Scale To Win with Dominic Monkhouse

Market research used to take four weeks and cost $20,000. Steve Phillips built Zappi to turn that into four hours and $2,000—and he started 12 years ago, long before generative AI made this vision sound obvious. Now, with nearly 300 people and $80 million in revenue, he's challenging his organisation to double revenues in five years without adding headcount by pairing every employee with an AI agent to handle the annoying, time-consuming work.
In this episode, Steve breaks down why entrepreneurs can actually be lazy (in the right way), why you should never hire yourself, why innovation is a mindset rather than an age, and how going from 40 to 140 people in six months was utterly disastrous but created an amazing culture that propelled the business for years. He also shares why he stepped aside as CEO, how he maintains his role as Chief Innovation Officer, and why the future is already here—we're just not utilising AI to do amazing things in business yet.
What you'll learn:
💡 Why entrepreneurs can be lazy—and why doing "work" might be the wrong thing
🚫 Why you should hire for your weaknesses, not people who are just like you
🧠 Why innovation is a mindset at 56, not just for 23-year-olds in garages
🤖 How to pair every employee with an AI agent to automate administrative tasks
📈 Why going from 40 to 140 people in six months crashed productivity for a year
⚙️ How to challenge your organisation to double revenue without increasing headcount

Podcast recommendations:

A16Z (Andreessen Horowitz) - https://a16z.com/podcasts/

Hard Fork - New York Times / Platformer - https://www.nytimes.com/column/hard-fork

All In Podcast - https://www.allinpodcast.co/

About the Guest:
Steve Phillips is the founder and Chief Innovation Officer (and Chair) at Zappi, a consumer insights platform he started 12 years ago with the founding ambition of turning market research projects that took four weeks and cost $20,000 into four hours and $2,000. Zappi was AI-first from the beginning—using old-fashioned "if that, then this" automation to speed up and democratize consumer insights long before generative AI became mainstream. After merging with a South African technology company early on, Steve scaled Zappi to nearly 300 people and approximately $80 million in revenue, still growing at around 15% annually with growth rates now increasing as they focus more on AI deliverables.

The company has raised multiple rounds, brought in a PE firm about three years ago to mostly replace VCs, and subsequently added new senior leaders with different skill sets (like an MIT MBA CEO who thinks very differently than Steve). Zappi had one genuine pivot—moving from automating work for other research companies to building their own IP and data asset. Now they're using AI agents internally for everything from writing quarterly business reviews to creating client proposals, and externally helping clients use their data to generate new product ideas and advertising campaigns. Steve's challenge to the organisation: double revenues in five years without increasing headcount by pairing every employee with an AI agent to eliminate time-consuming administrative tasks.

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Companies claim they're too busy for AI, and leadership teams are bloated and ineffective. The UK's productivity crisis won't be solved by working harder. These aren't controversial opinions, they're the reality Gerry Tombs is seeing as he helps businesses navigate the AI transformation after scaling ClearVision from a garage startup to £7 million in revenue and 100 people before a successful exit three years ago.
In this episode, Gerry breaks down why AI will expose leaders who aren't pulling their weight, why managers will soon oversee hybrid teams of humans and AI agents, and how the millennial generation (29-44) is perfectly positioned to lead in the AI era. He also shares the brutal lessons from scaling ClearVision over 25 years—from staying in hiring too long, to ring-fencing innovation teams, to building enough trust that his leadership team could hold each other accountable rather than relying on him to fire underperformers. And yes, he hit number one in the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For—but missed the ceremony due to a migraine.
What you'll learn:

🤖 Why companies claiming they're "too busy for AI" are actually just terrified
⚡ How AI agents will work alongside humans in hybrid teams within two years
🎯 Why 50% of senior people could do more with AI—and why the rest will be exposed
📊 The delegate-to-elevate framework: giving AI the work you hate so you can do what matters
👥 Why leadership teams of 6-7 (including the CEO) are optimal for decision-making
🏆 How Tour of Duty hiring creates adult conversations and eliminates surprise resignations

Book recommendations:
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team - Patrick Lencioni - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Lencioni/dp/0787960756

Raving Fans - Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Raving-Fans-Revolutionary-Approach-Customer/dp/0006530958

Coaching for Performance - John Whitmore - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coaching-Performance-Principles-Leadership-UPDATED/dp/1473658128

Breath - James Nestor - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Breath-New-Science-Lost-Art/dp/0241289130

Drive - Daniel H. Pink - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/184767769X

Rocket Fuel - Gino Wickman & Mark C. Winters - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rocket-Fuel-Visionary-Integrator-Relationship/dp/1941631622

Flourish - Martin Seligman - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flourish-Visionary-Understanding-Happiness-Well-being/dp/1857885511

The Alliance - Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha, Chris Yeh - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alliance-Managing-Talent-Networked-Age/dp/1625275773

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Most people think AI is overhyped. Nick Holzherr thinks it's drastically undervalued. After selling Whisk to Samsung and scaling it from zero to 120 people across eight time zones, he's now building Gitlaw—an AI agent that creates and reviews legal documents for free, making legal services accessible to small businesses that have been priced out of the market.
In this episode, Nick breaks down why fully remote distributed teams are the most effective way to scale fast, why async should be the default operating system for high-performing companies, and how he's doing the work of 50 people with a team of 15 by putting AI agents to work on everything from code to design to user feedback. He also shares why he promotes from within rather than parachuting in external managers, and how relationships built during one intense week together sustain distributed teams for the entire year.
What you'll learn:
🌍 Why hiring globally in a 3-4 hour time zone beats limiting yourself to local talent
🤖 How AI is undervalued—and why most businesses are only scratching the surface
⚡ Why async work should be your default operating system, not just a productivity hack
👥 How one intense week together physically sustains remote team relationships for a year
💼 Why legal services are fundamentally unfair—and how AI can level the playing field
🚀 How to do the work of 50 people with 15 by orchestrating AI agents effectively

Who should listen:

✔️ Founder-CEOs scaling distributed or remote teams and navigating hiring challenges
✔️ Tech leaders implementing AI and trying to understand its true potential beyond hype
✔️ Anyone building products where top 5% talent makes the difference between success and failure
✔️ Leaders interested in async-first cultures and alternatives to office-based work

Book recommendations:

Poor Charlie's Almanac - Charles T. Munger - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poor-Charlies-Almanack-Expanded-3rd/dp/1578645018

Four Thousand Weeks - Oliver Burkeman - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Four-Thousand-Weeks-Management-Mortals/dp/1847924522

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie - https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0091906814

Podcast recommendation:

Lenny's Podcast - Lenny Rachitsky - https://www.lennyspodcast.com/

About the Guest:

Nick Holzherr is the founder of Gitlaw, an AI agent platform that helps small businesses create and review legal documents for free—democratizing access to legal services that have historically been too expensive or too slow for SMEs. Before Gitlaw, he founded Whisk, a recipe and food tech company he scaled from zero to 120 people distributed across eight time zones (minus eight to plus eight GMT) before selling it to Samsung in 2019, where he stayed for seven years.

He's a strong believer that AI's value is massively undervalued despite stock market hype, that async work should be the default for high-performing companies, and that legal documents will become 100 times cheaper and 10 times faster within one to two years. Nick has built his recent companies entirely as fully remote distributed teams, having learned that trying to hire top 5% specialized talent locally is nearly impossible unless you're paying Google or Facebook rates. Instead, he hires the best people globally within a 3-4 hour time zone, brings everyone together physically once a year for an intense week of relationship-building, and orchestrates AI agents to amplify what his lean team can accomplish.

GitLaw:

From global finance to eco-cleaning, regenerative farming, and rethinking entire systems — Mark Jankovich doesn’t do incremental change.
He believes we’re living through a full-scale reset — and entrepreneurs have a responsibility to lead it.
In this episode, Mark shares why climate change isn’t a mass participation problem, why consumers shouldn’t be asked to make hard choices at all, and why some products — from bleach to diesel engines — should simply disappear.
You’ll hear how Delphis Eco was born from a moment of clarity on a family holiday, what he’s learned from two decades of being ahead of the curve, and why broken systems like farming, education, and climate must be fixed together — not in isolation.

This is a provocative, systems-level conversation about leadership, responsibility, and designing a future where doing the right thing is the default.

What you’ll learn:
🌍 Why climate change messaging fails — and why it’s not a problem for the masses to solve
⚙️ How removing bad choices entirely is more effective than asking people to “do better”
🧴 Why bleach, virgin plastic, and outdated products should stop being sold
🚗 The myths around EVs, infrastructure, and resistance to change
🏢 How to build a sustainable business by letting systems and machines do the work
🌱 Why soil health, education, and climate are deeply interconnected
📈 What it’s really like to build a business 20 years ahead of the trend

Who should listen:
• Founders and CEOs building businesses with sustainability at their core
• Leaders frustrated by slow progress on climate and systemic change
• Entrepreneurs interested in policy, regulation, and government advisory
• Anyone curious about regenerative agriculture, food systems, and land use
• Builders who believe the next wave of innovation will be structural, not cosmetic

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:00 Mark’s worldview on cataclysmic change and entrepreneurial optimism
05:02 Systems change starts with cutting off harmful choices
10:03 Lessons from Dubai and the supermarket’s slow death
15:20 The origin story of Delphis Eco and quitting finance
17:37 Surviving 20 brutal years to finally see traction
19:07 Shifting from B2B to retail and staying lean
23:42 Letting tech run the business and outsourcing smartly
25:46 Hiring for attitude and losing good people as you grow
30:42 Rewilding unprofitable farmland for soil and social good
34:07 How farming, education and nature can solve each other
39:12 Book and podcast recs that shaped Mark’s thinking
40:52 The power of paradigm shifts and the coming wave

Book & media recommendations:

• Harmony — HRH The Prince of Wales: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0007413639

• Green Swans — John Elkington: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785786431

• The Ministry for the Future — Kim Stanley Robinson: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0356508841

• Future Noughts (podcast) — John Richardson: https://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/future_noughts/

About the Guest:
Mark Jankovich is the founder and CEO of Delphis Eco, one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of eco-friendly cleaning products.
A former City finance executive, Mark now builds systems that challenge the hidden environmental damage of everyday industries.
He also works with the UK Treasury and...

From a council estate in Oxford to a £100 million exit by age 37. Andrew Hulbert's journey isn't a polished Silicon Valley success story—it's raw, real, and packed with hard-won lessons about what actually matters when you're building something from nothing.
In this episode, Andrew breaks down the decade-long grind of scaling Pareto from his bedroom to a 500-person, £50 million turnover business serving the world's biggest tech companies. He shares why balance is bollocks when you're building, why bright yellow McLarens don't buy happiness, why you should retire early if you can, and how a council estate upbringing gave him the hunger and community mindset that fueled everything. This is a masterclass in bootstrapping, knowing when to go all-in, and actually achieving the goal you set out to hit.
What you'll learn:
💷 Why money doesn't buy happiness—but time does, and how an exit gives you that back
🎯 The truth about balance: why it's bollocks when you're scaling (and when it matters again)
🚀 How to build a £50M business with no funding, no backers, and no marketing budget
⚡ Why you don't need expensive marketing to make a massive splash in your market
👔 Why corporate life doesn't work for everyone—and why that's perfectly fine
🏆 How changing your peer group at 16 completely altered the trajectory of Andrew's life

Who should listen:
Bootstrapped founder-CEOs grinding through the early stages of scale
Anyone in corporate wondering if they should take the leap into entrepreneurship
Leaders thinking about exits, life after the business, and what actually matters
Entrepreneurs from non-traditional backgrounds looking for proof it's possible

Book recommendations:

The E-Myth Revisited - Michael E. Gerber - https://www.amazon.co.uk/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

The Escape Manifesto - Escape the City - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Escape-Manifesto-Freedom-Meaningful-Living/dp/1783521430

Beer Mat Entrepreneur - Mike Southon & Chris West - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beermat-Entrepreneur-Turn-Good-Great/dp/0273708074

About the Guest:
Andrew Hulbert is the founder of Pareto, a business he started from his bedroom at age 27 with nothing but a laptop and an idea. Over the next decade, he scaled Pareto to £50 million in annual turnover and 500 staff, serving some of the world's biggest tech companies before orchestrating a £100 million exit.
Andrew finished working at 37 and has spent the last two years decompressing on a farm in Oxfordshire, reconnecting with his wife, kids, and the life he built outside the business. He's known for his unfiltered honesty about the realities of entrepreneurship, his belief that balance is a myth when you're scaling, and his conviction that money buys time—not happiness. He's also refreshingly candid about buying (and quickly selling) a bright yellow McLaren that made him feel like a "bus wanker" from The Inbetweeners.

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Chapters:

00:00 Introduction
01:00