The Growth Trap: Lessons from the Founders' Corridor

FOUNDER JOURNEY #3

When Compliance Becomes a Growth Strategy

Sumaiyah Ali Qadri | Zentra | London, UK

What if regulatory compliance could do more than protect a business from risk? What if it could become a competitive advantage, helping businesses acquire customers faster, reduce wasted effort and accelerate growth?

That's the opportunity Sumaiyah Ali Qadri is pursuing with Zentra, drawing on more than a decade of experience in financial crime and regulatory compliance to rethink the role AML can play in commercial growth.

With more than a decade of experience across banking, fintech, payments and regulatory compliance, Sumaiyah has spent much of her career working at the intersection of financial crime prevention, technology and operational efficiency.

That experience led her to establish Zentra, initially conceived as a payments orchestration layer for cross-border payments. The ambition was to help businesses make better decisions about how transactions move across an increasingly complex payments ecosystem.

But Sumaiyah could see the writing on the wall. The payments industry moves at lightning speed, and major players such as Visa, Mastercard and Stripe are continually expanding their capabilities through partnerships and acquisitions.

She recognised that within 18 months, the market could have moved beyond her original proposition. By the time Zentra was ready to compete, the opportunity to establish an independent payments orchestration layer could have narrowed considerably, making differentiation and attracting investment increasingly difficult.

Rather than continue pursuing a proposition she believed would struggle to attract investment, Sumaiyah made the decision to pivot.

Finding the commercial opportunity in compliance

Her new direction draws directly on her strongest area of expertise: anti-money laundering (AML), regulatory controls and financial crime prevention.

But the opportunity she's pursuing isn't simply to provide another compliance screening service.

Sumaiyah wants Zentra to help payment service providers, acquirers and FX businesses identify and qualify prospective customers before they enter the onboarding process. It's a different way of approaching a familiar commercial problem.

For businesses looking to expand their merchant networks, acquiring leads is only part of the challenge. Those prospects must also satisfy regulatory and risk requirements before they can become customers. When leads fail those checks, businesses lose time and resources pursuing opportunities that were unlikely to convert.

Sumaiyah sees an opportunity to bring compliance intelligence further forward in the sales process, helping businesses identify more suitable prospects earlier and reduce wasted acquisition effort.

In effect, she's looking to turn an essential regulatory requirement into a commercial advantage.

Proving the value before pursuing scale

Her immediate priority is straightforward: demonstrate that the revised proposition works commercially.

Rather than lead with another ambitious technology vision, Sumaiyah is concentrating on securing pilot customers, establishing measurable results and converting that early interest into paying business.

One approach she's exploring is offering AML-qualified leads to prospective FX customers during a pilot, allowing them to compare acceptance rates against their existing lead acquisition processes.

She also sees accountancy firms as a potentially valuable referral channel, providing access to businesses that may need FX and payment services.

The underlying commercial argument is simple. If Zentra can help providers spend less time pursuing unsuitable prospects and more time onboarding viable customers, the value becomes measurable.

Sumaiyah is also watching the growth of stablecoin-enabled payment services, particularly businesses that need to navigate the regulatory requirements surrounding the movement and conversion of funds.

But she isn't trying to pursue every opportunity at once.

Her initial market focus is the UK, followed by Europe. The US remains an ambition for a later stage, when the business has the investment and resources to enter that market effectively.

Traction before investment

Sumaiyah's immediate priority is building the commercial evidence to support Zentra's next stage of growth. That means winning customers, demonstrating acceptance rates, validating the revenue opportunity and proving that Zentra can solve a problem that businesses are prepared to pay for.

It's a pragmatic shift from selling the potential of a technology proposition to demonstrating the value of a commercial outcome today. Perhaps that's the most interesting part of her journey.

She hasn't abandoned her ambition to build a business in payments. She's just reconsidered where her expertise can create the greatest value, how quickly that value can be demonstrated and what needs to happen before the business is ready to scale.

For founders, there's an important distinction between persistence and attachment to an original idea.

Markets evolve and competitive conditions are always changing. The hard reality is that new opportunities emerge while others become harder to pursue.

Recognising that shift early enough to act can be one of the most commercially important decisions a founder makes.

The lesson? Conviction matters, but so does knowing when the market is telling you something different. Sometimes the smartest growth decision isn't to accelerate the original plan. It's to change direction, prove the commercial opportunity and build from there.

Backing the next chapter

Sumaiyah is now focused on proving Zentra's commercial model and building the traction needed for its next stage of growth. For investors interested in the intersection of regulatory technology, payments and commercial innovation, she's a founder worth getting to know.

Connect with Sumaiyah to learn more about her plans for Zentra.

Growth rarely follows a straight line. Behind the milestones and success stories are difficult decisions about where to focus, when to accelerate and, sometimes, when to change course.

For Issue 02 of The Founders Corridor, I spoke with four founders across different sectors to explore the realities of building and scaling their businesses.

Their journeys are different, but the challenges are surprisingly familiar: balancing ambition with operational capacity, knowing which opportunities to pursue and recognising when the business needs to evolve.

Here, I share their extended stories and the lessons they've learnt along the way.

FOUNDER JOURNEY #1

From chasing 10x growth to knowing when to slow down.

Alex Macura | YDA (Your Digital Assembly) | Cape Town & Stockholm

Alex Macura spent more than two decades building and scaling digital businesses across international markets before founding YDA five years ago. His journey began in online travel with Travelstart, where he rose to Global Head of Sales and Marketing, before joining Momondo and leading expansion into Sweden, Russia and France. He went on to build the marketing engine at Hult International Business School, help establish and subsequently exit an international education marketplace, and lead growth marketing at African payments company Yoco, where the merchant base grew from 30,000 to 75,000 during his tenure.

It's an impressive track record, but his venture-backed growth experience ultimately led to his next move. Alex had delivered the ambitious growth targets expected of him, yet struggled to build the team needed to sustain that pace. It exposed a problem he had encountered repeatedly: businesses pushing for results without the right people, systems and expertise in place.

YDA was built to address that gap by bringing experienced specialists into businesses to solve commercial problems across marketing, sales, technology and operations. Five years on, it operates with a core team of 10 and a global network of more than 60 specialists and advisers.

Perhaps his biggest shift has been in how he measures success. Having spent years pursuing 10x growth, Alex now sees the value in a more deliberate approach. When growth begins to affect the quality of delivery, he's learnt to step back, strengthen the operation, and only then pursue the next stage.

His lesson for founders is as much about focus as ambition. Not every opportunity deserves pursuing, and sometimes the most valuable person in the business is the one willing to say, "Good idea, but not right now."

"It's actually better to build something that has a more solid system ... so we can actually scale and ... continue to deliver on our promises rather than growing too fast." — Alex Macura

The lesson? Growth should never come at the expense of the business's ability to deliver. Knowing when to narrow your focus, strengthen your foundations and say no to distractions can be just as important as knowing when to accelerate.

“As Bamboo Connect has grown, my role has changed significantly. In the early days, I was involved in almost every aspect of the business, from day-to-day operations to managing customer relationships. As we've scaled, I've had to learn to step back, trust the people around me and empower our leadership team to take ownership and make decisions. That's not always easy when you've built a business from the ground up, but it's essential for growth. Today, my focus is much more on strategy, developing key relationships and ensuring we have the right people, culture and infrastructure to take Bamboo Connect to the next level.”

FOUNDER JOURNEY #2

Building a challenger means challenging your own assumptions.

Eric Fulwiler | Rival | Global

Eric Fulwiler has always been fascinated by high-growth businesses and the challenge of building something from the ground up. Having helped scale VaynerMedia and experienced the challenger mindset first-hand as Chief Marketing & Commercial Officer at fintech venture builder 11:FS, he had an entrepreneurial itch he wanted to scratch. Another CMO role no longer held the same appeal. He wanted to see whether he could build, scale and ultimately create something of his own. That ambition led to Rival, a business conceived to challenge the traditional agency model by combining strategic thinking, technology and services to help ambitious businesses grow.

That ambition attracted strategic backing and partnership from The Adaptavist Group in 2024, whose minority investment brought technology expertise and additional capabilities to support Rival's next stage of growth.

Rival's growth speaks for itself. With revenue increasing 341% between 2022 and 2025, the business earned a place on the 2026 Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies, a testament to the challenger model Eric set out to build.

One of Rival's most important growth decisions involved rethinking its original proposition. Eric initially wanted a strategy-led consultancy, deliberately leaving execution to others. Over time, he recognised that clients weren't looking for another agency or simply more advice. They needed people who could help grow their businesses, and that meant integrating strategy with delivery.

Five years into building Rival, Eric's perspective on growth has evolved. He shared with me that he's learnt that not every opportunity deserves attention and that some of the most important decisions involve knowing where to focus. For him, the fundamentals remain remarkably simple: attracting great people, enabling them to deliver exceptional work and building a commercially sustainable business.

As Rival has grown, he's also recognised the importance of regularly resetting priorities. His role as CEO is to provide clarity, align the team around what matters and establish the standards that enable the business to scale. Looking back, he estimates that just 10 to 15 decisions have materially shaped Rival's journey, despite the thousands made along the way.

His advice to other founders reflects that experience: concentrate on the few decisions that genuinely move the business forward, maintain perspective through the inevitable highs and lows, and surround yourself with people whose experience you can draw upon.

His underlying principle: “Staying true to your vision doesn't mean refusing to change how you deliver it”.

The lesson? Building a successful business isn't about pursuing every opportunity. It's about knowing what matters, adapting when necessary and recognising when to reset. For Eric, that means stepping back every six to eight months to revisit priorities, restore clarity and ensure the business remains focused on what will drive its next stage of growth.

FOUNDER JOURNEY #4

The Business of Growing Better, Not Just Bigger

Juney Mistiki | Bamboo Connect | UK, Europe and Asia

When Juney Mistiki co-founded Bamboo Connect in 2009, the business supplied refurbished mobile devices to the insurance sector. Seventeen years later, the company has grown into an international technology and services partner, managing much more of the device claims and lifecycle journey.

Yet this transformation didn't happen overnight.

For more than seven years, the company has been steadily developing its capabilities, investing in technology and expanding its international operations. Rebranding from Bamboo Distribution to Bamboo Connect in 2025 marked an important milestone in that journey, reflecting a business that had moved well beyond its original offering.

For Juney, who has spent more than three decades working across telecommunications and device services, the evolution has been shaped by a deep understanding of the industry and the changing needs of its customers.

Before establishing Bamboo Connect, he held senior commercial positions at Vodafone, European Telecom, Intec Distribution and Regenersis PLC. That experience provided a strong foundation for building a business in an industry where operational reliability and customer relationships matter enormously.

Technology continues to play an important role in supporting that ambition. Bamboo Connect's Optima and Opus platforms are evolving alongside the business, with Juney particularly interested in how AI could improve operational insight and give customers greater visibility across the device claims lifecycle.

For Juney, the challenge is ensuring that the business continues to develop the capabilities needed to deliver as its responsibilities and customer relationships grow.

Keeping people close as the business expands

Technology and operational infrastructure are important parts of Bamboo Connect's growth story, but Juney's leadership philosophy also places considerable emphasis on people. He sees his role as ensuring the business continues to grow without losing the principles that helped make it successful.

He identified three priorities: doing the right thing, looking after people and delivering for customers.

Those principles are reflected in the company’s values: Be always better, Be curious and Do the right thing.

Juney has spoken about encouraging employees to share ideas, creating opportunities for people to develop and maintaining an open-door culture. As Bamboo Connect has expanded internationally and its workforce has grown, maintaining that connection becomes more demanding. Teams are managing different activities across multiple locations. Responsibilities are more specialised, and leaders increasingly rely on others to make decisions and solve problems.

Juney's emphasis on developing people and encouraging open communication offers some insight into how he approaches that challenge:

Building beyond the original business

The device claims and lifecycle industry has long faced challenges associated with fragmented supply chains, inconsistent device naming conventions and a lack of standardised governance.

A single device can pass through multiple vendors, logistics providers, repair centres and refurbishment partners. Each handover introduces another layer of complexity, making it harder to maintain visibility, track inventory and coordinate activities across the device lifecycle.

For insurers managing large volumes of devices, these challenges create a need for greater coordination and more integrated services.

The opportunity to address these challenges is something Juney recognised early on. I asked him what first convinced him that Bamboo Connect needed to move beyond distribution.

“Early on, I recognised that our customers needed much more than simply supplying replacement devices. Insurers were facing increasing challenges managing the complexity of mobile phone claims, from sourcing and logistics to asset recovery and customer experience. As device values increased and customer expectations evolved, it became clear there was an opportunity for Bamboo to play a much bigger role. Rather than just being a distributor, I wanted us to become a strategic partner, providing end-to-end solutions, technology and expertise that would simplify the entire claims process and deliver greater value to our customers.”

That thinking has shaped Bamboo Connect's evolution into a business supporting more of the device journey once an insurance claim has been approved, including sourcing, fulfilment, delivery, repair, refurbishment, reverse logistics and wider lifecycle services.

Its Optima platform supports the operational management of these activities, while Opus provides business intelligence, data profiling and reporting capabilities.

The move into integrated and managed services has also changed the nature of Bamboo Connect's customer relationships. Existing partners can now consolidate more of their operational requirements with one provider, reducing the need to coordinate multiple suppliers across different stages of the device lifecycle.

Growing the business internationally

As Bamboo Connect expanded its services, its international presence grew alongside them. What began as a UK business has developed into an international operation, with its Netherlands hub playing an important role in supporting customers across Europe.

That growth has also brought considerable recognition. In 2018, Bamboo Connect received the Queen's Award for Enterprise in International Trade, followed by the King's Award for Enterprise in International Trade in 2025.

The momentum continued into 2026, with three further awards: Technology Partner of the Year and ESG: Sustainable Claims Initiative of the Year at the Claims & Fraud Awards, alongside Best Business of the Year at the Women in Green Awards.

These achievements reflect the company's progress across international growth, technology, operational innovation and sustainability.

With new customers coming on board and existing partners entrusting Bamboo Connect with more of their portfolios, Juney sees further opportunities to deepen the company's European presence.

Looking back on the journey, I asked Juney about the challenges of taking the business international and the role the Netherlands operation played in making that possible. His response:

“One of the biggest challenges was taking a successful UK business model and adapting it to operate across multiple countries, each with different markets, customer expectations and logistical complexities. We needed to ensure we could deliver the same high standards of service and reliability that we had built our reputation on in the UK. Establishing our Netherlands operation was a significant milestone, providing us with a strategic European hub and the infrastructure to support our clients across multiple markets. It gave us the confidence and capability to scale internationally and laid the foundations for our next phase of growth across Europe.”

The next stage of growth

Juney's focus is firmly on Europe, where insurers managing device claims across multiple markets face the challenge of fragmented supply chains, different operating requirements and inconsistent service delivery.

He sees an opportunity for Bamboo Connect to help address that complexity by providing more integrated, locally supported services across the region.

Building on its Netherlands operational hub, Juney is exploring additional European hubs and bringing in the right expertise to support customers in each market.

For him, the next stage is about deepening the company's European presence and ensuring the business has the infrastructure and people in place to deliver before expanding into markets further afield, such as the US..

His advice to fellow founders, for approval: “Never let the ambition to grow distract you from the people, relationships and standards that made your business successful.”

The lesson? Growing a business often means making decisions that take it beyond its original purpose. The challenge is knowing where to expand, what capabilities to build and how to keep the organisation working well as it changes.

“As we took on more responsibility, we had to evolve from a traditional distribution business into a more structured, technology-driven service organisation. This meant investing in our people, bringing in specialist expertise, developing our own technology platforms and strengthening our operational processes. We also had to change our mindset, moving from simply fulfilling orders to taking ownership of the wider customer journey. Ultimately, it was about building a business that could deliver more complex services, maintain our high standards and scale alongside our clients' ambitions.”

Growth is only valuable if the business can deliver

Having built Bamboo Connect from a device distribution business into an international operation, Juney understands that growth brings new challenges.

The business he co-founded in 2009 looks very different today. Its services have expanded, its teams have grown and its operations have become more complex. Taking responsibility for more of the customer journey has required the business itself to evolve.

I asked Juney what had to change internally to make that transition possible. His response highlighted just how much the business had to evolve, both operationally and in its approach to serving customers:

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