From Bethnal Green to a $70M Exit: The London Founder Every Owner Must Hear
By Jamie Goral, ActionCOACH
I coach business owners across London who want their company to be worth selling — not just worth running. So when I come across a story that strips growth back to its real fundamentals, I share it.
This is one of them. And if you're building a business anywhere from Stratford to Wandsworth, it's the most useful hour you'll spend this month.
A Bethnal Green schoolboy with no GCSEs. A serial founder who has sold for tens of millions.
Jamie Waller grew up in a two-bedroom flat above a shop in Bethnal Green: dyslexic, colour-blind, ADHD, and poor. A teacher told him the only job he'd ever do for a living was drive a van. He left school at 16 without sitting a single GCSE.
He's since built and exited businesses for upwards of $70 million. His first hustle was window cleaning — kit bought from a supplier on City Road, customers found door-to-door. His second was a car yard on the Woolwich Road that did 10–12 cars a week until Transport for London painted double red lines outside and killed it overnight.
He's now back in the CEO seat taking a £145m revenue business from £5m of profit to a planned £100m over five years.
In this hour-long ActionCOACH podcast conversation, Jamie pulls the playbook apart — and there's something in it for every owner I work with, whether you're doing £500k or £15m.
Here's what stops you scrolling
The 100-day plan with only two colours. Jamie walks into a new CEO role with a Gantt chart that has green and red. No orange. No "in progress." It either got done or it didn't. He explains why that single discipline is the biggest lever for taking a business from £15m to £100m — and how to use it without your team revolting.
Why brand is everything — and it's not your logo. He tells the story of a UK coffee chain that competed with Starbucks on one instruction: smile, say good morning, and give away one free coffee a day to anyone who looks sad or makes you smile. That's brand. Most owners are pouring money into the wrong thing.
The "divest the tech, license it back" play — a negotiation move that won him one of his cleanest exits, and a frank warning about why AI is closing that window faster than people realise.
A red-wine-and-urine story you will not forget. It tells you more about leadership, values, and the gap between standards you talk about and standards you enforce than any management book on your shelf.
Four-and-a-half hours of sleep as a competitive advantage — and why, at 46, he's finally trying to break that habit.
Imposter syndrome at the top of the King's Trust. Even chairing it on behalf of the King, Jamie still gets it. What he does about it is more useful than anything in a self-help book.
A 90-day Gantt chart on his marriage. Yes, really. And it works.
Why this matters if you're running a business in London
London is a brutal market. Rents are punishing, staff costs are higher than anywhere else in the UK, ULEZ and congestion zones rewrite logistics overnight, councils and TfL can wipe out a location-based business with a stroke of yellow paint. Most owners I meet across the capital are scrappy, resilient, and undersold — but they're also stretched, isolated, and stuck somewhere between a £1m turnover and a saleable business.
Jamie's story is built for exactly that audience. He started on a London council estate with nothing, navigated the same regulatory shocks you're dealing with today, and built brands that global banks now pay for trust. He doesn't talk about Silicon Valley. He talks about Bethnal Green, pie and mash on Roman Road the morning after a multi-million-pound exit, and what it takes to set standards your team actually live by.
What I love about the interview is that he refuses to make any of it sound mystical. He breaks growth down to consistency, basics, and discipline. He talks about Gantt charts more than vision boards. He treats "speed to cash" as a religion. And he's allergic to the word orange.
If you've ever quietly wondered whether you've got what it takes to scale your business — or one day sell it — give this an hour of your time. It's the closest thing to free coaching you'll get this month.
[▶ Watch the full conversation here]
Once you've watched it, if you want to talk about how to install the same disciplines in your London business — the 100-day plan, the red/green standard, the brand work that actually moves exit value — that's exactly what I do.
