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

Nigel Thomas

We help B2B Founders sign 5 high ticket clients in 90 days using our flywheel system (Used by 300+ clients). DM me ‘Scale’ if you are interested

You started building a business because you wanted freedom. 

But right now you’re chained to your desk and barely breaking even. 

It doesn’t feel like freedom. 

- You’re talented
- You’ve got some clients 
- You know how to get results 

But it’s not working. 

Most agency owners I work with want three things: 

1) Consistent pipeline with high quality leads
2) A team to delegate client work
3) Clarity on what to work on when

A business that works for you not owns you. 

Here’s how I make that become a reality:

1) We position you to win premium retainers
2) We install a lead gen system to fill up your calendar
3) We fix your systems and process so you lead like a real CEO

We do it together in a focused 90 day sprint. 

Real support that drive results like these: 

📌 Tanner: From $15K with 1 client → $30K/month, in 4 months
📌 Sam: Doubled his agency and hired a new team in 90 days
📌 Tobi: Went from freelancer to $30K/month with A+ clients
📌 Alex: Scaled from $12k to $70k in 4 months
📌 Stephen: Scaled from $10k to $18k by increasing prices
📌 Sammy: Grew by over 50% in 60 days and hired a team

I’ve also done it all myself. Twice. 

Built two 7-figure agencies from scratch.

Now, I coach high-performing agency founders who want more to do the same. 
Minus the mistakes I made (lol). 

So, if you’re:

- Running an agency 
- Already at $5K+/month 
- Ready to scale without losing your sanity 

→ Hit the ‘Book an Appointment’ button in my featured section. 

Join 75+ other Undeniable members scaling beyond their wildest dreams…

And, let’s build the agency you actually want.

Consultant

3 weeks before my Dominican Republic mastermind, I had only sold 3 tickets. 

I had 4 big-name speakers flying in.
Expecting 35 entrepreneurs.
Absolutely no idea how to fill the room.

So I decided to bet on LinkedIn DMs. 

Sales is a numbers game. 
So I sent hundreds of messages. 

At first it was chaos.

Terrible messages. 
Low response rates.
No idea what I was doing.

But I had no choice.

I tested. Refined. Rebuilt.

3 weeks later:

- 150 calls booked
- Mastermind fully booked
- Happy speakers and guests 

But most importantly, I built a DM system that actually works.

Tomorrow at 1PM EST. 
I'm breaking down exactly what I learned.

The framework.
The psychology.
The mistakes that kill conversations.

If you need to book calls fast you need this masterclass. 

If you want to join sign up here: 
https://lnkd.in/eYMey69u

See you tomorrow. 


BTW. This isn't theory. It's what I built when my back was against the wall and I had no other option.

CEO of Undeniable. The community for ambitious underdog founders who refuse to stay down.

At 30, I scaled an agency to $140k/month. 

6 months later, I was living in my childhood bedroom.

That’s how quickly things can change. 

I’d put everything into that business. 
Worked every hour I was awake. 
Sacrificed relationships. 

And then it was gone. 

No income.
31 years old.
Back in the bedroom I grew up in.

That wasn't the first time I lost everything.
It's happened 3 more times.

Failure doesn't get easier.
But you get stronger.

Every time I lost everything, I learned something:

- How to spot red flags in business partners
- How to protect myself legally
- How to build without losing myself
- How to get back up faster

I've learned these brutal lessons the hard way. 

So now, I'm helping 75+ founders in Undeniable avoid my mistakes.

Watching them scale past $50K/month.
Whilst building businesses they love. 

The setbacks didn't break me.

They built me.

If you're staring at rock bottom right now...

You'll get there.

I promise.


P.S. 3 years later, I'm running the community I wish I had then. The comeback is always bigger than the setback. If you know you know.

Founders, open your LinkedIn DMs right now. 

How many feel like they were written by a human?
How many mention something personal about you?
How many made you laugh?

Probably none. 

Because everyone's automating.
Everyone's blasting the same template to 500 people.
Wondering why no one responds.

Meanwhile, Tom Harman booked 25 calls in February alone for his side business. 

He has a full-time job. 
Only spends one hour a day in the DMs. 

His ICP is $100M CEOs. 
His response rate is 50%. 

Here's his rule for every single DM he sends:
"Could I send this message to anyone else in the world?"

If yes? He doesn't send it.

One of his best openers referenced a founder's frozen pizza brand. 
He asked whether pineapple belongs on pizza.

That CEO replied within the hour.

The fastest way to anyone's heart, regardless of how successful they are, is humour.

Personality. Proof that you actually looked at their profile.

Honestly, it doesn’t require that much work. 

The benchmarks across 10,000 conversations we've run:

→ 200 connection requests/week to ICP 
→ 30% acceptance rate = 240 new connects/month 
→ 30% response rate from personalised DMs = 72 conversations 
→ 25% book a call = 18 qualified calls per month

18 qualified calls a month.

Any agency owner, coach or consultant landing 18 qualified calls a month will scale their business.

And Tom does it in an hour a day. 
Whilst working a full-time job.

Success in the DMs is pretty simple:

Stop automating and start being human.

It's also just more fun.


What’s the best DM you’ve ever received?

Two 7-figure agencies built. 300+ clients scaled. Your business is next.

Sack your worst clients.

You’ll get your business back.

I bet someone comes to mind immediately. 

The clients who:

- pays the least
- pays the latest
- takes the most time
- drains the most energy

And yet…they keep them on.

Not because it makes sense.
Because it’s scary to let go.

But keeping the wrong clients is already costing you.

- 20% of your clients can take 60–70% of your time
- Low-paying clients usually generate the highest stress
- Hours spent managing them could be spent on selling more

It’s a leadership problem.

One, I’ve seen this hundreds of times.

Founders come to me overwhelmed, underpaid, frustrated thinking they need more clients.

They don’t.
They need fewer, better ones.

Here’s what happens when they finally go:

1. Time opens up
2. Energy comes back
3. Decision-making improves
4. Confidence returns
5. Better clients show up

Space creates standards.

This isn’t about being ruthless.
It’s about being intentional.

Sacking your worst clients isn’t failure.

It’s leadership.


BTW, if you want to sack your client but know you need better opportunities in your pipeline first…

Join my masterclass where I’ll teach you exactly how I booked 375 qualified calls from LinkedIn in 4 months. 

Link to sign up here: https://lnkd.in/eYMey69u

I’ve spoken to 1,000 agency founders last 12 months. 

The problem they all have is booking calls.

Which is why they usually come to me.

I booked 375 calls in 4 months. 
Purely from LinkedIn DMs. 

No ads. 
No cold emails. 
No paid traffic. 

375 high quality leads from LinkedIn DMs. 

Now I’m teaching you exactly how to do the same. 

In a FREE masterclass. 

10th of February at 1PM EST. 

What you’ll get on this masterclass: 

- Exact DM framework that booked those calls
- How to fill your calendar with $15K deals 
- 90-day sprint method to hit your next revenue milestone

If 2026 hasn’t started the way you wanted it to. 

Or maybe it has but you want even more.

Join the masterclass. 
 
I'm sharing my best stuff for free. 

Link to sign up here: https://lnkd.in/eYMey69u

See you on Tuesday.

taplio

The Battle

Tom Hunt

Nigel Thomas

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Performance ScoreNigel Thomas's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Tom Hunt

Nigel Thomas

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 ScoreNigel Thomas's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreTom Hunt's LinkedIn Performance