Duncan Knight 

You spend an hour going around the team for updates. One issue takes over the discussion. The important decision gets pushed to next week and everyone leaves with a slightly different understanding of what happens next. Meanwhile, several decisions still come back to you afterwards... If that sounds familiar, your management meeting may need a clearer purpose. As a startup grows, the conversations that once happened naturally between a few people need more structure. A useful

When sales slow down, it is tempting to push harder. More outreach, more marketing activity, more pressure on the team. Before increasing the effort, step back and examine what has changed. Your customers’ priorities may have shifted. Your message may no longer reflect the problem they most want to solve. Or the approach that won your first customers may be difficult for anyone else to repeat. A sales strategy review helps you decide where to focus. These seven questions give

I once met someone who had spent more than £10,000 developing their idea without speaking to a prospective customer. Two friends had said it sounded good. It is easy to see how that happens. Building feels like progress. You can see a website taking shape, demonstrate a feature and imagine people using it. Speaking to customers introduces uncertainty. They might tell you the problem is unimportant, that their existing approach works well enough or that someone else controls t

If you are a non-technical founder with an idea for a product, hiring a developer can feel like the obvious first step. Sometimes it is the right move. But before committing to a permanent hire, get clear about what you need to learn, what needs building and who will make the technical decisions. A prototype, a short development project and a product serving paying customers create different demands. They may need different kinds of support. Start with the work and the respon

When a founder tells me their business is different, my next question is: does that difference matter to the customer? You may have built something technically impressive or developed an unusual approach. But customers need a reason to choose it over the alternatives available to them. The differentiation section of your business plan should explain that reason and the evidence behind it. You do not need to prove that nobody has ever done anything similar. You need to underst

A large market can make a business idea look attractive. But the number that matters is how many suitable customers you can realistically reach and persuade to buy. When I work with founders, I want to understand the thinking behind their market estimates. Who are the customers? How do they solve the problem today? What would make them change? Your market opportunity section should explain why there is a worthwhile business to build and where you intend to start. It should al

Writing an executive summary can reveal how clearly you understand your business. Can you explain who your customers are, why they would choose you and how the business will make money? Can you show what you have learned so far and what needs to happen next? If those answers are difficult to put into words, that is useful information. It gives you somewhere to focus your thinking. I started my first company without a business plan. Having since built businesses and worked wit