Your business is short on cash, so you chase sales and cut costs. But what if cash was never the real problem?
Ollie Austen ran Grosvenor Contracts London for 18 years, growing it from two people to around 60 before exiting in 2018. He's now co-founder of Startup to Stand Up, a peer community where founders help each other scale.
In this episode, Ollie explains why tight cash is usually a client relationship problem, and how going to see your top 20% of clients helped him cut average payment times from 60 days to 30 while opening up new work at the same time.
We also get into:
- Why being a founder is so lonely, and what to do about it
- Bootstrapping vs raising money in 2026, and the alternatives to giving away equity
- What buyers look for when you sell your business
- How to spot advisers who've never actually built anything
- Why meeting people face to face still beats AI
Chapters
00:00 Cash isn't your real problem
00:33 Get paid faster by talking to your top 20% of clients
04:05 What derivatives broking taught him about clients
05:37 Building Grosvenor from 2 people to 60
09:10 The lessons of starting your own business
11:31 Why he started a founders community after his exit
14:03 Founder loneliness and isolation
16:28 Peer community vs networking group
19:12 Bootstrapping vs raising money in 2026
26:17 Why founders struggle with sales
29:14 Selling your business: what buyers look for
31:40 Should you plan your exit from day one?
33:16 Selling your business and regretting it
35:38 Fake gurus and how to vet advisers
39:42 Why in-person beats AI
43:50 How he's evolved as a leader
45:54 Risk appetite and instinct
49:05 Quickfire questions
Connect with Ollie
LinkedIn: Ollie Austen
Email: ollie@starttostandup.com
Support the show and get behind-the-scenes content: patreon.com/businessgrowthtalks
If this helped, subscribe and drop a comment with your biggest takeaway.
Find more details about the podcast
www.businessgrowthtalks.com
Be a supporter of the channel - https://www.patreon.com/Businessgrowthtalks
