Why I Ignored a Veteran's Advice and Built My Consultancy Anyway

A few years ago, I sat across from a consultant who had been in the game for over 20 years.

He looked at my plans and said, "Don't do it. The market's crowded. You'll burn out chasing clients. Just join a firm instead."

I nodded. Smiled. And then I went ahead and built my consultancy anyway.

Not because I thought I knew better. But because I saw something he didn't: European seed and Series A founders don't need another generic agency. They need someone who gets the chaos of building a GTM engine from scratch when you've got 5 people and 12 months to prove you deserve the next round.

That veteran consultant wasn't lying. The market is crowded. Clients are hard to win. You do work weekends sometimes.

But his advice came from a different world. He worked with enterprise clients, big budgets, long sales cycles.

I wanted to work with founders who are still in the thick of it. The ones doing sales calls between product demos. The ones who know their current approach won't scale but aren't sure what to do next.

That's a different game. And it's the one I wanted to play.

Most GTM consultancies focus on growth-stage companies. They want clients with proven models, marketing teams, and budget to spend.

But what about the founder at seed or Series A? The one who just closed their round and now has to build a repeatable sales process before the money runs out?

They're stuck between two bad options:

• Keep doing founder-led sales and become the bottleneck
• Hire someone senior too early and burn cash on the wrong person

I'd seen this pattern over and over. And I knew I could help.

When I was running GTM for an early-stage SaaS company, I would have killed for someone who could just sit down and say: here's the playbook, here's how to hire your first sales hire, here's how to build a pipeline you can actually forecast.

Instead, I had to figure it out the hard way. Trial and error. Expensive mistakes. Late nights wondering if we'd hit our numbers.

So I built Propelito to be that person for founders. Not a big agency with account managers and decks. Just hands-on help to build a GTM engine that actually works.

Proven playbooks. Real coaching. Tools you can use tomorrow.

That veteran was right about one thing: it's hard work.

There were months where I questioned everything. Clients who weren't the right fit. Proposals that went nowhere.

But then I'd get on a call with a founder who just closed their first deal without being in the room. Or see a team start hitting pipeline targets they set together.

That's the part the veteran didn't mention. The part where you build something that actually matters to people.

Not because it's easy. Because it's yours.

I'm glad I ignored that advice.

Not because I proved anyone wrong. But because I built something that helps founders move from chaos to a repeatable GTM engine. Something that increases their chances of closing the next round and frees them up to focus on product and strategy.

If you're a European seed or Series A founder struggling to scale beyond founder-led sales, I've been there. And I built Propelito to help you get unstuck.

The veteran consultant is probably still shaking his head. But the founders I work with are closing deals. And that's all that matters.

Ready to build a GTM engine that works without you in every deal? Let's talk.