So you got your startup past the first valley of death. You found product-market fit, got some real revenue coming in, maybe even raised a round. Congratulations. But here’s a question that keeps coming back in almost every conversation I have with growth-stage founders: why does everything still run through me?
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. And it’s not a capacity problem, it’s an architecture problem.
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The founder bottleneck
There’s a concept in systems thinking called a “single point of failure“, a component that, if it fails, takes the whole system down. In most startups between 1 and 5 million in revenue, that single point of failure is the founder. Every deal, every hire decision, every product call, it all funnels through one person. The team is waiting for approvals instead of executing. The VP of Sales keeps asking how you close deals “the way you do it.” Your inbox is a warzone.
Sound familiar? The instinct here is to work harder. More hours, more calls, more “let me just jump in because it’s faster.” But that instinct is exactly the problem. In self-defense (yes, I also run a Krav Maga school, bear with me), one of the first things we teach is that under pressure, your body wants to tense up and fight harder. And that’s precisely what gets you hit. The first skill is learning to relax under threat so you can actually move and respond effectively. Scaling a company works the same way.
What the ones who break through actually do
After working with dozens of startups at EY, IMEC, Intel Capital, and now as a fractional CXO, I’ve noticed that the founders who successfully scale past the bottleneck tend to do three uncomfortable things:
They document the ugly version first. Not a polished SOP manual that nobody reads. They literally record themselves doing the thing, whether it’s selling, onboarding or making a key decision, and have someone else turn that into a repeatable process. Imperfect, but suddenly transferable. (If you want a framework for this, have a look at the “E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber, still one of the best books on building systems in a business.)
They hire for the system, not the gap. Instead of hiring people to “help out,” they first define what the function should look like at 3x their current size, and then hire the person who can build and run that. The question shifts from “who can take stuff off my plate?” to “what does this machine need to look like without me in it?”
They let things break on purpose. They deliberately step out of a process and let it stumble. Not to prove a point, but to find out where the real dependency is. Usually, what they thought required a founder turned out to need a checklist.
The real question
If your company can’t function for a week without you answering questions, you don’t have a scalable business yet, you have a job with employees. The fix isn’t more hours. It’s building something that runs when you’re not in the room.
As I like to say: you are free to choose how you run your company, but you are not free of the consequences of that choice. The founders who grow aren’t the ones who grip harder. They’re the ones who learn to let go of the thing that made them successful in the first place.
What was the hardest thing you had to let go of as your company grew? Curious to hear your experiences. And if you’re stuck at this stage right now, just reach out.
I hear this from founders all the time. They’ve got revenue, a growing team, maybe even some funding behind them, but when you ask about their advisory board, the answer is almost always the same: “That’s something for later.”
It’s one of the most expensive mistakes I see in the scale-up world. And it’s completely avoidable.
The “later” trap
Here’s what typically happens. A founder gets past product-market fit, revenue starts growing, and they’re suddenly making decisions in areas where they have no deep expertise. International expansion. Fundraising strategy. Building a sales organisation. Navigating regulation. They figure it out as they go, because that’s what founders do. But “figuring it out” at this stage is slow, expensive, and often means learning by making mistakes that someone else has already made.
The irony is that the help is out there. Experienced operators, investors, industry experts, people who have been through exactly these challenges before. But many founders don’t reach out for it until they’re in trouble.
A ten-year study by the Business Development Bank of Canada (link here) found that companies with advisory boards had annual sales 24% higher than those without. And 80% of the business leaders who had advisory boards said they’d set one up again. That’s not a marginal benefit anymore.
What an advisory board actually is (and isn’t)
Part of the problem is confusion. Founders hear “board” and think board of directors, with legal obligations, governance requirements, and loss of control. An advisory board is a completely different thing. No legal authority. No votes on company decisions. Just a group of experienced people who meet regularly to challenge your thinking, open doors, and help you avoid the mistakes they’ve already made.
Think of it as your personal support team. In a previous article I talked about building your the A-team: complementary skills, each member filling a gap you can’t fill yourself yet. The three things an advisory board brings:
Skills you can’t afford yet. Advisory board members are typically the profiles you want in your company, but can’t hire at this stage. A CFO-type who helps you think about fundraising. A commercial leader who’s scaled into markets you’re entering. They bridge the gap until you can bring those roles in-house.
Access to money and customers. Good advisors are well-connected. They can make introductions to investors and potential clients that would take you months to get on your own. This alone can justify the effort of setting up an advisory board.
The truth. This is the big one. Advisors are not your friends, family, fools and fans (the infamous 4Fs). They’ve aligned their reputation with your company. If you’re heading in the wrong direction, they’ll tell you. Directly. Before the market does.
When is the right time?
If you’re past product-market fit and starting to face decisions outside your core expertise, you’re already at the right time. You don’t need to wait until you have 50 employees or a Series B. Some of the most impactful advisory boards were set up at the 5-10 person stage.
The founders who get external perspective early don’t just grow faster. They make fewer expensive mistakes along the way. And in a market where capital is harder to come by and competition is fierce, that matters more than ever.
If you’re a founder or CEO thinking about this, start by asking yourself: what are the three biggest decisions I’ll face in the next 12 months, and do I have anyone outside my company who’s been through them before? If the answer is no, you might want to start building that team around you.
Have you worked with an advisory board? Or considered setting one up? Curious to hear what held you back or what made the difference.
What is an advisory board for a startup?
An advisory board is an informal group of experienced people who meet regularly to challenge the founder’s thinking, open doors, and provide expertise the company can’t yet hire for. Unlike a board of directors, advisory boards have no legal authority or governance obligations.
When should a scale-up set up an advisory board?
As soon as you’re past product-market fit and facing decisions outside your core expertise, typically at the 5-10 person stage. You don’t need to wait for a Series B.
What's the difference between an advisory board and a board of directors?
A board of directors has legal authority and governance responsibilities. An advisory board has neither. It exists purely to provide strategic input, connections, and honest feedback.
So you got your startup past the first valley of death. You found product-market fit, got some real revenue coming in, maybe even raised a round. Congratulations. But here’s a question that keeps coming back in almost every conversation I have with growth-stage founders: why does everything still run through me?
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. And it’s not a capacity problem, it’s an architecture problem.
The founder bottleneck
There’s a concept in systems thinking called a “single point of failure“, a component that, if it fails, takes the whole system down. In most startups between 1 and 5 million in revenue, that single point of failure is the founder. Every deal, every hire decision, every product call, it all funnels through one person. The team is waiting for approvals instead of executing. The VP of Sales keeps asking how you close deals “the way you do it.” Your inbox is a warzone.
Sound familiar? The instinct here is to work harder. More hours, more calls, more “let me just jump in because it’s faster.” But that instinct is exactly the problem. In self-defense (yes, I also run a Krav Maga school, bear with me), one of the first things we teach is that under pressure, your body wants to tense up and fight harder. And that’s precisely what gets you hit. The first skill is learning to relax under threat so you can actually move and respond effectively. Scaling a company works the same way.
What the ones who break through actually do
After working with dozens of startups at EY, IMEC, Intel Capital, and now as a fractional CXO, I’ve noticed that the founders who successfully scale past the bottleneck tend to do three uncomfortable things:
1. They document the ugly version first. Not a polished SOP manual that nobody reads. They literally record themselves doing the thing, whether it’s selling, onboarding or making a key decision, and have someone else turn that into a repeatable process. Imperfect, but suddenly transferable. (If you want a framework for this, have a look at the “E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber, still one of the best books on building systems in a business.)
2. They hire for the system, not the gap. Instead of hiring people to “help out,” they first define what the function should look like at 3x their current size, and then hire the person who can build and run that. The question shifts from “who can take stuff off my plate?” to “what does this machine need to look like without me in it?” 3. They let things break on purpose. They deliberately step out of a process and let it stumble. Not to prove a point, but to find out where the real dependency is. Usually, what they thought required a founder turned out to need a checklist.
The real question
If your company can’t function for a week without you answering questions, you don’t have a scalable business yet, you have a job with employees. The fix isn’t more hours. It’s building something that runs when you’re not in the room.
As I like to say: you are free to choose how you run your company, but you are not free of the consequences of that choice. The founders who grow aren’t the ones who grip harder. They’re the ones who learn to let go of the thing that made them successful in the first place.
What was the hardest thing you had to let go of as your company grew? Curious to hear your experiences. And if you’re stuck at this stage right now, just reach out.
… and as someone who’s been an evaluator myself, I can wholeheartedly back these up. Here are some of my key takeaways and lessons from the other side of the table:
1. “Don’t put a square peg in a round hole”
If your project’s not a natural fit for the open call, don’t try to shoehorn it in. As evaluators, we DO notice when an application is a mismatch or feels forced to fit into that particular open call. Fun story: I actually did see the same proposal come back in 2 different open calls once.
2. The AI echo chamber:
Yes, AI tools are everywhere and can help with drafting proposals, but beware … When an evaluator reads multiple proposals in a row, all in the same generic “AI voice” it quickly becomes tedious (and obvious). I say “AI voice” but actually mean one proposal after the other written in what must be AI generated verbal diarrhea because I can’t possibly imagine real people writing all in that exact same “style” (unless they’re all professional proposal writers, but that is another story). Originality and authenticity do stand out. If you use AI, which is ok nowadays I guess, edit the output and make sure to rewrite it in your own voice. And do a search/replace to throw out the “em-dash” – even though I like them and think they’re ok, many people see them as a dead give-away of AI generated content. And all AI tools put them in. Every. Single. Time. If anyone has reliable stopped an AI of throwing them in, let me know!
3. RTFM… Really: Read the F***ing manual.
We’ve all skipped manuals before, but in this case, read the open call documentation (the “guide for applicants”). It literally tells you exactly what evaluators look for, how scoring works, and what you need to submit by when and on what platform. Don’t fight it, embrace it. (This tip is courtesy of Wouter Desmet, thanks for drilling that one in) PS … if you’re hooked on AI, you can have your ChatGPT or other buddy summarize it for you.😉
4. Don’t procrastinate, so you don’t need to rush it in the end:
Great proposals take time. Set aside drafts, revisit them, iterate. You’ll spot what needs work. Also, run that spell check. Nothing says ‘last-minute dash’ like typos and missing documents. You also don’t want your proposal tanked because of missing files or blank sections. I’ve seen it all…
If you’re interested in talking further on proposals for open calls, use the contact form on the site to connect.
I wrote about the involvement of Venture Capital in the defense industry a while back (click here to read up on that one). However, with the current geopolitical tension and Europe looking at investing more in defending itself again, there have been some important changes in the funding landscape.
With geopolitical tensions reshaping priorities, Europe has launched unprecedented funding mechanisms targeting innovative companies developing technologies that enhance both civilian and military capabilities. If you’re building in AI, autonomy, cybersecurity, biotech, or other sectors, your solution likely has dual-use potential and there are programs out there that may want to fund you.
Below I dig a bit deeper into what every European founder needs to know about accessing these opportunities.
But first… addressing ethical concerns
Many startups may hesitate to pursue defense-related funding due to concerns about the military applications of their technologies, and that’s understandable. However, these programs specifically emphasize dual-use technologies that serve both civilian and defense purposes, contributing to broader societal benefits while enhancing security. The focus on dual-use innovation means that startups can develop technologies with clear civilian applications while also contributing to collective security and defense capabilities.
Think secure communication, resilient infrastructure, satellite navigation, autonomous logistics, or medical tech for extreme environments. Technologies that not only protect borders but save lives.
EU DEFENCE INNOVATION PROGRAMS: YOUR GATEWAY TO GROWTH
First up are the Euopeanwide programmes, that are funded by the European Commission and NATO.
European Defence Fund (EDF) + EU Defence Innovation Scheme (EUDIS)
The EDF represents Europe’s flagship defense innovation initiative, while EUDIS specifically targets SMEs and startups within this framework. Together, they offer multiple entry points:
Key Focus Areas: Cyber defense and resilience, Space-based defense technologies, Autonomous systems and AI, Maritime and naval technologies, Training and simulation systems
What’s Available:
Research grants: Up to 100% funding for collaborative R&D
Cascade funding: up to €500,000 grants through Innovation Test Hubs
Business coaching: 15 days free mentoring for successful applicants
Defense Equity Facility: Enhanced access to equity investments
Eligibility: SMEs, startups, and established companies across all EU member states. For 2025, Ukrainian entities are also eligible, recognizing battlefield experience and defense industry contributions. Do note: for EDF projects, there is a requirement of minimum 3 consortium partners over different countries.
NATO Innovation Ecosystem: Scale Across 28 Countries with DIANA + NATO Innovation Fund
Network: 28 countries, 23 accelerator sites, 182 test centers Investment Capital: €1 billion fund backed by 24 NATO allies
DIANA’s six-month accelerator program connects startups with military end-users through practical challenges. Recent 2025 launches include energy solutions, contested electromagnetic environments, and autonomous systems.
Immediate Opportunities:
€100,000 contractual funding for selected innovators
Access to unique test facilities across Europe and North America
Direct pathways to NATO procurement networks
The NATO Innovation Fund operates as Europe’s largest defense-focused VC, investing in deep tech companies developing sensors, software platforms, space communications, and strategic technologies.
European Innovation Council (EIC) & Horizon Europe
The EIC Accelerator—part of Horizon Europe—has quietly become a major backer of dual-use technology. With grants up to €2.5M and equity up to €15M, it now allows defence-relevant applications, opening the door for founders innovating in cyber, space, and advanced materials.
The European Investment Fund (EIF) recently launched the Defence Equity Facility to back funds investing in dual-use ventures. In parallel, STEP (Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform) lets member states reallocate cohesion funding.
NATIONAL PROGRAMS: DIRECT ACCESS TO LOCAL PARTNERS
Next to investments on a European level, various local innovation and defense organisations are rolling out plans to support innovative technologies with dual use in their countries. Below are some examples I found:
Belgium’s Innovation for Defence (Inno4Def)
Launched in 2023, Inno4Def focuses on short-cycle innovation to maintain Belgium’s technological edge in defence. The program’s 2025 Battlefield of Things 2: Drones hackathon brought together 190 participants—military personnel, engineers, students, and entrepreneurs—to tackle challenges such as GPS denied navigation, anti drone systems and procurement modernisation.
Established in 2017, the Bundeswehr Cyber Innovation Hub (CIHBw) acts as a gateway for startups to collaborate with Germany’s armed forces. CIHBw’s hybrid team of soldiers, entrepreneurs, and engineers has facilitated partnerships with startups like ARX Robotics, whose modular drones are now deployed in NATO operations.
In April 2025, the Netherlands announced a €1.15 billion investment to bolster its defence industry, where a strategy explicitly links civilian R&D to military needs, with startups receiving grants to scale innovations.
Sweden’s 2024 initiative, backed by Vinnova (the national innovation agency), funds projects for civil-military synergies. The program mandates collaboration between startups and established defence firms, ensuring rapid technology transfer.
DASA or Defence and Security Accelerator is the UK-based innovation agency run by the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD). It was launched in 2016 with the goal of finding and funding innovative ideas that can improve the UK’s defence and national security. They offer open calls, non-dilutive funding, dual-use commercialisation through themed competitions and open calls for innovation.
Assess your technology for dual-use applications—AI, sensors, communication, and automation often qualify
Leverage hackathons like Belgium’s Inno4Def for direct military end-user access
Target cascade funding through EUDIS Innovation Test Hubs (up to €500,000)
Build consortium partnerships for larger EDF applications requiring cross-border collaboration
Ready to explore these opportunities?
If you’re developing technology that could protect critical infrastructure, support humanitarian operations, or secure our digital borders, now is the time to engage. These programs are not about fueling conflict—they are about building the foundations of peace, resilience, and collective security in an unpredictable world.
Humankind has always wanted to know what will happen in the future. From the rulers of ancient Rome to CEO’s of current companies, all of them have been looking to predict the future, in order to secure their empire or their business. Thankfully, nowadays we have reliable tools to allow us to chart a course through the uncharted waters of the future.
Ancient cultures sought to unravel the mysteries of the future through a diverse array of practices rooted in spirituality, observation, and symbolism. From the casting of lots and interpreting celestial movements in astrology to divining messages in dreams and deciphering the flight of birds in augury, these civilizations blended religious beliefs with practical methodologies to predict the unknown. As those methods didn’t really work as advertised, business leaders and facilitators have turned toFutures Thinking,which provides a structure for thinking how the world could change, and the implications of that for our plans. Futures Thinking can help us to analyse the past and anticipate future trends, and uncover hidden biases and assumptions to enable us to think about the future more creatively.
FUTURES WHAT?
There doesn’t seem to be one universally agreed upon definition of “Futures Thinking”, but in general it’s seen as a strategic and anticipatory approach to understanding and preparing for the future. It involves exploring potential scenarios, trends, and uncertainties tomake informed decisions about the future … in the present. It is a multidisciplinary field that draws on insights from various sources, including technology, sociology, economics, and environmental studies, to analyze possible future outcomes. You may have also heard it mentioned under other terms such as foresight, futurism, futurology, anticipation studies, etc.
By examining emerging these patterns, forecasting trends, and considering alternative futures, individuals and organizations can develop more resilient strategies and adapt to changing circumstances. Futures thinking encourages a proactive mindset, fostering the ability to navigate complexities and uncertainties in an ever-evolving VUCA world.
A STEP BY STEP PROCESS
In practice, Futures Thinking sessions will yield aseries of scenarios, which are meant to illustrate multiple options for what the future might be without defining an exact prediction. We can then design product concepts for any one of these future scenarios, meaning that the end-point of the Futures Thinking process can be seen as the starting point for a Design Thinking process — one can feed into the other. It is important to realise that Futures Thinking doesn’t tell you whatWILL, happen, but whatCOULDhappen.
In a more structured way, a Futures Thinking workshop will try to answer these questions:
What will occur in my industry in the next 5, 10 or 20 years?
What are the most important emerging trends and issues?
What actions, strategies and policies will influence my desirable outcomes?
A Futures Thinking sessions generally takes place in 4 steps:
Step 1 is “asking the Question”: starting with the right question is key. How far do you want to think (hint, it should be somewhere between 5 and 15 years for real futures thinking)
Step 2 is “Scanning the World”: what are the drivers that will shape how the question will be answered. In this stage, it is all about gathering the relevant information.
Step 3 is “Mapping the possibilities”: there is no one future, so in a workshop, we need to find out what the possible outcomes are – is the future better or worse than what you expect?
Step 4 is “Asking the next question”: how would you answer the original question in each of the futures?
A 5th step is to start asking follow-up questions. Now, it’s time to address questions such as: What actions and strategies can lead to the best-case or at least an acceptable future? What obstacles are keeping you from taking the necessary steps?What are competitors doing?
From this, we will start to formulate strategies and try to lay out a concrete plan. What choices and changes do we need to make to get to an acceptable future? What policies and actions do we need leaders and stakeholders to agree to and adopt? Can this session help us look beyond the probable futures, more broader into possible futures, to identify unforeseen opportunities?
The image above shows the difference in convergence and divergence of futures thinking versus design thinking (source:
WELCOME TO THE VOROSCOPE
To understand Futures Thinking, it is often explained through the “futures cone“, also known as the “voroscope”, named after its inventor, Joseph Voros (and to confuse you even more, this one is sometimes also called “the cone of uncertainty”)
The Framework Foresight from the University of Houston
FUTURES THINKING TOOLS
There are a number of specificexercisesthat are well tailored to Futures Thinking. Below is a non-exhaustive list of tools and exercises that can be used as part of a Futures Thinking session:
Scenario analysis: used in strategic market analysis. Questions to ask here are “what are the most likely scenarios?” and “Can we extrapolate current trends?”
Business model canvas exercises:the BMC can be adapted to imagine different possible futures by altering any of the building blocks in it.
Horizon scanning: the systematic examination of potential threats, opportunities, and likely future developments, including those at the margins of current thinking and beyond conventional foresight timeframes.
TAIDA: Tracking, Analysing, Imagining, Deciding, Acting. Analyse the changes happening around us, imagining a vision, decide on a strategy, and execute that strategy.
The futures triangle(Sohail), with the weight of history, the push of the present and the pull of the future:
Weight of history: What could hold us back? Which barriers are necessary to change? What deep structures are resisting the change?
Push of the present: Which trends push the people towards specific futures? What quantitative trends and drivers are or may be changing the future?
Pull of the future: What is going to pull us towards a specific future? What is a compelling image of the future? Which images in the future are competing?
what if questions:exactly what is says, a guided session to answers “what if” questions to find new ideas and examples for your industry.
The 4 archetypes :Also knows as “Dator’s four futures”, we look at 4 alternative futures: one of continuation, one of (societal) transformation, one of disciplined society, and one of collapse. (for the details, please read https://foresightguide.com/dator-four-futures/)
the Shell approach:associated with the multinational oil and gas company Shell, this is a method in futures thinking and scenario planning that involves systematically exploring possible future scenarios to inform strategic decision-making and manage uncertainty effectively.
Futures wheel: The futures wheel is one of the most widely used methods of futurists. It is a creative way of encouraging people to think about the future. It is usually about organizing a trend or about the ideas surrounding a future development (Bandhold, Lindgren, 2003).
Persona cards: what will the life of persona X look like in 20 years?
trend canvas– collect anc luster trends you see in the world. For an explanation, seehttps://wrkshp.tools/tools/trend-canvas– you can also find a miro template to a consumer trend canvas on https://www.trendwatching.com/news/ctc-live-on-miro
2×2 SES:2 by 2 scenario exploration system: find a question (about the future, after all, this is a futures thinking article) you want to investigate, find the 2 most crucial driving forces and work on these in a matrix – here’s an example of to go about it:https://www.futuresplatform.com/blog/2×2-scenario-planning-matrix-guideline
The Sarkar Game:a foresight role-playing game playing the 4 types of power (worker, warrior, intellectual and capitalist). For more information, seehttps://jfsdigital.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/181-A01.pdfand https://library.teachthefuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Sarkar-Game.pdf
Futures thinking can be useful for when a CEO wants to lead their company into a certain future, without being disrupted by new technology or competitors. What will the company need to do today in order to survive shifts in the market?
For example, if you are running factories, you can analyse the impact of trends like automatisation, on the future of the plants.
Sessions can also be about desirability (what will people want in the future?), Technological feasibility (what could technically be possible in the future), or Economic (how can it become a sustainable business model in the future?).
(PS the main image was generated with ChatGPT – The image has been created to convey what futures thinking is all about, embodying the essence of looking into the future with optimism, curiosity, and strategic planning. It symbolizes the collaborative and multidisciplinary approach to envisioning a range of possible futures.)
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