
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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