In May 2018, my co-founder Alex (Steer) and I walked away from secure, well-paid roles in an established technology business.
On paper, it didn’t make much sense. We had strong earnings, clear career trajectories and future share options on the table.
But what we didn’t have was control, over how we built, how we served customers and ultimately what we were building towards.
So, we started again.
No external investment. No customers. No pipeline. No team. No product in the traditional sense, just our experience, our network and a clear point of view on how technology services should be delivered.
That was day one of Principle Networks.
Between us, we had enough savings to give the business roughly 12 months to work.
After that, the pressure would have been very real.
Our first £1m in revenue took us two years. It was, without question, the hardest £1m we will ever make. Not because of effort, but because of uncertainty.
Every deal mattered. Cash flow was tight. There was no brand to lean on, no marketing engine, no safety net.
We were selling outcomes before we had a track record as a business, which forces a different level of accountability because you’re not just asking a customer to buy, you are asking them to believe.
Clarity gave us confidence. Alex and I had seen both ends of the market, smaller specialist firms that delivered exceptional quality but struggled to scale, and larger organisations with strong sales engines and reach, but often lacking the consistency and customer focus that drives long-term value.
At this time, the market was shifting rapidly towards cloud. Organisations were investing heavily, but many were not getting the outcomes they expected. Complexity was increasing faster than control.
We saw an opportunity to do things differently.
We built Principle Networks to act as the architect of our customers’ environments, not just a supplier of technology. Alongside that, we were equally deliberate about culture.
Failures, love & millionaires: What happened to The Apprentice winners?
We set out to build a principled business, one that puts customers first, does the right thing and holds itself to a higher standard.
That has shaped how we hire, how we operate and how we make decisions.
In practice, that has real commercial impact. Consistency builds trust, trust drives retention and retention creates predictable growth and the confidence to invest.
Crucially, we understood early that growth does not just come from winning customers. It comes from keeping them.
From the outset, we were deliberate about what we were building, a business that could scale well beyond its early years.
That meant putting the right foundations in place early, including operational structure, vendor alignment, delivery quality and a clear market position.
Not just to support £1m in revenue, but to support a £20m plus business in the future.
We reached and moved beyond the £1m mark just as the world entered a period of global pandemic and disruption.
For many businesses, that created uncertainty. For us, it tested the model. A business built on long-term customer relationships, strong delivery and recurring value proved resilient and allowed us to continue growing organically in challenging conditions.
On track for £8m turnover
Fast forward to today, and Principle Networks is now approaching £8m in annual revenue, with a clear trajectory towards increased profitability and scale.
Our customer churn sits at around 2 per cent, which has played a significant role in how we have scaled.
Looking back, the first £1m was not just a milestone, it was the point where we proved the model worked.
Because the first £1m does not prove you can grow. It proves you have built something worth scaling.