Digital products Operational systems AI in the real economy
Most companies know exactly what they want. Almost none of them know how to build it.
I'm Sam Furr. Fifteen years a CEO, product strategist and operator. Boards, leadership teams and founders bring me the product that doesn't exist yet, or the operation that only half works. I do the rest.
The record
Fifteen years of designing systems for businesses that make, move and sell real things.
- 2011 Origin
- Started Tappable as part of a BBC television show. I still run it.
- Retail supply chain
- Designed the paperless quality control system used in the M&S Food supply chain. Backed it as an investor too.
- Entertainment
- Founded a live entertainment tech startup that went on to raise £3m from ITV.
- Healthcare
- Worked in the innovation team of a healthcare business, helping digitise their services through to its $80m acquisition. I have chosen to believe the two facts are related.
- European retail
- Designed footfall and retention models built on mobile gaming for European retailers.
- UK SMEs
- Designed and delivered operational tools and paperless systems into SMEs across the UK. Too many to count, which is rather the point.
- Startups
- Mentoring and coaching founders on their way into tech: raising money, choosing what to build first, and the decisions that arrive with a first technical team.
- Investing
- I back founders at pre‑seed under SEIS, usually people I already know. Sometimes cash, sometimes time and development resource for equity.
- Boards
- On the steering board of BedX, the business‑led group backed by Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce that is getting local firms ready to win work on the £5bn Universal resort at Bedford and the £2.5bn expansion of Luton Airport.
- Speaking
- Keynotes and sessions on AI in the real economy, paperless operations and product strategy. Plain English, built for rooms of operators who have a business to run.
- Throughout
- Fifteen years co‑founder and CEO of Tappable, a mobile software studio at the forefront of AI. Everything above happened while running it.
What AI actually changes
Most businesses are being sold AI as a way to cut cost.
The ones getting it right treat it as capacity they didn't have before, then decide what that capacity is for. That second decision is a strategy question long before it is a technology one. I've gone a long way down this rabbit hole so your team doesn't have to.
Adoption beats software
A system nobody uses is just a cost. The hard part was never the build, it was designing around how people actually work.
Capacity, not cuts
The real effect on an operating business is time and headroom. What you spend that on is the decision worth getting right.
A bet, not a wish‑list
Most roadmaps are every request anyone ever made, in a row. A strategy is the few things you will actually fund.
What I do
01
Product strategy
You can describe what you want. My job is the how: what the thing actually is, what it does first, what it never does, and what it costs to find out. Bought as a fixed piece of work, usually two to four weeks, priced up front, with something you can react to by the end of the first week. This is the work I am best at.
02
Fractional and interim
Sometimes the plan needs someone in the seat. I take fractional and interim roles running product or operations inside a business, one to three days a week, for as long as it takes to hand it over properly. Paperless workflows, operational tools, the spreadsheet the whole company secretly depends on. If the work needs a team, I bring Tappable, the studio I run. If it doesn't, it's just me.
03
Advisory and boards
Retained or board‑level. A retainer is a fixed session every fortnight, with me on the end of the phone in between, for as long as it's useful. A board seat is the same judgement, applied at the table, with the papers read. I take the problem as you describe it, reframe it, and give you the plan with the call already made and the reasoning left in so you can argue with it.
How I work
I tell people the truth
I don't say yes when the answer is no, and I don't ride the hype train. If the plan is wrong, you'll hear it from me first.
I ask the awkward questions
I prod in places you didn't expect. That's usually where the real problem lives, and the real potential too.
I don't do six‑week discovery
No phase that bills for a month and ends in a slide deck. You get something you can look at and react to early, because that is when your opinion is worth the most.
Short beats long
The shortest version that still carries the argument wins. If a page doesn't change the decision, it goes.
Let's talk.
A product that only exists in your head, an operation that half works, or a board that needs a straight answer. One conversation is usually enough to tell whether I can help, and if I can't, I'll say so.