in/dpq3Y-GV

4x Founder - 1 Exit | Business Coach & Technology Executive | Deep in AI & Web 3 | Digital Transformation

I’m a 4× founder with an exit, ventures launched in Hong Kong, Switzerland, Spain, and the UK, and millions raised from US and European investors. I’ve negotiated hundreds of millions in enterprise deals and joined Streamr during its early scale-up, leading Marketplace, Partnerships, and Labs as the company grew from 5 to 30+ people following a $32M raise.

In the past 12 months, I’ve mentored 24 startups — several backed by leading VCs including Antler and accelerators such as Outlier Ventures. Tech is the common thread; sectors span AI consulting and development, robotics, education, construction, shipping, surveillance, oceans, agriculture, law, infrastructure, and finance. The work is hands-on: weekly or bi-weekly cadence, direct feedback, and execution sprints.

In 10 years of business coaching, I’ve sustained a 4.9/5 satisfaction rating from my mentees — built on candour, trust, and consistent results.

My approach is deliberately contrarian: first principles over playbooks, customer proof over pitch theatre. ClearPath (see my coaching website) is the product of that experience — a practical diagnostic that maps where a company is now, defines what’s blocking growth, and turns it into a focused plan. Then I help implement it on a fractional basis until results land. That’s how I’ve helped multiple companies reach millions in ARR, four of them within 16 months of launch.

When needed, I drive hard pivots. After raising $2.2M for Silta v1 (tokenisation) and missing PMF, I pivoted the company to AI, secured seed grant funding from the Asian Development Bank — a multilateral with $150B+ in assets — and led it to $1M ARR within 12 months.

Results with mentees: four companies hit $1M in revenue within 16 months; two others doubled revenue in under a year; one turnaround from near-collapse to profitability in four months; a sales portfolio scaled from $5M to $22M in two years. I speak at Google HQ, the UN, and the World Economic Forum on technology, innovation, and systems change.

Ben Sheppard

A friend joined a five-person startup earlier this year.
Warm founder. Good vibes. Drinks after work.
Classic honeymoon.

Three months later it was unrecognisable.

The product didn’t work.
Deadlines slipped.
Pressure spiked.
And the founder — who started friendly — snapped.

CTO quit.
Replacement CTO quit.
Third CTO said, “What you want can’t be built,” and walked out too.

The founder wasn’t technical, but forced himself into technical meetings anyway, dictating solutions he didn’t understand.
People stopped talking, then stopped caring, then started leaving.

Fun turned to fear almost overnight.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
 Pressure doesn’t create toxicity — it reveals it.

When things go well, cracks are easy to hide.
When things go badly, you finally see the health of the organisation.

In this case the cracks were everywhere:
- Selling before knowing you can deliver
- No structure for raising problems early
- No space for the team to challenge the founder
- And ultimately: no accountability at the top

And here’s the part many founders avoid:
 If you’re the one creating the chaos, you have to ask,
 “What part of this is me?”

It’s okay to say “I messed up.”
It’s okay to apologise.
It’s okay to show you care.

Because when the pressure hits, the only thing that holds a company together is trust and once that goes, everything else follows.

If things feel toxic, start with the mirror.

4x Founder 1 Exit, 12 yrs Board Director, Fractional Operator & Startup Coach Seed to Series to Exit | Scaling, Turnarounds

Newsletter #3  AI has rattled more cages this year than the last decade combined.

I’ve spent the past few weeks talking with founders, policymakers, and friends inside huge institutions — and the pattern is the same everywhere:

-The big players are scared.
-The startups are overwhelmed.
-And everyone is trying to move faster than their systems allow.

This month’s newsletter covers the conversations that stood out the most:

1, Why most big companies will fail at building AI products — unless they create a sandbox
2, How early-stage founders can build a POC for free through Apex Labs
3, The real lesson I took from my trip to the UN in Geneva
4, A simple 20-minute weekly system that stops founders burning out
5, And a personal update on redesigning my own operating environment

If you want practical strategy, industry insight, and a few things you can implement this week, check it out below.

And if you want support applying any of it inside your own business DM me. I’m always happy to help founders get where they’re going, faster and with far less pain.

Introduction The last few weeks have been full of conversations that all pointed in the same direction — whether I was in Geneva with policymakers, sp

Open article: Newsletter #3 — Lessons From Geneva, AI Upheaval, and the Systems That Keep Us Moving by Ben Sheppard • 8 min read

Newsletter #3 — Lessons From Geneva, AI Upheaval, and the Systems That Keep Us Moving

The 5 Silent Killers of Startups 👇

They don’t show up on your P&L — until it’s too late.

1️⃣ Overspending when cash is good.
2️⃣ Building a company that revolves around you.
3️⃣ Sales and delivery speaking different languages.
4️⃣ No operating rhythm or shared scoreboard.
5️⃣ Handovers that leak trust, time, and cash.

I’ve seen these patterns destroy brilliant teams — and they’re all fixable with the right clarity and structure.

That’s what my ClearPath Diagnostic Framework was built for.

💬 Comment 𝐂𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐡 below and I’ll send you the framework I use with founders to find — and fix — these blind spots before they kill growth.

4x Founder 1 Exit, 12 yrs Board Director, Fractional Operator & Startup Coach Seed–Series D | Scaling, Turnarounds

Last week in Geneva, standing outside the UN building, I realised something I’ve known for years but often forget: 

The moment I step away from the desk, my thinking sharpens.

It’s almost embarrassing how predictable it is. Change the environment and ideas that refused to budge suddenly unlock themselves. 

The harder you push at a problem, the more it digs its heels in — but give yourself space, and the answers turn up quietly.

It’s followed me through every company I’ve built.

I can still picture myself in General Santos Fishing Port in the Philippines, toes in the sand, wondering how to scale my second startup.  Weeks of grinding produced nothing.  One afternoon on the beach produced the entire expansion plan into Indonesia and Malaysia.

The same pattern showed up in Vietnam with Silta Finance. We were pushing a dead-end product direction. Stress everywhere. But the insight that changed our trajectory didn’t come from a meeting room — it came the moment I stepped away and let my mind breathe.

And it’s happening again now with my clients. New features, new angles, cleaner offers — none of it arrived while hammering a keyboard. It arrived in the gaps.

Founders don’t always like hearing this, but it’s true: if you stay chained to the desk, your creativity collapses. When creativity collapses, your edge disappears. And once your edge is gone, your business drifts.

One thing I’ve learned working with Envoqe is that thinking time isn’t indulgent. It’s a strategic advantage. When you change your scenery, you change your decisions.

Your mind works best when you give it room.

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JSESSIONID

Silta Finance

Envoqe

Over the past couple of weeks, a few conversations with founders, investors, and deep-tech teams have stopped me in my tracks — the kind that quietly signal where things are heading.

In today’s newsletter, I’m unpacking the themes that keep resurfacing:

🔹 Forward-Deployed Engineers (FDEs) — why they’re suddenly everywhere again, and how they’re changing the way software development and consulting companies go to market.
 🔹 Full-Stack AI companies — YC’s big push, and what it really means to “own the whole problem.”
 🔹 Yann LeCun stepping away from Meta — and what this might signal about the next creative wave in AI.
 🔹 A clean-room scenario founders must understand — especially if you’re selling into enterprises.
 🔹 The five silent killers that quietly undermine startups — patterns I see repeatedly in coaching sessions.
 🔹 A spotlight on WeBetterAI — two brilliant founders building at the pointy end of AI, quantum, and nanotech.

And on a personal note, I’ve spent the past six weeks experimenting with fasting alongside my HYROX training… with some surprising lessons in focus, discipline, and energy.

If you want to read the full breakdown, here it is 👇

A Note Before We Begin The past couple of weeks have been full of conversations that stuck with me — the kind that quietly signal where the industry i

Open article: Signals From the Edge: Trends, Clean Rooms, and What’s Quietly Reshaping Startups by Ben Sheppard • 9 min read

Signals From the Edge: Trends, Clean Rooms, and What’s Quietly Reshaping Startups

A founder came to me running two tech products at once. 
On paper it looked ambitious. In reality, both companies were suffocating.

One product had early traction but had completely stalled.
The other had flashes of potential but couldn’t grow because the team was constantly switching context, losing depth, and firefighting across both worlds. Everyone was working hard, but no one was working effectively.

This situation is far more common than people think.

Founders convince themselves they’re “diversifying.” What they’re actually doing is splitting their focus, diluting their team, and quietly starving both companies of the attention required to win.

When we started working together, I told him something brutally simple:
“If you keep building two companies, you will lose both.”

So we ran my ClearPath assessment — a deep look into both startups, the operations, the financial health, the execution cadence, the product signals, and the real bottlenecks. 

Then we applied a handful of quick-win tests to each business to see where the opportunity truly lived.

The results were immediate.
One product responded.
The other didn’t move at all.

That gave us the answer people often avoid: one company needed to die so the other could live.

The founder made the call — not easily, but decisively.

The moment the team focused fully on the stronger product, momentum returned. You could feel it. Pipeline deepened. Work quality lifted. Decisions became clearer. The whole company started breathing again.

But there was a second layer to deal with:

Some team members simply couldn’t adapt to real focus.
They were used to working “part-time” on each startup and suddenly couldn’t recalibrate when asked to give one company their full attention. That mindset costs more companies than bad strategy does.

We made changes.
We redesigned the operating model.
We removed the people who couldn’t shift gears.

And we rebuilt parts of the workflow with systems and tools that removed friction.

Eighteen months later, that startup has tripled its revenue — and it’s more profitable than it has ever been. Not because we chased growth blindly, but because we built a business that could grow with clarity, focus, and discipline.

The lesson is brutally honest: you don’t scale by adding more.
You scale by removing what drags you backwards.
Focus isn’t a luxury.
It’s a competitive advantage.

This little legend is coming to work with me in Barcelona today.

She normally supervises from the home office, but today she’ll be joining the meetings at with Sarah Taylor at Envoqe.

There’s something about having your dog curled up under the desk that just changes the whole energy of a workday. A bit of calm. A bit of mischief. And a reminder not to take any of it too seriously.

Do you take a pet to work?

Drop a comment — and show me a photo of your favourite work buddy. I want to see the characters you’re building companies with.

Founder | Spatial Intelligence and Cognitive Performance | Environments of Stillness | ANFA Spain | ANFA UK

Growth rarely dies from lack of effort.
It dies from too many priorities.

This is the story of how one founder cut the noise and tripled revenue.
It might hit closer to home than you expect.

The Founder Who Tried to Scale Two Startups at Once

What a year.

When I started mentoring more seriously, I didn’t expect it to become one of the most meaningful parts of my work. But 2025 made that pretty clear.

Dozens of founders across continents.
Hours spent in the trenches together.
Real wins, hard moments, and a fair amount of straight-talking when it was needed.

The review below simply reflects the journey we’ve been on — the conversations, the decisions, and the progress made by people who were willing to do the work. That’s what I’m most proud of.

I’ve watched founders rebuild confidence, reset teams, rescue slipping revenue, rethink strategy, and make braver decisions than they thought they were capable of. And I’m proud of them for it.

If 2025 taught me anything, it’s this: great companies are built by humans who refuse to stay stuck. The strategy is the easy part. The hard part is choosing to move.

Here’s to a stronger, sharper 2026 — for all of us.
And if you’re a founder carrying more weight than you admit out loud, my door’s open.

Open article: Ben Sheppard – Year In Review 2025 by mentorcruise.com

Always appreciate hearing from the people I work with.
Andrew left this ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review on MentorCruise :

“great advice and very helpful in my journey towards sales and entrepreneurship!”

If you’re looking for support, sharper thinking, or a bit of direction as you build — drop me a message. Happy to chat.

MentorCruise

Your competitor just hired a $300k “Head of Strategy.”

Here’s how you still outrun them.👇

Rule 1: They’ll build slides. You’ll build customers.
Big hires need to justify themselves.
That means frameworks, planning cycles, and endless “alignment.”
While they’re aligning, you’re closing.
Speed beats polish every time.

Rule 2: They’ll chase sophistication. You’ll chase adoption.
Complex strategy feels impressive.
But the companies winning right now?
They ship simple things customers actually use.
Their roadmap is 100 pages.
Yours is five bullet points and a weekly cadence.

Rule 3: They’ll manage stakeholders. You’ll manage reality.
The more senior the hire, the more politics they inherit.
Boards. Investors. Internal drama.
You get to ignore all of that and optimise for truth, not theatre.

Rule 4: They’ll scale headcount. You’ll scale outcomes.
They celebrate hiring sprees.
You celebrate revenue.
One inflates the ego.
The other keeps you alive.

Rule 5: They’ll spend money. You’ll make it.
Strategy hires come with burn.
Pressure.
Expectations.
You’ve got none of that.
Your unfair advantage is focus, not funding.

The formula?
Do the opposite of what “big company logic” forces them to do.

Most founders don’t fail because of bad strategy.
They fail because they lose their rhythm.

A founder came to me recently — sharp, good product, solid customers — but every week he said the same thing:

“Ben, I’m working nonstop but nothing is moving.”

Underneath it was simple: no cadence.
No clear priorities.
A team busy, but not progressing.
And a founder carrying everything alone.

We built one weekly rhythm together.
Simple. Honest. No hiding places.

Six months later:
- Revenue doubled.
 -Confidence back.
 -Team aligned.
 -Momentum restored.

No magic. Just structure and someone in the trenches with him each week.
That’s exactly what my Silver Coaching Plan is for.

If you want a consistent operating rhythm and sharper decision-making,
DM me SILVER.

We’ll see if it’s a fit.

Your culture is eroding long before you notice it.
The first warning sign?
Silence.

This carousel walks you through the early stages — and how to stop the rot.

Culture Breaks Companies

If this week’s posts felt a bit close to home — the culture wobble, the silence, the misalignment — you’re not imagining it.

Companies don’t go toxic overnight.
They drift.
Week by week.
Decision by decision.
Avoided conversation by avoided conversation.

And once that drift starts, it never fixes itself.

That’s why I built my Silver Coaching Plan —
 for founders and leadership teams who can feel the slide but don’t know how to stop it.

Here’s what we work on every week:
1. Align the truth
Everyone finally sees the same reality. No spin.

2. Set the rhythm
A weekly cadence that kills drift and creates movement.

3. Cut the noise
Three priorities. One direction. Clarity restored.

4. Apply the right pressure
Accountability that stabilises a team instead of breaking it.

5. Support the person at the top
Because no CEO can hold the whole thing together alone.

This isn’t “coaching.”

It’s hands-on operating support until the company is steady again.
If your company is drifting — and you want to stop the slide —

DM me SILVER and we’ll see if it’s a fit.

If you’re doing B2B deals with large enterprises, there’s a term you might not have heard yet, but you probably should:

“𝐂𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦.”

In simple terms, a clean room is a legal and process setup an enterprise can use when it wants to rebuild a product without (in theory) using your confidential information.

The basic idea looks like this:

A “read team” is allowed to look at public information about your product – your website, marketing materials, public talks, patents, documentation you’ve published.

A separate “build team” is then kept “isolated” and asked to recreate similar functionality based only on what the read team says they learned.

On paper, this is meant to keep the process clean:
“We only used public info, so we didn’t copy anything proprietary.”

In reality, it gets messy when the enterprise has already:

run pilots with you,
seen deeper parts of the product,
had technical walk-throughs,
or received confidential materials under NDA.

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭.

Once an organisation has had that level of access, claiming the end result is based purely on “public information” becomes very questionable.

I’m seeing this pattern more often as big companies get more confident in AI, internal build teams, and “we can do this ourselves” thinking.

If you’re selling into large organisations, you don’t need to be paranoid – but you do need to be structured and deliberate about:

what you show,
when you show it,
and what your contracts actually say about reverse engineering and derivatives.

I’ve recorded a short video walking through this in more detail and what founders can do to protect themselves. If you want help understanding this more deeply, DM me. 

👇 Watch it here.

Most people are surprised when I tell them this, but here it is:

I spent a chunk of my childhood with no hair, no eyebrows, and a nervous disorder that meant I regularly wet myself at school.

Not exactly the starting point you’d expect for someone who now speaks on panels and coaches founders for a living.

Between seven and eleven, alopecia took everything — and the stress triggered incontinence that stuck around far longer than the condition itself. I’d be sent home at lunchtime because I was soaked. Kids aren’t gentle about these things.

My hair eventually grew back, and I immediately sabotaged my comeback by bleaching it like a Backstreet Boy. That finished the job. The bald life was confirmed.

What lingered was the anxiety. Into my twenties, interviews and presentations would leave me with a pounding heart, shaking hands, and that old fear whispering in the background: don’t lose control.

And here’s the lighter bit:
Before going on stage or into interviews, I used to blast Aerosmith’s “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” because it made me laugh. If I could laugh, I could breathe. It genuinely worked.

Over time I kept pushing through — sheer stubbornness, really — and eventually something shifted.

These days, I genuinely love getting on stage.
I look forward to it. I feel like I have a voice now. I know what I want to say. I enjoy articulating it clearly, without that old fear sitting in the driver’s seat.

Sure, there’s still a tiny niggle in the back of my mind — some ghosts never leave completely. But when I’m up there and I see people’s faces light up, when they come over afterwards to talk or ask questions, it feels good. Not in an ego way — more in the sense of reclaiming something that used to terrify me.

It’s a long way from that kid who couldn’t get through a school day.

And here’s why I decided to share this:

There are a lot of first-time founders out there right now who are about to pitch to VCs, demo to customers, or walk onto a stage for the very first time.

It feels like Dragon’s Den.
Your heart’s racing.
You’re thinking, Christ, they’re all going to see straight through me.

And let’s be honest: sometimes your first version of the product is a bit of a bag of shit.
But it’s enough to get you in the room — and now you’ve got to sell the hell out of it.

If that’s you, I get it. I’ve lived on the anxious end of the spectrum.
I know what it feels like to walk into a room hoping your body doesn’t betray you.

So if you need help getting through that — the nerves, the pitch, the pressure, the “am I actually cut out for this?” moments — you’re welcome to reach out.

You don’t need to be fearless to do this.
You just need to show up anyway.

The 5 Blind Spots That Quietly Kill Startups 👇

They don’t show up on your balance sheet — until it’s too late.
Over the years I’ve seen founders burn through millions and others stall just as things were getting good.

Not because their idea was wrong, but because of what they couldn’t see coming.

Here are the five blind spots I see most often:

1️⃣ 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲’𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝.
 When cash is flowing, discipline disappears.
 Most founders forget to plan for the season when it doesn’t.

2️⃣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮.
 Every decision, sale, and delivery runs through the founder.
 When you’re the system, growth breaks the system.

3️⃣ 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞.
 Either the sales team sells what can’t be built,
 or the builders create what no one sold.
 Both kill margin and trust.

4️⃣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐡𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐦.
 Teams meet, but don’t align.
 No shared scoreboard.
 No accountability.
 No momentum.

5️⃣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐤.
 Marketing to sales.
 Sales to delivery.
 Delivery to support.
 Every gap drains trust, time, and cash.

These are the cracks I uncover in my ClearPath Diagnostic Framework.
 In just a few weeks, I help founders cut waste or scale faster — without chaos.

💬 Comment 𝐂𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐡 below and I’ll send you the full diagnostic deck — the same framework I use with founders to rebuild clarity and control in their business.

There’s a myth that founders are natural leaders.

I wish it were true. But most of us learn the hard way.

You start out thinking it’s about vision, strategy, maybe a bit of charisma. Turns out, it’s mostly about listening. And apologising. And learning to let go of things you thought only you could do.

I’ve made every leadership mistake in the book. Micromanaged. Avoided hard conversations. Tried to fix everything myself.

The turning point? Realising that people don’t want a superhero. They want someone who’s honest about what’s hard, and who shows up when it matters.

If you’re a founder struggling with the people side, you’re not broken. You’re just learning in public.

Keep showing up. That’s what makes the difference.

Most clean-room situations don’t start with anything dramatic.
There’s no big betrayal moment.

No email that says, “We’re going to try and rebuild your product now.”

It usually begins with something far more subtle.

If you’re selling into large enterprises, here are a few patterns worth being aware of — not to spark paranoia, but to sharpen your instincts:

1. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐬.
Early meetings are all about the problem, the value, the ROI.  Then suddenly the questions become:

 “How does your model handle edge cases?”
 “Can you walk our engineering team through the architecture?”
 “Could you show us more of what’s behind the scenes?”

2. 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬 — 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭.
You start seeing R&D, “innovation teams,” or someone with “technical strategy” in their title.  It’s not bad… but it’s a signal.

3. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 
No one says no.
They just stop saying yes.
Meetings move.
Energy drops.
Updates get vague.

4. 𝐀 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞. 
It’s often described as “exploratory” or “parallel work.”
These are the phrases product teams use when they’re trying something internally.

When you put all of these together, it doesn’t guarantee a clean-room attempt — but it does mean your engagement is shifting from partnership into scrutiny.

And scrutiny is where decisions about “build vs buy” happen.

This isn’t about becoming paranoid. Most enterprises behave with integrity.
It’s about knowing the game you’re in.

Because here’s the truth:
Large companies don’t copy startups because the startup failed.
They copy because the startup succeeded — and the enterprise wants that success for themselves.

If you’re navigating an enterprise deal and want a second opinion on how to structure the exposure and access, just drop me a message. Happy to help.

Turns out I’m a Lion.

Not the majestic savannah kind — more the “up before everyone else, peak early, and ready for bed long before Netflix asks if I’m still watching” kind.

Every week when I meet with Sarah Taylor  to work on the Envoqe project, she teaches me something new.

This week’s lesson: chronotypes — basically the science of when your body wants to sleep, wake, think, create, and recover.

And honestly, it explains a lot about why I’m fully functional at 6 a.m. while half the world is still negotiating with their alarm clock.

Here’s the quick breakdown:

🐁 The science bit (in plain English)

Your chronotype is tied to your circadian rhythm — the internal 24-hour clock that shapes your alertness, energy peaks, and sleep patterns.
It sits on a continuum, not in neat boxes. Some people are moderate; others live at the extremes.

🐾 The animal types (the fun version)

🦁 Lion – Early risers. Peak in the morning. Bed by 9–10 p.m.
🐻 Bear – Follow the sun. Wake with light, sleep with dark. Most common and most social.
🐺 Wolf – Night owls. Slow start, creative late, thrive when the world quiets down.
🐬 Dolphin – Light sleepers. Irregular patterns, alert brains, bursts of productivity.

🔬 The scientific categories (the strict version)

Morning type – Peak early, fade early.
Evening type – Peak late, creative and alert at night.
Intermediate – Neither extreme; more flexible across the day.

I’m very much a Lion — front-loaded energy, early focus, and happiest when the day starts before the rest of the city.

Now I’m curious what chronotype are you?

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