David B. Horne: Add Then Multiply, Funded Female Founders & the ROI of Writing a Book

David B. Horne has raised over £120M, bought or sold 33 companies, and written two Amazon #1 bestsellers — “Add Then Multiply” and “Funded Female Founders”.

In this episode of Book the Business, David and host Joe Gregory unpack how writing a book turned tacit expertise into a repeatable methodology, opened doors to Warren Buffett and R.E.M., and became the credibility engine behind David’s transition from hands-on operator to company chair. They also dig into the UK’s gender funding gap data that inspired David’s second book and TEDx talk, which has been viewed over 3 million times.

What You’ll Learn

• How to turn scattered, tacit expertise into a teachable framework (David’s “card system” behind the FACE methodology)
• Why beta readers who critique instead of praise make a book dramatically better
• How a single case study/story can make a dense finance chapter engaging
• Why the real financial return on a business book comes from credibility, not royalties
• How a book can open doors that cold outreach never could (including a reply from Warren Buffett’s office)
• The data behind the UK’s gender funding gap — and why all-male teams get 89% of VC funding
• How writing and publishing builds the authority needed to shift from founder/operator to chair
• What it actually takes to hand off a business you’ve run solo for years (and hire the right CEO)

Chapters

0:00 Intro — who is David B. Horne
1:12 What made David decide to write a book
2:09 The “gift” of a failed client relationship and a fresh start in 2019
2:25 Breaking down the title Add Then Multiply and the FACE methodology
3:36 Was the methodology codified before writing, or “in his head”?
4:05 The card system — turning tacit knowledge into a teachable framework
4:43 Why beta readers were the most valuable part of the writing process
5:26 Turning a dry finance chapter into a story (the ABC Ltd. case study)
6:25 Long-tail outcomes: newsletters, repurposed content, 7 years later
7:07 Building an AI-driven product based on the book (launching autumn)
7:39 The biggest mindset shift: “this is what I do, therefore this is what I don’t do”
8:07 The Warren Buffett letter
8:38 The R.E.M. story — getting the band’s permission for a lyric dedication
10:28 Using the book with clients, partners, and at speaking events
12:09 Does the book make you more generous? “Author is the first part of authority”
14:12 Where the real ROI comes from — it’s not book royalties
15:33 Books sold (500–600) vs. given away (1,000+)
16:34 Introducing the second book: Funded Female Founders
17:14 The origin story — a question at a conference launches 5 years of research
18:24 The British Business Bank data: female founders get less than 1% of VC funding
19:20 Partnering with the London Stock Exchange to launch the book/event series
20:32 Why David — a man with no daughters in business — took on this cause
21:12 His mother’s influence growing up in the ’60s/’70s
22:38 Three root causes of the funding gap (bias, lack of women in VC, culture)
23:41 The viral stat: more fund managers named “David” than women fund managers
24:18 TEDx talk origin — filmed in 2020, went viral in 2022 (10K → 3M views)
25:22 Who should read which book — ideal reader for each title
26:49 Teaser: book #3, working title “F is for Fund”
27:30 David’s journey to hiring a female CEO and stepping into the chair role
28:23 A rough year — father-in-law’s passing, turning 64, new grandchildren
29:40 Launching the CEO search publicly, the backlash, and 16 female applicants
31:18 How the book made this leadership transition possible
32:16 Building a sales engine under the new CEO
33:26 Where to find David and his books
34:21 Why he added the “B.” — Googling “David Horne” gets some interesting results
35:25 Wrap-up and 43rd wedding anniversary shoutout