At 16, I built a business that changed a corner of the world.
At 39, I'd forgotten who I was.
Now I'm building a business that changes a corner of the world all over again.
No two founder stories are ever the same, and that's the magic. Yours is yours, probably weird and wonderful and nothing like the business books promised.
But mine might sound familiar, especially if you've built something that looks successful from the outside while secretly knowing it isn't the business you're really here to build.
At 16, I built a six-figure business with zero fear. At 38, I was representing myself in family court while running a business full of clients I'd outgrown. It all looked successful but inside, I'd lost sight of who I was.
Somewhere between 16 and 38, I drifted a long way from myself. I became a world-class people-pleaser, conformed instead of created, and said yes when I meant no. I built a business that looked impressive but didn't feel like mine.
We all lose our way sometimes. When it happens while you're running a business, the two get tangled together.
This is the story of how I found my way back to myself, and how the business followed.
If any of it sounds familiar, pour a cuppa, grab a biscuit, and let me show you it's absolutely possible to find your way home.
Act one: Bold from the very beginning
Being Quietly Disruptive before I knew what it meant
I was 16 when I started Utterly Horses, a business selling model horses, during my GCSEs. My maths exam, to be exact. I smile now, because it was niche of the niche (and talk about timing). Everyone said it would never work: too young, too naive, market far too specialised. I didn't know enough to be scared, which turned out to be my greatest superpower.
I built Utterly Horses into the largest model horse stockist in Europe: fifty thousand customers worldwide, a six-figure turnover, and a range of 2,500 products that led to movie launches, premieres, and clients whose names you'd recognise. I travelled the world running events, because it turns out people really, really love model horses, and I loved showing up and giving them something they wanted.
Then I started Copperfox, the first British manufacturer of 1:9 scale model horses, with our own factory making our own products. More customers, more international events, and more proof that building something completely unconventional doesn't just work, it thrives, when you refuse to listen to the people who say it won't.
Sister businesses came next, then model horse festivals, then a string of ventures that made sense to nobody but me, and worked anyway, because I was Quietly Disruptive before I had the words for it: moving in silence, disrupting through action, building boldly without asking anyone's permission.
That was me. Completely, unapologetically, unstoppably myself. And I'd spend years learning how to be her again.
Act two: the years I built the wrong business
(And why I’m not embarrassed to tell you about it anymore)
Growing up on a diet of 80s rom-coms teaches you the Hollywood lie: that everyone is fundamentally good, love conquers all, and if you just try hard enough, give enough, be kind enough, it all works out as the credits roll.
I still believe most people are good. I just learned, the hard way, that believing the best of everyone doesn't protect you when you marry the wrong person.
At 27, I married someone I should have walked away from. For the next eleven years, I slowly lost myself. He was controlling, and bit by bit I became a world-class people-pleaser. I conformed instead of created. I said yes when I meant no. I sold the businesses that had made me who I was and built a different one, one that looked successful but didn't fit me at all. I tucked away my boundaries, my wants, my needs, as though they were something to be ashamed of, rather than the very things that kept me alive. I was making money and earning respect. From the outside, I was doing well.
By 38, everything came to a head. Divorced and a single parent, I spent two years in family court: fifteen virtual hearings, representing myself against barristers, navigating domestic abuse and coercive control, all while keeping my business alive and fighting for my daughter.
The proceedings dragged up every flaw and magnified it. I was told how terrible I was, and for a while, I believed it. My confidence was gone, my self-belief nowhere to be found, my intuition long since packed its bags.
I was working with clients I'd outgrown, on projects that drained me, in permanent survival mode, running a business that had stopped feeling like mine. Everyone kept telling me how impressive it all looked. I just wanted to breathe.
The old me would have been far too ashamed to tell you any of this. But now I understand what it really is: it's part of what made me, and it's exactly what lets me sit with a founder who's building the wrong thing and say, honestly, “I know. I've been there. I know the pattern, and I know the way home.” Because I've walked every step of it.
Act three:
Everything broke.
I didn’t
The part where I found my way back
The thing about hitting the bottom is that you finally see clearly.
I'd come through family court, threatened, challenged, and worn thin, and somewhere down there I found a spark of who I'd always been. I was exhausted, bone-tired, running on empty. But giving up would have been the easy thing, and deep down, that was never me.
I was a fighter.
So I rested. I asked for help. I rebuilt myself, layer by layer. And as I did, it showed up in the business. I set the boundaries I'd been hiding. I raised my prices. I let go of the clients who drained me.
Everything was cracking open, and I was stepping through.
The final piece fell into place when I said goodbye to my longest retainer client, and to four years of saying yes when I meant no. I should have done it sooner. I left, and they barely noticed, which told me everything I'd already known. But it was also the moment I knew I was back, because the old me would have stayed and found five ways to justify it.
By 41, I had a thriving coaching practice built inside a strict 10am to 4pm window, as a single parent, with room for writing books, making art, and building a community too. All of it at once, and all of it sustainable.
That bold 16-year-old who built without asking permission was back. Older, wiser, with far better boundaries, a few scars, and a story that proves you can lose your way completely and still find your way home.
I didn't fix the business first. I found myself first. And the business had no choice but to follow. The business changes when you do. I'm living proof of it.
"As an ICF practitioner, she brings the high-level credentials I was looking for, but her 'magic' lies in her lived experience."
- Alicja Copija, ICF Career Coach
A lifetime of Quiet Disrupting expertise
My career (so far!) is like a great mix tape- one that has a few classics and some eclectic choices. My highlights so far include:
2001- Started Utterly Horses, a model horse company aged 16
2003- Running the world’s first online review site, PocketPCLife, for iPAQs and writing for magazines
2004- Starting sister companies, Utterlychaos (a wargaming miniatures company), Devilball (a skateboard Clothing Brand) and Pheo Records (a record label).
2009- Started Utterlysaurus, a business specialising in models of dinosaurs.
2012- Hosted the UK’s first model horse festival (convention) in Newmarket, attracting thousands of visitors from all over the globe. We had events in 2013 and 2014 too.
2014- Successfully crowdfunded a new venture, Copperfox Model Horses, a manufacturer and retailer of models of British breeds of horses.
2017- Sold Copperfox Model Horses to new owners
2017- In need of rest after nearly 20 years of model horses, I joined the IWM Duxford as a retail assistant, rising to Assistant Manager a couple of years later.
2020- During lockdown, the siren call of entrepreneurship called me back, and I became a Virtual Assistant, specialising in content creation, copywriting and social media management.
2020- Self-published my first children’s book, and then officially published (in hardback no less) by Imperial War Museums.
2022- Pivoting to specialise in a subject close to my heart, Branding, and supporting clients through Brand Strategy and Brand Consultancy.
2024- Stepping into the business I really wanted and saying yes to everything on my wishlist, utilising all my expertise, experience and knowledge from the past 20+ years.
I have a dream
A world run by founders who built something big without losing themselves to do it
I'm here to show you that successful doesn't have to mean stuck, that profit doesn't have to cost you yourself, and that you can absolutely build something that feels as good as it looks, a business you're proud of on a Tuesday afternoon, not just at a dinner party.
Businesses aren't just revenue and LinkedIn updates. They're the backbone of communities and economies. They create jobs, solve real problems, and do extraordinary good in the world when the person running them genuinely loves what they do.
What lights me up is the opposite of what used to break my heart. It's watching a talented founder stop settling for something that looks brilliant but feels hollow, and start building the thing they're actually here for. Not because they were failing, but because they finally gave themselves permission to build it their way.
When you find the courage to build something that fits who you truly are, not who you thought you should be, you don't just change your own life. You become proof. You show your family, your community, and everyone quietly watching, that success can feel good, that boundaries work, and that doing it your own way was never career suicide, it was the whole point.
That's the ripple. That's what drives me. That's why I do what I do.
"When I first started my business there were things I simply didn't know how to do. Becky's lived experience in business was immensely helpful. She gave generously of her time to help me build an authentic foundation on which to grow. In working with her you get not only a knowledgeable business coach but also a genuine cheerleader for your business."
Lynda Haynes-McCarthy, Executive Coach
What else I’m building
Because I don’t do just one thing.
That would be boring.
Beyond coaching, I write books- children's fiction, business non-fiction, and essays about things that matter- because I've always been a writer and pretending otherwise felt ridiculous.
I'm building Quietly Disruptive, a growing movement and philosophy for founders who move in silence and disrupt through action. I host the Quietly Disruptive podcast every week, with solo episodes and guest conversations that go deeper than surface-level tactics, and I write Field Notes, my weekly letter for founders who are done with hustle culture and all the noise that comes with it.
I'm proof of what's possible, because I'm not just teaching you to build a business that fits your life while holding real boundaries. I'm living it, right now, in a 10am to 4pm window, as a single parent, with boundaries that aren't up for negotiation and a calendar that proves it works.
Everything I help you build, I've already built. I'm not theorising, or borrowing someone else's framework and calling it mine. I'm showing you what genuinely works, what I've tested, and what I'm living proof of every single day.
Why Quietly Disruptive Founders?
I am one. And I recognise you the moment we meet
I work specifically with Quietly Disruptive founders because I understand how we think and how we work from the inside, not from a textbook or a borrowed framework, but because I've lived it for 25 years.
Quietly Disruptive founders don't shrink themselves because they're weak. They shrink because somewhere along the way they lost sight of who they were. You tried to look professional, learned to please, and quietly tucked away the bold, unconventional part of you to fit what a “serious business” was supposed to look like. You changed, and the business changed with you.
The loud disruptors are wired differently. They lead with ego, announce everything, and never dim themselves for a second.
We move differently. We know, deep in our bones, that we're here to make an impact that matters, whether that's in our own corner of the world or the wider one. What matters is that it's purposeful, real, and ours. We don't need to announce it or perform it. We just need to build it. And when we try to do it someone else's way, we lose our spark.
That's who I work with, because that's who I am.
I help you find your way back, not because you're broken, but because the real you is buried under a pile of shoulds, woulds and coulds. There's a big difference. I can guide you there because I found my own way back first, and my business followed. You're not everyone. Neither am I. That's exactly the point.
“I absolutely adore her 'quietly disruptive' guidance"
-Sharon Talbot, Content Creator
Choose the first step on your adventure
You've read my story, eaten your biscuit, let your tea go cold, and discovered how I went from boldly disruptive at 16, to lost at 38, to free and building on my own terms at 41. If any of it felt familiar, and you're ready to find your way to the business you're really here to build, here's where to start.
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I'm ready to talk
Book an Onwards and Upwards call. It’s 60 minutes of coaching, with just you and me. Share with me where you are, and I’ll show you the way out. There’s no pitch or pressure, just clarity.
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I want to understand where I am first
Take my “What's Holding You Back, and How Do You Break Free?” Quiz. It's free, slightly uncomfortable (in a good way), and it'll show you exactly where you are, and what comes next.
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How to make it happen.
Sign the Pact and join the Quietly Disruptive movement. Every week I share what building this way really looks like: behind-the-scenes confessions, quiet wins, and hard-won lessons, so you can skip a few of the harder bits I didn't.