Build To Scale: Decisions Early Founders Get Wrong

Scaling is not something that happens to a business at a certain size. It is designed in - or designed out - long before the growth arrives, through decisions a founder makes in the early years without realising how far the consequences reach. This session unpacks three areas where those decisions matter most. The business model: are you building something that grows in value as it gets bigger, or something that simply gets heavier to carry? The product: are you solving for the customer in front of you, or for the hundred behind them you cannot yet see? And team structure: are you hiring people to do today's work, or building a structure that can carry tomorrow's? Drawing on direct experience of taking a start-up through to IPO, and years spent since helping founders and senior teams navigate growth, this is a candid look at the traps that catch capable founders - not because they lack ambition, but because the habits that got them started quietly work against the next stage.

You will leave able to spot where your current choices are building in future constraints, with a clearer view of what scaling-minded decision-making looks like in practice. This is not theory. It is the view from someone who has made these calls, got some wrong, and has spent a career since helping others get them right.