7 April 2026
One quarter left in year one. Here’s what the first nine months really looked like.
I started Bettr Strata on 1 July 2025.
No existing client base. No arrangements carried over from a previous employer. No shortcuts. People had to find us, and they did, slowly, the way real things tend to grow.
Nine months in, one quarter left in our first financial year. I want to be honest about what that’s actually looked like, because I think the version most founders share publicly is cleaner than the reality.
The thing I underestimated most: patience.
In an established business, a slow sales cycle is an inconvenience. In a start-up, it creates real pressure. Not dramatic pressure – quiet, cumulative pressure. The kind that doesn’t announce itself. It just slowly changes how you think about the next call, the next proposal, the next maybe.
I knew intellectually that new deals take time. What I underestimated was how that feels when you’re the one carrying the weight of the business every day. Corporate strata has infrastructure, history, and a pipeline that keeps moving regardless. We had none of that. Every deal mattered more than it should have, and I felt that more than I expected to.
Where that led.
Early on, when cycles were slow and the pressure was building, I said yes when I should have said no. A self-managed scheme that was never genuinely ready for professional management – we parted ways by mutual agreement when new owners came on board and the appetite for the costs simply wasn’t there. A development inquiry from a developer I didn’t know, in a space I’d already decided wasn’t right for us without an established relationship. A handful of situations where someone appealed to my nature to help, and I confused that appeal with a genuine fit.
I said no more than yes. But the early lessons still cost time, energy, and in some cases, money.
What I got right.
I never approached a single client. Every scheme we manage found us, through word of mouth, through content, through reputation. My non-competes are honoured. My integrity is the one thing in this business I won’t trade, regardless of how slow a month looks.
The brand is landing. Word of mouth is stronger than I expected at this stage. The committees we work with trust us, and they’re telling other people. That compounds, and it’s the only kind of growth I’m interested in.
The market understands the Bettr Strata proposition faster than I expected. When you show up clearly – no hidden fees, no insurer commissions, direct advice even when it costs you – people get it quickly. We don’t have a positioning problem. We have a patience problem, and patience is something you can work on.
The thing nobody tells you.
People have reached out to me over the past few months, experienced strata managers thinking about making the same move. Sick of corporate. Sick of being a number. Sick of the gap between what their employer posts on Instagram and what actually happens inside the business.
I’m happy to talk to anyone in that position. But I tell them the same thing every time: this is hard. No matter how good you are, and I think I’m a good strata manager and a good leader – the grind is real. Especially when you’re building it the right way, without shortcuts.
Don’t mistake the clean version you see on LinkedIn for the full picture.
I’ve long lived by the Roosevelt quote, the one about the man in the arena.
I’ll talk to anyone who asks. But I’ve learned to be honest with myself about where I take counsel from. If you haven’t left the comfort of a salary, haven’t carried the weight of a business on your own, haven’t felt what a slow month actually does to your thinking – I’ll hear you, but I won’t place too much stock in it.
That’s not arrogance. It’s just clarity. The people whose advice I genuinely value are the ones who got in the arena themselves. It takes real courage to walk away from certainty. Anyone who does it has my respect, regardless of outcome.
April is a reset.
I also skipped the gym. Worked through lunch. Told myself it was discipline. It wasn’t, it was a habit that compounds quietly until you’re running on empty. I noticed it recently and I’m correcting it.
The business has real momentum. We’ve built something genuinely different and we’ve done it without compromising to get here. But none of it works if the person running it isn’t well.
April is a reset. Put myself first, everything second. That’s not a motivational line, it’s just practical. A founder who isn’t well is the single biggest risk to an early-stage business.
I’d build it exactly the same way again. I just wouldn’t wait nine months to remember that looking after yourself isn’t optional.
One quarter to go.
John Martin (JM) | Founder & Managing Director