Sam Crisp from Axonas Consulting | From Agency Founder to Exit

Sam Crisp from Axonas Consulting | From Agency Founder to Exit

From Carrot and Stick by OneUp Sales

February 5, 2026 · 1h 21m · Season 4 · Episode 2

About this episode

Sam Crisp discusses his journey from founding a successful recruitment agency to exiting and the lessons learned along the way.

How do you build a recruitment agency that not only scales but survives the founder’s eventual exit? On this episode of Carrot & Stick, host Derry Holt dives deep with Sam Crisp, the former founder of the highly successful SaaS recruitment agency, Arama. Sam shares his explosive journey of growing a business to 60 people and then making the strategic decision to step away. The discussion tackles the critical mistakes in early-stage scaling, the hidden dangers of the 'shiny client' syndrome, and why process, systems, and data integrity are the true architecture of long-term success.Discover the framework Sam now uses at his new consultancy, Axonas, to optimize internal talent teams—lessons learned directly from a decade on the front line.

People in this episode

Host: Derry Holt

Guest: Sam Crisp

Topics covered

  • recruitment agency
  • business scaling
  • founder exit
  • consultancy
  • internal talent optimization
  • process and systems

Keywords

  • recruitment
  • agency founder
  • business growth
  • exit strategy
  • consultancy
  • SaaS
  • talent teams

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Axonas Consulting, Arama

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