Ryan Smith

The UK has created 163 unicorn companies to date. Each one had a strategy that matched their vision. If you're aiming to build a billion-pound business, your strategy must reflect that level of thinking. Far too often, founders stop at the surface-level decisions. They don’t align the mission, vision, and actions that drive long-term growth. That's why this infographic is really helpful. It breaks down strategy into three simple but powerful layers: ✅ Purpose ↳ Why do we exist? What matters to us? This is where your mission, values, and vision come to life and keep your team aligned. ✅ Strategy ↳ How will we get there? This is the bridge between aspiration and execution, covering plans, focus areas, and enabling tools. ✅ Execution ↳ What will we do next, and how will we track it? This is where actions, targets, and KPIs create real results. I’ve seen too many businesses stall because they ignore this process. But every billion-pound business I've backed or built has done the opposite. They've had a crystal-clear mission, a strong strategy, and consistent execution. And more importantly, they believed it was possible to build something big. That belief needs to show up in every step of the funnel.  If you’re building a business with serious potential, My book How to Make a Billion in 9 Steps will help refine your strategy. You can order the book here 👇 https://lnkd.in/eRYDKXdT What’s one part of your strategy that you’re currently refining? I’d like to hear how you’re approaching growth. ⬇️ ♻️ Repost if you believe Britain needs more billion-pound businesses. And for more on scaling with purpose, Follow me Richard Harpin.

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We’ve raised €1.5Bn across our studio ventures 🎉 I realised: Funding is a function of future clarity. When we work with founders, we ask them to go 5-10 years into the future. Get concrete. Not just a vision, but a plan you can walk through, step by step. - What’s your CPA? And over time? - What channels are driving your growth? - What needs to be true in the market for this to work? - What does the team look like now, in 6 months, 2 years etc? - What will you do if something big changes? (New tech, new rules, new rivals?) The more detail, the easier it is for investors to see what you see. When you pitch with this level of clarity, you don’t sound like someone asking for money. You sound like the CEO of a unicorn, inviting people to join your story before the world catches up. You start to embody that future leader. Investors feel it. They respond to it. Founders, if you’re pitching, ask yourself: Can you describe your business in 2030 in extreme detail?

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Nick Chapsas and his software training platform, Dometrain, are a good example of why “the world needs MoR”. In 2023 Nick decided to build on his hugely successful, 360,000+ follower YouTube, channel where he taught new skills to software engineers, by launching a very sophisticated SaaS-based educational resource. Nick built his massive following by offering practical learning that mirrors real-world development environments. He explains it like this: “We believe in a very specific type of teaching… which is the ‘paired programming’ experience. We want to give the experience that you join a company, you sit next to a senior engineer, and that engineer teaches you how to do things." Today the site boasts around 100 high-quality training courses covering everything from .NET and Cloud to career progression, Dometrain. But as Dometrain evolved its pricing strategy - and grew internationally - they started to run into roadblocks. → He started to discover that they were losing 50% of sales through “false fraud flags” - that’s a lot of revenue! → As he scaled globally, the complex burden of international sales tax became overwhelming for him and his team. Nick found himself buried in admin hassle instead of concentrating on expanding the business. At Paddle, we believe that the challenges of global growth, finding new customers and generating more revenue belong to founders and entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, as the world’s leading Merchant of Record (MoR) (the seller of record for SaaS transactions) all the risk, compliance and accountability belong to us. Making the change to Paddle meant Nick had more flexibility, more control, and more time to focus on his core product. Solving Nick’s problems in this way perfectly illustrates what we’re doing here at Paddle, and the results - like 50% fewer billing support requests - speak for themselves. 

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UK talent & investor visa opportunity! Great to read this article in the FT on teams in gov working to make it easier for exceptional talent to come to the UK. The startup community needs to provide data for how much this can help UK growth! Clearly, it's key in the immigration debate to differentiate between high skilled and unskilled in the numbers. While the French threaten to upset entrepreneurs with talks of taking 2% of their shares per annum and the USA increases the H-1B visa to 100k... a golden opportunity...? UK explores plan to drop visa fees for top global talent - https://on.ft.com/4pzVCI2 via Financial Times

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75% of UK tech companies expanding internationally still choose the United States. That’s the most surprising trend I’ve seen in the data recently. Despite political noise and economic turbulence between the UK and US, founders aren’t being put off. In fact, quite the opposite - that number is up 5 percentage points from last month. Why? > The UK was the first country to negotiate a trade deal with the US. > There’s renewed optimism around visas and mobility for UK founders (more from us on this in future). > And, despite everything, the US remains the number one market for ambitious UK companies. I’ll be speaking more about this on 24th-25th September at the 2025 Governor’s Conference on Economic Development in New Mexico and then again on 29th September in London at Gateway To Growth: Expanding Your Business To The USA. We’ve also shared an article on this very subject - available on our website. If you’re a founder thinking about crossing the Atlantic, the opportunities are there - and growing. #UKTech #USExpansion #Startups #GatewayToGrowth #Shipshape

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Applied to a job online recently? You might have had better odds at a slot machine. Online hiring has collapsed under AI volume. Recruitment is going back offline. Candidates and recruiters are living in parallel realities. Desert-wandering candidates toss AI-optimised CVs into a void. Flood-swept recruiters are wading through 8x more submissions than pre-ChatGPT. The waters are muddied with AI-generated fiction, and AI screening tools are no fact-checkers. In my latest newsletter, I dig into how we got here, why it matters, and what still works for candidates. Link in comments👇🏽 (With thanks to master editor, Ishani Singh.) #careers #recruitment #hiring #ai

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Samuel Cope, Founder of August, explaining how they are capitalising on how UK regulations are creating a massive opportunity "Starting in 2026, Making Tax Digital (MTD) is basically compelling all self-employed people to report their income quarterly. So this is most landlords." "By 2027, about 1.55 million of those landlords will be forced to adopt software to report their income. And really, there's no one in the market." "August are the only people with a mobile app in the market which helps you manage your tenants, track your rent, and access your documents." You can listen to the full conversation with Samuel below 👇 Follow viraj acharya & VENTURES 🚀

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