I was once told that 80 per cent of founders who take on PE or VC investment aren’t in the business five years later.
Thankfully, I’m one of the 20 per cent, and I think a lot of what determines which side you land on is down to things nobody warns you about when you start.
Here are my top five pieces of advice:
1. It will be harder than you think
You read the books, you hear the stories. You go in expecting long hours and high stakes.
What you don’t fully grasp until you’re living it is how much building a business can take over your life.
I’ve woken up at 4am most days this week with my brain already running. Your partner is talking to you and you’re somewhere else entirely.
The all-in nature of being a founder isn’t just the hours, it’s about what it does to the people around you and the version of yourself you’re able to bring to the rest of your life.
You need to go in with your eyes open about that, and so do the people closest to you.
2. Nobody has it all figured out
There’s a version of founders that gets projected on stage: polished, purposeful, full of certainty.
I’ve been building MaxContact for over a decade and every day I come to work, it’s still the biggest company I’ve ever run.
The best founders, in my experience, are bold without being reckless. Self-doubt is healthy, it brings consideration, stops you making wild decisions and forces you to look at alternatives.
The key is not letting self-doubt turn into paralysis. Trust your gut, when you know, you know.
3. The board will not save you, choose them wisely
If you’re taking outside investment, this can be the single most consequential decision you make, and most first-time founders don’t treat it that way.
They focus on the valuation, deal terms, growth plans. They don’t spend enough time asking: who is going to be in the room with me?
PE and VC investors have a job, and that job is return on investment for their fund.
Be aligned on the exit before the ink is dry, get an impartial chair who can act as connective tissue between you and the board, and go in understanding the dynamics.
I’ve seen founders build a business for 18 years and be gone six months after taking PE. It really is that serious.
4. The highs get higher, but the lows get lower
I remember hitting £1m in revenue and thinking when we get to £4m, this is going to feel easy. Then at £4m, I thought the same about £10m. It does not get easier.
What worked to get you to one stage can stop working at the next.
If you’re waiting for the point where things calm down and the hard work is done, it simply doesn’t exist.
5. Culture changes, your team must too
You’ll hear founders talk about their team like a family, but I’d push back on that.
Businesses naturally evolve past people and that’s not failure, it’s reality.
Build the team that gets you where you need to be in 12 to 24 months.
Care about them, but build a high-performing team, not a family.
None of this is meant to put anyone off. I’d do it all again.
But if there’s one useful thing I can do, it’s tell you what it actually looks like, not the version that looks good on LinkedIn.
The only way through it is through it, just make sure you know what you’re signing up for.
- Frustrated with selling contact-centre software from other vendors, Ben Booth decided to build his own by launching Manchester-based MaxContact in 2015.