Selling Rapid IT: 15 Years, One Exit, What I Learned
From buying LCWS with my Dad in 2010 to selling Rapid IT — surviving a flood, a pandemic, and growing from £60k to £1.5M.
I worked in LCWS as a 13-year-old, catching the train from Rose Grove to Blackburn and doing a proper 9 to 5 in the warehouse. In 2010 we bought LCWS from Justin — my Dad ran it, and I grew up inside it.
In 2017 I took over as Managing Director from my Dad and rebranded the whole business from LCWS Recycling to Rapid IT Recycling, bringing everything under the Rapid IT brand.
We turned over around £60k in our first year. By the last year we were doing £1.5M. In between we survived a flood in 2015 that nearly took the warehouse, and a global pandemic that broke a lot of businesses around us.
Then I sold it. The day of the deal is loud. The week after is quiet. You stop checking the operations dashboard, stop signing off invoices, stop being the name at the top of every email. It's freeing and disorienting at the same time.
What I'd do again: treat it as a sellable asset from day one — clean books, documented processes, a team that doesn't depend on the founder. What I'd change: take mentorship and the next chapter seriously from year one, not year fifteen.
Now I get to choose what's next. That's the real reward, and it's worth every year of the build.
What to do next
- Write down the outcome you need before choosing features.
- Ask for scope, ownership and ongoing costs in writing.
- Compare the smallest useful version, not an unlimited wish list.