One year on: same name, same people, more behind them

A year ago somebody bought this business. I will be honest with you. I had seen how that usually goes.

You lose the name. You lose the people who built it. And a decision that used to take an hour starts taking a month, because it gets made somewhere else.

None of that happened. The name is still on the door. Same team. And I still set a rate at half five in the morning, which is exactly where that decision belongs.

What changed is what I can say yes to. More offices. A head of compliance I could never have carried on my own. A balance sheet that pays our workers every Friday before the client has paid us.

And a phone full of people who have already done this. On your own, every problem is the first time anybody has ever had it. That stops. It is worth more than I expected it to be.

So. A year on. Same name, same people, considerably more behind them. And every shift still matters. There are just more of us making sure it does.