Vinit Patel 🛡️

We ran our AI proficiency scorecard on 147 direct selling corporate leaders at an event earlier this year. The average score in the room was 17 out of 100. Not great. Compare that to the average outside direct selling, which sits closer to 30 and you can see where our industry stands. Nobody scored zero, which is something. But nobody had crossed into "expert" either and we're nearly four years into this AI boom now. Almost everyone in that room would probably tell you they're using AI often. Almost none of them could show me something they'd actually handed off to AI to own. That's the whole conversation I had on the Selling in Europe podcast recently, where we got into why businesses under $150 million in revenue are moving faster than the $600 million-plus ones (hint: it's not about budget), what a CEO should actually do in their first 30 days with AI and why trust, empathy and connection are becoming the currencies that matter most in our industry. Machines will do the work. Humans will own the trust. Go listen. Link's in the comments 🎧

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The best product doesn’t win. The best-known product wins. 📰 I often tell founders that "obscurity is the enemy of revenue." You can build the most innovative solution in the UK, but if you do not have a distribution strategy, you do not have a business—you have a hobby. This is why MBA 30 is not just a course. It is a commercial infrastructure. For Cohort 12 (Starting THIS Monday, 23rd Feb), we are not just teaching you how to forecast; we are giving you the platform to scale. Through our strategic partnership with dmg ventures and Metro.co.uk, we are offering our cohort members an unfair advantage: ✅ National Visibility: The "Emerging Entrepreneur Awards" creates exposure to Metro’s 5 million daily readers. ✅ Commercial Rigour: A full accelerated MBA curriculum accredited by SOAS University of London. ✅ Heavyweight Access: Direct operational insights from leaders running some of the UK’s sectorial giants including PwC, J.P. Morgan, British Business Bank, and EY. For a Pre-Seed founder, this level of exposure and access usually costs thousands in PR and advisory fees. At Black British Initiative (BBI), it is built into the ecosystem. This is not an accelerator, this is an accelerated MBA, backed by a prestigious educational institution, SOAS University of London. #MediaStrategy #DMGVentures #Metro #MBA30 #SOAS #ScaleUp #BlackFounders #CommercialGrowth

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Scaling SaaS is rarely an activity problem. It's usually a foundations problem... In most teams I work with, one (or more) of these areas is unclear or under-developed: > Ideal customer profile (ICP) > Commercial direction > Core messaging > Buyer experience > Strategic prioritisation > Leadership & operating rhythm When these are weak, everything downstream becomes harder work for less return. It's not usually about adding more: more campaigns, more tools, faster execution. It's about clearer judgement. This is the work of senior marketing leadership. If this sounds familiar, reach out.

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Something SaaS leaders need to prepare for in 2026: Annual commitments are coming down. Buyers increasingly want optionality, and a 12-month commitment is daunting when you don’t know what the product will be in a year (or what other solutions will emerge). We’re hearing this a lot in the PricingSaaS Community, and it’s (understandably) making people nervous. But its not necessarily a bad thing. Scott Woody recently shared a fascinating pattern he’s seeing under the hood at Metronome: The companies offering flexible, monthly pricing, are seeing higher net revenue retention than the companies indexing for lock-in. Scott attributes this to a concept called “Graduated Opt-ins” where customers start small and choose to purchase more as the product earns its place. If annual commitments are slipping, it’s not always something to fix. Often it’s a sign that customers need time to learn, and that forcing commitment too early is a sign that you aren’t reading the room. Thoughts?

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You know the whole story of your business. A buyer starts with a narrow slice of it. Ken Kaufman calls that slice a financial keyhole. If the reporting is inconsistent or difficult to reconcile, the buyer is not only questioning a number. They are wondering how much of the wider story they can trust. That is why exit readiness starts long before an exit. Close the books the same way each month. Explain odd items while everyone still remembers what happened. Document the reason behind a change. Make the reporting usable without the founder translating every line. Clean financials do not make a weak business strong. They make the real business easier for an outsider to see. I would test the current reporting pack by removing the founder from the room. Give it to a financially literate outsider. Ask them what they think happened and where they got lost. Every misunderstanding points to a definition, adjustment, or missing explanation you can fix now, while the context still exists.

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Deals don’t just die - they rot in the "waiting room" of slow due diligence.  In a fast-moving organization, velocity is a competitive advantage. If your diligence process drags on for months, you don’t just lose momentum - you lose the trust of the target and the window of market opportunity. A nimble Corp Dev team acts as the "Air Traffic Controller" of the deal. While we oversee the Big 4 accounting firms and legal powerhouses, our internal task is to keep the deal moving effectively. How we drive velocity: - Parallel Processing: We don’t wait for financial diligence to finish before starting cultural or commercial reviews. - Focus on the "Red Flags," not just the "Checkboxes": We use AI tools to quickly surface anomalies in data, allowing our human experts to focus on the high-impact risks. - External Management: We treat our outside advisors as an extension of our team, providing clear scopes and aggressive timelines to avoid "scope creep." Speed should never sacrifice quality, but a well-oiled process ensures that "thorough" doesn't become "slow." #MandA #DueDiligence #CorporateDevelopment #Efficiency #Execution

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