Peer Effect
Best way to scale? Your peers have the answers.
This is the podcast for scaleup founders looking for insightful, actionable wisdom from some of the best operators around. Each week we’ll explore one secret that other founders and experts are using right now and how to implement it.
It’s practical wisdom to build the company AND life you want. Hosted by renowned founder coach and advisor James Johnson.
You’ve survived to £1m, now let’s scale to £10m+.
Episodes
205 episodes
Building Trust With Your Number Two as You Scale
Clare coaches the role nobody talks about: the COO or CFO sat next to a founder CEO, expected to challenge the person who built the company and signs their pay cheque. Most coaches work with the founder. Clare works almost exclusively with the ...
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Keeping a Sense of Self When Everything Feels Uncertain | Peer Effect Post Bag
James and Freddie tackle a question most founders won't admit they're sitting with: when the business is in flux and you're in performance mode around the clock, how do you stay connected to who you actually are?This isn't about rest. It...
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What a Hired Operator Sees That You Can't | Bethany Ayers
Bethany Ayers, CEO of Metomic, has scaled businesses from the inside - as COO, CRO, and now CEO - and she has a very clear view of what founders get wrong when they think they need to hand the keys over. The insight she shares here will make mo...
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How Do You Stabilise Your Team When Nothing Is Certain? | Peer Effect Post Bag
Ben asked how you hold a team together when you can't give them certainty. James and Freddie get into why that framing is already part of the problem - and what good leadership actually looks like when everything is shifting.If you've be...
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How to Know If Your Marketing Is Built on Guesswork | Will Gadsby Peet
Will Gadsby Peet has been a fractional CMO across hundreds of business models. The pattern he keeps coming back to has nothing to do with channels, budgets, or agencies.Most founders lose touch with the one thing that made their early gr...
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Overwhelmed by AI? Here's How Founders Are Actually Dealing With It
Beth asked what most founders are thinking but haven't said aloud: how do you make decisions about the future of your company when AI is making everything feel uncertain?James and Freddie get into what's really sitting underneath that qu...
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What 19 Founders and CEOs Taught Me About Scaling | Season 6 Mid-Season Breakdown
19 founders. Rockets, guinea pigs, co-CEO structures, a community of 200,000 built in two years. Every conversation different. Three patterns kept coming back.James breaks down what's actually moving across Season 6 — why the founders ga...
How Do You Hold Your Co-Founder Accountable? | Peer Effect Post Bag
Anna's question sounds straightforward. It isn't. James and Freddie break down why founders only start asking this question when they already know something is off - and what to actually do about it.One question. Three conversations hidi...
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From VC to Founder: Building RedpineAI and Thinking 100x Bigger | Anders Hammerbäck
What changes when you stop investing in startups and start building one yourself?James Johnson is joined by Anders Hammerbä...
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The Founder Bottleneck: Scaling Without Losing Control
A founder asks:"I want to focus on the future, but I don't trust the present to happen."It's a question that sits at the heart of scaling.As companies grow, founders are asked to spend less time executing and more time lead...
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How Mariane Bekker Built a Global Founder Network of 200K Using Community
Founder community building, startup networking, and viral growth systems are changing how companies are built.Mariane Bekker, founder of Founders Bay, built a 200,000+ founder, investor, and operator network in under two years by rethink...
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Founder Fear: “What If My Company Fails and I’m Unemployable?”
In this episode of The Peer Effect Post Bag, James Johnson and Freddie Birley answer a question many founders quietly carry:...
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NASA Tried This in the 70s. Jasper Deprez's Startup Is Doing It Now.
Jasper Deprez is building TerraSpark, a company focused on space-based solar power - with the goal of delivering commercial energy from space to Earth by 2030.Before this, he spent a decade bootstrapping a startup in employee engagement...
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Will Letting Go of a Senior Hire Destroy Your Team?
Rebecca asks: "If I make a senior change, will it destabilise my team?" James and Freddie break down why this fear keeps founders stuck - and why inaction is almost always the bigger risk. They cover: how to read the rea...
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Why Co-CEOs Can Be a Superpower
What actually makes a co-founder relationship work?In this episode of Peer Effect, James Johnson sits down with Verna co-founders and co-CEOs Rafi Cohen and Dr. Matthew Brown.They unpack why they chose a co-CEO structure, how they...
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Founder Depression: What Nobody Talks About
Founder life isn’t just pressure - it’s pressure plus isolation.In this Peer Effect Post bag, James Johnson and Freddie Birle...
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Capital Discipline, Debt & The 10-Year Founder Mindset | Dr. Serge Santos
Most founders think growth is a funding problem.Dr Serge Santos sees it differently.As CEO of Bedrock Enterprises and founder of a UK SME lending platform, Serge has deployed ...
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Running Out of Runway? What Founders Should Do Next
Most founders don’t talk about this moment.When you realise you’re running out of runway…and the clock is ticking.In this Peer Effect Postbag, James Johnson and
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How to Validate a Startup Idea (Before You Waste Time & Money) | Aaron Solomon, Ambl
What if you could validate your startup idea before wasting months (or years) building the wrong thing?Aaron Solomon, founder of Ambl, shares the real story behind buildin...
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Stop Comparing Yourself to Other Founders
Comparison is one of the fastest ways to lose momentum as a founder.In this Post Bag episode, we unpack why it happens, why it’s misleading, and how to stay focused on your own path.From the “swimming” analogy to the reality behin...
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How Integrity Became This Founder's Business Strategy (400 Weddings a Year)
Jenna Ackerley, founder of Events Under Canvas, built a business delivering 400 weddings a year - without cutting corners.In this episode, she breaks down how integrity and authenticity shaped her decisions, from early growth to navigati...
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Post-Exit: What No One Tells You After You Sell Your Company
“I’ve exited… what now?”It sounds simple. It’s not.In this Post Bag episode, James Johnson and Freddie Birley unpa...
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When to Be Hands-On and When to Build Systems as You Scale
Agata Krawiec‑Rokita, co-founder and CEO of sun.store, scaled from a €12M GMV forecast to €100M in just 12 months.Now she’s facing the next challenge: shifting from doing ev...
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