The story behind the Playbook.
The Growth Playbook is a free 12-minute business diagnostic, built for founders who can sense something is off in their business but can't always name it. It scores your company across nine critical areas, surfaces the weak spots, and tells you where to focus next.
Built by someone who's been there.
The Growth Playbook was created by a founder who has built, scaled and exited multiple businesses with combined values exceeding £10 million. Twenty years of operating, hiring, missing forecasts, hitting them, raising capital, restructuring teams, walking out of boardrooms with deals signed and walking out of others empty-handed.
Across all of that, the same patterns kept showing up. Companies that grew tended to get the same nine things right. Companies that stalled tended to get the same nine things wrong. The detail varied — different industries, different sizes, different founder personalities — but the pattern held.
Most founders we work with already sense which areas are working and which aren't. What they often lack is a structured way to surface it — something honest, something they can run on themselves in a single sitting, something that gives them language for the conversation they need to have with their leadership team or their board.
That's the gap the Playbook fills. Not a consultancy engagement. Not a 90-page report nobody reads. A fast, honest read on where you stand — and what to focus on next.
Why nine areas?
Eight of the nine areas cover the business itself. The ninth covers you — the founder. Most diagnostic tools stop at the company. We don't, because the founder's energy, balance and clarity always show up in the company eventually — usually right when you can least afford it.
The eight business areas were chosen because they're the ones that consistently determine whether companies grow, stall or fail: The Plan (strategy and KPIs), The Position (proposition and market), The Pipeline (sales engine), The Experience (customer success), The Team (people and structure), The Numbers (financial visibility), The Proof (governance and credibility) and The Offer (product fit).
Each area is scored against five statements on a 1–5 scale. The scores combine into a radar map and an archetype — a pattern-match to one of eight common business shapes (the Founder-Led Engine, the Stalled Specialist, the Cashflow Juggler, the Concentration Risk, and so on). The archetype is where most of the value lives — it tells you not just where you're weak, but what kind of business you're running, and what shape it usually takes next.
For founders who want a straight answer.
- Founders running £500k–£20m businessesPast survival, not yet enterprise. Where the pattern matters most.
- Leadership teamsUse the diagnostic as the starting point of an offsite or quarterly review.
- Business coaches and advisorsA structured framework to open conversations with new clients.
- Consultants and fractional execsSpot the priority areas before scoping the engagement.
- Anyone preparing for due diligenceSurface the gaps before an investor, acquirer or auditor finds them first.
- Pre-revenue startupsSome questions assume a customer base, sales process and financial history.
- Enterprise businessesThe framework is sized for SMEs. Larger orgs need different tools.
- Anyone wanting fluffy reassuranceThe diagnostic is honest. If you score yourself a 5 on everything, you'll get back a result that says so.
- People expecting a 90-page McKinsey deckYou'll get a sharp, useful read in twelve minutes. Not a bound report.
What we won't do.
- No signup wallYou can take the diagnostic without giving us anything. The full PDF and chapter readings are gated, but the headline result and your archetype are free.
- No upsell to consultancyWe're not selling you a strategy engagement at the end. The Playbook is the product.
- No selling your dataYour email is used to send your report and occasional follow-up resources if you opt in. That's it. We don't sell or share your details.
- No fluffThe interpretations are direct. If an area is weak, we'll tell you, and we'll tell you why.