The deal that changed everything
In the spring of 2008, we found out that our largest global competitor was up for sale.
Within weeks we had raised £28 million on the stock exchange and launched one of the most ambitious acquisitions I had ever been involved in. We were present in sixteen countries. They were in ten. There were only three where we overlapped. By the time the deal was done, we were operating in twenty-three countries around the world.
I flew to almost every single one of them.
Two years later, I resigned. And six months after that, I burned out completely.
I tell this story not because it ended badly. It didn’t. The business was successful, the deal was transformational, and the experience shaped everything I’ve done since. I tell it because of what it taught me about the difference between building something impressive and building something sustainable.
And because when I look at the founders I work with today, I see the same warning signs I missed in myself.
Where it all began
I grew up on Vancouver Island on the west coast of Canada. At thirteen, I had a newspaper round. Not the kind where you pick up papers from the newsagent and cycle round before school. In Canada, we collected our papers from the distribution point at 4:30 in the morning and had every delivery done before 7am.
At the end of each month, I went door to door to collect payment. I kept the money organized. Bills facing the same way. Every amount counted before the area manager came to collect the share that belonged to the newspaper.
I don’t know exactly when it happened, but somewhere in those early mornings I learned something that has stayed with me ever since. That the difference between doing something and doing it well is almost always about structure.
That lesson carried me through qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with PwC, moving to Zürich with my wife on one-way tickets and four suitcases, and spending two decades building a career in finance across Switzerland, the UK, and eventually the world.
The lessons from thirty years of deals.
Add Then Multiply walks through the full FACE methodology, with real deals, real numbers, and the lessons that only come from sitting on both sides of the table thirty-odd times.
📖 Available now as an eBook or physical edition.
The decade that changed everything
Between 2000 and 2010 I was Chief Financial Officer of three very different companies.
The first was a PR agency, BSMG Worldwide, where I was CFO for Europe. In two years, I made my first business acquisitions, buying seven PR agencies across the continent. The second was Huveaux plc, a digital media and publishing group listed on AIM, London’s Alternative Investment Market. In three years there, I raised over £60 million and acquired seven more companies. The third was GoIndustry plc, another AIM-listed business and an online auctioneer of used industrial equipment, where I raised a further £40 million and completed the global acquisition I described at the start of this blog.
Three very different businesses. One thing in common. They all raised capital and bought other companies.
Over those ten years, I became a specialist in fundraising and M&A, not from the perspective of an investment bank or a corporate finance boutique, but from inside the company actually doing it. Pitching to investors. Negotiating the deals. Integrating the businesses. Managing the teams on the ground in countries I’d never visited before.
It was extraordinary. It was also relentless.
The warning signs I ignored
Here is what I know now that I didn’t know then.
I was the engine. In every one of those businesses, I was the person who held it all together. The one who knew where every number was. The one who flew to the next country when the integration wasn’t going to plan. The one the team turned to when a decision needed making.
That is not a sustainable way to build a business. And it is not a sustainable way to live.
The founders I work with today, whether they’re running a healthcare practice they’ve built from one consulting room, an agency with multiple income streams and a brand people trust, or a tech business trying to prove that doing good and doing well aren’t mutually exclusive, they are often doing exactly what I did. Being the engine. Holding everything together through force of will, expertise, and sheer determination.
It works, for a while. And then it doesn’t.
What changes it is not working harder. It’s building the structure that means you don’t have to.
Find out where you actually stand.
The Growth Readiness Assessment takes you through exactly where your business is today across funding, acquisition, consolidation, and exit readiness, before the pressure is already on.
⚡ Find out in less than 3 minutes.
What I wish I’d had
In every business I’ve worked in since 2010, I’ve asked the same four questions.
Is the financial planning strong enough that the founder can make decisions with confidence, not guesswork? Is there operational excellence, systems and processes that allow the business to deliver consistently whether the founder is in the room or not? Is the team strong enough to carry weight when the founder steps back, aligned around values clear enough to survive a period of rapid growth? And is the technology built for where the business is going, not where it’s been?
Those four questions became the foundation of everything I now do with Add Then Multiply.
Not because they’re complicated. They aren’t. But because most founder-led businesses between £1m and £10m are trying to scale without all four in place. And the gap between where they are and where those foundations need to be is exactly where growth stalls, cash gets complicated, and founders burn out.
I didn’t have all four in place at GoIndustry. I was exceptional at the financial planning piece, but the operational systems depended too heavily on me personally. The team was talented but stretched. The technology was functional but not future-facing. And by the time we’d integrated twenty-three countries of operations, I had nothing left.
What came next
After I resigned from GoIndustry, I launched a wine business. I needed something slower. Something where the success wasn’t measured in quarterly reports and investor presentations.
And then, gradually, I came back to what I knew.
But differently.
Rather than being the CFO inside a business, I became the advisor outside it. Working with founders who were doing remarkable things and needed the financial leadership, the strategic thinking, and the M&A experience that I’d spent thirty years accumulating, but couldn’t yet justify a full-time CFO to bring it in-house.
The FACE methodology, Fund, Acquire, Consolidate, Exit, came from those conversations. From sitting with founder after founder who had built something real and didn’t yet have the structure to take it further.
It is the thing I wish someone had put in front of me twenty years ago.
The thinking doesn’t stop here.
Every fortnight, The Multiplier Effect brings you practical insight on funding, scaling, and building a business that doesn’t depend entirely on you. Every Wednesday, no filler.
📖 Join the list and receive weekly insights.
Why I’m telling you this
Because if you’re reading this and you recognise something of yourself in it, I want you to know two things.
First, the fact that you’ve built a business that depends heavily on you is not a failure. It’s the natural result of being the person who cared enough and worked hard enough to get it to where it is.
Second, it is entirely fixable. And it doesn’t require you to become a different person or hand over control of something you’ve spent years building. It requires a different structure. The right financial planning. The right operational systems. The right team around you. Technology that works for the business rather than against it.
Those four things, in place at the right time, change everything.
Know your numbers. Build your foundations. Then add. Then multiply.
What’s the one area of your business where you know you’re still holding everything together yourself? Drop it in the comments. I read every one.
Before you go
📖 Get your copy of Add Then Multiply, including the full Acquire and Consolidate chapters with real stories and real numbers from founders who have scaled
⚡ Find out where your business actually stands today with the Growth Readiness Assessment.
✉️ Our weekly newsletter, The Multiplier Effect lands every Wednesday. Practical thinking on funding, scaling, and building a business worth owning.
David B Horne
Founder of Add Then Multiply & Funding Focus
Add Then Multiply is a fractional finance and business scaling consultancy helping founder-led businesses at £1M–£10M+ to Fund, Acquire, Consolidate, and Exit.
