Valentine Boyev

Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner

Halo Lab is a full-stack design & development team.

We created digital projects almost every day since 2013.

We work with a diverse range of innovative startups and established companies. We've launched over 350 projects, helping our clients secure a total of $370M in funding. 

Some of our standout projects include:

- Kinetik: A healthcare platform with over 3,500 integrated providers.
- Bookclub24: A German online library for book collectors.
- Raven.gg: A leading brand in custom esports clothing design.
- Mighty Buildings: Pioneers in sustainable 3D-printed houses.

Co-Founder & CEO

OPUS

OPUS is a membership community for entrepreneurs, founders and business builders. We unite our members to create opportunities together by addressing isolation, knowledge and skill gaps through our digital platform, events & experiences, and partnerships, helping our members achieve their missions.

Member

Dribbble

Since 2013, I have partnered with Dribbble to enhance brand awareness and create new project opportunities for Halo Lab. Throughout this collaboration, I have played a key role in driving growth and expanding our presence in the industry.

Partner

CEO at Halo Lab ✦ Helped 500+ companies to raise 💲revenue and investments through digital design and marketing → $500M+ in client total funding

Results my company has delivered to my clients:

🔥 TutorChase — 1,000+ satisfied students.
🔥 DevelopHealth —  $2.3M raised in funding.
🔥 Felyx —  7.5% CR increase with our services.
🔥 LinkByCar — 18 car brands in their partnership.
🔥 Bookclub24 — #1 German online library for book collectors.

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With a passion for creating unique and scalable digital products, I help brands achieve their goals and elevate their presence in the digital world.

Key Achivements:

✅ $370M in client total funding

✅ 500+ happy clients

✅ 99+ international awards

✅ 80+ glowing reviews


I specialize in:

⤷  Web Design Services: Creating eye-catching and user-friendly websites that grab attention and drive results.

⤷  Website Development: Building strong, reliable websites that fit your business perfectly.

⤷  User Experience Design: Making sure your users have a smooth and enjoyable experience.

⤷  Brand Design: Crafting unique brand identities that really pop.

⤷  Conversion Optimization: Helping turn your visitors into loyal customers.

⤷  Digital Web Solutions: Providing all the web solutions you need in one place.

⤷  Website Redesign for Results: Giving your old website a makeover to boost performance and engagement.

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My Journey

My career began 15 years ago as a UI/UX designer, driven by a passion for creativity and beauty. For me, design is more than a job—it’s a way of life, an ever-exciting, fantastic world.

I believe in thinking outside the box and continuously renewing my knowledge. This mindset has guided me in helping people fall in love with brands and assisting agencies in winning new business.

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Halo Lab

Another passion I discovered is mentoring young designers at Halo Lab, where I help them become true professionals. Sharing my knowledge not only helps others but also fuels my own learning journey.

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Have BIG idea in mind?

Contact me directly: inquiry@halo-lab.com

“So… how much does it cost to build an MVP?”

That’s the question I get from almost every founder we talk to.

There’s no one-size-fits-all number, but there is a clear pattern in how MVP costs break down.

And understanding it early can save you from burning six figures in the wrong phase.

Typical MVP cost.

1. SaaS MVP: $30,000–$100,000 (more with complex backend or AI features).
2. Mobile App: $60,000–$150,000 (iOS + Android doubles cost unless cross-platform).
3. Marketplace: $30,000–$150,000 (multi-role logic and payments drive cost).
4. Internal Tool: $15,000–$100,000 (simpler UI but requires solid integrations).

How founders blow the budget:

1. Too many “nice-to-haves.”
You don’t need every feature. 
You need one that solves a real pain.
Amazon’s MVP sold only books, that’s it.

2. Reinventing what already exists.
Use Stripe, Auth0, Firebase, Twilio, not custom clones.
Integrating proven services can cut MVP costs by up to 60%.

3. Building all at once.
Launch the essentials (Phase 1), test, iterate, then scale.

4. Ignoring “hidden” costs.
Hosting, compliance, and early marketing add up fast.
Always keep a 20% buffer, it’ll save your runway when surprises hit.

5. Skipping validation.
A small discovery phase costs 5% of the budget but prevents 50% of rework later.

The best MVPs aren’t just cheap.
They’re intentional, focused, and fast to learn from.

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CEO @ Halo Lab ✦ Leading a 130+ design-driven B2B software company → 500+ products shipped & scaled

7 rules I wish I knew earlier.

(to make the UI work for the product growth).

1. Focus on fixing real user problems, not curious design. Function over form.

2. Stop guessing what works. Test all UI elements - buttons, CTAs, days of the week, color schemes - before you make a decision. Let the data choose.

3. Waiting for the perfect design means you're going to miss the needs of your users. Get feedback early and iterate fast.

4. Do not make the user think. Use simple, clear language that anyone can understand. The simpler the better.

5. The best way to reduce friction is to eliminate a choice. Focus on what matters.

6. Your UI is never "finished." It will evolve with user feedback and as your product changes.

7. If your product isn’t optimized for mobile, you’re losing users. Make sure mobile works perfectly before scaling to the desktop.

Ultimately, outstanding UI is about making your product simple, clear, and effective for the people using it.
Design for your users, not for your ego.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in designing for usability?

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You can hire a designer.

Or you can hire a design brain.

One gives you beautiful screens.
The other gives you a product that thinks.

When you hire a single designer, you get skills.
When you hire a team that works as one brain, you get experience that compounds.

At Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner, our teams don’t work in silos.
The UX researcher sees what frustrates users.
The product designer connects it to business goals.
The UI designer turns it into clarity and trust.
The developer translates it into something fast and functional.

Each person covers a blind spot the others can’t.
And together, they don’t just design, they solve.

That’s the difference between design as a task and design as a system.
Between a pretty interface and a product that scales, converts, and feels effortless to use.

When founders realize this, everything changes:

1. They stop hiring portfolios.
2. They start hiring thinking systems - teams that anticipate problems before they appear, align design with ROI, and build products that last.

If you’re scaling your product, don’t just hire a designer.
Hire a brain that’s trained to think like your users and build like your business depends on it.

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The hardest thing about building an AI product is getting people to trust what it does.

You can create a great model all you want, but as soon as users feel the slightest bit of uncertainty, they are going to ponder, hesitate, and leave.

When founders build trust into the product experience, three things happen fast.

1. Users stop second-guessing and start exploring. First session activation goes up because they understand the what and whys.

2. Every click of trust compounds itself into usage, retention, and upsell. Without trust, the best AI feature will remain unused.

3. You do not have to wait for product market fit to learn how users actually feel. Trust patterns can save you weeks of guessing, and reduce the launch chaos.

4. Transparent UX with design-based trust cuts confusion before it even reaches support. No more "I am left wondering why it said that?" tickets or bad reviews for hallucinations.

Most AI products are built for power. 
The real winners are built for confidence.

✦

At Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner, we help founders design AI products users trust enough to actually use and pay for.
If that’s the stage you’re at, let’s chat.

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UI Patterns for AI products

Working with revolutionary teams is always exciting.

But being involved with a team that could potentially transform the way millions of people see and feel about themselves is an honour.

OmniBuds is creating the world’s first ear-worn AI/ML platform for real-time physiological monitoring.

That vision deserved an experience that felt just as innovative.

The first step was to design a digital ecosystem (app and website) that would convert complex data signals into a visual representation that users can understand and relate to quickly and easily.

We focused on three key pillars.

1. Clarity.

We designed intuitive, soothing visual representations of the complex multi-signal outputs of the AI.

2. Confidence.

The design of our user interface allows users to feel secure and informed about their health and wellness without feeling overwhelmed.

3. Scalability.

The design of our digital ecosystem supports the addition of new biosensors or biometric data and accommodates future generations of devices.

In conclusion, we have built a companion app that is capable of pairing devices, calibrating sensors, and tracking five vital signs (heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, body temperature, and blood pressure).

Huge thanks to the OmniBuds team - your clarity, vision, and relentless drive made this collaboration special.

Thank you for trusting Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner to help bring such an important mission to life.

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OmniBuds Case Study

How can we make our busy lives a bit calmer and more growth-oriented? 

Routine Hero is the app for that. 
It's a habit-tracking app designed by Artgrafii.
And we are excited to share the background on one of our most significant collaborations.

The mission to bring mindfulness and structure to everyday life resonated with us at Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner.

We added a soft, warm look to draw attention to meaningful actions. When you combine that with thoughtful, user-centered UX design, the tracker becomes a creative canvas with clear, intuitive visualization.

The result?

✦ Higher engagement.
✦ Stronger emotional connection.
✦ A growing base of users who trust Routine Hero to help them stay grounded.

Since launch, Routine Hero has supported thousands of users to build sustainable routines, and reduce anxiety around routine-building practices.

Huge thanks to the team for trusting Halo Lab to bring your mission to life. 
It’s a privilege to design for products that make people’s days lighter.

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Routine Hero Case Study

A few years ago, I worked with a product team that doubled its user base in six months.

Great milestone, until everything started breaking at once.

Buttons no longer fit real workflows.
Dashboards collapsed under new data volumes.
Features designed by different teams looked like they came from different companies.

That’s when it became obvious: you don’t scale by adding features, you scale by designing for growth.

Here’s what changed (today I call it the 5 pillars of scalable design):

1️⃣ We stopped designing screens.
We designed systems.
Modular components, reusable everywhere, so new features didn’t require redesigning the whole product.

2️⃣ We built a real design system.
Tokens, rules, documentation, ownership.
A structure any new designer or developer could plug into instantly.

3️⃣ We switched to adaptive layouts.
More roles, more data, more devices.
The UI had to flex without breaking clarity.

4️⃣ We future-proofed content.
No hardcoded text.
No rigid page structures.
Everything had to scale with localization, new markets, and dynamic data.

5️⃣ We optimized for speed.
Because nothing kills scalability like lag.
If a key screen doesn’t load in under 2 seconds, the experience collapses under growth.

Looking back, the real shift was in mindset.
Scalability isn’t a phase. It’s a discipline.

What’s been the biggest scalability bottleneck in your product so far?
Tech, design, or people?

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“We saved money choosing the cheaper option…

but paid for it three times over.”

And I’ve seen this story play out again and again.
The “cheap” choice looks good on paper.

But here’s what it usually costs you:
→ Extra months fixing broken systems.
→ Support teams buried in avoidable tickets.
→ Lost trust from customers who won’t come back.
→ Higher churn that eats away at revenue.

That “cheap” website, tool, or app?
It ends up being the most expensive decision you make.

What’s worth paying for:

1. Better UX = lower support costs.
2. Clearer onboarding = fewer drop-offs.
3. Scalable infrastructure = fewer rebuilds later.
4. Stronger design = higher conversion and trust.

Cheap is never just cheap.
It’s delayed launches, frustrated users, and lost growth.
The real ROI comes from durability, clarity, and trust.
Not the lowest upfront price.

What’s the most expensive “cheap” decision you’ve ever made?

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A redesign driven by aesthetics rarely fixes business problems.

A redesign driven by user almost always does.

You just have to do it when you are certain of what’s broken and why.

1. When not to redesign.
If your brand feels stale but your product is functional, do not rebuild.
You likely need optimization, not rebuilding.

- Simplifying user workflows.
- Updating visual aspects to current design standards.
- Clarifying your value proposition through copy.


2. When a redesign is actually warranted
You can redesign when: 
- Users have outgrown your original logic of production.
- Your technology or architecture is restricting/making it difficult for you to grow.
- The perception of your brand is much more than what you deliver.
- All metrics indicate friction, and specifically not just aesthetic boredom.
That point is when design becomes a strategy tool versus a decoration exercise.

3. How to redesign without breaking everything.
We approach redesigns as a controlled evolution, not a revolution.

It starts with:

✅ Data: Identify and evaluate where users are actually struggling.
✅ Alignment: Balance your business goals with the the user needs.
✅ Phased rollout: Test, measure, iterate changes before scaling.

Good redesigns feel familiar yet new.
They keep the user oriented and provide a sense of progress.
Redesign is not for something new.
Redesign is for something to work.

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Most leaders will agree that "good UX matters."

But few can prove it in financial terms.

That’s where growth is slowly leaking.

When design is measurable, it is also scalable.
When it is scaleable, it is a competitive advantage.

This is what the math shows:

✦ Each $1 spent on UX returns between $2 and $100. (Forrester)

✦ A load time faster by 0.1 seconds can boost conversion up to 10%. (Deloitte)

✦ 18% of customers abandon the website because the site is hard to use. Baymard Institute)

✦ Companies with design maturity outperform similar companies by 2x in revenue and shareholder returns. (McKinsey Design Index)

So why measure your UX ROI?
Because if you do not measure it, design becomes "subjective."

When you measure it, you have a lever to influence:

1. Conversion rates and average order value.
2. Operational efficiency and support costs.
3. Customer lifetime value and churn.

Here’s how leading companies do it:

1. Benchmark experience metrics – funnel conversion, time-to-task, support volume.
2. Make UX optimizations – simplify flows, reduce friction, increase clarity.
3. Measure the delta – either revenue, savings or time.
4. Quantify into dollars.

UX isn't about how good your product looks.
It's about how much it earns.
When organizations measure that, UX is no longer subjective.

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How to Measure the ROI of UX

"Hiring own designers will be cheaper and faster.”

But look at the numbers.
They tell a different story.

✦ Time-to-hire is slow.
The average time to hire a UX/UI designer in the U.S. is 41 days (LinkedIn Hiring Report).
Senior designers? Often 55–60 days.
Add onboarding and culture fit, and you’re looking at 3–4 months before they’re fully effective.

Dedicated design teams?
Kickoff happens in 1–2 weeks with established workflows already in place.

✦ Total cost is higher than salary.
Average U.S. UX/UI designer salary: $85,000–$110,000/year (Glassdoor).
Add benefits, payroll taxes, equipment, software licenses, office overhead = 30–40% more.
That’s $120,000–$150,000 per designer, per year.
Now consider that most in-house teams need:
 - Product designer.
 - Brand specialist.
 - UX researcher.
 - UI designer.

That can quickly run $500K–$600K+ annually.
Dedicated teams?
You pay for deliverables, not overhead. 
With flexible scaling as needs change.

✦ Hidden risks of in-house.
Design turnover is high: UX/UI attrition sits around 20% in tech (UXPA survey).
Losing one designer mid-project stalls progress: recruiting + onboarding adds months.
Dedicated teams spread expertise across roles, reducing single points of failure.

In-house design isn’t “bad.”
But it’s slower, riskier, and more expensive to get outcomes at speed.

Dedicated teams let you:
1. Scale up or down instantly.
2. Access specialists without hiring 4+ roles.
3. Get results faster without HR bottlenecks.
4. The real cost of in-house isn’t salary.

It’s the delay, the overhead, and the risk of burnout or attrition.

Where do you see design bottlenecks most - hiring, retention, or delivery speed?

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A few months ago, one of our partners came up with a challenge.

“We’ve raised our Series A, we have product-market fit, but we’re stuck in endless design-dev loops. Can we ship an MVP that investors can demo this quarter, not next?”

We delivered it in 42 days.
Here’s what actually made it possible.

1. 10-day strategy sprint.
We used a pre-built discovery framework with templates for personas, flows, and decisions on technology stacks.
We only focused on the unknowns and skipped documenting the things that the team has already validated.
The result was a 70% faster alignment phase while maintaining context.

2. Parallel design & development.
In traditional teams, design "hands off" to devs, and that is where weeks go to die. 
We run parallel pipelines: The dev team starts building the architecture and reusable components in parallel. 
We do design QA in a sprint and not at the end.
The result: Reduced the cycle from design → dev delay from 3 weeks to 10 days.

3. Reusable design systems.

4. Senior leads keep hands-on.
Every project has a lead designer, tech lead, and PM who stay involved daily, not just at kickoff.
You speed delivery up by removing the invisible friction between discovery, design, and dev.

At Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner, we build like product teams.
That’s how we move from “idea” to “investor demo” faster without cutting corners.

If you’re a founder racing toward your next funding milestone, DM me.

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“We have an amazing product”.

“But users keep leaving before they even see the value.”

It’s not the product.
 It’s the experience.

And it happens because of:

1. A free trial signup that feels like applying for a loan.
Users quit before they even start.

2. Weak onboarding.
No quick win. No guidance. Churn in days.

3. Cluttered screens.
The features users need most get buried.

4. Hidden pricing.
 Confusion erodes trust before renewal.

5. No in-app guidance after the trial.
Users convert, but never adopt advanced features.

When you fix the UX, you fix the revenue.
 – Quick signup.
 – Clear onboarding.
 – Transparent pricing.
 – Continuous education.

That’s what turns users into loyal customers.

Founders: Which of these mistakes do you see most often in SaaS products?

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Incredible ideas stall due to weak partnerships.

It usually takes place in stealth.

Updates slow to a crawl.
The "senior devs" you met disappear from your calls.
Modifications to the budget shift from a "must" to "small" and you are suddenly bleeding money.

By Sprint 2, you realize that you didn't just hire a team, you hired a risk.

Here are ways to identify risk before you spend months working on a project:

1. Always ask about the team that will be running your project and who will stay after kickoff.

2. Too good to be true.
A low price always gets expensive. Low bid quotes hide re-work, missed deadlines and never ending "extras" that only come to light after the process has started.

3. A good team should manipulate the project to meet your goals, your stack, your workflow, not force their workflow on you.

4. Silence between sprints.
Try to schedule meetings during, not after, the process, establish weekly meetings, and leverage transparency.

5. Be sure to clarify IP ownership up front, make sure it's in writing.

6. Wrong domain skills. Ask for proven case studies.

7. No plan after launch. Make sure to ask about supporting you in scaling, not just shipping.

That’s how you find a dev partner who builds fast and right, not cheap (and now).

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Most SaaS teams think churn is a “product problem.”

Often, it’s a UX problem.

Specifically, these 3 patterns that silently destroy retention right when you’re trying to scale.

✦ Onboarding overload.

Your onboarding experience is doing too much → users never experience the “aha”.

Signs:

Your users see 30–60% drop off between signup → first key action.
Your users either defer their actions to “do this later”.
Your users either skip or quit onboarding tours.

Solutions:

- Prefill + auto setup wherever possible.- 
- Cut straight to the core metric (1 simple path).
- Eliminate features that your retained users aren’t using.
- Hide advanced options/features until user is successful once.

Measure: TTV, D1/D7/D30 retention, activation rate to first action, cohort comparison.

✦ Spammy + Manipulative UX.

Over-notifying, misleading, or hiding data practices will kill trust quickly.

Signs:

"Spammy” complaints.
Push for opt-outs + unsubscribes increases.
Session starts decrease after notifications are initiated.

Solutions:

- Quality vs. quantity: notify only when it helps now.
- Preference center for channel, topic, and frequency.
- Clear, human-centric language about privacy (no mention of legal slime).
- Remove dark patterns (don't do pre-checked boxes or hidden exits).

Measure: Notification CTR vs disable rate, complaint rate, NPS after comms change, retention deltas.

✦ Big-Bang redesign that breaks user habits.

A complete UI redesign with no guidance = instant churn.

Signs:

Returning users can’t find basic features.
Spike in support tickets (“where did x go?”).
Power-user activity drops immediately after launch.

Solutions:

- Roll out in phases + A/B test in advance of full launch.
- Quick in-product tours that respect muscle memory.
- Temporary “Classic mode” or quick old→new map.
- Collect feedback + iterate on a weekly basis.

Measure: Task success pre/post, ticket volume, usage recapture curve, old-vs-new retention.

Before you build more features, fix these UX leaks.
They’re cheaper to solve and improve retention faster than any new roadmap item.

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Many SaaS products confuse complexity for credibility. 

It's what leads to the breakdown of a good idea.

1. One dashboard that attempts to do ten jobs.
2. Seven CTAs competing for the same click.
3. Users paralyzed by decision fatigue.

This is an insecurity dressed as "more value."
The truth is: A product's strength lies not in showing more, but in hiding whatever does matter confidently.

I unpack 8 actionable strategies to simplify your interface, without dumbing it down.

Here’s a brief taste: 

1. Identify the 3 actions users really care about and bury the rest.
2. Deliver dedicated, focused views for each role. 
3. Make your primary CTA sticks out like a sore thumb. 
4. Rip out any/ all features nobody ever uses, they are silent churning.

Because clarity will always sell faster than complexity.

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8 Quick Fixes to stop feature-chaos

At 5 features, everything feels simple.

At 50 users start opening "Help" just to find stuff.
That’s a scalability problem.

Most products grow feature by feature, not structure by structure.
And that’s where chaos begins.

Here’s how we design navigation that stays clear.

1. Start with an audit: list every feature, who uses it, and how often.

2. Pick the right pattern for your stage.
5–10 features → simple tabs or top nav.
15–30 → sidebar/drawer.
50+ → vertical nav + mega-menu with logical groupings (Nielsen Norman Group backs this up).

3. Use clear, boring labels.
“Dashboard” beats “Ignite.”
“Reports” beats “Insights Hub.”

4. Grow gradually.
Don’t cram everything in.
Use “More” or “Advanced” to reveal depth only when needed.
As your app grows, search becomes navigation.

5. Measure navigation health.
Scaling navigation isn’t about adding more links.
It’s about designing a structure that grows without growing messy.

At Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner, we design scalable navigation systems that evolve with your roadmap - from MVP to enterprise.

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Every founder knows this pain.

You’ve got funding. You’ve got a roadmap. You’re ready to build.

But then hiring drags.
One role takes 2 months.
Another takes 3.

Meanwhile, competitors launch features while your product is stuck in limbo.
It’s not just a delay. It’s lost momentum.
Lost customers. Lost edge.

Here’s the truth I’ve learned working with product teams: Speed matters more than perfection.

And the fastest way to move?
Bring in ready-to-go experts who:

1. Adapt to your stack instantly.
2. Plug into your workflows quickly.
3. Push delivery forward instead of slowing it down.

They don’t just save time.
They save opportunities.

Because every extra month of hiring costs more than salaries.
It costs you market share.
It costs you trust.
It costs you growth.

If you’re a founder staring at another empty role on your team, ask yourself:
Do you want the “perfect hire”?
Or do you want your product in the hands of users?

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You’ve raised your Series A.

Now you’re proving you can deliver at scale.

And every week of delay costs runway, users, and momentum.
The big question?
Who’s actually going to build this thing?
You have three choices and each comes with a hidden price.

1. The dedicated team.
(Agency/product squad model)
Fastest to launch.
Move as one unit.
Cross-functional by default.
→ Best for: founders who need traction now and can’t afford to spend 3 months hiring.

2. Freelancers.
They’re flexible, affordable, and perfect for low-risk experiments.
But you become the PM, the QA, and the glue holding everything together.
When people churn, rework kills speed.
→ Best for: quick feature spikes or marketing tests, not your core product.

3. In-house team.
The long-term bet.
You get culture, domain memory, and control.
But it’s slow and expensive.
Median SWE comp in the U.S. sits around $187 K/year, and that’s before benefits or churn.
→ Best for: protecting core IP and scaling once product-market fit is locked.

My take? Go hybrid by design.
1. Dedicated team: ship your core product in < 90 days.
2. In-house team: retain knowledge and own the moat.
3. Freelancers: plug niche gaps when speed matters.

Re-evaluate every quarter: velocity, cost per feature, defect rate.
Because at Series A, your biggest risk isn’t cost, it’s time.

✦ At Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner, we help Series A founders scale with dedicated product squads - ready to ship fast, adapt faster, and grow alongside your in-house team.

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I evaluated a health app that checked all the boxes.

However, something was… off.

It had great features, was built in a compliant way, and looked fresh and modern.

What was missing?

It looked too good. 
It seemed too generic. 
It was too cold, feelings-wise.

Then the realization hit: it was all about the feelings.
In verticals like fintech, healthtech, or SaaS, trust is a feeling that your product builds through every click.

When users cannot see your team, your process, your ethics, they are reading your interface.
Over the years, I’ve come to realize that design is not only about usability, its about the assurance.

1. Demonstrate safety, don’t cover it.
If your product deals with the sensitive aspects, let users see you are protecting it. Make trust visible, not hidden in a footer.

2. Clarity is more credible than cleverness.
Everyday language feels believable vs trends and hype.
Users will trust you faster when they understand right away.

3. Consistency yields confidence.
Every inconsistency in color, layout, scheme, or logic shouts “unstable.”
In high-stakes spaces, unstable products destroy trust.

At Halo Lab — Your Digital Partner, we've realized this through real product work.
Every successful launch had one thing in common: the design felt human.
Users trust how technology treats them.
And that's the design that lasts - the design that builds trust, click by click.

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Rebecca Jenkins

Sales Director UK & I

RJEN

SECURE, SCALE, RETAIN HIGH-VALUE CLIENT ACCOUNTS

If securing, scaling, or retaining high-value client accounts feels challenging, I understand, I faced these hurdles too.

Many businesses struggle to build strong, lasting relationships with key clients while driving consistent revenue growth. Let’s turn those challenges into growth opportunities together.

ABOUT
As the founder of RJEN and author of Winning Big In Sales, I specialise in helping businesses grow. With over 25 years of experience spanning both entrepreneurial success and executive leadership, I bring a unique perspective to every client.

I've scaled a logistics business to £55 million and held the position of Sales Director of an FTSE 250 company. These experiences taught me the value of a client-centric approach, one that builds deep, strategic partnerships.

CLIENTS
Through my V.I.T.A.L. methodology, I guide mid-sized and enterprise companies helping them achieve sustainable growth and true partnership status with high-value accounts.

My tailored programmes and consulting have driven results across sectors, from technology giants like Cisco to logistics leaders like Rhenus. Here’s what some clients say:

"The techniques and methods I gained helped me deliver significant new business beyond target."
 Cody, PLB Account Manager

“This programme is transformational on many levels. I can replicate the success with all clients to create a massive sales funnel.”
Nisar, Cisco

Alongside sales and account transformation, I offer consulting in strategy development, sales leadership, customer experience, and performance improvement. From Asda to Rhenus Logistics, my approach has delivered measurable results.

A past Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the Year finalist and keynote speaker, my mission is simple: to help businesses thrive by building client relationships that last.

→ If you’re ready to elevate your client accounts, let’s connect and explore how the V.I.T.A.L. methodology can drive your success.

Founder | Director

WCF Ltd

Strategic planning and review
Corporate Governance
Financial Performance 
C.S.R.

Non Executive Director

Logistics UK

NED & Vice President

Wincanton

Lane Group

Managing Director

Working with leaders to deliver revenue growth through strategy, execution and scaleable processes. I previously scaled to £55m in annual sales, I now help leaders secure and scale revenue. Author | NED

ARCHITECT YOUR REVENUE GROWTH

Secure, Scale & Sustain High Value Client Wins.

I partner with founders and CXOs to align strategy, trust, and execution into a revenue engine for sustainable multi-million-pound growth.

When growth plateaus, or sales teams struggle to win and expand strategic accounts, the issue is rarely effort. It’s usually a leadership and strategy gap:

• Weak positioning of trust
• Lack of alignment between sales, marketing, and delivery
• No scalable method to secure and expand high-value clients
• Overreliance on senior leaders in every deal

I partner with leadership teams to close those gaps with precision.

WHY TRUST & ALIGNMENT DRIVE GROWTH

Enterprise buyers don’t want another vendor. They want a partner who de-risks execution, aligns with their strategy, and delivers results they can trust.

Trust isn’t soft — it’s the multiplier that creates alignment across your commercial function and turns unpredictable deals into reliable growth.

Most companies fail to land and grow large accounts because they:
→ Sound like suppliers, not strategic partners
→ Struggle to speak the language of the C-Suite
→ Can’t align internal teams around account growth
→ Don’t measure the moments that build long-term trust

I change that by embedding trust, aligning leadership and teams, and executing your revenue architecture.

PROVEN RESULTS

• £250M in new contractual revenue secured
• 130% profitability increase for a logistics firm
• Enterprise wins with Cisco, ASDA, and The Body Shop
• 8.67x growth for a scale-up in under 12 months
• Doubled client lifetime value with aligned account growth strategies

WHO I WORK WITH

I partner with ambitious founders and CXOs ready to:
✔ Break through a revenue plateau
✔ Align leadership and teams around one growth strategy
✔ Build a revenue engine that scales without chaos
✔ Earn trusted-partner status with key clients
✔ Expand and retain high-value accounts with strategic precision

READY TO RAISE THE BAR?
Message me for a confidential conversation,
or download the 2025 CEO Revenue Architecture Briefing in my Featured section.

Working with ambitious business owners and executives to transform sales and business growth.

Key Projects include:
Strategic planning, leadership 
Business growth strategy and implementation
Commercial development

 
Delivery of Sales & Key account transformation programme across various sectors to achieve key account growth, partnership status, success mindset. See testimonials below from Cisco and PLB

"The techniques, skills, and methods that I gained enabled me to deliver significant new business with a totally new project that wasn’t in the budget.” Cody – PLB Account Manager

“This programme is transformational on so many levels, I can replicate the success with all customers to create a massive sales funnel” – Nisar, Cisco

Business consulting - strategy development for Rhenus Logistics
Development of a cross-country key account management and sales strategy.

CML
Business performance consultancy - 
Sales - Winning of profitable accounts.
Customer Experience - Helping achieve silver then gold investors in customers.
Marketing - Positioning of business expertise, increasing lead generation.
Financial Performance - improved financial performance & divisional turnaround.
Leadership – leading sales, marketing team & mentoring of management team.

Asda – To You
Customer Experience Consultancy Project.	
Workshops to develop client pledges to support new market proposition. 

Latham Direct - Business Consulting project 
Development and implementation of the business and marketing strategy. Testimonial below.

'We have won new business and developed a healthy pipeline of prospects, and significantly enhanced our brand image. I would like to say how much I value your support, skills and knowledge throughout". – M. Hughes,  M.D.

Past Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the Year finalist
MBA guest Lecturer | keynote speaker

Most leaders think they're aligned with their clients, until they test it.
Would your client give the same answer your team would?

Ask your team how the client defines success next year.
Then ask your client.
The gap between those answers is where your revenue is at risk.

Misalignment doesn’t announce itself.
It builds quietly, in assumptions, routines, and missed conversations.

If you want to protect and grow your highest value accounts, start here:

→ Test alignment
→ Expose the gap
→ Strengthen the relationship

How confident are you that your definition of success matches your client’s?

If you want the Transform Key Accounts Diagnostic, the tool I use with CEOs and Revenue Leaders to surface hidden risks and accelerate growth, just ask.

Partnering with CEOs to build revenue that scales - win, expand & retain strategic accounts | Built business to £55m | Former FTSE 250 Sales Director | Author “Winning Big in Sales” | People → System = Scale

We walked into a QBR certain we’d nailed it.
Service levels were exceptional.
KPIs were green.
The team felt confident.

But the Supply Chain Director wasn’t his usual self.

There was tension in the room, the kind that made me think, 
once he sees our performance, this will lift.

It didn’t.

Halfway through the meeting he said the words no supplier wants to hear:
'You’re doing a good job, but...
you’re not helping us get to where we’re going next.'

In that moment, the reality hit me.  
We were well aligned to their present,
but nowhere near aligned to their future.

That’s the silent risk in most “good” accounts.

They look strong.
They feel stable.
Until unexpectedly, they’re gone.

Not because of service failure.
But because the client’s world evolved and the supplier didn’t.

We reset the relationship around their 3–5 year goals, 
brought new insight, and jointly collaborated on a strategic project.

That account grew profitably by £10m, and they stayed with us over 15 years.
Others grew and stayed for many years, for the same reason.

Not because we delivered perfectly.
Because we stopped being transactional, and became indispensable.

What about your strategic client accounts?
Where does each client relationship sit?

Transactional → Developmental → Consultative → Collaborative → Transformational.

Most revenue risk lives in the gap between where you think you sit and where the client places you.

If you want the diagnostic that maps this precisely, showing where growth is, or where it's silently slipping, just ask.

I sat in on a leadership meeting last week.
45 minutes reviewing sales numbers.
0 minutes on client relationships.
0 minutes on what we’ve learned.

Afterwards the manager turned to me and said:
'I don’t know why our team doesn’t build trust with clients.'

But the answer was already in the room.

The team wasn’t failing.
They were mirroring.

When leaders only ask for numbers, teams optimise for numbers.
When leaders don’t slow down to reflect, teams stop thinking.
When leaders prioritise speed over depth, teams do the same.

And clients feel it too, long before the business does.

They stay polite.
They avoid strategic conversations.
They move towards competitors who feel “closer.”

A slow erosion, invisible quarter by quarter, undeniable over a year.

Client partnerships aren't a process.
It's a climate.

If the leadership climate rewards insight, curiosity, and depth, the team naturally builds partnership.

If the climate rewards velocity and updates, the team learns to trade relationships for activity.

Clients can tell which climate they’re in.

A better question for leaders:
'What behaviour have we normalised?'

Because the culture you tolerate becomes the client experience you deliver
and that impacts client churn, growth and your reputation.

--------------------
Are your team building partnerships or performing activity?
Find out, get a copy of my client account diagnostic.
Comment or message me 'partnership’.

The Hidden Metric CEOs Forget.

Not all revenue risk shows up in the numbers.

Most of it shows up in the conversations your team isn’t having.

If your clients aren’t sharing their future with you, they’re already sharing it with someone else.

→ When was the last time you asked a client about their 3 - 5 year vision?

=====
If you'd like the diagnostic I use with CEO's to increase revenue and reduce growth risk on strategic accounts, just ask.

If you're from the UK, you know Comic Relief and Red Nose Day, Pudsey Bear and Children in Need.

But do you know Louis Kennedy - raising over £250M for good causes?

Perhaps not.
And that was the challenge.

They're exceptional at what they do.
Creating massive impact, 
delivering outstanding work, 
decades of expertise.

But being brilliant behind the scenes doesn't automatically translate into recognition and influence with the C-suite at target accounts.

Grant Morgan (CEO) invited me to help solve this.

We built a strategic white paper that repositioned them as thought leaders, shaping the future of charity partnerships.

The result?

→ Strategic narrative now used in every pitch and event
→ New conversations with major brands and retailers
→ Renewed authority and influence with the C-suite 

Grant's words:
"The white paper allowed us to stamp our authority in this space... 
it has already generated new opportunities, an unbridled success."

This is the shift many exceptional businesses need: 
From being great at delivery to being recognised as strategic partners.

If your business does world-class work but isn't getting C-suite recognition, let's talk.

----------------
Looking for a charity partnership with purpose?
Connect with Grant Morgan at Louis Kennedy.

A founder wasn’t exaggerating when he admitted,

we burned £2,000 debating a £1,000 experiment.

The idea was simple.
A small pilot.
Low risk.
It could have opened a new client segment.
But instead of testing it, they discussed it.
And discussed it. And discussed it.

By the time everyone had weighed in:
• Momentum had gone
• Energy was drained
• The opportunity had quietly moved on
 The business needed certainty before courage.

I’ve seen this pattern in boardrooms with larger sums than this.

Leaders wait until the plan is perfect.
Teams wait until consensus is complete.
And the market? It doesn’t wait at all.

One of my favourite examples:
When the founders of Netflix had the idea of posting DVD movies by mail,
they didn’t build a strategy deck.
They posted one DVD to themselves.
If it arrived in one piece, they’d continue.
It did.
That was the experiment that started everything.

Overthinking is the most expensive form of procrastination in business.
It hides behind analysis, but it’s powered by fear.
Fear of risk, visibility, judgement, imperfection.

In scale up companies, the leaders who break revenue plateaus 
do one thing differently:

They test fast, with clients, not in isolation.

Right now, I’m trialling a new strategy development tool with a CEO I work with.
Not as my solution, as our shared experiment to see whether it sharpens
decision making and accelerates revenue planning in real time.

That’s where innovation lives:
inside the business, not on the sidelines.
Because growth rarely comes from getting it right every time.
It comes from learning faster than the market shifts.

If your team has been discussing more than deciding,
it might be time to trade some certainty for momentum.

AI won’t fail because of technology. It’ll fail because of fear.

When Callum Jenkins and I started the Lead to Succeed podcast
during lockdown in 2020, our mission was simple. 
To explore what makes exceptional leadership in an uncertain world.

141 episodes later, now in the top 3% of podcasts worldwide, that question matters more than ever.

In our latest episode, Heather Jerrehian, Silicon Valley CEO, investor, and co-author of Sail to Scale, said something every leader needs to hear:

People aren’t resisting AI because it doesn’t work.
They’re resisting it because they don’t feel safe.

That’s the leadership fault line that needs to change.

On the show we talk about strategy, scale, and transformation.
But fear is what quietly decides whether innovation succeeds or stalls.

Leaders who build psychological safety and trust will unlock AI adoption.
Those who don’t will watch AI initiatives gather dust.

AI disruption isn’t a tech story.
It’s a human one.

Lead to Succeed episode 141: AI Disruption - The Skills & Strategies Every CEO Now Needs

Thank you, Heather, for reminding us that in the age of AI, how we lead will determine how far our organisation can go.

----------
What’s built the most psychological safety in your team this year?

Imagine your top client sitting quietly in the corner of your leadership meeting.

Would they hear you discussing their goals, their risks, their future.
or just another round of activity metrics and performance charts?

In most revenue reviews, I see the same pattern:
Plenty of numbers.
Almost no conversation about client insight.
Zero reflection on where strategic client growth will really come from.

And that silence is costly.

It’s where accounts plateau, relationships weaken, and competitors step in.

Here’s the shift that elevates the conversation:
Instead of only asking:

What’s the forecast this quarter?
Start asking:

→ What have we learned about the client’s world that we didn’t know 90 days ago?
→ Where are we helping them achieve their strategic priorities faster?
→ What would it take for us to become indispensable to them?

These questions do three things:

1️⃣ Change the quality of leadership focus
2️⃣Move teams from account management to client growth
3️⃣ Turn reviews into insight-generation, not just number checking

This is where I spend time with CEOs and leadership teams, designing revenue architecture where:

People → Systems = Scale

So if I sat in on your next leadership meeting, 
and your top client was in the room too, 
would they feel like the hero of the story
or a line item on the revenue report?

That answer tells you a lot about future growth.

-----------------

📌 If growth on your strategic accounts matter, 
ask for the Transform Client Accounts Diagnostic.

 It reveals what’s strengthening, and what’s quietly slipping.

Transform Growth on Client Accounts

A leadership team told me they wanted to be seen as partners, not providers. 

When I asked, what does partnership mean here?  
The room went quiet. 

Then the answers came...
Trust.
Collaboration. 
Commercial growth. 
Friendship.

All valid. None shared. 

We spent time defining what partnership actually looks like in their business.

Not as a marketing message, but as operating behaviors:

→ Proactively flagging risks before clients see them 
→ Bringing foresight, not just responding to requests 
→ Showing up to difficult conversations, not avoiding them 
→ Making the client's strategic goals their success metrics


Then we used the Transform Key Accounts Diagnostic with their largest client.

Both teams assessed the relationship independently. 
The results showed exactly where they were on the partnership maturity curve, and what specific behaviours would move them up. 

Three months later, they re-assessed with the client.

They'd progressed, now being just one rank below partnership status.

Both sides had clarity on what partnership meant and how to achieve it. 
The client felt it because the team lived it. 

True partnership isn't a positioning statement. 

It's leadership alignment that shapes how every person in your business 
shows up. 

Before asking clients to see you as a partner, ask your leadership team: 
→What specific behaviors make a client feel we are one?
↳Get that answer together. Make it real. 

What does partnership mean inside your business? 

------------
If you'd like to assess where your key accounts sit on the partnership maturity curve, access the Transform Key Accounts Diagnostic, DM me or comment "SCALE"

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