Andrew Sparks

Andrew Sparks didn’t come into business through a clean or linear path. He left school at 15, became a plumber, and spent years working hands-on before moving into business ownership. Along the way, he immersed himself in psychology and performance-focused training, driven by a desire to understand how people behave under pressure — and why effort alone so often fails to create lasting change.

As Andrew’s own company grew, it reached what he refers to as the second-stage squeeze. Revenue was coming in and the business was moving, but progress increasingly depended on him. Decisions, problem-solving, and momentum kept routing back to the founder — not because the team lacked capability, but because the business hadn’t been designed to operate any other way. There wasn’t a dramatic breaking point, just the steady pressure of long days, constant interruptions, and the realisation that growth was capped unless the structure changed.

That experience forced a rethink. Andrew began pulling apart how the business actually operated: where decisions lived, how leadership was structured, and why capable people still defaulted back to the founder. The work was practical and often uncomfortable, but it changed both how the company performed and what was possible for the person running it.

His background in psychology gave him a clear view of where mindset work helps — and where it doesn’t. Over time, Andrew saw the same pattern repeat across industries: founders and owners invest heavily in growth, personally and professionally, yet remain trapped in operational complexity because the business itself hasn’t been built to function without them.

Today, through exyt™, Andrew and his team works with founders and owners who’ve grown past the point where motivation and hard work are enough. His focus is helping them remove themselves as the operational bottleneck — creating the freedom to step back, build new divisions, pursue other interests, or position the business to sell on their terms.

As a podcast guest, Andrew speaks candidly about the second-stage squeeze, the limits of mindset-only solutions, and what it actually takes to build a business that works without consuming the person who built it.