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Business By Design
Business by Design is the podcast for owners who want to start, scale or exit a business. Each week, Stuart Wemyss and Mena Abraham unpack the four things every business must get right: value, engine, reach and team. Using the VERT flywheel, they show how these fit together to build a business that runs without you, and how the choices you make inside the business flow through to your personal wealth, lifestyle and exit options. Every episode is short and to the point, with no fluff and no sales pitches. Go to https://www.businessbydesignpodcast.com
Episodes
196 episodes
Ep 196: Pricing strategy: are you a price maker or a price taker?
Price is the most powerful profit lever most business owners never think about. In this episode, Mena and I break down the pricing strategy question that matters most: are you a price maker or a price taker?A modest price rise can l...
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Ep 195: People don't buy features, they buy a better life
Most owners sell backwards. You built the thing, so you know every feature and inclusion, and that's exactly what comes out of your mouth when you sell it, while the customer's eyes glaze over. They were never buying a spec sheet; t...
Ep 194: How to reverse-engineer your customer’s ‘Yes’
Before you can test whether people will pay, you need to know whose "yes" you're actually chasing, and most owners get this wrong in a very specific way. In this Value deep dive, Stuart and Mena introduce reverse-engineering the yes...
Ep 193: Stop scaling until someone actually pays you what you want/need
Founders love to scale, but scaling before anyone has paid a real price for a real outcome simply converts a slow failure into a fast, expensive one.In this episode, the first in a deep dive on Value, Stuart names the trap: scaling doesn...
Ep 192: Can you describe your business model in four sentences?
Here's the challenge Stuart opens with: describe your business in four honest sentences, one each for why customers pay, how you deliver profitably, how the right people find you, and how quality holds as you grow.Most owners can talk ab...
Ep 191: Why your business has four problems, not forty
The three "killers" thin margins, poor reach, and weak demand- tell you what's failing, but not what to build. In this episode, Stuart and Mena introduce VERT: Value, Engine, Reach, and Team the operating system underneath those symptoms, and t...
Ep 190: Thin margins and empty pipelines are design problems
A thin margin and an empty pipeline both feel like effort problems, so owners respond with more hours. It rarely works. In this episode, Stuart and Mena reframe both as outputs of how a business is designed its pricing, positioning, and channel...
Ep 189 : Does anyone actually want what you sell?
Before you fix your product, your marketing, or your team, Stuart and Mena argue you have to pressure-test something more fundamental: demand. Get it wrong, and everything else simply compounds a weak foundation. The uncomfortable question most...
Ep 188: Most failing businesses are failing at one thing, not twenty
When a business underperforms, owners tend to assume the cause is complex and set about fixing everything at once. It feels productive, and it almost always fails. Stuart and Mena open with a contrarian claim: struggling businesses are far simp...
Ep 187: Why We Retired "The Holistic Accountant"
After five years, Stuart and Mena are deliberately retiring a brand that was working, and the reasoning matters more than the rename. Through an accounting lens, they argue, you can tell what already happened to profit and cash, but never why a...
Ep 186: The Holiday Test: Can your business run without you?
The holiday test is deceptively simple. If you took four weeks off with no phone, would your business hold its standard, or would it quietly degrade without you? For most business owners, the honest answer points not to a workload problem but t...
Ep 185: Warning- Asking for feedback and ignoring it is a liability
Asking for customer feedback and then ignoring it is not a neutral act; it tells the customer more about the business than any service failure could on its own. This episode opens with a real example of a high-profile restaurant that solicited ...
Ep 184: Stop hiring on gut feel: a scorecard process that works
Most business owners have at least one hiring regret, and most can trace it back to a decision that felt right at the time. The problem is rarely a lack of effort in the interview. It is a lack of structure before and during it. Gut feel tends ...
Ep 183: How business owners can navigate the proposed tax changes
The proposed 2026 budget tax changes have generated significant concern among business owners, but most of the commentary has focused on politics rather than practical strategy. This episode cuts through the noise and addresses what small busin...
Ep 182: EOFY tax planning for business owners
EOFY Planning for Business Owners: What to Do Before 30 JuneWith the end of the financial year fast approaching, business owners still have time to make decisions that can legitimately reduce tax, improve cash flow, and strengthen their ...
Ep 181: Buy your premises or trap your cash? The OpCo-PropCo test
Owning your business premises feels like progress, security, control, and the satisfaction of paying rent to yourself rather than a landlord. But for many founders, it is a decision that quietly traps capital, reduces flexibility, and concentra...
Ep 180: Expansion math: when a new site actually makes you poorer
A second location, a new service line, a broader geographic footprint, expansion feels like the logical next step for a business that has found its footing. But for many founders, it is precisely where profitability begins to quietly unwind.
Ep 179: From lumpy projects to predictable annual recurring revenue
Project-based businesses face a fundamental structural problem: every quarter begins at zero. Revenue can look strong on the surface while cash flow remains volatile, pipeline uncertainty delays hiring decisions, and the founder stays personall...
Ep 178: Lifestyle creep is a capital allocation problem
Surplus cash flow is not the same as freedom; it is a decision point. And what a founder does with it reveals whether they are building income, lifestyle, or enterprise value. This episode frames lifestyle creep not as a personal failing but as...
Ep 177: Controls without bureaucracy- how to scale safely
Most businesses only take controls seriously after something goes wrong—and by then, the cost is already high.In this episode, Stuart and Mena explain why controls become essential as a business grows. In the early stages, trust and visi...
Ep 176: Div 7A liquidity without the tax blow-up
Most Division 7A problems don’t begin with strategy; they begin with behaviour.Money is taken out of the business without a clear plan, documentation falls behind, and by the time advice is sought, the structure is already under pressure...
Ep 175: Buy lease or finance: how to make the right call
“The tax deduction makes it worth it” is one of the most common and costly mistakes business owners make.In this episode, Stuart and Mena break down why taxes should never be the primary reason for acquiring an asset. A deduction can imp...
Ep 174: The delegation tax- saving money is costing you millions
Most business owners focus on hiring costs while completely missing what their own time costs the business.In this episode, Stuart and Mena unpack “The Delegation Tax,” the hidden cost of founders staying too involved in low-value work. ...
Ep 173: Most team problems are actually clarity problems
In this episode, Stuart and Mena challenge one of the most common assumptions in business: that underperformance is a people problem. Instead, he makes the case that most issues inside a team stem from a lack of clarity, unclear expectations, m...
Ep 172: Capital allocation policy: owner wage, buffers, reinvestment, investing, lifestyle
Random distributions create random wealth outcomes.In this episode, Stuart and Mena introduce the concept most business owners don’t have, but desperately need: a written capital allocation policy.They break down how surplus cash ...