Episode #10
S2E10: Stop being the lynchpin: Delegation, ownership & letting go, with Sara Boltman
Sara Boltman founded Butterfly Data in 2003. She'd seen what her employer was charging for her time and decided she could probably do it herself. For years it was a solo operation, run on three-month contracts around house renovations and two small children. Today it's a data consultancy of nearly 50 people, working on citizen-scale data for government departments, banks and insurers. It's also employee-owned and a certified B Corp. In this episode, Sara and I cover: Choosing data over nuclear. Why a physics graduate sponsored by Nuclear Electric chose dot-com era consulting instead, and how a scientist's habit of testing a hypothesis applies to running a business. The breakfast meeting. The 2019 approach from an acquirer that made her realise she needed to learn how consultancies scale. Working for free. The Home Office ACE framework, a year of unpaid work before the first paid commission, and the pitfalls of proofs of concept that bypass IT and finance. Going employee-owned mid-growth. Why she did it to solve a retention problem rather than to fund an exit, and why she calls Butterfly the John Lewis of consultancies. The "so what" problem. Why nobody cares that you're a B Corp or employee-owned until you explain what it means for them. Getting picky about clients. How narrowing her focus changed what Butterfly bids for, and the moment she accuses me of "differentiation shaming". SenseIV. Her medtech side venture, which grew out of a hackathon and has just raised its first seed round. Sara closes with Snog Marry Avoid: track what each win really costs you, only go into harness with people whose values match yours, and stop being the single point of failure in your own business. Send us a message
