The Super scaler playbook: What Sam Smith wants every founder to know
CityAM proudly partnered with SCALE EXPO & SUMMIT on 22 April.
ScaleUp Institute CEO Irene Graham sat down with Sam Smith, entrepreneur, former finnCap CEO, and founder of the Super Scalers.
Their candid conversation, around ‘Growth, Myths and Mindset Shifts’, covered what it really takes to scale a business to £50 million and beyond, including five powerful takeaways for founders.
Sam Smith spent 24 years building finnCap into the UK ‘s largest investment bank for growth companies, advising hundreds of businesses along the way. Since leaving in 2022, she’s focused her attention on a problem she noticed throughout that career: the founders who were scaling really big all tended to look the same.
So few of them were women. So few of them were underrepresented founders from different backgrounds. They all were generally the same type of guy. Many (though not all) had been to private school, they seemed to know exactly what they were doing, and they had this playbook.
That unspoken, unwritten playbook passed through networks and rooms many founders never got the chance to access. That is what Super Scalers is trying to democratise.
The Biggest Barrier isn’t Funding, it’s Self Belief
Ask most founders what’s holding them back and they’ll point to talent, capital, or access to markets. But Sam thinks they’re wrong.
“The biggest thing that stops you from scaling and super scaling is belief. It is the belief that you can do this.”
She knows this from the inside. Despite floating finnCap and leading it to become the UK’s largest SME investment bank, Smith describes realising only last year, while speaking at the Guildhall aged 50, that she truly felt she deserved to be in the room. “It’s taken a long time,” she said.
Founder Takeaway 1
Even people who have demonstrably achieved super scale status didn’t always believe they could.
“Everyone’s been at your stage. At some point, everyone thought they couldn’t do it.”
Who You Surround Yourself With Changes Everything
To illustrate her favourite lesson about a founder’s environment, Sam told the story of the Mars family. Frank Mars, having grown up around corner shops and small business, was content when the family company hit $25 million revenue. His son, Forrest Mars, having studied at Yale and spent time around the DuPont family and General Motors, saw it as just the beginning. Same business. Completely different belief about what was possible.
“That’s the impact of the people you’re around,” Sam said.
Founder Takeaway 2
Be deliberate about building a tribe that includes people much further along their growth journey than where you are now.
Your environment really matters. It needs to consist of your stage, next stage, and ten X. As you move, actively seek those players out.
Public markets will not be the right destination for every company, nor the immediate next step for many. But more founders are thinking earlier about the disciplines that public markets reward through the provision of long term capital and liquidity: clear and credible growth narratives, robust governance, and accountability. These are not simply IPO considerations — they are the foundations of strong, scalable businesses, whatever route a company ultimately takes.
The Doubling Principle
One of the most practically useful frameworks Sam shared in her fireside chat st SCALE SUMMIT is what she calls the doubling principle. Growth doesn’t work in straight lines or steady percentages: it works by doubling, and each doubling journey tends to take roughly the same amount of time as the last.
In her own business it took about four years to get from £3 million to £10 million. Four years from £10 million to £20 million. Four years from there to £50 million. “From 20 to 50 million revenue for me was about the same time as from 1 to 2. That’s how it works.”
Sam shared the maths of compounding: growing at 26 per cent a year for ten years makes a business ten times larger. Keep that up for another decade and it’s one hundred times larger. “People forget that,” she said.
Founder takeaway 3
The implications for planning are significant.
Your minimum next target has to be doubling wherever you are now. Your planning target has to be two doubling journeys. And then you also have to think ten X. That’s your big vision, that’s your mindset shift.
Finding Your Secret Sauce
Sam is clear that the thing which will ultimately superscale your business often isn’t obvious early on. For finnCap, it turned out to be culture. The way the team was treated proved both a retention advantage and something clients could feel. “Back then, culture wasn’t a word,” she said. But the fact that none of their competitors were doing it made it a genuine differentiator.
Founder takeaway 4
Having worked with thousands of businesses, Sam says there are really only three ways to scale: add a new product or service, move into a new sector, or enter a new geography.
Every one of your competitors will have done one of the three. Find the competitor that you most respect and go back and look at their numbers. They were all where you are now.
The Hardest Part Is Behind You
Sam’s final message, and the biggest myth-busting moment, is aimed at founders grinding through the early years. The common assumption that scale gets harder. In Sam’s experience, it gets easier. “Probably the easiest bit of my scaling journey was going from 20 to 50 million revenue. Probably the worst bit of my journey was going from 0 to 1, and the second worst going from 1 to 2.”
Founder takeaway 5
If you’ve made it to a million, Sam believes you’ve already done the hardest thing.
You have totally got this. Just keep going.