Erwin Vinall

Thirty years of building,
distilled for founders who are building now.

I help founders and investors see what is really going on, before the next big decision.

Strategy, growth, capital readiness, commercial due diligence and founder mentoring — grounded in thirty years of building, scaling and exiting businesses across telecoms, SaaS, technology, professional services, construction and franchising.

For founders — clarity, judgement and mentoring. For investors — commercial reality and due diligence. For audiences — speeches that make people think differently.
Work with Me Read the Field Manual
£30m
Peak revenue: B2B infrastructure business scaled across 12 countries and sold to a NASDAQ-listed acquirer
1,900
Vehicles at exit: online automotive marketplace scaled from 200, £2.2m EBITDA delivered
30+
Years founding, scaling, advising and exiting businesses across multiple sectors
The Founder’s Compass

A free diagnostic of your business across four dimensions: Story, Evidence, Engine and People. Twelve questions, a few minutes, one named Next Move.

Run the diagnostic
Not sure where to start?

Book a 45-minute Diagnostic Session. £150, all to charity. One honest conversation, one clear priority for the next 90 days.

Book a Diagnostic Session
About

The person behind the work

I have founded, scaled, transformed and exited businesses across telecoms, SaaS, technology and service-led sectors. Now I help founders, investors and leadership teams make better decisions at the moments that matter.

The industries change. The human errors and operational bottlenecks underneath them are almost always familiar.

A core part of my work is helping founders and investors test the gap between the story a business tells and the evidence that supports it. I look beyond the deck, the numbers and the ambition to understand what is proven, what is assumed, what is missing and what needs further validation.

I support ambitious companies with strategic growth, operational scaling, capital raising, investor engagement, M&A readiness, leadership alignment and commercial due diligence. I also work closely with startup founders as a mentor and adviser: helping them refine their proposition, navigate growth, avoid common pitfalls and develop the confidence and capability to lead effectively.

My approach is hands-on and commercially grounded. Whether supporting an early-stage founder, a scaling team or an investor-backed business, my focus is always the same: create clarity, strengthen performance, reduce risk and unlock long-term value.

"The best founders are not the ones who avoid doubt. They are the ones who use doubt properly."

The Founder's Field Manual
Erwin Vinall — Founder Mentor, Strategic Adviser and Keynote Speaker

Track record

B2B Telecoms InfrastructureFounded and scaled to £30m revenue across 12 countries. Sold to NASDAQ-listed acquirer.
Online Automotive MarketplaceScaled from 200 to 1,900 vehicles. Delivered £2.2m EBITDA ahead of exit.
Digital Loyalty PlatformJoined as COO. Led full operational transformation ahead of private equity acquisition.
Digital Fuel ProcurementCo-founding director. Secured Shell as commercial partner. Sold to US-listed acquirer.

Sectors I have worked across

Technology & SaaS Telecoms Professional services Estate agency Construction Franchising Financial services Service industries
How I Work

The standard I hold myself to

What I am interested in is the part that takes more effort: noticing what the person in front of me actually needs, not just what they asked. These commitments shape every engagement.

01

I read the application before I respond. Not after.

Every enquiry is read personally before I reply. I look for what the person is really asking, what is sitting underneath the stated question, and whether there is a speech, essay or resource that might be useful to them right now.

02

You receive a personal note after every session. Not a template.

Within 24 hours of a diagnostic call or mentoring session, I send a short personal note: the one thing I think matters most for the next 90 days and one specific action worth taking.

03

If something relevant crosses my desk, I send it. Unprompted.

If I read something, hear something or make a connection that seems directly relevant to what you're working on, I'll reach out. That is the difference between a service and a relationship.

04

Small things are not small

The detail you noticed that nobody else did. The name remembered. The follow-up that arrived before you expected it. These are not extras. They are evidence of intent.

"Excellence earns respect. The human detail earns trust. I am interested in both. But it is the second one that makes any of this worth doing."

Work with Me

How I can help

Advisory for founders and investors at moments of growth, risk, capital or change.

I work with a small number of founders, investors and leadership teams each year. Every engagement is hands-on, commercially grounded and focused on the decisions that actually matter.

Selling in the next one to three years? The exit work has its own page: preparation, pre-diligence and running the sale itself. See how that works →

🧭

Founder Mentoring

For early-stage and growth-stage founders who want honest, experienced counsel. Not just frameworks. I work with founders to sharpen their proposition, build confidence and navigate the decisions that define a company's direction.

  • Proposition clarity and refinement
  • Growth strategy and prioritisation
  • Leadership and team development
  • Capital raising readiness
  • Avoiding pitfalls that others learned expensively
📊

Strategic Advisory

For scaling businesses and investor-backed companies that need a commercially grounded operator alongside them. I help leadership teams translate vision into execution and make better decisions under pressure.

  • Operational scaling and structure
  • Revenue growth and commercial performance
  • Investor engagement and board readiness
  • M&A preparation and exit strategy
  • Leadership alignment
🔍

Commercial Due Diligence

For founders, investors and boards who want to understand whether the story holds up before committing. My approach goes beyond financial and legal review to assess the commercial reality of an opportunity.

  • Commercial proposition and market opportunity
  • Leadership team and execution capability
  • Customer evidence and revenue quality
  • Growth assumptions and risk exposure
  • Character and behaviour under pressure

Some conversations move beyond mentoring or advisory into capital or deal flow. Where that's the right next step, I bring in Jozef Wallis, my partner at Polymorph Capital, who has personally closed over $100m in contract value and raised $500m+ across his career, with an extensive global network of investors, family offices and C-suite relationships. Jozef speaks regularly at founder and investor events internationally, including an upcoming seminar in Lisbon. Where useful, I'll make that introduction directly.

New

The Diagnostic Session

Sometimes the most valuable thing is a single honest conversation with someone who has seen the pattern before. The Diagnostic Session is a focused 45-minute call: lightly structured, no pitch, just an honest look at where you are and what deserves your attention next.

Most challenges sit in one of five places: the story, the evidence, the engine, the people or the next move. We'll move across all five and land on the one thing that matters most right now.

The session costs £150. Every penny goes directly to a charity supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs and founders. You choose where it goes.

To keep the quality of every conversation high, I ask that you complete a short application form first. I review every application personally and confirm a date within five working days.

What to expect

→ Before: I'll send two short questions 48 hours before we speak so you arrive with clarity rather than nerves.
→ During: An honest conversation, not a performance. I listen for what is underneath the question as much as the question itself.
→ After: Within 24 hours, a personal note (not a template) with the one thing I think matters most for your next 90 days.
→ Charity confirmation: You'll receive a confirmation that £150 has been donated in your name to the charity you chose.
Apply for a Diagnostic Session

£150 · 100% to your chosen charity · Application required

Your £150 goes to one of these

United Kingdom
The King's Trust
Supporting young people to start businesses and build futures
United Kingdom
Founders4Schools
Connecting entrepreneurs with young people in education
United States
Junior Achievement
Empowering young people with entrepreneurship and financial skills
United States
Endeavor
Supporting high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets
International
Acumen
Investing in leaders and businesses tackling global poverty
International
TechnoServe
Building businesses in Africa and Latin America to lift communities

Monthly Founder Roundtables

Once a month I bring together a small, carefully matched group of founders and business leaders for a 90-minute live session online. The format is deliberately intimate. Never more than eight people. The mix is the point. Different sectors, different stages, different parts of the world. The best insight in the room rarely comes from me; it comes from the founder in a different industry who has already solved the problem you are sitting with.

The format
  1. Opening round. 90 seconds each: name, business, one current challenge. Everyone hears the room. (12 minutes)
  2. Hot seat. Two or three founders bring a live problem to the table. The group responds, I facilitate and add perspective where experience is relevant. (50 minutes)
  3. Open floor. Anything unresolved, burning questions, things prompted by other people's challenges. (15 minutes)
  4. Closing reflection. One pattern I've noticed across the session that ties things together. (8 minutes)
How we match the group

Every session is curated, not first-come-first-served. We mix across:

Sector & industry Business stage Geography & culture Founder experience

Applications include a short question: what do you hope to give to the group, as well as what you hope to get. That question does the filtering. We want givers in the room.

Logistics
💻Online via Zoom. Open to founders anywhere in the world.
📅First Tuesday of each month, 90 minutes
👥Maximum 8 participants per session: curated, not open access
£150 per session. As with the diagnostic session, the full fee goes to your choice of charity from the list above. The session costs you time and generosity. The money goes somewhere it is needed.
Apply for a Session
Speaking

Ideas worth hearing in a room

I speak to founders, investors, leadership teams, business schools and corporate audiences on the themes that matter most to people building something serious: pride, leadership, character, due diligence, the psychology of risk and the practical wisdom that only experience provides.

My speeches draw on thirty years of building and exiting businesses, on the classics of literature and philosophy and on the patterns that repeat themselves across every generation of business and human endeavour. The aim is always the same: leave the audience with something they will still be thinking about on the way home.

I bring honesty, clarity, a dry sense of humour and a genuine belief that the most important ideas are usually the ones we already know but have stopped paying attention to.

Keynote Fireside conversation Leadership away days Investor forums Business schools Private dinners Graduate events
Enquire about Speaking
Classical Wisdom

Cassandra and the Wooden Horse

Why wise leaders listen to inconvenient warnings and what happens when they don't. A speech on due diligence, denial and the danger of the story you want to believe. Draws on Greek myth to illuminate the most persistent failure mode in business: the warning we choose not to hear. Humour and weight in equal measure.

Founders Investors Corporate 20 mins

The Horse, the Hero and the Lesson We Still Haven't Learned

Drawing on Homer's Iliad, the oldest story in the Western literary tradition, to illuminate the timeless patterns of ego, leadership, grief and compassion. A speech on pride, people and the art of living well, built around three scenes that have survived three thousand years because they describe something we still haven't resolved. Suitable for any serious audience.

Leadership events Corporate Private dinners 20 mins
Leadership & Character

The Core Traits That Build a Successful Life

Eight character traits: clarity, responsibility, resilience, usefulness, courage, discipline, kindness and purpose, explored not as abstract virtues but as practical tools with direct applications in business and life. Each trait is illustrated with stories and evidence. A speech with genuine warmth and lasting weight; particularly effective for leadership away days and corporate audiences.

Leadership teams Away days Corporate 20 mins

Stop Hunting for Answers. Start Asking Better Questions

Why the quality of your questions shapes the quality of your decisions, your relationships and your life. A philosophical and practical speech drawing on Socrates, modern psychology and thirty years of business experience. Challenges the assumption that the job of a leader is to have all the answers but makes the case that the best leaders are defined by the quality of what they ask. Ideal for business schools, graduate events and leadership conferences.

Business schools Graduates Founders 20 mins

When the Principal Becomes the Institution

There is a moment in every organisation when challenge quietly stops and approval becomes the only thing that gets rewarded. A speech on founders, boards and leadership teams: how earned trust curdles into immunity, why silence is rarely agreement, and why due diligence is less a finance exercise than a way of staying sane. Built around three practical disciplines for keeping reality in the room once you've earned the right to stop being questioned.

Founders Boards Investors 20 mins
Founder Experience

The Story You Tell Yourself

Every founder has a moment when the room goes quiet in the wrong way. This speech begins with one such moment: a pitch, a brutal dismissal and two very different verdicts from two very different men. It builds into a forensic account of how the stories we narrate internally shape what we do next. On confidence, criticism, resilience and the difference between an identity sentence and a work sentence. Particularly effective for entrepreneurship events, business schools and early-stage founder communities.

Founders Business schools Entrepreneurship events 20 mins
Speaking engagements
Schools & Colleges
No fee
Travel expenses covered by the institution. Always happy to give time to the next generation.
Business Schools & Universities
On request
Keynote or panel. Includes Q&A. Open to international engagements.
Founder Events & SME Conferences
On request
Keynote or fireside conversation. Suitable for audiences of 50 to 500.
Corporate & Investor Forums
On request
Full keynote. Leadership away days, investor forums, major conferences.
Private Dinners & Bespoke Events
On request
Intimate format. Often the best conversations begin here.
✈

International engagements welcome. I am happy to travel anywhere in the world. Rates are tailored to the format, audience and location — get in touch and I will respond personally with a quote.

Case Studies

Companies that changed the game and those that didn't

Once a month I examine a real company: one that succeeded spectacularly, failed catastrophically, or did both at different points in its history. Not to be wise after the event but to extract the pattern. Because patterns repeat. The story changes, the names change, the industry changes but the underlying decision, behaviour or blind spot is almost always familiar.

Each case study looks at what happened, why it happened and what a founder, leader or investor can learn from it and apply today.

What each case study covers

  • → The story: what the company built and how
  • → The turning point: the decision, behaviour or moment that defined the outcome
  • → The pattern: what this reveals about business, leadership or human nature
  • → The lesson: one thing you can apply right now
⚠ Failure

Kodak

Founded 1892 · Bankruptcy 2012

Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975. They then spent thirty years protecting film revenues while the technology they created made film obsolete. By the time they acted, the world had moved on without them.

"The greatest danger is not always the competitor you can see. Sometimes it is the opportunity you are too afraid to take."
✓ Success

Apple

Near failure 1997 · Most valuable company 2023

In 1997, Apple was 90 days from bankruptcy. Steve Jobs returned, cut the product line from 350 to 10 and rebuilt everything around clarity of purpose and product. The lesson is not genius. It is ruthless focus.

"Complexity is the enemy of execution. The most important decision is often what to stop doing."
⚠ Failure

Blockbuster

Peak 2004 · Administration 2010

Blockbuster had the chance to buy Netflix for $50 million in 2000 and declined. They dismissed streaming as a niche product, protected their late-fee revenue and watched their entire business model become irrelevant within a decade.

"The companies most at risk are not those with weak products. They are those protecting yesterday's profits from tomorrow's reality."
↕ Cautionary

WeWork

Founded 2010 · Bankruptcy 2023

WeWork had a genuine product, a real market and extraordinary growth before ego-driven governance, a valuation built on story rather than evidence and a founder whose personal conduct became the business's undoing.

"A great idea in the hands of an undisciplined leader is not an asset. It is a countdown."
✓ Success

Ryanair

Reinvented 1991 · Europe's largest airline 2023

Ryanair in 1990 was a loss-making Irish regional carrier. Michael O'Leary stripped the model to its bones, made a single strategic bet on low cost over everything else and built Europe's largest airline by choosing one thing and doing it absolutely.

"A business that tries to be everything to everyone usually becomes nothing to anyone. Strategic clarity is competitive advantage."

Next case study

A new case study is published on the first Monday of every month. Subscribe to The Founder's Field Manual to receive it directly.

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Resources

Books worth reading

The nine books I return to most often — each with a note on why it matters.

Essential Reads
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Ben Horowitz
The most honest book about what it is actually like to be a founder and CEO. No framework, no five-step model. Just one founder's account of the moments when there is no good answer, only less bad ones.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Patrick Lencioni
Teams don't fail because people are incompetent. They fail because of trust gaps, fear of conflict and lack of accountability. A framework to diagnose exactly what's broken.
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman
The definitive book on how human beings actually make decisions, not how we think we do. Nobel laureate Kahneman maps the two systems of thought that drive our judgements.
Unreasonable Hospitality
Will Guidara
What it actually looks like to make a customer feel remembered rather than served. Guidara ran one of the world's best restaurants by treating hospitality as a discipline, not a personality — the practical case for why the extra mile is a strategy, not a soft skill.
Alchemy
Rory Sutherland
Why the most valuable business ideas are often irrational, counter-intuitive and impossible to justify with a spreadsheet. Sutherland makes the case for psychological value over logical value: people rarely buy what makes sense, they buy what makes them feel something.
Who
Geoff Smart & Randy Street
The definitive guide to hiring: arguably the most important thing any founder or leader does. The scorecard method here consistently outperforms instinct.
Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl
Written by a psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz. Frankl's argument: humans can endure almost anything if they have a reason to, and meaning is chosen, not found.
The War of Art
Steven Pressfield
Not about business strategy. It is about the internal battle every founder faces between who they are and who they're capable of becoming. Short, brutal, useful.
The Science of Storytelling
Will Storr
Why some pitches land and others fall flat. Storr explains the neuroscience behind why stories work and gives practical tools for telling them better.

A longer reading list is available on request — these are the nine I come back to most.

Get in Touch

Start a conversation

Whether you are interested in mentoring, advisory work, a diagnostic session, a speaking engagement or the monthly Founder Roundtable, I respond to every enquiry personally.

A few details about the engagement
Step 1

I read every message personally, usually within 24 to 48 hours. No auto-responder, no assistant.

Step 2

My reply will be specific to what you've written, including anything I think might be useful to you right now.

Step 3

If there is a speech, essay or resource that speaks directly to what you've described, I'll include it. Unprompted.