Ian Dibb

So, I am Ian Dibb, I'm down in Cornwall and I am an early stage startup consultant and mentor.

I coach really early stage startups. So these are solo founders, early stage companies, helping them with their branding, go to market, do they need to raise investment, everything to help them become a more successful version of themselves.

So I have many years experience doing this. So what I do is I work alongside them in a kind of co-founder capacity to make sure that their days are easier and it's far more likely that they'll achieve success really.

Aha, so there isn't really a typical day. So each company I work with requires something different. So some of them might be going "Ian, I'm going out and doing some keynote speaking, can you advise me on this?"

Others are raising investment for their businesses and they wanna make sure the investment document's ready. So there isn't a typical day, which makes my job so enjoyable.

I get to walk alongside founders, taking away some of the unknowns, answering their questions and just giving them the confidence they need really to make those decisions, which if you are a solo founder, sometimes you really get stuck and go "I don't know what to do, so I won't do anything."

Whereas working with me, I'm like, let's just go for it, let's have some fun. There is no such thing as failure, there's only lessons and learning.

So I work with all types of companies, but most of them are either solo founders or early stage companies who had an idea and aren't really seeing the kind of results they wanted.

So one of them came up with a really great concept and didn't find product market fit. So we've pivoted his business from being a direct to consumer into a business to business. So that's two businesses working alongside one another, which is going really well.

I've helped him to pull together some fantastic material to help him raise investment. So we've realised he probably needs quarter of a million pounds to get his business from where it is today to the point that he will start seeing customers and revenue coming in.

And this is really daunting for a lot of companies, raising money, speaking to investors, taking their business from idea through to concept. It's stressful. I've been there, I've got all the scars from doing it.

So my job with a lot of these people is to basically protect them from the unknown, most of the time and just give them the confidence they need.

So if it's not raising investment, it will be looking at their business plans, their marketing plans, who their ideal customer is. A lot of startups when they launch, they try and do too many things at once. They say that if everyone is your audience, then no one is your audience.

So it's actually going paring things back and go, who's the perfect company or partner for you to work with. And let's focus on them first before we try and conquer the world.

I love it. It doesn't feel like a job. For me, I wake up in the morning, I'm really excited about what my clients are doing. And just making a difference.

So one of my clients, I've just gotten them a contract, which is worth about 200,000 pounds a year because of my network.

So I'm connected to some incredible people and I like working with good people. I'll only work with mission led value led founders who are doing something really positive for the world.

So from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, it's just working with really good people and seeing the stress come off their faces when they start doing the things they love.

We all start our businesses because we want to make a difference. It's very rarely we just want to make money. So being able to stand alongside somebody and go, OK, what does good look like today?

It really is. I shouldn't be paid for this.

Stopping. So with each of my clients, I work with them about a day a month. But I'm busier than I've ever been because I really like working with my clients.

So once we've hit that kind of eight hours per month, I'm doing more hours because I just love doing it. So whereas I should be really just saying, right, you've hit your hours, I'm still working late in the evenings to try and move the needle for these guys.

So the hardest part is not stopping because I enjoy what I do.

But don't get me wrong, there are downsides of being an early stage consultant if they don't have a budget. One thing is you're constantly thinking, can they afford you next month?

The other side is they have high expectations of how quickly things will happen.

So let's say they wanted to work with one of the major banks like Lloyds, Barclays or Santander. These organisations from an initial conversation through to a partnership is normally 12 to 18 months.

These guys think it's going to happen in maybe two or three weeks. So it's just setting realistic goals and making sure that they don't burn themselves out.

Like being an early stage founder, it's so easy to work every single hour and then realise you've got no energy left and you end up hating the business you originally launched and loved.

So I was running a tech company in 2024 and we got to the end where it was just becoming too challenging.

So one of my investors asked me, what do I like doing? And the question was, I like working with founders. I like working with startups and I like working with mission led people.

So in 2025, I set Wayfinder up and just people came to me, the people I've been speaking to over the years and said Ian, we'd love your help.

So it sounds really strange that they've come to me. I've never spent any money on marketing, but I've got a really good network and I spend a lot of time trying to help people.

And I genuinely believe what you give out, the universe will give back to you.

So I've been recommended to work with some amazing companies. I thoroughly enjoy it. It feels too easy. I've got lots of consultancy friends and mentor friends who are finding it really challenging, but I believe if you're really good at what you do and your sole goal is to help people through the process of growing a business or learning, that the people will come to you.

I wasn't very good at school. I was really smart but I never knew what I wanted to be. So I bounced around through school.

Unfortunately, I was a kind of class clown, which didn't help. But that personality and the sense of humor has got me through some really challenging times.

But going back now, I just wish that I would have had somebody to show me what good looks like.

You know, we're all taught in the same way. So you'll have a plumber being taught in the same way as a doctor. It's the same educational system but each of us are different. I think what we need to work out is what makes us happy.

You know, setting our goals to who do we want to be? Not who does everyone else want to be. It was one of the things that I wish I'd have known earlier.

There's been many and I think one of the key ones for me was last year I spoke on stage in front of about 2000 people. And I like speaking, I'm a confident talker, but standing on stage in front of that many people was daunting.

And I, so I remember sitting in there and I could see the timer coming down. It was like 10 minutes, five minutes, two minutes. And all I wanted to do was run away and leave the room.

But actually I got up on stage and I was a bit nervous and after that 10 minutes, I just felt amazing. And I left that stage thinking, actually, the fear of doing things is that far worse than actually doing the things themselves.

So at that point I learned just do everything, you know, and from that, it gave me a confidence to talk on more stages and to do more stuff where you put yourself out there.

You only grow in the uncomfortable zones, you grow more when you're doing things you've never done before. And I think that's the key thing. Try everything. Regret nothing.

I think I covered this earlier, it's find your version of happiness, you know, in business and not, not just in growing up in business.

A lot of people look at other people and go, they must be happy. They've got a big car and a big house, but actually with a big car and a big house comes more debts and more responsibility.

So finding out what you really enjoy doing and try and make a job around that, not just jump into a job which pays well, you know, that life can be short.

Life is stressful. So find something that you enjoy and then actually life becomes really enjoyable.