Reflecting on the Journey: From Library Lessons to National Recognition

Finding out I’d been nominated for the Top 50 was exciting - discovering we’d actually been selected and put forward was even better!

As we enter the final sprint of what has, at times, felt like a marathon year, I’m genuinely delighted to receive this accolade from LDC and The Times. It’s a real honour and, more importantly, it shines a national spotlight on our business - exactly where it deserves to be.

Although this recognition is incredibly flattering, it really is about so much more than me. It’s about our fantastic team, our customers who continue to place their trust in us, and our partners, professional advisers, and investors - all of whom share our belief that we can make a real difference with this company. To all of you, thank you.

A special thank you goes to Sophie Isaacs at LDC - a true force of nature - who spotted our potential early on, when many others looked the other way. Her encouragement to apply for this recognition has brought us to where we are today, and I’m truly grateful for her advocacy.

If you’d like to read more, I’ve pulled together a few reflections. Running a business can so often mean living in the moment - focused on the next decision, the next challenge - and we don’t always make time to pause, reflect, and think about strategy and direction. This felt like a good moment to do just that.

The Library That Lit a Spark

When I was a child at school, there was a small public library just outside the main gates. Because my parents ran their own business, they couldn’t always be there at home time, so I was told to wait in the library. Can you imagine that now? How on earth did we survive without smartphones?

I quickly worked my way through the Terry Pratchett collection, and then - quite by chance - something else caught my eye. It was a biography of the founders of Marks & Spencer. Perhaps it appealed because my grandma used to take me there — in the 80s and 90s it always felt special, even a bit luxurious. I read the story of two friends who started with a simple market stall and built something extraordinary.

From M&S, I moved on to the founding stories of Cadbury, Whitbread, the Guinness family, Virgin, Ferrari, Ford - the list goes on. I became a voracious reader of anything and everything related to business (and to a large extent, I still am).

Before long, the local librarian began ordering books from Bradford Central Library, who in turn placed national requests for titles long forgotten, tucked away in deep storage. I devoured them all.

And that’s where the seed was planted: one day, I would start my own business.

Lessons from the Library and from Life

I often think back to those days, and I realise just how lucky I was to have that library on my doorstep and those incredible librarians who went out of their way to help me, finding books and ordering titles they thought I’d enjoy. I learnt a phenomenal amount, and I stored anecdotes and examples in my mind as a child and teenager that still resurface today - often unexpectedly - and I find myself applying them in real life.

The books were brilliant, but what they didn’t prepare me for was life itself. I was an introvert who had to learn extrovert skills. What they didn’t teach me was that, in the real world, you often have to push yourself through barriers to make things happen. You have to work incredibly hard just to get the ball rolling - and that effort, sacrifice and pain must endure along the journey.

Some things get easier with time, but if you truly care about what you’re building, even the most battle-hardened leader will still feel it.

Crysp is my second rodeo - and it’s this time around that I’ve finally learnt to balance things better, and gained a deeper understanding of the kind of leadership it takes to build a business from nothing. The laptop I’m writing this on will one day, I hope, be displayed in a glass cabinet, where my children and their children can look at the machine that helped build a multi-million-pound business - not so different from the market stall of Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer.

Would I tell my 13-year-old self to do anything differently? No - absolutely not. Because, as painful as some moments over the last 15 years have been (Crysp being four of them), I’ve survived, adapted, and kept moving forward. And I’ve no doubt that much of that resilience comes from the stories I devoured all those years ago in that little library.

The Power of People

I borrowed this idea from Warren Buffett, who talks about it at length in his excellent autobiography Snowball. He famously says that without all three of these qualities - intelligence, enthusiasm and integrity — a person can be dangerous in your business.

At Crysp, every single person on our team has all three in spades (and plenty of other qualities besides - but it’s a powerful starting point). During interviews, I’m always keen to hear candidates talk about their family, friends, and the experiences that shaped them - especially moments when they’ve had to make important decisions, no matter their age. Those stories often reveal more about a person’s character than anything else.

If you want to scale a business, you have to recognise that it’s not about you. It’s about the people within your business - the ones you guide, empower, and focus on the mission. At Crysp, we live by that principle, and it’s working. I’m fortunate to have a senior leadership team around me with intelligence, enthusiasm and integrity in abundance. My role is to set the vision, give people the space to be their best, and help them achieve great things - for themselves professionally, and in turn, for the company.

Early in my business journey, in my first venture, I was fortunate to work with a man called Mark Lloyd. Mark, a fellow Bradfordian, had served in the RAF and, at around 32, joined a company that went on to become Rockstar Games. Over more than 15 years, Mark rose to become a senior leader, running a Quality Assurance Centre responsible for testing all major titles before release. His role carried huge responsibility - the decision to delay a game could cost the studio millions of dollars.

But Mark was a true leader. He cared deeply about his people, and he shared with me countless stories - from both Rockstar and the RAF - filled with lessons I still carry with me today, and pass on to my team.

(Thank you, Mark.)

Building a Real Business

We have to make money, and we need to run from a balance sheet. Shock horror!

In today’s world, where so many start-ups rely on huge amounts of investor and VC funding, there’s often a lack of focus on the customer - and on building a proper, sustainable business. That approach has never sat right with me.

From day one at Crysp, I’ve been focused on selling a real product to real customers - building our customer base steadily and purposefully. We understand our product-market fit, and we execute against our go-to-market strategy with clarity and intent. We’ve worked hard to ensure that our service and solution are not only something our team can confidently sell, but that our customers can easily understand and value.

I still remember a conversation from our earliest days, with our first employee, Sian - who, I’m proud to say, is still with us today as a senior leader. On her very first day, she asked me, “Who are our customers?” I replied, “Well, Sian - we don’t have any yet. But this is the product, and I believe we can sell it to these groups of people.” She didn’t even flinch - and she’s grown with the business ever since.

There are many stories like that I could share, but really - why would I want to package them up and sell them? The other month, we added a record 30 new businesses as customers. Incredible. And I know the day will come when we add 100, then 250, then 500. You can feel the momentum - and that’s why I don’t spend time thinking about what I can take out of the business. I’m focused on where we’re going, and on how we can keep adding value.

What more can we do for our customers? What new value can we create for them? What unexpected delights can we bring? That’s what drives me.

So yes, I’m genuinely delighted to receive this recognition - it means a lot. To be able to buy my mum a copy of The Times and hand it to her, and to send a few copies out with handwritten thank you notes to those who’ve helped along the way - that’s special.

Then, we go again.

This recognition is a proud moment - but it’s also a reminder. A reminder that leadership isn’t about being the loudest in the room; it’s about setting a vision, building trust, and creating a space where others can do their best work. The journey of building Crysp has been filled with lessons, challenges, and triumphs - and I wouldn’t change a thing. The future is bright, and I can’t wait to see where the next chapter takes us.