Creating movements for sustainable innovation

Commercial & brand strategy, design and storytelling, for the founders building the materials and hardware the planet needs.

For founders who are past the lab and into the harder problem: getting someone else to believe in it too.

The problem

You've built something innovative. The science is sound, the data's there, maybe you've already got a patent or two, but now you need to get more people to share your vision and help make it real.

Maybe you’re ready to scale but your brand hasn’t kept up with your growth.

Or perhaps people don’t quite understand the material or product.

Or your story changes every time you tell it and you’re not 100% clear on the commercial model or who the customer really is.

You need help to bring your innovation to life. You can see the vision (although you might have a few versions of it), you just can't get anyone else to see it as clearly as you do.

You need partners, manufacturers, licensees or launch customers to take a risk on something that’s not quite real yet.

We can help.

We’ve been there

Richard had an idea on a ski slope once: a material that stayed soft until the moment of impact, then hardened almost instantly to absorb it. The science was solid. It still took ninety-seven investor pitches before anyone believed it should exist. The full story

We know what it takes to get a new material or process believed in by the people you need help from to make it happen: the manufacturing partner who has to say yes before the product exists, the buyer who's never heard of you, the investor who needs to believe in the future you're describing, not just understand it and even the end consumer who you need to help you create demand.

Ingredient branding:

a missed opportunity?

You've built something truly innovative; a material, a process, an ingredient, a technology, and the obvious (and seemingly quickest) route to market is selling it to whoever manufactures the product that it live in. No brand needed, you just sell your innovation, right? It's faster to get going, but it also leaves a huge amount of value sitting on the table and no way to defend your space in the category when the competition catches up.

We know this because it's the exact choice D3O faced, and it's not the one we took. We built D3O into a brand the end customer actually recognised and wanted, which meant Puma, Head, Burton, and The North Face weren't just buying a material, they were buying something their own customers already asked for by name (a different negotiation entirely), and in the end, it meant that D3O owned the category in the hearts and minds of the customer for a long time.

You're not selling a material anymore. You're selling something that has value that can far exceed what the material itself provides - a sense of belonging to a tribe and a space in the customer’s mind that only you occupy.

You can charge more, because you're not a commodity. And you can offer the brand you're selling into something else valuable: help telling the story of what's actually inside their product.

This only works if the brand is built properly: a solid strategy and understanding of the people its for and the ecosystem it lives in.

We know where you need to sit in the supply chain, and when during that timeline you need to be visible. We know what it takes to build a movement around an innovation. We know how to get people talking about something most people on face value wouldn’t understand. We know how to make your innovation meaningful and marketable, not just measurable. It's a different skill from branding a product people buy off a shelf, and it's one we've done before, for real, at scale.

Ways to work with us


The Seed to Sequoia Workbook

£49

148 pages of real, physical workbook that takes you through the 5 stages of building your brand. we use with our clients :

Understand your ecosystem > build belief > find your place > be seen > build your ecosystem

Find out more


The Campfire Community (coming soon)

£20/month (first 50 founders)

A 4 week cohort based strategic sprint. Start on the right footing to gather real momentum. Why are you unique? What is your story? Why should anyone care?

Find out more


Shoots: Circle

£875

A 4 week cohort based strategic sprint.

Start on the right footing to gather real momentum. Why are you unique? What is your story? Why should anyone care?

Find out more


Sapling 1:1

Strategic work directly with Ruth and Richard, built around your specific needs.

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Our Services

The power of ecosystems

The rules of business growth are changing. Traditional marketing is increasingly expensive, attention is increasingly scarce, and the founders winning right now aren't the ones with the biggest budgets, they're the ones with the strongest networks, powered by belief.

The most powerful thing an early-stage founder can build isn't a marketing funnel. It's an ecosystem. A network of customers, partners, advocates and allies who believe what you believe and help carry it further than you ever could alone. This isn't a new marketing tactic. It's a fundamentally different way of thinking about how businesses grow, one rooted in contribution rather than extraction, in trust rather than interruption, in belief rather than budget.

Belief is the engine of ecosystem thinking. When people genuinely believe what you believe, they become part of something. They advocate. They introduce you. They open doors you didn't know existed.

We're passionate about helping founders with genuinely new ideas bring them into the world faster, the kind of ideas the market doesn't have a category for yet. We do that by helping them build the belief-driven brands that ecosystems grow around.

We believe in building keystone brands.

Keystone species, like the sequoia, don’t just support the ecosystem they exist in, they become essential to its survival.

The old model is built on extraction. Who can be the biggest, grow the fastest, get the most profits for a small number of shareholders. The new model is about contribution. What are you doing to make your ecosystem a better place for all?

Sustainable growth doesn't come from outspending or outmanoeuvring competitors. It comes from becoming indispensable to your ecosystem, contributing real value to the people around you until your brand becomes the thing that holds the whole system together.

That’s a keystone brand. That’s what Seed to Sequoia™ is designed to help you build.

Close-up black and white photo of Richard Palmer, looking thoughtfull
Ruth Palmer smiling, sitting outdoors on a white wicker chair, wearing a blue patterned blouse, with lush green plants and a dark building in the background.

Not sure where you are?

  • I’m pre-revenue with an idea and want help in gaining support and believers Seed

  • I’m a solopreneur and I need my brand to represent me better Refresh

  • I need help defining my brand and purpose so that I can grow in the right direction Shoots

  • My brand and story aren't keeping up with where the business needs to go Sapling

  • I'm funded and ready to build seriously Sequoia

  • I'm not sure Book a free 30 min chat

Simple line drawing of a pine cone, a tree, and a mountain with a sun in the background.

When was the last time you gave yourself permission to pause to think about your business?

Kind words from our ecosystem