Scaling from scratch: what founders must build before they can let go

When you talk to someone like Attila Szelei, you realise just how much of building a business is invisible. Behind every polished website or scalable product sits years of personal effort, frustration, delegation experiments and hard-won systems. This interview is part of the Serenichron Business Insights Series, where we speak with entrepreneurs who are in the trenches, building things that work. This is the second interview with Attila, as we continue to unpack the real stories behind entrepreneurial growth.

In case you missed it, this is the follow-up to our first interview with Attila (How One Former Caregiver Became a UK Healthcare Business Powerhouse), where we explored how he built eight healthcare ventures after leaving the private healthcare sector. That first conversation covered his transition from care assistant to founder, his SEO playbook, and the challenges of DIY tech and burnout. In this part two, we pick up the thread to explore what came next: team-building, licensing, and learning to let go without losing momentum.

In this conversation, Attila shares how he turned a healthcare compliance product into a licensing revenue stream, the cost of not having systems, and what it really takes to step back without things falling apart.

Attila runs multiple businesses from the UK, including a healthcare policy licensing platform and an online course site. His journey has moved from solo hustle to partial delegation, and now toward strategy and optimisation. We spoke about burnout, refunds, contracts, teams, systems, and the real emotional weight of letting go.

Let’s dive in.

The true cost of doing everything yourself

Before we talked tools, tech, or strategy, we talked about burnout. The real kind. 

The kind that builds up when every single part of your business depends on you, because you built it that way. 

Like many founders, Attila carried the full load: lead generation, sales, websites, contracts, and client calls. 

At first, it worked. Until it didn’t.

“Exactly like you said, every piece, every hole, was made by my hand. Lead generation, website, everything.”

He’s far from alone. 

I’ve worked with enough founders to know the pattern by heart: things grow, complexity creeps in, and suddenly what used to be manageable becomes a maze of to-dos. 

What was once energising becomes exhausting.

“We were growing but not building systems. If we had the people we have now back then, we would’ve made way more money.”

That quote hits a nerve. Because it’s a reminder that growth without systems is a trap. 

You end up on a treadmill, busy but stuck. The insight? You can grow or you can control, but rarely both at once. 

And if you don’t build systems early, you end up doing refunds instead of revenue, fixing fires instead of planning futures.

From healthcare to licensing: building value that people can resell

For many founders, the dream is to turn their hard-earned expertise into a product that others can sell. 

But having a great idea isn’t enough. Without the right systems underneath, the whole thing crumbles under pressure. 

Or, as one wise coach put it: you don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.

That’s why what Attila built worked. Not because of ambition alone, but because it rested on solid foundations.

Attila’s first big breakthrough came from turning a healthcare compliance system into a white-label asset. The magic? Other companies could resell it.

“They bought the license from us, they sell it to their clients, but we take half of their profit.”

It’s the dream for many founders: recurring revenue, partnerships, and scalability. But it only worked because Attila had something others didn’t: a detailed and practical Policies & Procedures toolkit for care services.

“They didn’t have the Policies and Procedures piece that they could give to their clients.”

That missing piece became his moat. 

But turning expertise into a product wasn’t enough. He had to learn how to package it, price it, and protect it, and that meant contracts.

Refunds, contracts, and the maturity line

No founder wants to talk about the refunds. But the best ones do: because that’s where the learning lives. 

In Attila’s case, that lesson cost over £10,000 in a single year, all due to one overlooked detail: the contract.

“We gave about £10,000 in refunds just because we didn’t have the right clauses.”

The issue wasn’t rooted in service quality or dissatisfied clients. It stemmed from a structural vulnerability that left the business open to financial hits. The lack of clear contractual protections left the business exposed, and clients understandably took the opportunity to request refunds. 

Without clear terms, the business was exposed, and clients would demand refunds in all sorts of circumstances. 

That moment of loss became a turning point when Attila realised that without a legal structure, all his effort could collapse from a single weak point.

Delegating financial oversight to his wife was the first patch. But the real fix was proactive: building airtight, no-grey-area contracts that actually protected the business. 

That shift went deeper than day-to-day fixes. It marked a real change in how Attila thought about protecting what he built and preparing it to grow. He went from hoping problems wouldn’t arise to engineering them out from the start.

A well-crafted contract signals that a business is thinking beyond the next deal. It reflects a commitment to structure, clarity, and long-term resilience, the things that quietly keep a company moving forward even under pressure. It shows that what’s being built is structured, sustainable, and ready to scale with confidence. It’s what transforms a founder-led service into a business asset. And for any B2B operator, it becomes the nervous system that holds everything together under stress.

Delegation starts with trust, not perfection

Letting go is rarely easy. Many founders struggle with the idea that things won’t be done ‘their way.’ 

But that fear can keep you stuck. Delegation works best when it’s used to clear space for higher-level thinking. The time you gain isn’t about working less, but about creating space to think more clearly and act more strategically.

And that’s exactly what Attila realised.

Attila’s first steps into delegation came out of necessity. The workload had reached a tipping point, and continuing to do everything himself was no longer sustainable. 

His wife, trained to about 75% of his capabilities, now handles finance, client communications, and contracts. His sister-in-law manages admin. A VA in Bangladesh takes care of tech and social.

“My wife handles accounting, finance, contract creation, and writing to clients.”

But, and here’s the catch, novel work still lands on his desk. 

Delegating routine is step one. But innovation? Strategy? That still lives with the founder.

“I still handle the new stuff, the systems, the strategy. That’s the part you can’t really pass off, not yet.”

Delegation buys you space, not freedom. What you do with that space is the next chapter.

You can’t scale what you don’t see

Every business that wants to grow needs strong systems in place. Systems are more than just organisational tools, they’re the mechanisms that allow your team to work confidently, ensure consistency across operations, and enable you to deliver value at scale without constantly rebuilding from scratch. Without those foundations, even the best people can end up lost in chaos.

And that’s exactly where most growth plans fall apart.

When I asked Attila if he’d ever joined a business accelerator or incubator, he said no, though now he’s actively exploring those kinds of environments to help him scale further. This might be the most important pivot yet.

“I don’t think I’ve cracked it yet. But I’m getting close. I’m looking for local business groups these days.”

The difference between those who scale and those who stall is usually exposure. 

Accelerators, networks, mentors, these environments teach founders to think beyond themselves.

I shared with him how I learned to step out of being the doer and into being the guide:

“Almost nothing you do day-to-day is the same once you reach the next level—that’s why there are CTOs, CFOs, and so on.”

Your job as a founder becomes less about doing and more about seeing. 

Systems. 

Relationships. 

Ecosystems. 

The stuff no one applauds, but everyone depends on.

Getting strategic about visibility and connections

Attila is no longer just building systems, he’s now actively stepping into the wider business ecosystem. 

His next frontier? 

Visibility. 

From exhibiting at healthcare fairs to diving into SEO-rich events, he’s starting to treat exposure with the same seriousness he once gave to product and operations.

“There are many fairs in the UK… Leads, SEO, stuff like that.”

Attila isn’t showing up to events for the sake of it, there’s purpose behind every interaction. He’s approaching networking like a campaign: planned, intentional, and aimed at the right people. 

He’s joining business groups, researching local networks, and thinking deeply about how to stay top of mind in a competitive industry. It’s the shift from being found to becoming visible by design.

Why does this matter? Because once founders stop firefighting and start aligning with bigger ecosystems, the doors to partnerships, collaborations, and thought leadership start to creak open.

And speaking of moving into new spaces…

From UK roots to Romanian ambitions

Signing the next client is still important, but now, Attila is thinking beyond that. He’s preparing for a new chapter, one that opens up new geographies, new collaborations, and a different kind of leadership.

Attila revealed that he and his family are planning a move to Romania, with an eye toward launching projects or creating collaborations on the ground here. This move isn’t spur-of-the-moment. It reflects a deeper shift in how Attila sees his role, less tied to operations, more focused on expansion and collaboration, made possible by the systems and team structure he’s put in place.

“We’re thinking of moving to Romania… I’d love to collaborate on something there as well.”

For founders, that’s often the turning point: you stop chasing the day-to-day and start seeing the map. 

The business becomes a platform, not just a job. And once you’ve built a machine that can run without your hands constantly on the wheel, you’re free to explore new markets, new roles, and new opportunities. 

That’s real momentum, and it’s hard-earned.

Conclusion: Scaling isn’t about stepping back but knowing what to step into

Attila’s story is still being written. But the themes are familiar: overwhelm, delegation, insight, systems, growth. 

And underneath all that: intention. He’s not building just to escape. 

He’s building to lead.

“Now I have the time. I can finally get on the bike again with purpose.”

That’s what scaling really is. Not disappearing, but changing gears.