broke. brilliant. broken.
by Stuart Lunn
90% of businesses fail. This book exists to help you avoid being one of them.
Unfounded is not another shiny “how-to” manual dripping in start up p*rn. It’s a survival guide. A war journal. A brutally honest companion for anyone mad enough to step into the ring of entrepreneurship.
Stuart Lunn has been broke, brilliant, and broken - sometimes all in the same week. He’s built, failed, rebuilt, and learned the hard way what starting a business really takes. This isn’t theory from a classroom or motivational fluff for your Instagram feed. It’s scars, sweat, and hard-won lessons written for founders who are serious about lasting the fight.
Inside, you’ll discover:
- Why most businesses really fail - and how to brace for the freight train nobody warns you about.
- How to burn the fantasy and ditch start up p*rn so you stop comparing yourself to curated highlight reels.
- The brutal truth about passion (spoiler: it won’t pay the bills) and how to build with purpose instead.
- The founder archetypes - understanding yourself so you build in a way that won’t break you.
- Why your health is your first office - and how sleep, food, and movement will make or break your business.
- The ugly reality of money, sales, and hiring - what it really looks like when you’re bootstrapping, selling, and leading under fire.
- Mental health in the trenches - burnout, breakdowns, loneliness, and the tools to keep your head straight when everything else falls apart.
- What it means to be brilliant on your own terms - success stripped of other people’s definitions, bullshit, or borrowed dreams.
Every chapter is part roadmap, part punch in the face, with journal prompts and calls to action designed to make you stop scrolling, stop dreaming, and start building.
This book won’t tell you it’s easy. It won’t pretend you’ll manifest millions in a month. But it will get you battle-ready. It will give you grit when you’re broke, clarity when you’re broken, and the fight to keep going until you find your version of success.
If you’re ready for honesty over hype, scars over fairy tales, and resilience over empty slogans, Unfounded is the book you’ve been waiting for.
I’m not your typical “business guru.” I haven’t just read about the 90% of start ups that fail - I’ve been part of the statistics, more than once, and lived to tell the tale.
I’ve failed gloriously and succeeded stubbornly in equal measure. My career has been built in sales, start ups, and industries that chew people up for breakfast. I’ve been broke, broken, and brilliant - sometimes all at once. My career has taken me through sales, energy, tech, and start ups. I’ve been the rookie founder with nothing but a sketch of an idea, the hustling salesman chasing targets, and the dealmaker negotiating contracts worth millions. Along the way I’ve felt the adrenaline of pitching investors, the gut-punch of rejection, the loneliness of leadership, and the stubborn thrill of building something real from scratch. I don’t deal in polished theory or motivational fluff. I write from scars. From panic attacks in the car park to the high of landing global partnerships, my career has been one long experiment in grit, failure, and survival. That mix of hard lessons and lived experience is what fuels Unfounded - a book built to strip away the start up p*rn and prepare you for the fight, the failures, and the fragile wins that actually matter. Today I’m a founder, sales director, and author with one mission: to cut through the bullsh*t and give young entrepreneurs the truth they need to survive, adapt, and build something real.