Who's In Your Corner?

Who is in your corner - No Lonely Founders....

I never thought much about swimming. 

Sure, I knew who Michael Phelps was, after all, who doesn’t? 

But I never really paid attention to the sport. 

That changed when my daughter took it up. Suddenly, I was the guy watching swim meets, learning about stroke counts, and realising just how brutal the sport is. It’s relentless. Every race is won in the margins, fractions of a second, a single misstep, one small miscalculation, a stroke gone wrong.

That’s how I came across the story about Michael Phelps and his coach, Bob Bowman. It stuck with me because it wasn’t just about raw talent. It’s about preparation for the unpredictable, and how having the right people, or person in your corner when your alone, and up against the odds makes all the difference. 

I probably don’t need to tell you that Michael Phelps is one of the greatest Olympians of all. He’s 28 medals (23 gold, 3 silver, 2 bronze) across five Olympic Games kind of great. 

But behind each medal was his coach, Bob Bowman. Bowman wasn’t just there to run drills and shout encouragement from the poolside. He was the one who prepared Phelps for the unexpected.

Before the 2008 Olympics, Bowman had Phelps rehearse a scenario. What's every swimmer's worst nightmare? When their goggles fill with water mid-race.

They practiced it again and again. And then in 2008, during the 200m butterfly final, it happened.

Phelps swam blind.

But he didn’t panic, he didn’t stop. He counted his strokes, trusted his training, and won gold. A world record, completely blind.

That’s the power of having the right people in your corner. They prepare you for the moments you can’t see coming. They push you through doubt, hold you accountable, and make sure you’re ready before the hard stuff hits. 

I learned this firsthand in 2015 when my business was stuck in place. My co-founder Chris Bayliss and I had tried everything to reignite growth in our agency Elastic, but nothing worked.

We were treading water while other agencies thrived. 

Then Chris introduced me to Abdul, a business coach who wasn’t flashy, just sharp, direct, and relentless in asking the right questions. 

Within weeks, we had a new system, a fresh mindset, and a belief in what was possible. 

Two years later, we exited for double our forecast. 

That experience showed me something critical: without the right people guiding you, you’re just guessing in the dark.

Two Extremes

I recently surveyed 100’s of founders and the results startled me.

When asked about their primary emotion as a founder, the responses clustered around two extremes: Scared or Powerful.

This perfectly captures the founder's journey. Oscillating between moments of complete conviction and crippling self-doubt.

The truth? Both emotions serve us. Fear keeps us vigilant, drives innovation and prevents complacency. While power fuels vision, enables bold decisions, inspires others.

But what if you could harness both? What if your fear could feed someone else’s power? What if their power could calm your fear?

That’s why I built No Lonely Founders. It’s not another networking group. It’s a community where real founders have each other’s backs - supporting, challenging, and pushing each other forward. No one is left to figure things out alone. And when the moment comes where everything goes dark, just like Phelps in that race, our members don’t panic. They know exactly how to navigate it.

Common Founder Struggles That No One Talks About

• The pressure to always have the right answers, even when you don’t.
• Decision fatigue from making high-stakes calls every single day.
• Feeling like you can’t be vulnerable with your own team.
• Isolation leading to burnout and second-guessing everything.

Loneliness is something that’s not talked about enough in the founder community. On the surface, startup culture is all passion and energy. Trade shows, LinkedIn posts, pitch events—it’s all about the hustle. But behind the scenes?

I know another side. The one where you’re sitting alone in front of your laptop, crunching numbers, rewriting pitch decks, chasing debts, battling suppliers, trying to avoid looking at your bank account because you don’t want to know how bad it is.

You don’t want to burden your team with the weight of uncertainty. You don’t want to tell your partner how bad it really is, because they’ll just worry. So, you suck it up. Alone.

Burnout gets talked about a lot. But what fuels burnout? Isolation.

What You Get Inside No Lonely Founders

• Hot Seat Coaching – Get straight-to-the-point feedback on your biggest challenges.
• Coffee Club – Informal founder-to-founder chats. Real talk, no fluff.
• Expert Interviews – Learn from people who’ve actually built something, not just talked about it.

Here’s what some of our members think about their experience in No Lonely Founders:

"No lonely founders is a rare chance to step out of the daily grind, connect with like-minded industry peers and tap into a generous community that shares knowledge and perspective - for me that includes memorable takeaways like, in the land of nos, there are yeses, and not always trying to close and solve every thought and loop and that it’s ok to enjoy where you’re at."

Ben Walton, Founder, Bloody Bens

“I come away from NFL gatherings feeling like anything is possible! It’s an amazing community of supportive, knowledgeable and inspiring individuals.”

Gareth Whittle , Founder, Noot

“As a solo entrepreneur,  OT having a team or colleagues to lean on for advice, a questioning ear, or support can be challenging, so it's been great to connect with Dan and other solopreneurs as part of No Lonely Founders to share ideas, expertise, difficulties and good laughs.”

Tim Etherington-Judge , Founder, Avallen