What if the biggest growth challenge for a purpose-driven business isn’t finding more clients—but building a system that doesn’t depend on someone else giving you a platform?
For Hayley Caddes, co-founder of NotTherapy, that question is becoming central to the next stage of entrepreneurship. Her journey—from chemical engineering and technology to executive coaching and building a mission-driven business—offers a powerful lesson in leadership, human connection and sustainable growth.
From Personal Experience to Social Impact
NotTherapy was born from lived experience. Hayley and her co-founder both experienced the difficult transition out of treatment and discovered the transformative power of mentorship.
“We decided to create NotTherapy based on that and, you know, giving the younger versions of ourselves the mentors we needed.”
Today, NotTherapy primarily supports young adults who feel stuck and want to build confidence, momentum and personal agency. For Hayley, the desired transformation is simple but profound: helping people believe they can trust themselves to figure things out.
That philosophy reflects a broader shift in socially conscious leadership: building businesses around genuine human needs rather than simply market opportunities.
The 2026 Challenge: Growth Without Losing the Mission
As coaching and small-business leaders scale, familiar challenges emerge—client acquisition, messaging clarity, team accountability and business systems.
Hayley’s experience highlights another critical issue: dependency on external visibility.
NotTherapy currently discovers many clients through newsletters, podcasts, workshops and other people’s platforms. But Hayley acknowledges that growth can be inconsistent because the company is still building its own infrastructure.
That is where scalable growth systems become essential.
Her role has increasingly shifted toward COO responsibilities, including “building those kind of backend processes as we scale” so the company can support more coaches, more clients and better family experiences.
Leadership Development Through Collaboration
One of Hayley’s strongest entrepreneurship lessons is also one of the simplest: founders cannot do everything themselves.
“I think having to collaborate, truly collaborate, especially when, you know, you don’t, you know, you have different zones of genius, have different skills…”
For women in leadership, coaches and entrepreneurs alike, this is a critical growth principle. Delegation isn’t simply about removing tasks. It is about trusting capable people with ownership.
NotTherapy is also taking a disciplined approach to scaling. Rather than immediately launching memberships, courses or certifications, the company is first focused on strengthening its proven one-on-one coaching model.
Execution Tip
Build one repeatable growth system before adding another offer. Identify where clients currently come from, document the process, measure what converts, and gradually build an owned channel instead of relying entirely on external platforms.
Connect with Hayley Caddes
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayleycaddes/
Website: https://nottherapy.me/
