Sapphire & Steel is a deeptech scaleup advisory. We work with boards, executive teams and all-hands to cut a path to industry scale.
COMMERCIAL LEADERSHIP
We develop the commercial confidence of brilliant science and engineering leaders. We go with them deep into their markets and across the value chain to drive industry change.
SCALE STRATEGY
We work with management teams and boards to elevate ambition, scrutinise competitive positioning and plot the most resource efficient and decisive route to scale.
BUSINESS PERFORMANCE
We work inside the business, top to bottom, to accelerate execution. Setting business performance targets, critical path plans and whole business accountability to deliver.
DOING REALLY HARD THINGS
Our philosophy
Scaling a deeptech business is extraordinarily hard. We’ve built a philosophy for our own partnership that resonates with founders.
These last 8 years we have developed a lot of assets and done some extraordinary commercial work, making relationships with smart leaders across the ecosystem. At the centre of that is our partnership.
This didn’t come easy. We’ve seen some eye-opening things 👀 and we learn by our own mistakes every day 😡. Every one of those experiences is put into the machine (🧠🧠), made sense of, decoded and shared back to the businesses we work with. Always learning.
It’s this partnership that has built trust for us to engage with boards and customers on behalf of founders, drive commercial delivery and governance with management teams, and get the keys to the real engine of growth - the all hands. 🤜🤛
Our partnership is a living culture, a petri-dish 🧫, to examine the impact of behaviour, starting with our own. Our customers use us to understand themselves, their team, their board and their market.
It’s a tricky USP to capture in a couple of words - though with retrospect we realise it was there all the time.
It’s Sapphire & Steel.
WHAT FOUNDERS SAY
Founders enjoy working with us
“I know how big the mountain is ahead but in spite of or in addition to that I’m so much more confident than I was before. I’m a commercial leader and I’m now able to own that. It’s a wonderful feeling.”
“What’s different is that we now have a plan. The way we onboard customers, the way we engage and seek to understand what they want and how to progress these relationships. We now have action plans on how we engage with each. Previously too focused on the end game with these conversations and now see this as a partnership and it’s working so much better.”
“The silo trap was beginning to happen in the company. Now we’re being more earnest in setting out meetings and engaging the teams in squads not silos. It has brought about better comms right across the business.”
“Challenging ideas in the right way. Pushing and prodding in the right way. Nothing over-stepped. The balance was right. You question what we are doing without judgement. This is done so well.”
“Challenging our thinking, getting the team working, inspiring us to reach for more. Being ludicrously focused with us on delivery. Laughing a lot. A ridiculous pair. "
“Your ability to open up our conversation with the Board, and with our customers. We have gone further and faster with you.”