Season 8 | Ep31 Tom Warner on why he downsized his agency and now prefers building solo at a £500K+ run rate

What happens when scaling your recruitment business doesn’t bring success, but stress? Tom Warner opens up about the highs and lows of building GroTech and why going solo was the best decision he ever made.

On this week's episode of The RAG Podcast, I’m joined by Tom Warner, founder of GroTech, a specialist go-to-market recruitment agency for SaaS businesses in the Nordics.

Tom launched GrowTech during the COVID-19 pandemic, experienced two strong years of growth, built a team of seven and then decided to scale it all the way back to just himself. Now he's billing over £500K annually and loving the freedom and focus of a lean model.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why Tom chose to step back from managing a team and go solo
• The lessons learned from hiring mistakes and scaling too quickly
• The emotional and financial pressures that come with business ownership
• How clarity, efficiency, and focus are driving his next chapter of growth

If you’re a recruiter who’s scaled, stumbled, or simply wondering if bigger is always better, this episode offers a refreshing and honest take on what success can really look like.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to The Rag Podcast and Guest Background

02:52 Tom Warner's Journey to Founding GrowTech

05:46 The Early Days of GroTech and Initial Success

08:52 Challenges of Scaling a Recruitment Business

11:59 Navigating the Recruitment Landscape During COVID

15:06 Reflections on Growth and Future Plans

20:50 Navigating Recruitment Challenges

23:01 The Impact of Hiring Decisions

26:08 Crisis Management in Recruitment

29:57 Building a Personal Brand

34:03 Future Growth and Scaling Strategies

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Untapped is THE market leader and go-to agency for finding and hiring tried-and-tested offshore talent into UK, US and Australian-based recruitment companies.

They’re providing top-class TEAMMATES, NOT OUTSOURCES! 

We use Untapped for Hoxo’s own offshore hires, and it’s been a total game-changer for our team. No one else can compete with the quality of their network, their in-depth candidate assessment process or their time to hire. 

If hiring elite-level overseas talent into your business to boost sales and increase productivity whilst saving yourself a huge amount in employment costs isn’t on your radar for 2024, it should be!

Untapped are hiring recruitment, sales, marketing and support staff into recruitment agencies of all shapes, sizes and specialisms globally and they are growing rapidly!

Join the waiting list today so you don’t miss out on the next cohort of business-launching hiring projects. https://bit.ly/47GGdvZ

__________________________________________

Episode Sponsor: Hoxo

Recruitment agency founders - this one’s for you.

What’s your plan for the rest of 2025?

If it’s based on more cold outreach, referrals, or hiring more recruiters… we’ve got news for you. That’s not where the smart money is going.

The market has changed. AI is everywhere. Noise is louder than ever.

So if you want to scale profitably this year, you need to do things differently!

It starts with what you already have.

Your experience. Your network. Your voice.

And we are showing you exactly how to use it in a brand-new, FREE Masterclass - built specifically for recruitment leaders like you.

You’re going to learn:

• Why your LinkedIn content isn’t working - and how to fix it fast
• How to generate inbound leads without being “LinkedIn famous”
• And the exact Hoxo 3X System agencies are using to book more calls - in just a few hours a week

78% of our clients made over 100K in the first 6 months using this. No fluff. No guesswork. Just stuff that works.

The Masterclass is free - but it’s only available for a limited time.

So if you’re serious about growing this year, don’t wait.

Head to https://hubs.ly/Q03lBpYC0 to get started. See you there!