One idea to Build your Business, one idea to Scale your life. Every Wednesday.

Welcome to Winformation Weekly. My 13 years’ experience of growing a business from £0-£100m, and the life that goes with it. All wrapped up, in one winning weekly email.

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Business

My Top 5 Businesses to Avoid in 2025

The phrase "there’s no such thing as a bad idea" gets thrown around a lot, but it doesn’t always hold true—especially when deciding what kind of business you want to run. While every business involves risk that must be considered, analysed, and managed, some industries are better avoided unless you have significant experience, particularly if you're aiming to scale. Here are five types of businesses you might want to steer clear of.

1. Restaurants. I speak from experience on this one. Now, we all love food, but the failure rate for restaurants is pretty massive. Essentially you have a fickle customer base who are eager to try new things in town, which means not eating at your place all the time. And why? Because there’s a lot of competition. Not to mention high set up costs, meaning it’s probably best avoided unless you have a lot of experience in this sector.

2. Hotels. It’s tough to make money because you need big investment to get started and a customer base that comes and goes. Recruitment for staff can be a challenge and further continual expenditure is needed to maintain the standard of rooms.

3. Boutiques. Retail is a beast to conquer, with even the big players struggling to maintain their position on the high streets of the country. So, an independent shop with little footfall will struggle and die unless it specialises wildly in something.

4. Low barrier to enter sectors. Like dog walking, cake making or party planning. It’s not to say there’s anything wrong with these ideas per se, but they’re viable to anyone to try with very little up-front costs. As a business it’s better to have as high a barrier to entry as possible because it protects you from potential competitors.

5. Event businesses. With so much riding on a single date, and the sporadic nature of the income, event businesses really are left to the experts. Festivals, club nights, seasonable events have been going bust at a huge rate since the 2010s and for good reason. Often events can be great supplementary revenue to an established business, but I think there are far easier ways to find success in the modern world.

Life

How to Deliver Unpopular Change

Change - it’s an inevitable part of our lives and yet so many of us are resistant to it, but in business and in life, it is important you give people what they need, even if at the time that is not always what they want. Change won’t always be popular, but sometimes it is necessary. Here are the six steps on how you can successfully deliver it and help further propel your business and your life.

1. Anticipate the reaction. Think about how your team will react to the news before you deliver it. You may not be able to predict exactly, but giving some thought to it will help you craft your message to meet any potential fears and concerns.

2. Don’t delay. There’s no use sitting on information for too long. Once you know the direction you’ve decided to head into it is time to communicate the message or risk rumours and gossip that could derail what you want to put in motion.

3. Be prepared. Like any other presentation, ensure you have gone through it and are comfortable with it, so you appear authentic when doing so. Also consider which specific location and at what time you share the news.

4. Communicate clearly. You will do nobody any favours by using ambiguous language, like ‘maybe,’ might,’ or ‘sort of.’ Clearly describe the decision and who and what it impacts and what the next steps are. Step one helps better achieve this step.

5. Clear the air. Even by following the previous three steps it is possible you will be met by some resistance. Have empathy towards that, allowing the team to air any grievances. Being heard can sometimes be sufficient for some to come around and begin to see positive elements to the change.

6. Have open conversations. Having cleared the air and recognised any resistance to the talk of change, people deserve to have a proper conversation about any change. So, don’t communicate it only via email, allowing people the time and space to ask questions and share their thoughts.

…Plus More!

Success’ Big Surprise

One of the biggest (and most surprising) lessons I have learned over the past 13 years is that the art of becoming what society would deem successful is in fact, pretty boring. From my experience there is no “big deal” or “huge pivotal moment” it’s just the same day, optimised and executed as closely to perfectly as possible, repeated, thousands of times. Success is the discipline of that consistency, which in itself, can be hugely mundane. But...if you can stick it...”there is magic in the mundane”.

Until next week! 

Let’s win, together!