I sold my business... then immediately launched another one - Anna Sutton, The Data Refinery

This week we speak to Anna Sutton, Co-Founder of the Data Refinery.

For most of us building then selling one business would be enough. Not with today’s guest who, having sold one business, immediately launched a second one. Anna also shares with us the complexities of being the leader rather than the do-er, business growth pains and a chastening fund-raising exercise.

The Business Surgery answers the question; "'"We're coming up to annual appraisal time. Any advice?"

For more information on our sponsors, YFM Equity Partners, please visit www.yfmep.com (and when you contact them tell them Phil from Leeds Business Podcast sent you!)

INTRODUCING ANNA SUTTON

Anna Sutton co-founded The Data Shed, a Leeds based data engineering consultancy in 2013. Exiting to Hippo Digital in March 2023, Anna is now back in start-up land and in the process of taking her SaaS data integration platform, The Data Refinery, to market.  The aim is to provide enterprise level data warehousing, insight and segmentation tools to small/medium sized businesses at a fraction of the cost.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

[00:02:00] From employment to launching a business whilst pregnant

[00:05:00] The birth of the Data Shed

[00:12:00] Hiring staff and growing the business

[00:16:00] Growth pains and failed fund-raising

[00:24:00] Dealing with Covid through a structured team

[00:26:00] The importance of business coaching

[00:30:00] Leadership rather than being a do-er and scaling a business

[00:37:00] Exiting a business and the emotional impact

[00:48:00] Launching the Data Refinery

[00:52:00] How to define and track key indicators

[01:03:00] Business Surgery

6 KEY TAKEAWAYS & BUSINESS LEARNINGS

• Time to revenue and profit is much faster than building a product business
• You have to work with the business coach that is right for YOU
• There's a huge difference between starting a company and scaling one
• There's lots of people really love giving advice. If you ask, people will help.
• You don’t need 38 KPIs. You need a simple clear set of numbers that help you get where you
• Your KPIs are nothing if you have inconsistent data below it are going

3 MOMENTS TO LOOK OUT FOR

“We spent a good two or three years figuring out how we were going to make it work"

“I cannot do the thing that we are selling"

“There was a huge learning curve. I loved it but it was terrifying"

VALUABLE RESOURCES FOR YOU

Website: www.leedsbusinesspodcast.com 

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/leeds-business-podcast/

Work with Phil - www.philfraser.co.uk 

Website: http://www.thedatarefinery.co.uk/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-sutton-the-data-refinery/ & https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-data-refinery

Shout out: https://livve.uk/  https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-sookia-bbab17248/

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