Niall Cleaver

Documenting the journey of crafting a timeless coffee cup brand | CEO & Founder of Cupsly

My story isn’t about a polished entrepreneur. My journey hasn’t been traditional. I left school without an English qualification, uncertain of what the future held. 

That failure shaped me, it forced me to think differently, fall into business, and ultimately embrace creativity, resilience, and the belief that change is possible, even when doubted. Fast forward to today, I’m growing and scaling businesses while sharing the real lessons that come from it.

Founder

Are you struggling to grow an engaging community for your business or personal brand.

Stop right there, I think I have you covered ⬇️

This is me (Niall), I'm a 22-year-old who is fascinated by growing communities in the online space. Actual communities that have meaning and purpose. 

The services we provide at Social Library 

➡️ Personal Branding (LinkedIn)

➡️ Guidance & support consulting


Drop me a message to discuss your social media strategy, review how well your current socials/posts are doing, and research how we can build your community and gain you more followers and leads.

or you can email us @

hello@sociallibrary.co.uk

If you’re in your 20s, please listen...

Go and shoot your shot!!!

I hated people telling me how I should live my own life, you shouldn’t travel, you shouldn’t build a business, you should go and gain more experience first.

 This is what my life has been so far: 

Tried several businesses from the age of 14.
Left school without an English qualification.
Met other people on the same wavelength.
Started learning more about business.
Documenting my journey in real time.

That, to me, is living life

Do what feels right to you because you’ll soon find the people who are doing the same, and they’ll become friends like never before. 

People will always try to tell you don't do this do it this way but if you've got a really strong opinion about something give it ago because you can always go back through the same door but the opportunity might never happen again.

Growing @thistlescientific and sharing the lessons while I do

I just spent 2 hours yesterday in one of the best meetings of my life!!!

What about? How do we build further on our foundation?

Yesterday was a special day, do you know where you get the team together and you leave feeling excited for what's to come? That's what happened.

It's been a pretty wild couple of months for Thistle, but it always comes back to the same thing. How can we deepen the connection we can have with researchers?

The personal touch.
The real support they deserve.
The professionalism and trust they have in us.

This year, we’re looking at how we double down on that.

We’ve set some big objectives, and the whole team is ready for them. If yesterday was anything to go by, this next phase is going to be an exciting one.

We can't wait to share more on this very soon.

Excited to be back in the capital 🇬🇧

Yesterday,  we brought Thistle to London for this year's festival of genomics, but this year, bigger and way more special, as we share a closer look into our mission as an organisation.

London has always held a special place for me, as the capital of my home country. But more than that, it’s a city where we support, assist, and encourage researchers to continue their vital work in keeping the world safe. 

Today, we’re up ready for day two and the team and I can’t wait for even more incredible conversations.

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Building vs scaling a business. What's the difference?

A few years ago, I learned one of the most valuable lesson in business. I left school with qualifications that made it hard for me to get any sort of job.

Luckily, my family ran a business. I jumped in and started learning. And here’s what I learned: There’s a huge difference between building and scaling.

Building a business:

Proving the idea
Short-term survival
Doing everything yourself
Energy, speed & scrappiness

Scaling a business:

Letting go of control
Long-term decisions
Patience, systems & people
Making sure it works without you.
Alignment throughout the whole company.

Building feels exciting. Scaling feels uncomfortable. Both are essential. I didn’t realise how different they both were until I lived them.

But the one thing that never changes between both? 
The hard work that comes with it.

Just a 25-year-old from a small county called Warwickshire who decided to go all in on their family business. 

I was a typical teenager who went to school, left without the qualifications I needed to get "a decent job", kept playing a little bit of professional rugby, then left with nothing really lined up. 

This was such a crucial stage in my life...
It's where I started to learn more about business. 

At 21 years old, I was diagnosed with dyslexia, and from that moment, everything started to make sense for me. 

The way I learned looked different.
The way I took action looked different.
The way I proceeded things looked different.

Understanding this allowed me to lean into my strengths the creative side, but not just that. It led me to understand the details of running a business. 

It's been full of trial and error throughout my entire life, but that's something we all should be looking for. It's where we develop, and now I get to do what I love, helping to continue to scale Thistle with the incredible team.

I’m really enjoying sharing more of this side of my journey.
The raw, honest, unfiltered side.

We’re excited to announce our new collaboration.

I'm genuinely proud of the impact we're creating in research at Thistle Scientific. It started with one clear objective to make research the best it can be, not only to impact our lives, but also to impact the lives of generations to come.

Last week was a big reminder of this as we announced our collaboration with arcorisbio AG, which will help accelerate the industrialisation and commercialisation of their breakthrough MUSE® platform.

A collaboration that will help keep the world safe.

Last Friday was a special day...



5 years ago, I stepped into my family business, not expecting much. My mindset back then was: “It’s just a job until I figure out what I really want to do.”

5 years later, more invested and interested than ever. It's incredible to watch the business grow year on year, and last Friday was a big reminder of this for us.

We started mapping out the growth opportunities we have as a brand and organisation, and it reminded us of why we do this.

It's easy to continue to do what feels safe, comfortable and familiar, but as a team, we've always looked at the bigger picture.

How can we push a little further?
How can we become something even greater?”

That often means taking a little risk. The kind where you ask yourself if this works, it's going to change everything for us. The safe option feels comfortable, but keeps you in a bubble.

On Friday, this was the reminder we all left with.

You've got to take that bet on yourself.

I used to panic hearing the word strategy in business.

It sounded complicated... but it wasn’t.

I would hear the word and be like that sounds proper technical. I'd just nod like I understood exactly what it meant, when I didn't but now I get it and it's simple.

It's just a plan.

What are the objectives?
What action will you take to hit them?
Which data tells you it's working or it isn't?

We love to make words sound more complicated than they are. 

It's easy to overcomplicate things when you hear all of the advice online but it's simpler than you think. If something isn't working don't wait, go and find the reason why.

Try something. Learn. Adapt. Evolve. Repeat.
Just enjoy the process of figuring out.

That's what business is!

One of the best mistakes I learned pretty quickly in business.

Thinking strategy comes first in business. But it doesn’t… 

Understanding who you’re building for is.

I’m nowhere near successful yet. But I’ve been lucky to spend time around people who definitely are. And one topic comes up over and over again: 

Strategy.

How did you come up with your strategy?
Why has your strategy been effective?
When do you adapt your strategy?

The answer usually sounds complicated.
But, it keeps coming back to one word: audience.

Before you can plan anything, you have to understand them. What do they care about? When do they need to hear from you? How do they feel when they see you show up?

This is where a lot of founders go wrong. No strategy is 100% correct. It’s custom‑made based on how well you understand the information your audience is giving you.

So copying what works in another company or industry rarely works. You’re playing a different game, with different people, at a different stage.

Strategy is an understanding game.

And that's a wrap for Festival of Genomics 2026. 

A full couple of days spent with our friends, team and partners. And this year felt extra special.

We finally started to share where we are going. We've got so much change happening behind the scenes, and soon we'll be able to announce it. We can't wait.

For us, these couple of days mean a lot. We get to meet so many different kinds of people. Well-established researchers & organisations who have spent decades doing incredible work, to students who are about to enter the industry.

But one thing never changes: it’s our chance to listen.

Listen to what researchers need, where they’re heading, and how we can continue developing and supporting their work even more. This still feels like the very beginning for us with so much more to give, and we can't wait to continue to work towards this.

Stop listening to too much advice.

Read that again... throughout my journey, I've fallen for many distractions. Stuff that didn't feel right personally, and so many of us are going through this.

There's advice here, there and everywhere.

And it's very hard to know which is the right or wrong advice, and you know what you'll never really know. The only way to find out is to...

Listen to your gut and try.

In a world full of advice after advice, trust yourself first. 
There's no right or wrong way to do anything.

If it works, it works!

P.S. Have a little day in the life vid

When I was younger, I hesitated on the idea of working for my family business.

Today, I’m 3 years in, working alongside nearly 50 incredible people.

It’s crazy how life works. Some days you’re completely against something before you’ve even tried it…then you try it and realise it was exactly what you were meant to do.

I always had this doubt in the back of my head:
That I had to prove myself somewhere else first.

That’s why:

- I started posting on LinkedIn.
- I kept looking for “my own thing”.
- I started learning more about business.

Now it feels like all of that happened so I could come back better and help continue to grow a business I genuinely care about. But this growth has hardly been me. It’s been the team I get to work with every single day.

A few things this has taught me:

- Don’t write something off until you’ve actually tried it.
- You can prove yourself elsewhere, but always bring the knowledge back

So don't resist an opportunity just because it didn't fit your picture in that specific moment of your life. It might be worth taking a closer look.

Yesterday, we moved closer to finalising the next chapter of Thistle.

And it's actually getting proper real now...

I've been very lucky to work on this project from the beginning. From the first idea all the way through the execution, but this project is more than that to us. It's not just another project; it's the next chapter in how we support even more researchers around the world.

But for many businesses, change can feel uncomfortable. It brings uncertainty and a little risk, but this is what we should be looking for. As you grow and develop as a business you brand evolves with you.

You become clearer with two questions:

Who you serve as a business?
How can you better support them?

That’s why it’s so important to bring the right people into the room.

People who debate, people who aren't scared of having hard conversations and people who keep it real. For us, that’s been the case since day one with Jo and Harry.

Both have been part of this journey from the start, helping shape, question, and build where Thistle is heading next. And it's one we're all excited for...

Remember, change is a good thing. Sitting still never is.

Last week, we shared changes to Thistle Scientific that will reflect the ambition we have as a company and a team.

It will bring us closer to researchers and allow us to be clear about what we're building together. We will also have the opportunity to display some of this next week at the Festival of Genomics.

We feel energised and ready to share what we've been working on for several months. As we enter this next phase, we're ready to help keep the world even safer, standing side by side with all researchers and organisations around the world.

Aaron Hays

Authority Signal

Alterfy

Co-Founder & Director of CS

Rockbot

Account Director

Optimizely

Manager - Onboarding / Implementation

ZoomInfo

Customer Onboarding  Manager

Gordon Food Service

Project Manager

Booking.com

Account Manager

I help SaaS leaders build trust, visibility, and inbound opportunity on LinkedIn | Writer on SaaS leadership, reputation building, and content that converts

I'm currently in a full-time SaaS leadership role while building Authority Signals, where I help other SaaS professionals grow their presence, sharpen their voice, and attract opportunity, without needing to go viral.

After more than a decade in SaaS, leading CS teams, building onboarding playbooks, and navigating the emotional pressure of being “the glue” - I realized something:

Great work doesn’t speak for itself.

Many of the most capable operators I know stay invisible online. They lead quietly, burn out privately, and get passed over for louder, flashier people.

I help them change that.

I work with SaaS leaders - especially in CS, GTM, and RevOps, to clarify their voice, tell the truth about their leadership journey, and build real visibility on LinkedIn.

I’m not a coach, and I’m not here to make you post every day.

Through my Leadership Narrative Sprint, I help mid-to-senior professionals reposition themselves around trust, clarity, and authority, not hustle or fluff.

I also write about the emotional reality of modern leadership:

Burnout from invisible labor

Boundaries in high-stakes roles

Building trust without performative branding

✅ 16K+ followers
✅ 1K+ newsletter subscribers
✅ Posts seen by over 1 million people

If you’re tired of doing great work in silence, and you want your next opportunity, client, or promotion to find you, I’d love to help.

📩 DM me “Leadership” to see how the Sprint works.
Or follow for weekly insights on trust, visibility, and voice.

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The Battle

Niall Cleaver

Aaron Hays

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The Battle

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Aaron Hays

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Niall Cleaver's LinkedIn Performance

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