Stop reading about running a business. Start operating one
SGI Business Academy turns the methodology behind 2,000+ business advisory engagements and £250M+ in facilitated funding into systems you can use this week. Two operating systems, one for each stage. Buy the full system, take just the part you need, or work with us directly.
The method in these products is not new. It is what my team has applied across more than 2,000 businesses since 2014. What is new is the format. For years, the only way to work with us was a paid engagement, which put us out of reach of exactly the founders who most needed the thinking.
The Academy is my answer to that: the same frameworks, in pieces small enough that a founder pre-revenue can still use them.
Founded 2014
2,000+ businesses advised
£250M+ funding facilitated
47+ industries
One-time payment, lifetime access
Why does a business with a good idea still stall?
Most founders who stall are not short of information. They are short of a system. You have downloaded six templates that contradict each other, saved forty articles you will never reread, and started three courses you did not finish. None of it connects. So every decision starts from nothing, and the ones you avoid are the ones that matter most: whether the idea is actually viable, what it will cost before it earns, what to price, and what to do in the first 90 days.
The businesses that get past this point are rarely the ones with the best idea. They are the ones operating a coherent system while everyone else is still collecting resources. That is the gap the Academy closes.
What the Academy is
The Academy is the self-serve expression of the same methodology SGI Consultants applies in paid client engagements. Same frameworks, same evidence base, different delivery. Nothing here is a stripped-back teaser for something more expensive: each product is the working tool itself, priced so that a founder pre-revenue can still use it.
There are three ways in, and they are designed so you can choose the smallest one that solves your problem.
Route | What it is | Price | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
An individual kit | One focused toolkit solving one problem: validation, costs, launch, marketing, cash | From £19 | You know exactly what is blocking you |
A full operating system | Every kit for your stage, sequenced as one system, plus the connecting frameworks | £100 | You want the complete method, not a patch |
Work with us directly | A person reviewing your actual numbers, plan or toolkit output | From £150 | You have done the work and need it pressure-tested |
Buy a kit first if you prefer. If you upgrade to the full operating system later, the price you paid for the kit comes off the system price, so nobody pays twice for the same material.
Who Is The Academy For
The Academy is built for founders and owners who are willing to do the work themselves and want a professional method rather than a motivational one. It suits you if you are validating an idea, preparing to launch, writing a plan for funding, or running a business between roughly £50k and £500k in revenue that has stopped moving in the direction you want.
It is the wrong purchase in two situations, and we would rather say so now. If your problem is a live, specific and complex one- a distressed cash position, an investor process already underway, a turnaround with staff implications- then a toolkit will not solve it and consulting will. And if you are looking for a done-for-you outcome rather than a system to work through, the services band below or an SGI Consultants engagement is the honest answer.
The three operating systems
Which operating system fits where you are?
These are not tiers, and they are not a sequence you are expected to buy through. Each answers a different question, and most founders need one of them at a time.
Startup OS | Growth OS | Funding OS | |
|---|---|---|---|
Price | £100 | £100 | £100 |
Built for | Pre-launch and first-year founders | Trading businesses that have stalled | Founders preparing to raise |
The question | Is this viable, and how do I launch it properly? | Why has this stalled, and where is the money going? | Am I fundable, and what will an investor pull apart? |
What do you end with | A validated concept, a costed launch, a plan a lender will read | A diagnosed constraint, a marketing plan with measurable return, and a defensible margin | A model, a deck, a target list and a data room that survive scrutiny |
Access | Lifetime, including updates | Lifetime, including updates | Lifetime, including updates |
Inside the systems
What do you actually get?
The Startup Operating System
You get the sequence, not just the files. The system opens with validation because the most expensive mistake in business is building something nobody has agreed to buy. The Idea Validation Kit gives you the same diagnostic used in the first hour of a paid engagement: who the customer is, what they currently do instead, and what evidence would prove you wrong.
Costing comes next. The Startup Costs and Break-Even Toolkit puts a real number on what it takes to open the doors and how many units, hours or clients stand between you and break-even. Most founders discover here that their pricing was set by instinct and their runway assumption was optimistic by a factor of two.
Launch follows. The Launch and First 90 Days Toolkit converts the plan into a week-by-week operating rhythm, so the first quarter is executed rather than improvised. The Business Plan Toolkit then packages the whole thing into a document a bank, a grant body or an investor will actually read, structured the way UK lenders expect to receive it.
The Growth Operating System
The Growth OS starts with diagnosis because growth problems are usually misdiagnosed as marketing problems. The Growth Diagnostic works through the Business Success Formula to isolate whether the constraint sits in the market, the offer, the operation or the external environment, and tells you where to spend the next 90 days.
The SOAR Marketing Kit then builds the acquisition plan: Standout Branding, Orchestrate Connections, Attract and Amplify, Revenue Maximisation. It is a sequence rather than a channel list, which is why it works equally well for a consultancy and a coffee roaster.
The Cash Flow and Margins Kit closes the loop on the part most owners avoid. It models unit economics, exposes the products and services that quietly subsidise the rest, and shows how a price change affects volume before you make it.
The Funding Operating System
This is the one built directly on the 90% record. SGI facilitates funding at a 90% success rate, compared with a UK industry average of 13% to 20%, and that gap is not about access. It is preparation. Applications fail on things that are entirely fixable before submission, and the Funding OS is the fix, assembled as a system.
It begins with the Funding Readiness Diagnostic, which honestly tells you whether you are ready to approach anyone and what needs to change first. Approaching investors before that question is answered is how founders burn their best introductions on a version of the business that was not ready.
From there, the system covers the four factors on which every raise is judged. The Startup Financial Model Pack builds a three-statement model with assumptions that withstand scrutiny. The Investor Pitch Kit constructs the deck and the narrative around it. The SEIS and EIS Advance Assurance Kit handles the tax-advantaged structure that materially changes how a UK angel views the opportunity, with the current HMRC limits built in. And the Investor Database and Outreach Kit turn a raise from hope into a managed process: who to approach, in what order, with what to say to them.
Individual kits
Or take only the piece you need
Every kit stands alone, includes a walkthrough rather than bare templates, and credits against its system if you upgrade.
Starting a business
Kit | Solves | Price |
|---|---|---|
The Idea Validation Kit | Whether the concept holds before you spend | £24 |
Startup Costs and Break-Even Toolkit | What it costs to launch and when you break even | £29 |
Launch and First 90 Days Toolkit | Executing the first quarter of a plan | £35 |
The Business Plan Toolkit | A funding-ready plan in UK lender format | £49 |
Growing a business
Kit | Solves | Price |
|---|---|---|
The Growth Diagnostic | Locating the real constraint on growth | £19 |
Cash Flow and Margins Kit | Margin, pricing and cash visibility | £39 |
The SOAR Marketing Kit | An acquisition plan that pays for itself | £59 |
Raising funding
Kit | Solves | Price |
|---|---|---|
The Funding Readiness Diagnostic | Whether you are ready to approach anyone yet | £19 |
The Startup Financial Model Pack | A three-statement model that survives questioning | £39 |
The Investor Pitch Kit | The deck and the narrative around it | £39 |
The SEIS and EIS Advance Assurance Kit | The tax-advantaged structure that UK angels expect | £19 |
The Investor Database and Outreach Kit | Running the raise as a managed process | £39 |
The arithmetic is deliberate. The four Startup kits, bought separately, come to £137, and the three Growth kits to £117, compared with £100 for either system. If you need more than one piece, take the system.
Toolkit Additional Services
When you want a second pair of eyes
Some founders finish the work and want it checked before it goes anywhere that matters.
These are fixed-fee, fixed-scope pieces of work delivered by the SGI team.
Service | What happens | Price |
|---|---|---|
Toolkit Clinic | A working session on your completed toolkit output, with a written summary of what to change and in what order | £150 |
Business Plan Review | A full review of your plan against the criteria UK lenders and grant bodies actually assess, with a marked-up version returned | £250 |
Forecast Build | We build your three-year financial forecast from your assumptions, structured for funding submission | £295 |
The methodology
What is the Business Success Formula?
Everything in the Academy runs on one framework, which is why the assets connect rather than compete. The formula is:
PM + (PS × (EO − (C+E+P+T)))
Profitable Market plus Product or Service, multiplied by Execution and Operations, less the four external threats: Competition, Economic, Political and Technological.
The structure carries the argument. A profitable market is additive, so a strong offer in a weak market is capped no matter how well it is run. Execution is multiplicative, which is why two businesses with identical propositions produce entirely different results. And the external threats subtract from execution rather than from the market, which is the reason a business can look sound on paper and still be losing ground.
You do not need to memorise it. Every kit applies one part of it and tells you which part, so by the time you have worked through a system, you are diagnosing your own business the way a consultant would.
Why this methodology
SGI Consultants was founded in 2014 and has since advised more than 2,000 businesses across 47+ industries, facilitating over £250M in funding. On funding engagements, the success rate is 90%, against a UK industry average of 13% to 20%.
That gap is not luck, and it is not access. It is preparation. Most applications fail on things that are entirely fixable before submission: a market claim with no evidence behind it, a forecast that cannot survive its own assumptions, a plan written for the founder rather than the reader. The Academy exists because those failures are systematic, which means they can be designed out with a system.
I spent 25 years in commerce, industry and the public and third sectors before this, at VMware, Dell EMC, Network Rail, Transport for London and others, and what strikes me most about small business is how much of the difficulty is avoidable. The methodology in these products is the same one my team applies in paid engagements. I have not held anything back for a higher tier, because the value of a system is in its completeness.
If a toolkit is the right answer for you, use it. If it is not, tell me what you are facing, and I will tell you honestly what is.
Kurt Graver, Founder and Managing Director, SGI Consultants. ACCA-qualified accountant, MBA, IOEE Certified Business Mentor, Enterprise Nation adviser.
How it works
You buy once. There is no subscription, no upsell sequence and no locked premium tier containing the parts you actually need. Payment is handled by Gumroad, delivery is immediate, and access is permanent, including any future updates to the material you bought.
Each system opens with a Welcome and How to Use document that tells you the order to work in and roughly how long each stage takes. You do not have to finish the whole thing before it starts paying: the first asset in either system is designed to produce a usable answer in a single sitting.
Risk reversal
Work through the system. If it does not change how you approach your business, email us within 14 days, and we will refund you in full. No survey, no exit interview, no explanation required. The method either helps you, or it does not, and we would rather refund the few it does not suit than hold anyone to a purchase that did not deliver.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Founders validating or launching a business, and owners of trading businesses up to roughly £500k in revenue who want a structured method rather than more information. It assumes you will do the work yourself. If you want the work done for you, the services band or an SGI Consultants engagement is the better route.
We do, and it shapes the advice we give. London carries the highest commercial rents and wage costs in the country, the competition for customers and staff is intense, and a plan that ignores those realities tends to fall apart on contact with the market. When we model your numbers or recommend a growth move, we build in London cost structures rather than national averages, which is what makes the projections credible to you and to any funder reviewing them.
Free templates give you a blank document. They do not tell you what a good answer looks like, what a lender does with the number you put in a particular field, or what to do when the output is bad news. Every Academy asset carries the reasoning alongside the template, drawn from applying the same method in paid engagements since 2014.
Each kit combines working tools, spreadsheets, calculators and templates, with instructional documents that explain how to use the output. The systems add a Welcome and How to Use guide that sets the working order.
Because the alternative was turning people away. Most founders who contact us are not ready for a paid engagement, and telling them to come back when they have budget helps nobody. The Academy is a recent addition to the practice and it is deliberately priced so that the method is available at the point it is actually needed rather than the point it becomes affordable.
Yes. Access is lifetime and includes future revisions to the material you bought, at no extra cost.
Products are sold through Gumroad, which accepts major debit and credit cards and PayPal. Prices are one-time payments in pounds sterling. There is no subscription and no recurring charge.
Yes, within 30 days, in full, without needing to give a reason.
Purchases are licensed for use inside your own business, including your team. If you are an adviser, accountant or accelerator wanting to use the material with your clients, contact us about a licence rather than buying a single copy.
That is exactly what the services band is for. A Toolkit Clinic at £150 reviews your completed output, a Business Plan Review at £250 assesses the plan against the criteria funders apply, and a Forecast Build at £295 produces the financial model from your assumptions.T
The Academy prepares you: it fixes the plan, the forecast and the evidence base that most applications fail on. The raise itself is handled by SGI Consultants through the Business Funding Service. SGI Consultants is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and works with FCA-authorised partners where a regulated activity is involved.
Both are run by Kurt Graver, and both use the same methodology. SGI Consultants delivers advisory and funding work directly for clients. The Academy is the self-serve version of the same method for founders who want to do the work themselves. Neither is a downgrade of the other, and we will tell you plainly which one suits your situation.