Are you the referee for your leadership team? If every issue between your leaders lands on your desk, you're not leading—you're mediating. And that's costing you time and momentum. If you enforce peer-to-peer feedback every week, I can give you a day a week back in 90 days.

I'm Dominic Monkhouse. I've scaled two tech companies past £30 million and coached founder-CEOs for a decade. In this video, I'm showing you the 90-day plan to build a leadership team that runs without you, month by month. Month two has one rule that kills gossip in 6 weeks.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Are You the Referee for Your Leadership Team?
0:33 - Month 1: Build Trust (The Three-Legged Stool)
1:41 - Month 2: Use That Trust (Healthy Conflict)
3:13 - Month 3: Build the Rhythm (Weekly 90-Minute Meeting)
4:48 - The Takeaway: Stop Being the Bottleneck

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• If every issue lands on your desk, you're not leading—you're mediating

• The three-legged stool of trust: Competence, Care, Character

• Run the Stinky Fish exercise to surface unspoken issues

• Trust is currency for healthy conflict, not harmony

• The No Triangulation Rule kills gossip in 6 weeks

• Weekly 90-minute meetings: Good news, Scorecard, To-do review, Deep work

• Use the 5 W's framework (Who, What, When, Way, Why Not) for all actions

• Withholding feedback is selfish—you're optimising for comfort, not performance

• Stop accepting fake harmony

  
  

📧 Be a better leader in 33 days with one tool a day. Sign up here: https://join.monkhouseandcompany.com/33-days-of-no-bollocks-business-insights

📞 Ready to build a team that runs without you? Book a call: https://book.monkhouseandcompany.com/founder-freedom-call

→ FOLLOW DOMINIC MONKHOUSE:
LinkedIn: 👔 / linkedin.com/dominicmonkhouse
Instagram: 📷 / instagram.com/dominicmonkhouse
Website: https://www.monkhouseandcompany.com

ABOUT DOMINIC:
I'm a UK-based business coach who helps founder-CEOs scale their companies from 50 to 250 employees. I've scaled two UK tech companies to £30M ARR in five years. Now, my mission is to help 2,000 British companies build systems that scale without the founder at the centre of everything.

Stop being the bottleneck.

#FounderCEO #Leadership #LeadershipTeam #ScalingBusiness

There's a hidden pattern every founder hits on the way up. Too small to be big and too big to be small. Around 70 or 80 employees, profit drops, growth stalls, and founders burn out. The game changes—you were playing basketball, and suddenly you're coaching football.

I'm Dominic Monkhouse. I've scaled two firms to £30 million in 5 years, written a couple of books, and coached over 100 founder-CEOs, 12 of whom have had fabulous exits. If you know the pattern, you can navigate it and come out the other side stronger. Here are the seven stages of the founder's curve and what it really takes to survive each one.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - The Hidden Pattern Every Founder Hits
0:46 - Stage 1: Startup (Don't Die)
1:29 - Stage 2: Investment (Does Anybody Care?)
2:53 - Stage 3: Liftoff (You're the Bottleneck Now)
2:57 - CTA: Be a Better Leader in 33 Days
3:35 - Stage 3 Continued: Crossing the Desert
5:06 - Stage 4: Validation (The Most Dangerous Stage)
6:02 - Stage 5: Frustration (Too Big to Be Small, Too Small to Be Big)
7:33 - Stage 6: No Man's Land (Profit Drops, Growth Stalls, Founders Burn Out)
8:44 - Stage 7: Growth (The LEO Framework)
10:23 - Decline: Where the Business Slowly Dies (Or You Do)
11:10 - Fix Your Biggest Constraint First

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Around 70-80 employees: profit drops, growth stalls, founders burn out

• Find one ICP, one pain, one route to market at startup

• Hire every single person up to 50 people yourself—not HR

• Stage 4 (validation) is the most dangerous because it doesn't feel dangerous

• Would you enthusiastically rehire your early helpers? If no, that's your problem

• The LEO Framework: Leverage your time, Enable your leaders, Orchestrate your systems

• CEO work is 60% of your time (3 days/week)—if not, you're not a CEO

• Fix your biggest constraint first—not the easiest part to work on

  
  

📧 Want to be a better leader in 33 days? Get daily emails with actionable tools—the interview question that reveals missionaries vs mercenaries, how to make meetings optional, the difference between coaches and captains. Real-world advice to build a business that doesn't need you holding its hand. Sign up here: https://join.monkhouseandcompany.com/33-days-of-no-bollocks-business-insights

📞 Ready to identify your biggest constraint? Book a call: https://book.monkhouseandcompany.com/founder-freedom-call

→ FOLLOW DOMINIC MONKHOUSE:
LinkedIn: 👔 / dominicmonkhouse
Instagram: 📷 / dominicmonkhouse
Website: https://www.monkhouseandcompany.com

ABOUT DOMINIC:
I'm a UK-based business coach who helps founder-CEOs scale their companies from 50 to 250 employees. I've scaled two UK tech companies to £30M ARR in five years. Now, my mission is to help 2,000 British companies build systems that scale without the founder at the centre of everything.

Until you fix your biggest constraint, nothing else matters.

#FounderCEO #ScalingBusiness #NoMansLand #FoundersCurve

Why do so many CEOs follow “smart” advice and still end up wrecking their companies?

I've scaled two tech businesses to £30M ARR and coached over 100 founder-CEOs. I’ve seen the same mistakes sabotage great companies again and again. This episode lays out the 10 hard lessons every founder needs to hear before they blow it all up.

00:00 Why CEOs Follow Smart Advice and Still Wreck Their Companies
00:17 Pay Yourself Properly (Stop Carrying C Players)
01:53 Working With Friends Is Fine (If You're Not a Coward)
02:56 "Fail Fast" Doesn't Mean Fail Stupid
03:56 Revenue Doesn't Solve Everything (Focus Problem)
05:15 Don't Hire Great People and Disappear
06:39 Growth Without Profit Is Just Expensive Chaos
07:42 You Can't Keep Control Forever
08:50 Don't Build a Board Early
10:05 You Don't Need the Biggest Market Now

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Test assumptions first—fire bullets before cannonballs

• Growth without profit = chaos. Focus on your economic engine

• Don’t disappear on your A-players—build a structure that scales

• One ICP. One problem. One channel. Win your niche before expanding

• Performance > sentiment—even when working with friends

• If it doesn’t fit on one page, it’s too complicated to execute

  
  

📧 Get the full system in 33 daily emails: https://join.monkhouseandcompany.com/
📞 Book a call to find your biggest constraint: https://book.monkhouseandcompany.com/

» FOLLOW DOMINIC MONKHOUSE
LinkedIn – /dominicmonkhouse
Instagram – /dominicmonkhouse
Website – https://www.monkhouseandcompany.com

—

ABOUT DOMINIC
UK-based business coach helping founder-CEOs scale from 50 to 250 employees.
Built Rackspace UK & Peer-1 to £30M ARR in 5 years.
12 clients have exited successfully.
Now on a mission to help 2,000 British companies scale systems beyond the founder.

Are you still waiting for AI to “arrive”?

My clients are hiring execs faster than ever using AI tools I helped them build.

If you're still waiting — you're already behind.

The gap between companies playing with AI and those strategically adopting it is already a chasm. And it’s about to get much, much wider.

In this episode, I’m going to show you the AI Adoption Flywheel — the exact framework CEOs are using right now to turn AI experiments into real results, even when most of those experiments flop.

I’m Dominic Monkhouse.
I scaled Rackspace and Peer-1 to £30M ARR in five years.
I’ve coached over 100 founder-CEOs — 12 of whom have exited.
What I’ve learned: the first push is critical. This is how you make it.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Are You Still Waiting for AI to Arrive?
01:40 - Where Do You Start? Find Your Single Biggest Constraint
03:21 - The AI Adoption Flywheel Framework
03:37 - Stage 1: Identify Your Constraint
03:50 - Stage 2: Experiment Rapidly
04:16 - Stage 3: Systemise Successful Experiments
04:41 - Stage 4: Amplify Wins and Learn from Failures
05:58 - The Choice: Downward Spiral or Virtuous Cycle?

THE GREAT DIVERGENCE
Jason Lemkin replaced 10 salespeople with 20 AI agents.
Meanwhile, a sales leader I spoke with needs six months for a committee to approve an AI experiment.
The software will be obsolete by then. If you don’t start, you can’t win.

THE FIRST PUSH
Apply AI to your single biggest constraint — not random tasks.
Peter, CEO at DataBarracks, built his company’s new MVP over a weekend using AI. No coding background.
Now it’s their go-to-market centrepiece. This only works when the CEO leads from the front.

THE AI ADOPTION FLYWHEEL

1. IDENTIFY – Find your single biggest constraint

2. EXPERIMENT – Run rapid experiments within that area

3. SYSTEMISE – Turn successful experiments into repeatable systems

4. AMPLIFY – Share wins, learn from failures, spin the flywheel faster

   
   

THE HUMAN ELEMENT
A CEO hired someone with a BA in English lit and high curiosity.
That one hire now ships more features than his entire 11-person dev team.
The bottleneck isn’t coding — it’s creativity and prompting ability.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Jason Lemkin replaced 10 salespeople with 20 AI agents — that’s today, not the future

• Back 20 experiments knowing 19 may fail — don’t wait six months for approval

• Use the AI Adoption Flywheel: Identify → Experiment → Systemise → Amplify

• The bottleneck isn’t tech — it’s human creativity and courage

• If you don’t own it as CEO, your competitors will own you

  
  

📧 Want the full system?
I’ve broken down 33 myths that keep founders stuck — in 33 daily emails.
https://join.monkhouseandcompany.com/

📞 Ready to apply AI to your biggest constraint?
Book a call: https://book.monkhouseandcompany.com/

→ Follow Dominic Monkhouse
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dominicmonkhouse
Website: https://www.monkhouseandcompany.com

AI isn’t coming. It’s here.

And if you’re not moving, you’re already behind.

#FounderCEO #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ScalingBusiness #Leadership #SystemsThinking

If you think you've built a successful business but can’t take three weeks off...
You haven’t built a business — you’ve just got a job with shit holidays.

📧 I’ve broken down 33 myths that keep founders stuck in 33 daily emails:
https://join.monkhouseandcompany.com/33-days-of-no-bollocks-business-insights

Most founder-CEOs are stuck playing basketball when they should be playing football.
The ball always goes through you — every decision, every complaint, every fire to fight.
You're the best player, and if you're honest, you probably like that.

But you can’t scale that way.

I’m Dominic Monkhouse.
I scaled Rackspace and Peer-1 to £30M ARR in five years.
Now I coach founder-CEOs through the 50–100 employee phase — 12 of whom have exited successfully.
In this episode, I’ll show you how to build a Target Operating Model (TOM) that lets you take a real holiday — without your phone ringing every 10 minutes.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Introduction
01:15 - The Basketball vs Football Problem
03:10 - Finding the Real Problem: The Theory of Constraints
04:12 - The Target Operating Model (TOM)
05:28 - Colour It In: The RAG Score Exercise
08:03 - The CEO Can Only Do One Job: Being the CEO

THE BASKETBALL VS FOOTBALL PROBLEM
Basketball is fast, reactive, and always runs through the best player — you.
Football scales: every player knows their role, and the manager stays off the pitch.
You need to move from heroics to systems.

THE THEORY OF CONSTRAINTS
From Eli Goldratt's The Goal: every system has a single bottleneck.
Focus there, or you waste effort.
It’s usually you.

THE TARGET OPERATING MODEL (TOM)
Get your team to map the full quote-to-cash process.
Who owns what? Where are the gaps?
Then RAG score each function — but not by the person who owns it.
That’s when honest conversations happen.

THE SUPPORT MANAGER’S MOMENT
One support manager thought she was failing.
But her function was Amber because Marketing and Partners were Red — leading to bad-fit clients.
That realisation changed everything.
Marketing was owned by the CEO.
And the CEO can only own one job: being the CEO.

If you want a scalable business, build systems that run without you.
If you can’t take week three of holiday without it all falling apart, you’re still the constraint.

📞 Ready to build systems that let you take holidays?
Book a call: https://book.monkhouseandcompany.com/founder-freedom-call?d=45&from=2025-12-29&sid=d29d8a86-bafc-4dbf-8b90-06080a1c32fe

→ Follow Dominic Monkhouse
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dominicmonkhouse/
Website: https://www.monkhouseandcompany.com

#FounderCEO #ScalingBusiness #Leadership #SystemsThinking

Think you can hire your way out of sales? Think again.

Most founders try to hand off sales too early, and it kills their momentum.

There’s a proven six-phase system that successful founders follow to build a sales machine that scales, and it starts with you staying in the game longer than you'd like.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Introduction: The Six Phases of Founder-Led Sales
00:17 - Phase 1: Finding Product-Market Fit
01:09 - Phase 2: Acquiring Customers
01:31 - Phase 3: The First Sales Hire
03:09 - Phase 4: Making it Predictable
04:23 - Phase 5: Multiple Sales Hires
04:53 - Phase 6: You Still Own the Biggest Deals
07:37 - The Revenue Number Is Still Yours

THE SIX PHASES

1. Product-Market Fit
   Get people to pay real money and narrow down to one ICP, one product, one pain point, one route to market.

2. Customer Acquisition
   Document your repeatable sales process while you're still the one doing all the selling — don’t hire anyone yet.

3. Hire Your First Salesperson
   Hire a proven salesperson (not a VP) who’s sold a product like yours to customers like yours — and always hire two.

4. Scale to Four Sellers
   Keep hiring proven sellers and run the "Michael Jordan playbook" while you remain the sales leader.

5. Hire Your Sales Leader
   When you have four sellers, bring in a sales leader who’s scaled a business like yours from £1M to £10M ARR.

6. Your New Role: Own the Biggest Deals
   You’re still doing the signature deals that are 10x your average order value — the revenue number is still yours.

   
   

📧 Want the full system?
I’ve unpicked 33 myths that keep founders stuck in 33 daily emails — the essence of my book for busy founders who don’t have time to read.

Sign up here: https://join.monkhouseandcompany.com/33-days-of-no-bollocks-business-insights

📞 Ready to build a sales machine that actually scales?
Book a call: https://book.monkhouseandcompany.com/founder-freedom-call?d=45&from=2025-12-15

→ Follow Dominic Monkhouse
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dominicmonkhouse/
Website: https://www.monkhouseandcompany.com

About Dominic
I’m a UK-based business coach who helps founder CEOs scale their companies from 50 to 250 employees.
I’ve scaled two UK tech companies to £30M ARR in five years.
Now, my mission is to help 2,000 British companies build systems that scale — without the founder at the centre of everything.

#FounderCEO #SalesLeadership #ScalingBusiness #FounderLedSales

This founder CEO guide covers the 5 mistakes that kill momentum — clarity of vision, delegation failure, skills gaps, micromanagement, and self-awareness.
Essential viewing for UK business leaders scaling their companies.

Scaling from 50 to 100 people is where most founders come unstuck.
You go from a cosy, know-everyone operation to something bigger, messier, and far less forgiving.
The business grows faster than your leadership does, and suddenly the cracks show.
Vision gets fuzzy. Delegation collapses. Skills gaps widen.
And you, the founder, become the bottleneck you swear you aren't.

If you're leading the biggest company you've ever run, odds are you're making the same five mistakes I see in every founder at this stage.
None of them are exotic. None of them are special.
They're just predictable consequences of growth colliding with a leader who's still operating like it's day one.

I'm Dominic Monkhouse.
I've scaled two UK tech firms to £30M ARR in five years, and I coach founders wrestling with these exact issues.
They all think their problems are unique.
They're not.
And that's good news — because predictable problems have predictable fixes.

In this video, I break down the five bottlenecks that kill momentum between 50 and 100 people — and what you need to do to get out of your own way.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Introduction: The 5 Bottlenecks That Kill Momentum
01:00 - Why You Need to Play to Your Strengths (Not Fix Weaknesses)
02:30 - Mistake #1: Lack of Clarity of Vision (The One-Word Strategy)
04:15 - Case Study: Smart Sourcing's "People" Strategy
06:00 - Mistake #2: Skills Gap (Does Your Team Have What It Takes?)
07:30 - Mistake #3: Delegation Failure (Why "I'll Just Do It Myself" Is Killing You)
09:00 - The Liverpool FC Hiring Strategy: Specialists vs Generalists
10:15 - Mistake #4: Micromanagement (Hoarding Work vs Developing Teams)
12:00 - Mistake #5: Self-Awareness (Do You Know Where You're the Problem?)
14:00 - The Working Genius Framework: Love vs Loathe Exercise
16:00 - Creating Psychological Safety in Your Leadership Team
17:30 - Recap: How These 5 Bottlenecks Interconnect

Want more insights like this?
Get 33 days of no-bollocks business advice straight to your inbox – completely free.
➡️ https://join.monkhouseandcompany.com/33-days-of-no-bollocks-business-insights-735837

ABOUT DOMINIC
I'm a UK-based business coach helping founder CEOs scale their companies from 50 to 250 employees.
I've scaled two UK tech companies to £30M ARR in five years.
Now, my mission is to help 2,000 British companies break through the bottlenecks that kill momentum.

#FounderCEO #ScalingBusiness #BusinessGrowth #Leadership #Delegation

Discover the common pitfalls founders encounter between 50 and 100 employees.
This discussion highlights typical bottlenecks that hinder growth and momentum.
Learn practical tips and strategies to lead effectively and grow a business that doesn’t depend on you.

I’ve scaled two UK tech companies to £30M ARR in just five years.

Not through luck, and not by copying my competitors.

I managed it by using simple systems that most founders completely overlook.

In this video, I break down the four critical principles that determine whether you scale or stall — and how you can apply them to your business.

Customer obsession
Why offering brilliant service is the cheapest growth engine you’ll ever build.

Talent obsession
How to hire brilliant people from pools your competitors don’t even know exist.

Small teams
The antidote to silos, giving customers a connected team that owns every aspect of that relationship.

Culture
The values and behaviours that hold your business together even when you’re not looking.

If you want to get your business ready to grow — or ready for an exit — let’s talk:
https://book.monkhouseandcompany.com

→ Follow Dominic Monkhouse
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dominicmonkhouse
Website: https://www.monkhouseandcompany.com

Two-thirds of founders who sell their business never see all the money they were promised.

They get trapped in earn-out hell, working for someone else, in a business they used to own. They die a little every day until eventually, bored and frustrated, they walk away early and lose a fortune.

In this episode, I break down why that happens — and how to avoid it.

We’ll talk about:

• Why chasing a slightly better profit margin is pointless compared to fixing your multiple
• The real valuation drivers buyers actually care about
• Why your leadership team, not your finances, decides your exit
• How to build a company that runs without you, so you can walk away clean

If you’re even thinking about selling, watch this before you dust off the calculator.

If you want to get your business ready for exit, let’s talk:
https://book.monkhouseandcompany.com/

→ Follow Dominic Monkhouse
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dominicmonkhouse/
Website: https://www.monkhouseandcompany.com/