The Founders' Room
Get in touch
Founders. Not consultants.

We've built, scaled and sold a business like yours.
Now we help other founders do the same.

A commercial growth partner for founder-led FMCG and ecommerce brands. Practical advice, commercial experience and hands-on support from people who've actually built businesses.

Let's talk 15 minutes. No pitch.
01 — founded
Started Food Circle from a garage
02 — scaled
Grew it to 150,000+ customer orders
03 — sold
Acquired by Huddled Group PLC, 2024
04 — grew
Scaled Nutricircle 5x post-acquisition
05 — now
Advising founders, working with great brands

Straight answer: is this for you?

We only work with a handful of brands at a time.

Probably not…

  • You want a 60-slide strategy deck.
  • You want presentations more than progress.
  • You're still trying to find product-market fit.

Definitely

  • You run a founder-led consumer brand in FMCG, food & drink, nutrition, wellness or ecommerce.
  • You've built a real business and want an experienced operator in your corner for the next stage of growth.
  • You want someone who's been where you are, not just advised businesses like yours.

We don't replace your team. We become part of it.

How we usually help

Every founder needs something slightly different. These are the three ways we typically work together.
Focused review

Growth Diagnostic

A focused review to identify what's holding growth back. We look at areas like ecommerce, CRM, pricing, Amazon or customer acquisition, then leave you with a clear set of priorities and practical next steps.

Most common

Growth Partner

We work alongside you month after month, helping make commercial decisions, prioritise opportunities and keep momentum. Part operator, part sounding board, part extra pair of hands.

Senior support

Fractional Commercial Leadership

Senior commercial support without the full-time hire. We help lead growth, shape strategy and work alongside your team as the business scales.

No long-term contracts. No one-size-fits-all approach. We'll work out what makes sense together.

Paul Simpson, co-founder of The Founders' Room

"We're not consultants who learned ecommerce. We're founders who lived it, built it, sold it — and wear the P&L scars to prove it."

Paul Simpson, founder · Forbes 30 Under 30

I founded Food Circle, later Nutricircle, and grew it from a garage startup into a multi-million-pound ecommerce business, becoming one of the UK's largest surplus food retailers and serving more than 150,000 customer orders before it was acquired by Huddled Group PLC in 2024.

I then spent two years inside the PLC as COO and Board Director, helping integrate and grow the business before fully exiting in 2026. It taught me lessons you only learn by sitting in the founder's seat.

It's why I treat every decision as if it were my own business. Every pound of your budget matters. Every customer matters. Every commercial decision has consequences.

Today, through The Founders' Room, I work alongside a small number of founder-led brands, helping them build what's next.

Let's have a conversation.

One message, straight to us. No forms disappearing into a queue. We reply personally, usually within a day. No pitch. No pressure.