I am approaching the first anniversary of Lloyds Development Capital’s (LDC) investment in Harper James. When the transaction completed in September 2025, I had spent more than 11 years building the firm, funding its growth from cash flow and making the final call on almost every important decision. By that point, we had supported more than 6,500 businesses, built a team of over 140 people and achieved consistent double-digit growth.

The process itself had a clear finish line after management presentations, due diligence, legal documents and, in our case, Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) approval. Completion felt enormous because so much work went into reaching it. Then Monday arrived: the clients, the team and the day-to-day decisions were all still there, but the context in which I made those decisions had changed. I remain founder and CEO with a significant amount invested, but it is no longer only my capital at stake.

For me, that has been the biggest adjustment. I’m still leading the business and making decisions, but I can’t rely on everyone knowing the history behind them or simply trusting my instinct. I have to explain the thinking, show the numbers and be prepared for it to be challenged.

Taking the investor with you

LDC backs the management team to run Harper James, and responsibility for those decisions remains with us. But there is more rigour around how we make and explain them. Forecasts need to stand up to scrutiny, and investments need a clear rationale, owner, timescale and expected return. 

Founders carry years of context in their heads. They know why a particular hire matters, why a return may take time and why one month may not tell the whole story. An investor sees the plan, the numbers, the board papers and what management tells them. I therefore have to take the investor with me, rather than assume the context is obvious.

Looking back, I can see how many decisions I made almost entirely on instinct. I still trust that instinct because it comes from years of building the business. But having to explain why I believe something, and having other people test it, makes me think harder about some decisions. It can take longer, but quite often the outcome is better for it.

We also benefit from LDC’s experience of supporting businesses through similar stages of growth, which gives us another useful perspective when we’re making decisions the Harper James of five years ago simply didn’t have to make.

Attracting experienced leaders

Private equity backing has helped us bring in people who have worked through this stage of growth before. That experience is invaluable;  they’ve seen what happens when a business gets bigger and more complex, and they know where things can start to creak. Our next stage requires people who are comfortable making significant decisions and being accountable for what happens next, without everything coming back to me. They know how to turn ambitious plans into clear priorities, keep several major projects moving and follow through on what has been agreed. The point isn’t to build a bigger management structure but enable the business to move faster, because more people can own big decisions, and get things done.

Judging the deal over years, not months

Recently, a family member told me they had been nosy enough to look at our latest accounts online. Seeing how much the business had grown, they asked whether I regretted doing the deal when I did. It’s a fair question: if the business is worth more now, why sell part of it then?

But I didn’t take investment because I thought Harper James had reached the limit of what it could become. I did it because I believed LDC’s backing could help us build a bigger and better business than I could have built alone. That means taking our model to more clients, creating more opportunities for our people and continuing to grow without losing the things that made Harper James different in the first place. 

So I don’t spend much time comparing what the business was worth then with what it might be worth today. I’m much more interested in where we can get to over the next few years with LDC’s backing, compared with where we might have got to on our own.

A year in, I still care about Harper James just as much as I did when every decision stopped with me. But it is no longer only mine, and that changes how I lead it. I have to share more context, make decisions that can stand up to challenge and create clear accountability for what happens next. That has required some adjustment from me and from the business. I can’t keep as much in my own head, and I can’t be involved in everything. In many ways that is probably exactly what needed to happen for Harper James to move into its next stage.