Every sequoia starts as a seed.

We help purpose-driven founders build their ecosystem, recruit believers and grow.

The power of ecosystems

The rules of business growth are changing. Traditional marketing is increasingly expensive, attention is increasingly scarce, and the founders winning right now aren't the ones with the biggest budgets, they're the ones with the strongest networks.

The most powerful thing an early-stage founder can build isn't a marketing funnel. It's an ecosystem. A network of customers, partners, advocates, and allies who believe what you believe and help carry it further than you ever could alone. This isn't a new marketing tactic. It's a fundamentally different way of thinking about how businesses grow, one rooted in contribution rather than extraction, in trust rather than interruption, in belief rather than budget.

Belief is the engine of ecosystem thinking. When people genuinely believe what you believe, they become part of something. They advocate. They introduce you. They open doors you didn't know existed.

We are passionate about helping more people and planet-positive founders with big ideas realise them ideas faster, to accelerate their impact. We do that by helping founders build the belief-driven brands that ecosystems grow around.

Every founder is on a journey

You're building something that matters. Something that could shift how people work, live, connect, or dare we say it, change the world entirely.

But right now, something isn't transmitting. You're not getting enough sales. You can't quite explain what you do in a way that makes people lean in. Your pipeline isn't building the way it should.

This isn't a product problem. It's an ecosystem problem. Your belief is real, but you can't yet transmit it to the people who need to feel it. No clear story. No consistent positioning. No network carrying your conviction further than you can reach alone.

That's what we build, together.

We help startups at every stage.

However you like to work, there's a way in.

Some founders want to learn at their own pace and do the work themselves; for them we provide the frameworks, guidance and in sense-checking.

Others either don’t have the time or need a bit more experience alongside them.

We help all of them move forward as fast as we can together.

Learn at your own pace. Build at your own speed.

Our courses and cohorts give you the frameworks, the tools and the thinking to build your brand foundations yourself, with Ruth and Richard guiding you through every step.

Guided

Seed: Courses

Six courses and workbooks covering the complete business foundation, research, product, brand, numbers, marketing and pitch.

Work through them individually or take the full bundle.

Courses £199

Workbooks £29

Shoots: Circle

A four-week cohort where six founders build their brand foundations together. Live facilitation, peer feedback, and the kind of honest challenge that only comes from people doing the same hard work alongside you.

£875

Next cohort: 6th July

Together

Work directly with Ruth and Richard on your specific challenges.

For founders who need experienced strategic attention, whether that's 1:1 intensive work on brand and positioning, or the full Palmer&Co ecosystem brought to bear on a funded business ready to scale.

Sapling

Three layers of focused 1:1 strategic work, Brand & Business Strategy, Brand Personality & Story, and Visual Identity. For founders with traction whose brand and story aren't keeping up with where the business needs to go.

From £2,300

Sequoia

The full Palmer&Co ecosystem gathered around your business. Strategy, identity, activation and everything in between, with Ruth, Richard and a carefully cultivated network of specialists embedded in your team.

Not sure where you are?

  • I’m pre-revenue with an idea and want help in gaining support and believers. Seed

  • I need help defining my brand and purpose so that I can grow in the right direction Shoots

  • My brand and story aren't keeping up with where the business needs to go Sapling

  • I'm funded and ready to build seriously Sequoia

  • I'm not sure Book a free 30 min chat

Our Services

Why the ecosystem strategy is also a search strategy.

Something significant is shifting in how people find businesses. AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are becoming the first stop for buyers researching solutions, and the brands they recommend aren’t necessarily the ones with the highest Google rankings.

They’re the ones with the clearest, most consistent story.

AI doesn’t evaluate a single page in isolation the way Google does. It synthesises everything it can find about your brand, your website, your LinkedIn, what other people say about you, how you’re described on review platforms, in articles, across your ecosystem. It builds a picture from dozens of sources and asks a simple question: do I understand what this brand does, who it’s for, and why it’s different?

If the answer is yes, if your positioning is clear, consistent, and validated by others, you get recommended. If the answer is no, if your messaging contradicts itself, your story has evolved but the old version is still out there, or nobody else is talking about you, you become invisible.

This is the same problem a weak brand creates everywhere else. AI just makes it measurable.

The research is striking: when AI already associates a brand with a category, that brand’s content gets cited 53% of the time. When it doesn’t, that drops to 11%.

The brands winning in AI search share the same characteristics:

  • One clear problem solved for one specific audience

  • Consistent positioning across every place they appear

  • A distinctive story that external sources reflect back

The community

Seed to Sequoia: The LinkedIn Community

Every Palmer&Co client at every level becomes a founding member of the Seed to Sequoia LinkedIn community, while it’s still small, still intimate, and still being shaped by the people in it.

Founders sharing real challenges. Specialists adding genuine value. The kind of network that makes everyone in it stronger.

Founding member status is available at every level right now. It won’t always be.

Fireside chats

Once a month, Ruth and Richard light the fire.

An open forum to bring your questions about your pitch, positioning, campaign or investor question you couldn’t answer.

Honest, open conversation around a shared problem, that helps you get to where you need to be.

Available to all Shoots, Sapling, and Sequoia clients.

We believe in building keystone brands.

Keystone species, like the sequoia, don’t just support the ecosystem they exist in, they become essential to its survival.

Ruth and Richard Palmer built D3O, a material nobody had heard of, in a category that didn’t exist, into a globally recognised technology brand. They didn’t do it with advertising. They did it with belief, story, and a clear understanding of the ecosystem they were building within.

They learned that sustainable growth doesn’t come from outspending or outmanoeuvring competitors. It comes from becoming indispensable to your ecosystem; contributing real value to the people around you until your brand becomes the thing that holds the whole system together.

That’s a keystone brand. That’s what Seed to Sequoia is designed to help you build.

Find your stage, start growing

Seed: pre-revenue with an idea I want to give the best possible chance.

Shoots: early stage and need to understand who I am and why I matter.

Sapling: my brand and story aren’t keeping up with where the business needs to go.

Sequoia: I’m funded and ready to build seriously.

Not sure where you are? Book a call >

When was the last time you gave yourself permission to pause to think about your business?

Kind words from our ecosystem