LEAD YOUR BUSINESS FROM START-UP TO SCALE-UP TO GROWN-UP 

Rachel Turner

The founder path is isolating, stressful and overwhelming, and few founders survive the scale-up journey unscathed. According to research by Fundsquire, a global start-up funding network, 20% of small businesses fail in their first year in the UK, with the percentage rising to a whopping 60% within the first three years.  

Rachel Turner is co-founder of VC Talent Lab which offers founder and scale-up coaching to ambitious founders in venture-capital backed environments. Rachel believes that if founders do not scale their leadership as they grow their company, they are unlikely to survive.  

In The Founder’s Survival Guide, Rachel reveals how the reader can shift from ‘brave warrior’, to ‘considered architect’, to ‘wise monarch’ as the business grows, all by adapting their leadership style. It addresses some of the most common challenges scale-up founders face, and provides an extensive toolbox to help founders manage their team, their energy and their mind. The Founder’s Survival Guide is a book every business founder should read if they are looking to get out of their own way and become the CEO their business needs to thrive in such a competitive market. 

Described by Rachel as ‘a love letter to founders’, the book provides the reader with the master skills of communicating to influence and communicating to manage, and knowing when to use which. The book aims to help readers understand what their business, people and stakeholders require from them at different stages of growth, and adapt their leadership style accordingly. It also reveals how to avoid the self-sabotaging ego defences that can hold back even the most inspiring founder.