If you look at the “official” way to start a business, it’s all about the pitch deck. You’re supposed to show five-year projections, market analysis, and a bulletproof business plan.
But in 2018, when I decided to go into business with Neil Phillipson, I didn’t have a deck. I didn’t even really have a plan. What I had was a gut feeling at an expo.
At the time, Neil was building astronomical observatories. On paper, that’s a niche, technical, and probably exhausting business to scale. If I had shown a “mentor” a plan to pivot an observatory builder into a garden building company, they would have laughed me out of the room. In fact, most of them did.
But I wasn’t betting on the observatories. I was betting on Neil.
I’d met him, I’d seen the obsessive quality of his work, and I knew he had run successful companies before. My gut told me this guy had “it”… that rare mix of technical brilliance and the actual grit to get things done. You can’t teach that, and you certainly can’t find it in a spreadsheet.
The “plan” changed constantly. We went from observatories to garden buildings, we navigated COVID, we dealt with material shortages, and eventually, we decided to close it while we were ahead. The plan was a moving target.
The partnership, however, was solid.
The lesson is simple: A great plan with a mediocre partner will fail the moment the market shifts. But a great partner can take a rough idea and pivot it until it works.
Stop obsessing over the “what” and start looking a lot closer at the “who.” If your gut tells you someone has that spark, listen to it. Everyone else will tell you you’re being reckless, but they’re usually the ones standing around at networking events holding branded pens.
