Tom Hunt

$3.6m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Jan 2014.I'm walking home from a depressing New Year's trip to Oslo with an ex. girlfriend.It's raining in East London.I made a decision:I would replace my management consulting salary (£42,000) by the end of the year.I had no idea from where, but that was the goal...I just about hit it and left the corporate world.And I haven't been back since.Fast forward a decade and I've:- Tried and failed with 17 businesses- Invested in 11- Learnt a LOTThe one that is finally working is called Fame:- We have a weird culture (in a good way)- We start and grow podcasts for B2B businesses- We are fully remote and have 75 full-time team membersI live for our awesome team at Fame, building businesses and great marketing.And I post about them here 🤗

Founder & CEO

We start and grow the world's most profitable B2B podcasts.

Clients include:

👉 IDEO
👉 Workday
👉 HighRadius
👉 People.ai
👉 Zendesk
👉 Bevy
👉 Circle
👉 Suzy
👉 Mazars
👉 LeanData
👉 CXL
👉 Ramp
👉 Alibaba
👉 Signify
👉 eToro

$4.5m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I’m doing.

“We need to let them go.”

I’m in a 1-1 and a manager thinks someone in their team isn’t performing.

I'm in shock, to me they seemed enthusiastic and a culture fit.


We dug into the details:

- What weren’t they doing?
- Why weren’t they doing it?

The manager thought they either didn't understand or couldn't do the role.

Then I ask:

“How did onboarding go?”

“What do you mean by onboarding?” they reply.


And that's when we found the issue:

We skipped the onboarding process and replaced it with "a couple of calls".


If you’re recruiting right, you owe it to yourself to onboard right.

You can’t expect someone to join and start performing, you need to set them up to succeed.

Onboard right or do it twice.

Agree?

I had a terrible boss.

And I spent more time with them than my partner.
 

They never raised their voice.

They smiled (kind of).

But they also started:

- Passing my ideas off as their own
- Expecting email responses at 10pm
- “Checking in” multiple times per day
 
Again, they weren’t ever aggressive or rude, they just slowly eroded my confidence each day.

I thought this was normal e.g. you get a job, you get a manager like this.
 

And then…

I moved roles and got a new manager, they:

- Stepped in when needed
- Never emailed after hours
- Saved most comms to our weekly 1-1
 

A great manager won’t get you promoted.

They will change the trajectory of your career.

Agree?

My 7 favourite startup lies:


1. We’re scaling
-- No, you still don't know how/if you'll be profitable

2. We’re going viral
-- No, your CEO’s LinkedIn fundraise post got a few more likes than normal

3. TechCrunch picked us up
-- No, your $10k per month PR agency got you featured

4. We’re partnering with Google
-- No, you’re paying Google Cloud for servers

5. The inbound pipeline is strong
-- No, some competitors requested a demo to see what you’re building

6. We have FANG-level talent
-- No, one of your devs interned at Netflix 6 years ago

7. The team are fully incentivised
-- No, they have paper options based on an inflated fundraise


And my absolute favourite:

8. We’re worth $30m
-- No, a hyped up VC gave you this valuation to make themselves look good (so they can raise their next fund)


Thank god we don't have to lie to ourselves.

Here’s to the bootstrappers 🥂

(Exit the hype-train and subscribe to Cash Machines)

I probably shouldn’t share this…

I like to call it the “Pay Rise Formula”.


Most people go about asking for money in the completely wrong way:

1. Pay review arrives
2. “Can I have more money?”

It’s an easy "not yet" from the boss.


But if you follow these three steps, you boost your chances of a pay rise by at least 56%:

(Not a guarantee but it works)

1. 6 months before the pay review ask your boss: “what do I need to be doing in the next 6 months to get a pay-rise?”

2. Write those things down and make a plan to hit them. Work hard.

3. A few weeks before the pay review, show the list (with things ticked off) to your boss in a 1-1 and ask them to confirm if you are actually doing those things


If done right, there is no way a boss can push back on a raise with the "not yet" excuse.

Pro-activity pays.

Agree?

"OK let me get this straight..."

"Because it kind of sounds like you built yourself a job."


It's 11:37pm in 2017 and I'm sat with a good friend enjoying a spicy margarita in a seedy city bar.

He's shouting into my ear because they closed something called a "Series A":

- How their going to change the world
- An upcoming TechCrunch article
- All the people he needs to hire
- Their "enterprise motion"


But something isn't making sense to me:

1. He has to report to the board every month
2. Any cost greater than £25k must have board sign off
3. He can't take cash out whenever he wants
4. Board needs to sign off his salary
4. If he leaves in the next 4 years he only keeps a slice of his own company
5. If they don't sell it for a massive amount he may get nothing
6. To sell it, they need investor sign off


He replies:

"Yeah I see what you're saying, but the reality is the company is now valued at £20m, my stake is £6m, so I'm basically a multi-millionaire"

😳


As you can imagine, it didn't work out well.

Glad I stuck to building Cash Machines.

$4.5 million ARR, 0 raised.

$500 invested.

It’s been a wild ride.


We have built Fame as a service business with mostly intangible assets.

We did it without selling a single piece of equity to venture capital.

But even asset-light businesses get stuck.

You often need to buy speed to hire a star developer, fund a new marketing campaign, or pay a tax bill.

In those moments, I did not want to wait weeks for a bank.

Unless I had another option.

An option like iwoca.


They fund small businesses that move quickly and have already funded 100,000 businesses in the UK. 

They lent £3.3 billion to business owners who need to move fast and build resilience.

You can apply for business finance between £1,000 and £1M in about five minutes.

They typically give you a decision within 24 hours.

Apply here to check your options: https://lnkd.in/euSG4SCm

NOTE - applying does not impact your credit score.

#Ad

Brand partnership • $4.5m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I’m doing.

It felt like the responsible thing to do... 


But then it turned out to be one of the worst business decisions ever.

Depreciating assets hurt the balance sheet, locking up capital that could be used for growth. 

For example... 

We are in a hiring sprint, bringing on 2 - 3 new team members in Feb. 

Old Tom would have dropped thousands upfront for laptops that would be worth significantly less by next year.

That isn’t scaling.

It’s a cash drain.

Instead, we are using Raylo.

It took 60 seconds to set up a subscription for the latest HP laptops, and they arrived the next day.

Here is why I recommend Raylo as an affordable option for small businesses:

- Protect Your Cash: We paid £0 upfront. Every pound saved on hardware goes straight into growth.

- Upgrade Freedom: With the MacBook M5 rumors floating around, I am not worried because we can upgrade the team to the latest models for free with Raylo's monthly rolling option.

- Zero Drama: If something goes wrong with a device during the subscription, Raylo's Lifetime Warranty covers technical faults and they sort it quickly.


Or in other words:

Stop buying "stuff" that rots on your balance sheet. 

Convert your tech to OpEx and keep your capital for growth.

Check out the subscription options for your team here: mdsh.io/raylo-business 

#Ad

Jakub Zajicek

Chief Marketing Officer

Back in March 2020, I co-founded Speak On Podcasts with a partner from the UK. We grew it into one of the world’s leading agencies for booking podcast interviews, securing over 2,500 appearances for more than 125 leaders from top B2B brands like Canva, Gong, Paddle, and Toggl.

In December 2022, Chapman Capital acquired the agency (source). I stayed on for over a year to ensure a smooth transition and maintain high service quality for our clients. In April 2025, the business was acquired again — this time by UK company Fame (source), which integrated the agency and team into its portfolio under the name “Fame Connect.”

In 2024, I co-founded Demandi.co with a partner from the US. As COO, I helped over 300 B2B professionals create nearly 2,000 short LinkedIn videos. I built the MVP, ran operations, and drove revenue and pipeline growth. I stepped away voluntarily due to a difference in vision with my co-founder.

LinkedIn has been a key acquisition channel in both businesses. I’ve tested it all — posting daily for 188 days straight, reaching out to 50+ people a day, and most recently, running paid ads. All of it generated deals worth over $1M.

Today, I work independently, helping B2B brands and individuals become more visible and get more clients using LinkedIn.

I live in the Czech Republic with my wife. I have type 1 diabetes. I run and work out. 🙂

Founder

Helping SaaS brands reach new partners with PartnerOutreach.io

Are you stuck under 1k impressions on every post?
Only get “pity likes” from 4 people you know?
Tired of it all? 😫

I was too.

↓

So I built a system that guarantees reach WITHOUT relying on the algorithm or going viral.

You can get it here, free: https://lnkd.in/gK9Au5br

I spent $1000s running it for myself and my clients... and the results are wild! 🤯

✅ One client targeted a tiny audience of just 25k people in the UK. The very next day, 2 senior executives (perfect fit) asked to learn more about their offer. Promotion spend? £25.

✅ When I launched a brand-new offer, I used the same system. Within 7 hours I had my first call booked (after spending less than $7). Before that, my posts never broke 200 impressions.

✅ Another client used it to reach US execs in the hospitality industry. Within 2 days, 3 of them signed up for his weekly seminar. Total ad spend? Under $50. (And all of them showed up.)

↓

I broke down my EXACT step-by-step process in a free guide.

Grab it here: https://lnkd.in/gK9Au5br

PS: It gives you everything you need to DIY the whole thing yourself.

Founder, JZ Consulting | I help B2B founders book 5+ meetings p/mo with content, ads, and outreach.

There are 3 ways to win on LinkedIn right now.

#1 Content & Commenting

Pros:
+ Builds trust and authority over time
+ People feel like they already know you before you ever talk
+ Compounds. Your best posts keep working months later
+ Comments on other people's posts put you in front of their audience for free

Cons:
- Organic reach is declining. More people posting = less visibility for everyone
- Takes months of consistency before you see real results
- Likes and comments are not meetings. You can have great engagement and zero pipeline
- You are waiting for people to come to you. It is passive by nature

#2 Outreach

Pros:
+ Direct. You choose exactly who you want to talk to
+ Fastest way to start conversations with decision-makers
+ You control the volume. More messages = more conversations
+ Results can start within days, not months

Cons:
- Most messages get ignored because the person has never heard of you
- Done wrong, it burns your reputation and feels like spam
- Hard to scale without it becoming generic and impersonal

#3 Ads

Pros:
+ Instant reach to exactly the right people without relying on the algo
+ LinkedIn ads are still underpriced compared to Google and Meta for B2B
+ You can retarget everyone who engages so you stay top of mind
+ Scales. You can reach thousands of ideal clients in your first week

Cons:
- You need to have an offer that works well for cold audiences
- Most people boost posts with no strategy and conclude ads are too expensive
- You need content worth promoting. Bad content + ads = expensive bad content
- Views and clicks are not meetings unless something else converts them

Bonus #4: Combine all three

Content builds trust. Ads amplify it to the right people. Outreach converts the warm signals into conversations.

In other words...

Your content attracts your ideal clients. Ads make sure they actually see it, even if the algorithm buries your organic reach. Every view, like, comment, follow, and website visit gets tracked. Then outreach goes only to people already engaging with you, in your voice, personalized, warm.

That is the difference between isolated LinkedIn marketing and integrated LinkedIn marketing.

I'd rather have 500 impressions from CEOs than 50,000 from other marketers.

Most B2B founders get this backwards.

They see a post hit 15,000 impressions and feel successful. Then they check their pipeline. Zero inquiries. Zero calls. Zero revenue.

They're winning a game that doesn't matter.

Viral content appeals to everyone. That's the problem.

You need to appeal to your specific ICP. The executives who can write checks. The founders who need what you sell.

I posted daily for 100+ days. Some posts got 5K views. Some got 200. It was random.

The algorithm isn't your friend. It's a slot machine.

Stop gambling with your business.

Control your reach. Stop praying for it.

For months, I buried links in the comments.

Everyone said links kill reach. So I listened.

Then I started running Thought Leader Ads.

And I realized something: when you're paying for distribution, the algorithm penalty doesn't matter.

I ran a post with a direct link. It got 6 likes. That's it.

But it drove massive landing page clicks and actual revenue.

The rules are different when you control who sees your content.

Whatever the gurus tell you to avoid—links, direct offers, selling on the first interaction—feel free to just do it when you're paying for reach.

The embarrassment? It's in your head.

Almost nobody is watching your organic reach anyway.

And the ones who are? Probably not your buyers.

That's a good thing.

Let that thought set you free.

taplio

The Battle

Tom Hunt

Jakub Zajicek

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreTom Hunt's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJakub Zajicek's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Tom Hunt

Jakub Zajicek

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Tom Hunt's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJakub Zajicek's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreTom Hunt's LinkedIn Performance