Does you business idea work?
You've been turning it over for weeks. Maybe months. You've told one or two people, who said "you should go for it." And you still don't know if it's actually a good idea.
You don't need more encouragement. You need to know if the idea stands up. This workbook helps you do that.
This is not a course about marketing or growth. It's about something that comes before all of that: working out, properly, whether your idea is worth pursuing in the first place.
Most early-stage thinking happens in your head, or in conversations with friends and family who don't want to discourage you. Neither is much use. You end up with:
- a vague sense it might work, but no real evidence
- a price you've half-decided on, with no idea if the margins work
- a customer in mind, without checking whether they'd actually buy
- a quiet worry that you're missing something important
You commit, or you don't. Either way, the decision is being made on a feeling rather than a structure. There is a better way to decide.
This workbook walks you through the questions that actually matter, in the order they need answering:
- Does the idea solve a real problem, and for whom?
- Who is the customer, specifically, and would they actually pay?
- Who else is doing this, and what does that tell you?
- Do the numbers work: price, costs, margins?
- What does running this business actually look like, day to day?
- What are your genuine strengths and risks as the founder?
It ends with a structured go or no-go decision. Not a pep talk. A decision, made properly, with the thinking done.
Thirteen sections. About 2 to 3 hours.
Whatever you decide, you'll decide it with your eyes open. That could save you months, or more, going in the wrong direction.
Whats Inside
63-page structured workbook
- 13 focused sections
- 55 practical exercises
- Designed to complete in 2 to 3 hours
This isn't something you skim. It's something you sit down with and work through properly.
This is for you if:
- You have a business idea but aren't sure if it's viable
- You want to avoid wasting time and money
- You prefer clear thinking over guesswork
This is NOT for you if:
- You're looking for quick wins
- You want motivation rather than decision-making
- You've already built and validated a business
You've decided to do it. Now what, exactly?
You have a list of things you should be doing. Register the business. Sort insurance. Open a bank account. Do something about GDPR. Sole trader or limited company. How to pay yourself. Contracts. Getting paid.
Most new founders have the list. What they don't have is the order, and a quiet feeling they're missing something important.
You don't need to know what comes next. The workbook does.
This is not theory. It's the practical setup of a real UK business, worked through step by step: the decisions, the registrations, the protections, the habits. The things you'd otherwise be googling at 11pm, hoping the answer you found applies to you.
Without a structure, the early weeks tend to go one of two ways. Everything at once, half-finished. Or the hard decisions pushed back until they're urgent. Neither is a disaster on its own. But it builds a shaky foundation, and a shaky foundation is harder to unpick later than it is to lay properly now.
The workbook takes you through your first three months in order:
- Legal structure: sole trader and limited company in equal depth, plus partnerships
- How to pay yourself, and what to set aside for tax
- Insurance, product safety, and compliance
- GDPR, digital security, and your data obligations
- Getting paid, credit control, and supplier contracts
- Your launch plan and first customers
- Delivering properly, and your online presence
- Your numbers in the first three months
- Managing yourself, and who you need around you
- The end of 90 days review and reset
Nineteen sections, designed to be worked through across your first three months. Also written for owners already trading who want to audit their setup properly.
You don't have to figure out the order on your own. Work through it and nothing important gets missed.
Whats Inside
109-page structured workbook
- 19 focused sections
- 75 practical exercises
- Designed to be worked through across your first 90 days
This isn't something you skim. It's something you sit down with and work through properly.
This is for you if:
- You've decided to start and want to set up properly, in the right order
- You started recently and want to check nothing has been missed
- You'd rather do the setup once than untangle it later
This is NOT for you if:
- You're still deciding whether the idea is viable
- You've been trading for years with your setup long settled
- You want theory rather than the practical work of starting
Do you understand your finances properly?
Many founders aren't sure where they actually stand. They look at the bank balance often, and try to read the rest from how the month felt. They are surprised by tax bills. They are vague about margins. They are not sure why a good month sometimes leaves them short of cash.
You don't need to be an accountant. You need to understand what your own numbers are telling you. This workbook helps you do that.
This is not a textbook. There is no double-entry bookkeeping. It is not for accountants. They know all of this already. It is for founders who want to stop feeling uncertain about money and start running the business with their eyes open.
Most early-stage money problems are not caused by bad maths. They are caused by not knowing what the numbers mean. You end up:
- pricing on feel, without knowing if the margins work
- mistaking a healthy bank balance for a profitable business
- taking on customers who lose you money without realising
- being caught out by VAT or self-assessment bills
- running short of cash in a month that looked fine
The figures look fine until they don't. By the time the problem shows up clearly, it is harder to fix. Most of it is avoidable if you understand what to look for.
This workbook gives you the language. It walks you through what every number actually means, in plain English, in the order you'll need them:
- Cash and profit, and why they are not the same thing
- How to pay yourself properly
- Break-even, pricing, and margins
- Reading your monthly picture so it actually tells you something
- Cashflow timing, working capital, and seasonal patterns
- Stock, when to invest, and business finance options
- VAT and self-assessment, in plain terms
- Spotting problems early
- How to talk to your accountant so the conversation is genuinely useful
Sixteen focused sections. About 3 to 4 hours.
Pairs with the free Business Financial Toolkit, which does the arithmetic for you. The workbook tells you what the answer means.
You will not become an accountant. You will understand the numbers that matter, and run the business with a clearer view of where you actually stand.
Whats Inside
69-page structured workbook
- 16 focused sections
- 33 practical exercises, with worked examples throughout
- Designed to complete in 3 to 4 hours
This isn't something you skim. It's something you sit down with and work through properly.
This is for you if:
- You're never quite sure where the business actually stands
- You've been surprised by a tax bill or a short month
- You want plain English, not accounting jargon
This is NOT for you if:
- You're an accountant. You know all of this already
- You want a bookkeeping or double-entry course
- You want forecasts of riches rather than an honest picture
Doing the work, but not seeing the results?
You're posting on social media. You're going to networking events. You're sending quotes, having conversations, running the odd ad. And the results don't quite match the effort.
You're working hard. You shouldn't have to work this hard for customers that don't come. This workbook helps you understand why.
This is not a course about going viral or magic marketing tricks. It's about understanding how customers actually buy, and building a sales process that works for your business rather than one borrowed from someone else's.
Most early-stage customer problems aren't fixed by working harder. They're fixed by understanding the process. Without one, you end up:
- busy on channels your customers don't actually use
- quoting and hearing nothing back, without knowing why
- dropping your price when someone hesitates
- following up once, then letting it go quiet
- winning customers, but not the ones you wanted
None of this means the business doesn't work. It usually means the process was never built. That is fixable, and it is what this workbook is for.
It walks you through the whole process, in order:
- How customers actually buy, and who is really buying from you
- Where your customers actually are, and what you say when you find them
- The first conversation, proposals, and quotes
- Holding your price when someone pushes back
- Moving people from interested to committed, and following up properly
- Keeping the right customers, and spotting the ones to let go
- Building referrals in, so good work brings the next customer
- Selling through marketplaces, and selling internationally
- Your sales process, written down, so it happens every time
Fifteen sections. Written for founders at any stage.
The effort you're already putting in starts producing results when there's a process behind it. This workbook builds it with you.
Whats Inside
82-page structured workbook
- 15 focused sections
- 61 practical exercises
- Designed to be worked through section by section, not in one sitting
This isn't something you skim. It's something you sit down with and work through properly.
This is for you if:
- You're trading, but customers arrive inconsistently
- You're putting real effort into marketing with little to show for it
- You've never built a written sales process
This is NOT for you if:
- You're looking for viral tricks or magic marketing shortcuts
- You haven't yet decided what the business is
- You already have a full pipeline and a process that works
The business isn't where you thought it would be?
You've been trading a while now. You work hard. Harder than most people around you realise. And somewhere along the way, the business settled into a shape that isn't quite what you were building towards.
You can feel it more easily than you can explain it. Revenue that plateaued. Months that blur together. A list of things you know you're avoiding looking at directly.
You don't need a motivational push. You need an honest look at what's actually going on. This workbook gives you the structure to take one.
This is a different kind of workbook. It isn't about starting something. It's about facing something. Diagnosis first, solutions second, because you cannot fix a business you haven't looked at honestly.
Without a structured review, this period tends to drift. You end up:
- working more hours to hold the same position
- keeping customers you know cost you more than they pay
- leaving the pricing conversation for another month, again
- unsure whether the problem is the model, the market, or the workload
- privately wondering whether to carry on, without ever asking it out loud
None of that gets easier by waiting. It gets easier by looking at it properly, once, in full.
The workbook takes you through the review in order:
- An honest account of the current state
- The gap between expected and actual, named plainly
- The money picture, the customer picture, and the pricing hard look
- The time and energy audit, and the direction check
- Sales reality by channel, and whether the model still works
- Costs, VAT, and anything owed
- The things being avoided, and the things to stop doing
- The shape of the pivot, and what would make this worth continuing
- A written decision, and a plan for the next 90 days
Seventeen sections. What's working, what isn't, and what comes next.
It does not tell you to keep going, and it does not tell you to stop. It helps you find out what is true, and make a decision you can stand behind either way.
Whats Inside
76-page structured workbook
- 17 focused sections
- 94 practical exercises
- Estimated 4 to 6 hours, worked through over a week or two
This isn't something you skim. It's something you sit down with and work through properly.
This is for you if:
- You've been trading a while and the business isn't where you expected
- You're working harder each year to hold the same position
- You're ready to look at it honestly, in full, once
This is NOT for you if:
- You're just starting out
- You want reassurance rather than honesty
- You want someone else to make the decision for you
Selling to the EU feels harder than it should be?
You have a product that sells. You know there are customers in Europe who would buy it. And every time you look into selling to them, you find another rule, another registration, another acronym, and quietly put it off for another few months.
The rules are real. But they are not endless. They sort into five categories, and every one of them can be worked through. This workbook shows you how.
This is not a customs manual and it is not a scare story. It's a practical route through EU selling for a UK product business, written for the founder doing this themselves, not for a compliance department.
Without a clear picture, most founders end up in one of two places. Either they don't sell to the EU at all, and leave the revenue behind. Or they start shipping and find out the hard way:
- parcels held at customs, or returned
- customers charged unexpected fees on the doorstep, then asking for refunds
- registrations discovered after the deadline, not before
- prices set without the duty and VAT built in, so the margin quietly disappears
Every one of those is avoidable. Not by knowing everything, but by knowing which category each rule belongs to and dealing with each one once, properly.
The workbook takes you through it in order:
- Whether exporting is right for your business at all
- The five categories every EU obligation falls into
- The true landed cost of your product, worked out line by line
- Customs and duty: what you'll actually pay
- VAT on EU sales: IOSS, OSS, and holding stock in the EU
- Product safety, GPSR, and the Responsible Person requirement
- Packaging rules, EPR, and what you're required to declare
- Marketplaces versus your own website, and choosing your route
- Pricing for export, and handling returns without losing money twice
- A compliance calendar, and the final decision
Fourteen sections. All rates and thresholds gathered in a dated appendix, checked at the time of writing, with sources so you can verify them yourself.
Comes with the EU Export Decision Tool, a spreadsheet that takes your product, price, and destination and shows you whether exporting stacks up before you commit to it.
The EU market did not close in 2021. It just got more paperwork. Work through this once, and it stops being the thing you're putting off.
Whats Inside
51-page structured workbook
- 14 focused sections
- Includes the EU Export Decision Tool spreadsheet
- All rates and thresholds in a dated appendix, checked at the time of writing
This isn't something you skim. It's something you sit down with and work through properly.
This is for you if:
- You run a UK product business and know there's EU demand
- You keep putting exporting off because of the rules
- You want to know whether it stacks up before you commit
This is NOT for you if:
- You sell services rather than physical products
- You're already exporting smoothly and just want tactics
- You want someone else to handle the compliance for you