“Andrew has been amazing — he has navigated us through unchartered waters.”

Jill Roe owned Digitalab. Mike Brydon owned Colorworld. They met on a flight home from a Fuji factory visit in Tilburg, Netherlands, in 2019, realised their companies had different strengths and customer bases, and started exploring whether they could be one. Covid put the conversation on ice. By September 2021 they picked it back up.

Both founders agreed the merger would put them three years ahead of separate growth plans. Both founders also agreed they had no idea how to actually do it. After a recommendation from Angelina Bell at Scale Up, they reached for mentoring and were matched with Andrew Marsh — a mentor whose lived experience of mergers was the entire point.

“Andrew has been amazing,” Jill said. “He has navigated us through unchartered waters, taking both sides’ concerns of the merger into consideration. Andrew was instrumental in allaying all of our fears and outlining opportunity.”

The work was the unglamorous part of every merger: removing the deal-breakers, drafting protective clauses inside the articles of association, working alongside the lawyers on heads of terms, liaising with accountants, walking the team through new shareholders agreements, asset transfers, governance and HR. With the structure in place, Jill, Mike, Calum Thomson and John Wilkinson became four directors of a single company. The Digitalab name stayed; the business moved into Colorworld’s larger North Shields premises.

The merged company employs 35 people. The plan for the following year was a 20% sales uplift; the year after, doubling the combined turnover. Jill’s closing line is the one every founder considering a merger needs to hear: “We couldn’t have done this without our mentor.”