How to Scale to £3M with Strategic Bets Not Just Hard Work, with Ollie Scott

Why do some recruitment founders scale to seven figures while others stay stuck at £300K despite working just as hard? My guest, Ollie Scott, realized that growth doesn’t come from hustle. It comes from strategic bets. Ollie is the founder of Unknown, a £3 million talent growth consultancy that has worked with more than 500 creative brands including Nike, Apple, and Disney. He launched the business in 2018 with £13,000 on a credit card and a desire to build the opposite of every recruitment company he had experienced. In this episode, Ollie explains how rebellion helped Unknown stand out, why scaling from eight to eighteen people collapsed margins from 45% to 8%, and how he rebuilt the business using a clear operating model and three strategic bets: brand, recurring revenue, and M&A advisory. He also shares why recruiters dramatically undervalue the market intelligence they gather every day, and how agencies can monetise this insight through buy-side advisory priced at six figures. If you want to grow your agency sustainably — with better positioning, better pricing, and better recurring revenue — this episode is full of practical lessons you can apply immediately. You’ll Learn: • Why trying to be the “best” agency is a losing strategy • How Unknown defined a point of view clients cared about • What went wrong scaling from 8 to 18 people • Why profit is the safety net that enables innovation • How to build a productized recruitment offering • Why freelance talent pools are the future of recurring revenue • How recruiters can monetise M&A intelligence • How to price buy-side advisory at six-figure fees Episode Timestamps: [4:05] Selling suits to James Caan’s recruitment firm [10:23] Launching Unknown with £13,000 on a credit card [15:36] Naming strategy and brand distinctiveness [18:26] Writing a breakup letter to recruitment companies [21:44] Why rebellion works early but can’t scale [36:36] Productizing around three ICPs [44:03] Scaling to 18 people destroyed profit margins [48:34] Profit as psychological safety [53:20] Building recurring revenue through freelance talent pools [58:25] Why recruiters have more M&A intelligence than M&A firms Guest Bio: Ollie Scott is the founder of Unknown, a £3 million talent growth consultancy specialising in the global creative industry. Before launching Unknown, Ollie spent six years at Gemini People, joining the board in his early twenties. Unknown now operates across executive search, freelance talent pools, and M&A advisory for creative agencies. Connect with Ollie: LinkedIn: Ollie Scott Website: unknown.media Connect with Mark: recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session linkedin.com/in/markwhitby Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach