Dermot Campbell.

Where I add value

Four situations a growing business reaches, and the work that resolves them.

These are patterns, not client stories. Each is a version of the same problem: a business that has grown faster than the systems meant to describe it.

There is a thread running through all four.

Whatever the presenting problem, the underlying work is usually the same: making the business legible. Legible enough for the founder to run it on evidence rather than instinct, and, in the end, legible enough to answer the question that sits under everything at this stage, are we going to run out of money. That question surfaces hardest at a raise, when someone from outside looks harder at the numbers and the decisions than anyone inside ever has, but it is there long before the raise, every month, whether or not anyone is looking.

01

The numbers do not tell the truth yet.

The situation

Revenue is growing but the margin makes no sense, or moves around for reasons no one can explain. The accounts are technically correct and still tell you nothing useful. Often the cause is simple: costs sitting in the wrong place. Client-services salaries booked as overhead when, in truth, serving more customers means hiring more of those people, so they belong in cost of sales. Until that is fixed, the gross margin describes a business that does not exist.

The work

Rebuilding the chart of accounts so it reflects how the business actually works: what truly scales with revenue, what is genuinely fixed, where each cost belongs. Then the reporting sits on top of a foundation that means something.

What it is worth

The founder finds out whether the margin problem is real or an artefact of bad classification, which are opposite problems with opposite responses. The numbers become something to steer by. And they become defensible, which matters the moment anyone else starts asking.

At the raise: this is the first thing an investor tests, and the fastest way to lose their confidence is a gross margin that does not stand up.

02

The finance function has not caught up.

The situation

Invoices go out, the bank balance is watched, and yet nobody can say with confidence what the margin really is, which customers make money, or what the next six months of cash look like. This is rarely failure. The business has grown and changed shape, and the finance function has not come with it, because until now it did not need to exist. The numbers simply do not yet tell the story of the business as it now is.

The work

Building the function rather than rescuing it: the model, the reporting cadence, the month-end rhythm, the cashflow view. Construction from a standing start, done in proportion to what the business actually needs, not a corporate apparatus it will not use.

What it is worth

The founder gets a business they can finally see. Cash stops being a feeling and becomes a forecast. Decisions that were guesses become choices made on evidence. This is the difference between running a business and being run by it.

At the raise: no investor backs a company that cannot show them its own numbers. A finance function that does not exist yet is the thing that most often stops a good business raising at all.

03

The board takes time and produces nothing.

The situation

The meeting is a long, unstructured conversation that wanders and settles nothing. The minutes, if they exist, are either a transcript nobody will ever read or a few lines that record nothing worth recording. Decisions get discussed and then drift, because it was never clear who owned them or by when. Two days of preparation go in, and very little comes out, least of all a record that would protect the directors if the decisions were ever questioned.

The work

Giving the board a rhythm: an agenda that starts with decisions while energy is high, clears routine approvals quickly, and spends its real time on strategy and risk. A pack that informs rather than impresses. And minutes that capture only what matters, the decision, the reason for it, and an action owned by a named person with a date, reviewed at the top of the next meeting.

What it is worth

The founder stops losing days to preparation that achieves nothing, and the board starts earning its place: sharper decisions, clear ownership, follow-through between meetings, and a clean record behind them. Good governance here is not compliance. It is the fabric that lets a company be led well, and the evidence that it was.

At the raise: an incoming investor will take a board seat and ask hard questions. A board that already runs well is what you want them to walk into.

04

Sales cannot explain itself.

The situation

Deals are not landing and the team disagrees about why. Nobody can say clearly why the customers who buy, buy, or why the ones who leave, leave. The sales effort is all push and no listening: chasing orders rather than learning what would actually make them close. Without that, there is no way to tell a product problem from a market problem, and they need very different answers.

The work

Building customer discovery into the sales motion itself, so the team elicits why buyers buy, what nearly stopped them, and why others churn, as a routine part of every conversation rather than a separate research exercise. The evidence then feeds back into positioning, priorities and the pitch.

What it is worth

A sales process built on evidence instead of hope, and a clear read on whether the real problem is the product or the market. This is exactly the discipline that took Kuber from an idea to a working sales operation: the sales team learning, not just selling.

At the raise: a growth story an investor will interrogate has to rest on evidence about real customers, not assertion. This is where that evidence comes from.

Next step

If any of that sounds like where you are, let us talk.

A short, no-obligation conversation about the pressure point is the place to start. We work out whether there is a clear value case, and if there is, define a focused first piece of work.

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