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The Business Growth Foundations Scorecard

Growth stalled?
Your marketing may not be the problem.

Do not spend more on sales, marketing or lead generation before checking that your business foundations are not sabotaging your growth.

7 questions. 2 minutes. Instant results.

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Business Purpose & DirectionBusiness HypothesisTarget MarketsIdeal Customer Profile & PersonasValue PropositionProduct Market FitGo To MarketPurposeHypothesisMarketsICPValuePMFGTMTHE SEVENGROWTHFOUNDATIONS
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7FOUNDATIONS SCORED
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30 yrsBEHIND THE QUESTIONS

Most founders never properly validate their market, their positioning, their value proposition or their product-market fit. Then they spend on marketing to fix a problem marketing was never going to fix.

The Business Growth Foundations Framework©

Seven foundations, in the order they have to be built.

This is the same wheel you see on the home page, and the same one you are scored against. Each one rests on the one before it. That is why the order matters, and why fixing the last one first is the most expensive mistake in growth. The scorecard walks them in sequence and scores each on its own.

One

Business Purpose & Direction

A clear purpose creates momentum, alignment and resilience. Without purpose, vision, mission and values, everything that follows becomes guesswork.

Two

Business Hypothesis

Not a business plan. Your initial articulation of the start-up, the scale-up idea or the pivot, written down and ready to test.

Three

Target Markets

Trying to sell without knowing your target market creates wasted marketing spend and confused prospects.

Four

Ideal Customer Profile & Personas

High-growth businesses understand their personas: their needs, fears, motivations and triggers. Above all, their problems.

Five

Value Proposition

Most founders struggle here. It has to be specific, relevant and instantly understandable, and it has to solve the buyer's need.

Six

Product Market Fit

This is where most failures happen. Discovery conversations are essential before you invest in marketing or sales.

Seven

Go To Market

If the earlier foundations are weak, your go-to-market will fail, no matter how much you spend on it.

Business Purpose & DirectionBusiness HypothesisTarget MarketsIdeal Customer Profile & PersonasValue PropositionProduct Market FitGo To MarketTHE SEVENGROWTHFOUNDATIONS

Seven parts of one whole. Weak in one, and the others carry the strain.

What you walk away with

Three things you will not get from another opinion.

01

Where your growth strategy is built on sand, and where it is not. Named, scored and in front of you.

02

Which of the seven foundations is most likely to stall or derail your next stage of growth.

03

The two or three priority actions worth your next ninety days, rather than a list of twenty.

In their words

As a fellow founder on the London Mayor’s International Business Programme, Zed helped me curate my thoughts and a business hypothesis aligned to my values, and navigated me through essential product-market fit exercises. I am thankful for his inspiration, expertise and humanity.

Naheed Afzal LLB (Hons)CEO, Contracts IT Limited

Zed was instrumental in helping me understand how to ideate my scaling, prepare a revised hypothesis and product-market fit. This foundation led to the business commercialising optimally, reviewing sales process, product, pricing and offer. The breadth of Zed’s experience meant there were practical solutions for each stage.

Cara de LangeFounder & CEO, Softer Success

I came to Zed needing real clarity for my portfolio career and to build my revenue streams properly, held to account, guided without distraction. His Business Growth Foundations programme took me from jumbled ideas to a clear product-market fit and a real go-to-market plan. Knowing what to do and actually doing it are very different things, here Zed made a world of difference. Straight, generous, and worth every conversation.

James BebbingtonGrowth Strategy Consultant & Fractional Commercial Director

Zed guided us through his Business Growth Foundations programme, from Passionate Purpose through six structured stages to Product-Market Fit, then translated that into a full go-to-market strategy: website, value proposition, PR and the commercial infrastructure to scale. He brings genuine rigour, asks the right questions, and delivers frameworks that are practical rather than theoretical. Moricon is a better-positioned business as a result.

Susan MoritzCo-Founder, MORICON Consultants

Beyond holding the executive to account, Zed advised on change management, corporate sales, value-proposition design and M&A. His years serving this company are testament to his contribution to the board.

Paul HemsleyChief Financial Officer, WRLD Inc.

Zarir worked as an interim consultant for our organisation to design and deliver strategically important change projects for clients. He created a positive impact right from the start: calm, well-organised and focused on the end outcomes, bringing a breadth of business experience and exceptional communication skills.

James ElworthyFormer Director, North Highland UK
Message from Zed

I built this from the questions I ask in the first meeting.

Thirty years of building, running and rescuing businesses, as a fractional and interim chief executive, a commercial director and a non-executive director. The seven foundations are the sequence I have watched hold businesses up, and watched their absence quietly take them down.

Your score is yours. If you want to argue with it, or work out what to do about it, that conversation is with me.

Zed

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