A lot has happened in Jonathan Fitchew’s life since January 2021, when his business partner Andy Sawer lost his battle with brain cancer.
He founded training provider Apprentify in 2019, before joining the company as CEO in 2022 and has already grown it to £25m in turnover with 250 staff.
Despite his success, thoughts of his former business partner at Pareto Law, Andy Sawer, are never far away. A photo of the two of them in happier times looks down on him from his office wall.
They were both working in the telecoms industry when they met on a Mercury Communications incentive trip and decided to go into business together.
They named it Pareto Law, even though it has nothing to do with law, after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto’s 80:20 principle, which suggests that 80 per cent of outcomes come from 20 per cent of causes. They decided the idea could be applied to sales.
Fitchew and Sawer were not typical co-founders. The pair founded Pareto Law in 1995 from a broom cupboard in Salford and shared an office for 26 years until Sawer’s death.
Both were happily married family men but were so close that when they travelled for business, they shared the same bed.
“It was incredibly intense,” Fitchew told The Naked Founder podcast. “If we went on a business trip, we shared a room. We never took two rooms. If we had a king-size bed, he had the left-hand side and I had the right.
“When Randstad acquired us, we had to go to an MD event at the London Hilton on Park Lane. The CEO’s PA rang up and said, ‘We need to book you a couple of rooms.’ I said, ‘We only need one.’ She said, ‘You’re not allowed, you have to have one each’,”
In the end, they had two rooms but, after ruffling the sheets on one bed to make it look used, they shared the other.
“That’s just how we were,” he said. “We were very close. I think about him every day. I’ve got his picture on the wall.”
Jonathan Fitchew and Chris Maguire on The Naked Founder podcast
Within a split second of seeing his co-founder’s empty desk at Pareto Law after he died, Fitchew knew he could not stay in the business.
“When Andy finally died, it sort of took my handcuffs off because my job was done,” he said.
“I’d looked after the business during Covid and he was not going to be there to enjoy it, so it felt like a natural point to leave. I knew I didn’t need to be there anymore. I wouldn’t have wanted it without him.
“I shared an office with him for 26 years, side-by-side, and as soon as I walked in, I knew it was over.
“When Andy died, part of me died too. I knew within a second of looking at his empty desk I was out.”
The pair had grown Pareto Law to £40m in turnover and 400 staff before it was partially acquired by Randstad in 2008, just ahead of the financial crisis.
Fitchew said he had mixed feelings when the deal was completed.
“My world changed,” he said. “Yes, I had this big cheque and we were secure, but I felt the air had been sucked out of me. It no longer felt like mine. I felt like I was renting it.”
Fitchew has always been a disruptor and was kicked out of school after his rebellious streak got him into trouble.
Chicken man: Jonathan FItchew keeps chickens
Today, if he is not building Apprentify, he can often be found tending to his chickens, building something out of Lego or thinking about his best friend.
You listen to the latest episode of The Naked Founder podcast here