The orbit approach
Why you can’t scale a business alone, and how to bring the right people in
As a business grows, it starts to attract more around it, more people, more capability, more decisions. It becomes less about what sits at the centre and more about how everything around it moves and connects. That’s the idea behind the Orbit Approach.
It doesn’t mean building a huge internal team or locking into one agency to do everything. In reality, the shape of what you need changes over time, and different stages call for different strengths.
What I’ve found over the years is that the real value isn’t just in knowing good people, it’s in understanding how to build the right orbit around a business at the right moment, bringing in the right capability when it’s needed, and stepping back when it’s doing its job.
I’ve spent a lot of time commissioning, delivering, and working alongside agencies and specialist teams, which means I can see the subtle differences between them, what they’re great at, where they struggle, and when they’re most effective. That experience shapes how I think about scaling, not as a fixed team, but as something more dynamic.
You can’t scale a business alone
At some point, every business hits the same realisation, you can’t do it all yourself, no matter how capable the team is. Often you are either too busy on other things, or just to darn close to the mirror to see the bigger picture and have that outside perspective. Early on, you can get surprisingly far with a small group, a bit of instinct, and a willingness to figure things out as you go.
But that only works for so long, eventually things start to stretch, decisions get heavier, and what got you here won’t get you there. That’s usually the moment people think, we need help.
They’re right, but this is also where it often goes wrong, because it’s not just about bringing people in, it’s about knowing who to bring in, and when.
You can hire, but you don’t need to hire everything
There are two common reactions when things start to scale, either you hire internally and try to build everything in-house, or you look outward and start bringing in agencies, specialists, and partners.
In reality, most businesses end up somewhere in the middle, building a core team while leaning on external support for things like brand, product, legal, PR, or growth.
The mistake is thinking all of that should happen at once, or assuming any good agency can solve any problem at any stage. They can’t, and this is where a bit of orchestration makes a big difference.
Early stage: don’t overbuild before it’s earned it
Right at the beginning, what you need most is clarity, clarity on the problem, the customer, and whether anyone actually cares enough to pay for what you’re building.
This is messy by nature, conversations, rough prototypes, quick tests, a bit of trial and error. If you bring in too much too early, you risk overbuilding something that hasn’t earned the right to exist.
At this stage, it’s about learning, not polishing, using the right capability in a targeted way rather than throwing everything at it.
As things take shape: start being more deliberate
Once you’ve got some signal, everything shifts slightly, maybe you’ve got early customers, internal buy-in, or something that’s clearly working. Now how you show up starts to matter more.
This is where businesses start thinking about brand, product experience, and sharper messaging, but not every agency is built for this stage. Some are brilliant at shaping early ideas, others are far better once you’re scaling and need consistency and depth.
They might look similar from the outside, but they’re not, and choosing based on reputation rather than stage is where things often drift off course.
When it gets serious: bring in weight, not just activity
As you move further into scale, the stakes change, you’re committing real budget, building something that needs to last, and thinking about structure, protection, and growth. This is where you start bringing in heavier support, proper brand thinking, robust product and engineering, legal that actually protects what you’re creating, and commercial structure that makes sense.
At this point it’s not just about getting things done, it’s about getting them done in the right order, by the right people, with a clear sense of how it all fits together.
It’s not just about obvious partners
When people think about bringing others in, they usually default to the obvious pairings.
If you’re working on brand, you bring in a web team. If you need legal support, you bring in a specific type of lawyer. If you’re scaling marketing, you might add a search or social media agency, PR etc. Those are well understood.
The less obvious connections
Where things get more interesting, and where a lot of value gets created, is in the less obvious combinations.
Things like connecting and aligning your grant writer with R&D tax specialists, aligning product thinking with funding strategy earlier than usual, or bringing legal into shapre IP strategy before something is fully formed, rather than at the end.
Individually, these functions exist in most businesses, but they’re rarely orchestrated together in a way that actually compounds value.
This is where the orbit becomes useful
The orbit isn’t just a list of people, it’s a way of thinking about how different capabilities sit around a business, and more importantly, how they connect at different stages.
Some relationships are obvious, some are less so, and some only become visible once you’ve seen enough patterns over time. That’s often where the real leverage is.
The real skill is knowing the difference
From the outside, a lot of agencies look the same, they’ve all got strong case studies, polished websites, and they all present well. But in practice their strengths vary massively, some thrive in ambiguity while others need a clear brief, some are built for speed, others for scale.
The challenge isn’t finding a good agency, it’s recognising the type of capability you need at that specific moment, and that’s not always obvious unless you’ve sat on both sides of the table.
A few practical tips
If you’re scaling and thinking about bringing in external help, a few things tend to make a difference.
- Be honest about the stage you’re actually at, not where you’d like to be
- Don’t over-invest too early, but don’t under-invest when it starts to matter
- Choose partners based on fit for stage, not just reputation
- Avoid trying to make one partner do everything
- Think in sequences, not one big engagement
Small decisions here can have a big impact later.
You don’t need to do it all, but you do need to orchestrate it
Scaling a business isn’t really about having all the answers yourself, it’s about shaping the right environment around you so the right things can happen at the right time, bringing in the right capability when it’s needed, letting people lean into what they’re genuinely good at, and knowing when to step in to add clarity or direction without taking over.
Some people hold on too tightly and try to control everything, others let go too early and hand too much away, but the sweet spot sits somewhere in between, where you stay close to the vision, guide the direction, and create just enough structure for others to do their best work without trying to do it all yourself.
That’s the orbit, and getting that balance right is often the difference between momentum and friction as you scale.
Where I tend to sit in all of this
Over time, you naturally build a sense of what good looks like, not just in individual teams, but in how different capabilities come together around a business.
You also build a network along the way, people you’ve worked with, trusted, and seen deliver in different situations. But the value isn’t really in having a list of contacts, it’s in knowing how and when to bring the right combination of people together so it actually works.
A lot of that comes down to connecting dots internally as much as externally, when sales is pushing for something in Q2, marketing is heading in a slightly different direction, brand is doing its own thing, and customer experience is often the bit that gets missed altogether.
That’s typically where I find myself sitting, somewhere between the idea, the business, and the people needed to move it forward, helping spot patterns, shape the approach, and connect the right capability at the right time without overcomplicating it.
