Founder · Entrepreneur · Advisor
Building businesses. Creating value. Staying in the game.
25 years of entrepreneurship across sport, consumer products and premium markets. I’ve built businesses from nothing, created brands worth eight figures, worked alongside elite athletes and raised millions in investment.
Today, I’m building the most ambitious venture of my career. EKLEKTOS.
About
Twenty-five years. Multiple ventures. One consistent philosophy.
I started my first business with no funding, no blueprint and no guarantees. Just an idea, conviction and a willingness to back myself long before anyone else had a reason to.
Twenty-five years later, I’ve built and scaled businesses across sport, consumer products and premium markets. Some worked spectacularly. Some didn’t. All of them taught me something.
I’ve co-founded a cricket and golf brand that reached an eight-figure valuation. I’ve built a consumer products company from zero to an eight-figure valuation in five years. I’ve raised millions of pounds of investment. I’ve written books, worked closely with elite athletes and built relationships with senior figures across sport, business and investment.
And I’ve experienced the other side of entrepreneurship too. Setbacks. Wrong decisions. Deals that didn’t happen. Plans that took years longer than expected. That’s where much of the real learning happens.
Because after 25 years, I’ve become convinced that entrepreneurship is not simply about having the best idea. It’s about staying in the game long enough to give that idea the opportunity to become something.
Conviction matters. Resilience matters. Relationships matter. And time matters.
Everything I’ve built has reinforced the same belief: enduring businesses are rarely created through noise, shortcuts or momentum alone. They’re built through clarity, discipline, trusted relationships and long-term thinking.
That philosophy now shapes both the businesses I build and the founders I advise.
The Journey
My career has never followed a conventional path. It has been a succession of ideas, businesses, opportunities, setbacks, relationships and decisions that have ultimately led to what I’m building today.
My entrepreneurial career began in sport. I co-founded and built a cricket and golf brand from the ground up, competing in markets dominated by some of the world's largest sporting brands. What started as an idea became an international business and ultimately achieved an eight-figure valuation. It also gave me the opportunity to work closely with elite professional sportspeople and some of the most respected figures in British sport.
My fascination with performance eventually led me into writing. I co-authored a book examining the psychology, habits and experiences behind elite sporting performance, drawing on conversations with sixteen highly respected figures from British sport. The subject was ostensibly sport. The lessons were much broader: confidence, preparation, resilience, leadership, handling pressure and recovering from failure.
Starting from zero, we created a challenger brand, developed innovative products, built national distribution and competed against substantially larger and better-funded businesses. Within five years, the company had achieved an eight-figure valuation. You don't always need the most money, the biggest team or the established name - but you do need a compelling proposition, relentless execution and the conviction to keep going.
After more than two decades of building my own businesses, founders increasingly began asking me to help with theirs. Strategy. Positioning. Fundraising. Investment readiness. Commercialisation. Brand. And, perhaps most importantly, the difficult decisions that don't come with an obvious answer. That work eventually became a formal part of what I do.
EKLEKTOS is the culmination of much of what the previous 25 years has taught me. Quietly developed over two years, it is a carefully governed private institution for a highly selective global membership, built around trust, discretion, relevance and relationships capable of compounding over decades. Not networking for networking's sake. Not access for the sake of access. Something much more deliberate.
Many of the characteristics that separate exceptional athletes from everyone else are remarkably similar to those required to build an exceptional business.
Current Venture
The most ambitious venture yet. EKLEKTOS is the culmination of much of what the previous 25 years has taught me. Quietly developed over two years, it is a carefully governed private institution for a highly selective global membership, built around trust, discretion, relevance and relationships capable of compounding over decades.
Not networking for networking’s sake. Not access for the sake of access. Something much more deliberate. The Founding Assembly is now taking shape.
At the highest levels, access is rarely the issue. What becomes truly valuable is trust, relevance, discretion and relationships that continue to compound over time.
Why I Advise
Every business I’ve built started in much the same way. As a decision made without certainty, at a moment when the stakes felt real. That’s the part most advice skips over. I’ve raised capital. I’ve built brands from nothing. I’ve negotiated with investors. I’ve recruited teams. I’ve launched products. I’ve competed against businesses with vastly greater resources. I’ve made good decisions, and I’ve made the wrong call more than once. Experience doesn’t mean having every answer. It means having enough perspective to recognise the questions that actually matter. That’s what I bring to founders. The work isn’t about telling you what to do. It’s about helping you think more clearly when the path isn’t obvious and the decision genuinely matters.
Who I Work With
My advisory work is deliberately selective. I work best with ambitious founders and leadership teams who already have something real but recognise that the next stage requires greater clarity. That might mean preparing for investment, repositioning a business, developing the commercial model, creating a fundraising strategy, working through a major strategic decision, or simply having someone experienced outside the business who can challenge the thinking without having an agenda. I won’t pretend to know your business better than you do. My role is to help you see it more clearly.
Where I Can Help
Clarifying where the business is going, what matters most and what needs to happen next.
Investment strategy, investor positioning, fundraising materials and preparing founders for the conversations that determine whether capital gets raised.
Turning an interesting proposition into something customers, partners and investors can immediately understand and value.
Finding the clearest and most compelling articulation of why the business should exist and why anyone should care.
A confidential outside perspective on the decisions that become difficult when you're sitting in the middle of them.
Strategic Advisory
Whether you are preparing to raise investment, reposition your business, accelerate growth or navigate a complex strategic challenge, the right conversation at the right time can change the trajectory of an organisation.
I work with a small number of founders, entrepreneurs and leadership teams each year, bringing more than 25 years of experience building businesses, raising investment and developing brands across multiple sectors.
Every engagement is tailored to the specific challenges facing your business.
How We Work Together
Every business faces moments when an experienced, independent perspective can make a meaningful difference.
Drawing on more than 25 years of building, leading and financing businesses, I work directly with founders, entrepreneurs and leadership teams to bring clarity to complex challenges, identify opportunities and help turn ambition into practical action.
Engagements are deliberately personal, focused and tailored to the business.
A confidential, focused discussion to explore your business, its challenges, opportunities and strategic priorities. An opportunity to benefit from more than 25 years of entrepreneurial experience and independent commercial perspective.
A Focused Starting Point
A focused assessment designed to give founders and business owners greater clarity, direction and actionable recommendations.
Includes:
An intensive, collaborative working session focused on resolving specific business challenges, refining strategy, identifying commercial opportunities and establishing clear priorities for execution.
A more comprehensive engagement for founders and leadership teams seeking deeper strategic analysis, commercial direction and practical solutions to complex business challenges.
An immersive strategic engagement providing experienced, independent entrepreneurial insight across business strategy, growth, fundraising preparation, commercial positioning and leadership decision-making.
All engagements are agreed in advance with a clearly defined scope. Consultations and Strategic Business Reviews are payable upon booking. Workshops and advisory intensives require a 50% deposit to secure the engagement, with the balance payable before commencement.
Where appropriate, the cost of an Initial Strategic Consultation may be credited against a larger advisory engagement.
If it feels right for both sides, we move forward.
If it doesn’t, there is absolutely no obligation.
A Quarter-Century of Entrepreneurship
But numbers only tell part of it. The greater value lies in the accumulated experience behind them. Thousands of decisions. Hundreds of pitches and negotiations. Products that worked. Ideas that didn’t. People who changed the trajectory. Moments when stopping would have been easier than continuing. And the perspective that only comes from doing it for long enough.
Philosophy
One thing my career has taught me above everything else is that you have to keep going, even when the path feels endless and the summit is nowhere in sight. I’ve built businesses people said wouldn’t work. I’ve launched products that were dismissed before they succeeded. I’ve spent years on ideas that took far longer than I expected. If I’d listened to every sceptic along the way, I would have turned back long ago.
What I’ve learned is that if you genuinely believe in something and you’re willing to keep climbing through doubt, setbacks and long periods where nothing seems to be happening, opportunities eventually begin to appear. One introduction becomes two. One conversation becomes five. One believer becomes a team. Momentum isn’t something you suddenly discover at the top. It’s something you build with every step you refuse to stop taking.
For me, there’s always been one thing at the centre of that: self-belief. Not arrogance. Not pretending to have every answer. Just the quiet, stubborn conviction that if you keep going long enough, learn quickly enough and remain open enough to the people you meet along the way, you’ll eventually find a way forward.
Stay in the game.
“Joe has always possessed a rare combination of entrepreneurial resilience, strategic intelligence, and the ability to build genuine long-term relationships at the highest level.
Over many years working together, I’ve seen first-hand his ability to think differently, remain calm under pressure, and bring clarity and energy to ambitious ideas and complex situations.
He is someone who understands that meaningful businesses and meaningful relationships are built patiently, thoughtfully, and over time.”
Karl Morris
Europe’s Leading Mind Coach · May 2026
“Joe brought exceptional clarity, strategic depth, and practical insight. He quickly understood the business, identified the key priorities, and delivered recommendations that exceeded our expectations and added immediate value. I would recommend him without hesitation to any founder or executive seeking high-calibre strategic advisory support.”
Michael McGinley
Founder, Stone Cookers · May 2026
What’s Next
Twenty-five years into my entrepreneurial career, I’m more interested in what’s ahead than what’s behind. EKLEKTOS is now my principal venture and the most ambitious institution I’ve attempted to build. Alongside it, I continue to work selectively with founders where I believe my experience, network and perspective can make a meaningful difference. I’m always interested in meeting exceptional people building interesting things. If that’s you, let’s start a conversation.
Contact
Whether you’re building a company, raising capital, facing an important strategic decision or simply think our paths should cross, I’d be pleased to hear from you.
Joe Sillett · Founder · Entrepreneur · Advisor