You can be surrounded by staff, co-directors and customers and still be the only one carrying it. Matt reckons most owners know exactly how that feels.

Matt takes the lead on founder loneliness, and he is honest about his own. He runs the business with Rob and Sarah, but when something goes wrong it lands on him. The fact behind it is a December 2025 YouGov survey for the British Business Bank's Start Up Loans Company: 44 percent of UK smaller business owners have felt lonely or isolated running their business, rising to 56 percent for those with under ten staff. Only 38 percent do anything about it by connecting with other business leaders.

Charlie admits organised networking leaves him cold and he gets far more from reaching out directly. Matt's counter is that it was never the organisation, it is the people you meet through it, and he tells the story of a lunch that was meant to be about one specific opportunity and turned into a relationship with a man who has built and sold three companies. They also get into why hearing other owners say the same things out loud was such a relief to both of them, and Matt's theory that the better you get at this, the weirder you are.

The other half of the problem is delegation. The Sinclair rule on what your time is actually worth, a job passed down the chain twice in one morning, and Matt's view that his real bottleneck is not having enough people to hand things to. Then the question of the week: when did you last spend real time or money on growing yourself rather than your business. Matt's answer to what comes after it is the most exposed he has been on this show.

Takeaways:
📊 44 percent of UK smaller business owners have felt lonely or isolated, rising to 56 percent under ten staff
🧠 It is never the networking organisation that helps, it is the people you meet through it
🤝 The Sinclair rule: if someone can do the job for less than your hourly rate, they should be doing it
⚖️ Why your business partner cannot be your only sounding board
🎯 When did you last spend real time or money on growing yourself and not your business?

Holland's Country Clothing store opening, Lowes Farm, Friday 25th. All welcome, just drop Matt a message on Instagram if you are coming.

Chapters:

(00:00) Recording at the end of a long day

(03:47) Delegating, and Teflon Danny

(07:02) The Sinclair rule on what your time is worth

(07:41) Episode 88: the cost of doing it alone

(08:15) Why being the one in charge is lonely

(11:13) British Business Fact: 44 percent have felt isolated

(12:16) Are you in a founders network?

(13:44) Some trades have it far harder

(14:39) Why your business partner is not a sounding board

(15:44) "I thought I was a strange and weird person"

(18:25) A lunch that turned into something else

(20:54) Is prospecting for relationships a luxury?

(24:12) Paying to be in a founders group

(25:05) Win of the Week

(26:05) Charlie: theworkwearexpert.co.uk is live

(29:02) Matt: two laptops and two more hires in India

(33:03) The choke point is having nobody to delegate to

(36:26) Delegation never actually ends

(41:18) Get a mentor, join a community

(42:37) Talking honestly instead of "yeah, smashing it"

(45:36) Claude's Question of the Week

(48:28) Charlie has booked Ideas Fest

(49:32) Matt's fear of public speaking