100 Stories of Growth - Insights from Entrepreneurs

Founder and CEO Charlie Bradshaw started his product design and manufacturing business Matrix APA at 19. But over 20 years later he’s come a long way on his human and emotional capital journey, placing team values and cultural fit at the heart of his success. “The journey towards understanding human capital has been the most fascinating part of scaling up my business.” For Bradshaw it was a huge emotional decision to make when he was compelled to replace his C-grader team with higher- performing A-graders. He was on the train home one Sunday 10 years ago after another intensive weekend at Cranfield University’s Business Growth Programme for founders. Right then, it dawned on him he had the wrong team. Bradshaw convinced his wife to quit her high- profile HR job and join him. The company invested in performance management and people management, prioritising values and cultural fit in the recruitment phase. Today, he spends two days a week in the office, where he splits his time between his management team, and acting as the company’s values and culture champion. “I’m a great founder and motivator but I’m not a great CEO,” he reveals. “I rely on my three senior managers to drive the direction of the business.” “Growing at 40% revenue a year, the growing pains mean that we’ll probably need a full-time CEO,” he adds. In his angel investor role, Bradshaw shares his experience of emotional capital, Replacing a poorly performing team MATRIX APA to credit or funding has had a negative impact on their growth. Just over a third of each group (36% for debt-backed, 38% for equity-backed and 39% all respondents) agreed that some form of credit or funding crunch has been a problem. This is good news for the flow of capital into growth- focused businesses, but shows that some businesses have at some stage experienced issues relating to access to funding. Capitalised companies favour external relationships Our research shows that financially capitalised companies are more likely to experience the value of strong boards and external advisers in scaling their business compared with all respondents. Some 84% of equity-backed and 82% of debt-financed respondents agree that board members have been positive sources of support, compared with just 48% of all respondents. The general cohort of respondents has scored the people who help grow their businesses much lower than their counterparts that have secured funding. This trend goes to show the positive input and impact of external financial capital providers prioritising, recommending or valuing experienced advisers and supporters for growing businesses. The second highest scores show a split in opinion in which groups of individuals are most supportive. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of equity-backed businesses believe their investors provide vital support to help them scale up. For debt-backed respondents, the same proportion (65%) believe that it’s non-executive directors who add the most value for their growing businesses. The big question is whether companies that have not raised capital are missing out on the highly supportive and creative people interactions that can, in many cases, help to boost their growth. We believe there is significant mileage in the idea that companies that prefer to grow with a degree of self-sufficiency are indeed missing out on the great support available to them in the SME community. 45 44 INSIGHTS FROM ENTREPRENEURS HUMAN CAPITAL Finding the support that comes with financial capital We agree there is value of strong boards and external advisers in scaling our business.” 84% 82% 48% EQUITY- BACKED DEBT- FINANCED ALL RESPONDENTS THE INVENTORS Source: 100 Stories of Growth - Capital at Work