From Founder to Collective: How Friday Solved Became Unusual Group’s First Partner

Most first partnerships are symbolic. This one is structural.
It represents the shift from solo success to shared intelligence, from “my business” to “our collective strength.”

Friday Solved isn’t an early-stage startup looking for rescue. It’s led by one of the UK’s most experienced agency founders, someone who’s already built and sold multiple successful businesses, including Nice Agency, which was acquired by Karmarama and later by Accenture.

Ryan has seen both sides of the table: the thrill of scale and the weight of running alone. That experience makes his decision to join The Unusual Group all the more significant.

As Ryan puts it:

“Being a founder is a lonely place. You want to know someone’s in your corner, and being part of The Unusual Group means I have that access. The services Unusual offers are significantly better value than I can get elsewhere, which means I can focus on what I do best, driving revenue, culture, and growth, whilst knowing the infrastructure side is taken care of. I’ve known Luke for years, and being part of the group just formalises that trust.”

When a founder with multiple exits joins a collective, it’s not about learning the ropes. It’s about multiplying impact.

Friday Solved is Ryan’s third act, a consultancy built to help agencies solve sales through predictable, scalable, and sustainable growth systems. It’s a business that already embodies The Unusual Group’s philosophy: practical systems, not empty theory.

Ryan didn’t need another investor.
He needed infrastructure without interference, a model that amplified his strengths while eliminating distraction.

That’s the core of what The Unusual Group offers:

• Capital that accelerates, not dictates.
  
  
• Operational frameworks that give founders headspace.
  
  
• A network of peers who share, not compete.

It’s not about control. It’s about collective advantage.

The timing isn’t accidental. The agency landscape is shifting fast.

• 34% of UK advertising agencies generate less than £250k per year.
  
  
• Only 4% of agency founders ever achieve a successful exit.
  
  
• The rest hit the same wall: founder dependency, inconsistent revenue, and no infrastructure to scale sustainably.

The irony? Most of these agencies have the talent, clients, and creativity to succeed, but they lack the support systems that big networks take for granted.

That’s what The Unusual Group was created to solve:A third way between independence and acquisition, one where founders keep their DNA intact while gaining the infrastructure, finance, and operational strength to scale.

Sales and structure are the twin engines of agency growth. Friday Solved builds the first; The Unusual Group provides the second.

That alignment is what makes this partnership such a natural fit.

While Ryan helps agencies build predictable sales systems, The Unusual Group brings enterprise-grade operations, finance, legal, HR, and automation at a collective scale. Together, it’s a blueprint for how founder-led agencies can scale intelligently in a market that’s growing more competitive by the quarter.

It’s not about growth for growth’s sake. It’s about designing resilience, agencies that can scale, sustain, and sell when they choose, not when they’re forced to.

As Luke Tobin, Founder and CEO of The Unusual Group, puts it:

“Ryan joining as our first partner validates everything we set out to build. This isn’t about rescuing struggling agencies; it’s about giving ambitious founders the infrastructure to focus on their strengths. Ryan has already proven he can build and exit successfully. Now he’s showing that the smartest founders don’t build alone.”

At the heart of The Unusual Group is a belief that no founder scales in isolation.
Every agency in the network shares insight, learns faster, and compounds results.

When one partner cracks AI adoption, everyone benefits.
When another discovers a new pricing model or sales process, it’s shared across the group.
It’s how a collective becomes more than the sum of its parts, and why we call it compound infrastructure.

Ryan’s philosophy mirrors this perfectly.Friday Solved helps agencies generate predictable sales engines. Now, within The Unusual Group’s ecosystem, those systems can scale across dozens of agencies, creating exponential shared value.

This partnership didn’t begin in a boardroom. It began years ago, when Ryan and Luke worked together on agency growth and exits.

They’ve been peers, advisors, and collaborators. Now, they’re partners in building a new kind of collective, one where experience meets infrastructure.

That founder-to-founder trust is what defines every Unusual partnership. There’s no hierarchy. No “investor vs. operator” dynamic. Just mutual respect and aligned ambition.

“Ryan and I have both seen the inside of exits, the highs and lows of building teams, and the cost of doing it alone,” Luke adds. “This partnership is about proving that there’s a better way to build, together.”

Friday Solved joining the collective isn’t just a partnership. It’s a signal that the model works, even for the most seasoned founders.

The Unusual Group’s mission is to bring 100 founder-led agencies into the collective by 2030. Not through roll-ups or control, but through alignment, a network of founders who scale on their terms, supported by infrastructure that compounds value across every partner.

Seven agencies have already joined. Each one adds strength, capability, and shared knowledge to the network. Together, they’re building the future of independent agency growth.

For founders like Ryan, the lesson is simple:
You don’t have to burn out or sell out. You can build differently.

Friday Solved isn’t just our first partner, it’s proof that the smartest founders recognise strength in numbers.

Because in the end, being “founder-first” doesn’t mean doing it alone.It means building with people who’ve been there, and who know how to get you to what’s next.

Read the full press release here.

Or if you’re a founder ready to explore what a collective future could look like, start the conversation with us.