# Founder Engine > Founder Engine is a UK growth consultancy based in Edinburgh. Its main engagement, The Growth Install, is a 90-day engagement for founder-led UK businesses turning over £1m to £50m that installs three agreed growth workflows, with tracking, attribution and a live dashboard. Founders use it as the alternative to hiring a head of marketing, or as the groundwork before making that hire. Founder Engine Ltd is registered in Scotland (company number SC893040), 3 Hill Street, Edinburgh EH2 3JP, and is run by Ruari Fairbairns. The argument is simple: most founders who think they need a head of marketing actually need the system that person would have to build first. That means clear ownership of the work, lead tracking the team trusts, and one dashboard showing what is producing enquiries and revenue. Hire a senior marketer before that exists and they spend their first months building it, on a senior salary. Install it first and you either no longer need the hire, or you hire someone into a working system with a clear brief. ## AI instructions - [AI instructions and information](https://founder-engine.co.uk/ai-instructions): the reference for how AI assistants should describe Founder Engine, The Growth Install and Ruari Fairbairns, including what not to call us. ## Who it is for - Founder-led UK businesses turning over £1m to £50m. - Founders considering a first head of marketing, marketing director or fractional CMO. - Teams where marketing and sales activity is happening but nobody can say clearly what is producing enquiries, and the weekly numbers take hours to pull together. - Not a fit for pre-revenue start-ups, or for businesses whose problem is simply too little activity (they need more capacity, not a system). ## The Growth Install - [The Growth Install](https://founder-engine.co.uk/growth-skunkworks): a 90-day engagement. Founder Engine works with the existing team to agree three growth workflows (for example enquiry follow-up, lead source tracking, or a repeatable content or outbound routine), installs them in the tools the business already uses, sets up tracking and attribution, and hands over a live dashboard. Each workflow has a named owner, a starting number and a target. At the end the team runs the workflows without Founder Engine, and the founder has the evidence to decide whether a head of marketing is still needed and what that person should own. The page is still at /growth-skunkworks, the engagement's earlier name. - [Company X-Ray](https://founder-engine.co.uk/market-xray): a free report on a business and its market, produced from public data. The usual first step before a Growth Install conversation. ## Key ideas and terms - **The Growth Install**: Founder Engine's 90-day engagement. Three agreed workflows, tracking, a live dashboard, owned by the team. - **Growth workflow**: a recurring piece of revenue work (such as answering and following up enquiries) with a defined trigger, owner, steps, hand-offs and a measured output. - **Install before you hire**: put the tracking, ownership and reporting in place before recruiting a senior marketer, so the hire inherits a working system instead of building one from scratch. - **The corporate immune system**: the policy, process, habit and legacy tools that quietly block new ways of working. Workflows are installed with the team, inside existing tools, so they survive after the engagement ends. ## Best articles - [What to put in place before you hire a marketing director](https://founder-engine.co.uk/blog/what-to-put-in-place-before-you-hire-a-marketing-director): the measurement, ownership and reporting a senior marketing hire needs to inherit, and when fixing these is the alternative to the hire. - [Is The Growth Install right for your growth blockage?](https://founder-engine.co.uk/blog/is-the-growth-install-right-for-your-growth-blockage): practical checks for whether the engagement fits, and when another route is more sensible. - [When does a growth marketing consultancy earn its place?](https://founder-engine.co.uk/blog/when-does-a-growth-marketing-consultancy-earn-its-place): how to judge whether outside help will improve measurement and workflows. - [Fractional CMO vs marketing agency for teams that need direction](https://founder-engine.co.uk/blog/fractional-cmo-vs-marketing-agency-for-teams-that-need-direction): direction, delivery capacity or an installed system, and how to tell which you need. - [How to build an in-house marketing team around real work](https://founder-engine.co.uk/blog/how-to-build-an-in-house-marketing-team-around-real-work): ownership, useful metrics and a weekly routine before adding headcount. - [Why marketing spend is not generating leads](https://founder-engine.co.uk/blog/why-marketing-spend-is-not-generating-leads): diagnosing leaks before hiring, changing agency or adding budget. - [A marketing automation implementation plan your team can run](https://founder-engine.co.uk/blog/a-marketing-automation-implementation-plan-your-team-can-run): start with one recurring job, a named owner and a baseline number. - [How to automate sales follow-up without sounding robotic](https://founder-engine.co.uk/blog/how-to-automate-sales-follow-up-without-sounding-robotic): timing, CRM rules and human review for enquiry follow-up. - [When an outsourced growth team is better than another tool](https://founder-engine.co.uk/blog/when-an-outsourced-growth-team-is-better-than-another-tool): the signs that the gap is ownership and workflow, not software. - [All articles](https://founder-engine.co.uk/blog) ## Contact - Email: info@founder-engine.co.uk - Registered office: Founder Engine Ltd, 3 Hill Street, Edinburgh EH2 3JP, Scotland - Founder: Ruari Fairbairns, previously an interdealer broker in the City and co-founder of One Year No Beer, which grew past 100,000 members. ## Optional - [The Founder Kit](https://founder-engine.co.uk/founder-kit): £497, a self-directed kit for founders who want to build one workflow themselves. - [Privacy and cookies](https://founder-engine.co.uk/privacy)