Gang, I’ve got a complete superhero for you this week.

In 2019, Lindsay Compton started a business in her magnolia spare room, with a baby in tow and her husband about to deploy. Not exactly the perfect time to start a business! Today, Canny Comms is a seven-figure company with a team of 14 and government contracts, translating complex science and engineering for clients in the defence and security world.

She’s an RAF child, an Army wife, a mum of two, and she built all of this around military life. As she puts it herself, it’s still a bit “pinch me”.

When your career suddenly “doesn’t matter”

Lindsay had it all mapped out: a corporate career in London, climbing the ladder, maybe a comms director on a big board one day. Then she got married. Even though she’d grown up with a dad in the RAF, it was still a huge shock to realise her career “100% did not matter anymore” to the Army. Sound familiar?

After maternity leave and a move, going back to her old job wasn’t possible. But her employer missed her so much they brought her back as a consultant, because it’s rare to find someone who understands the technical stuff and can communicate it. That was the lightbulb moment. If they valued that, maybe other people would too.

And being, in her words, “a glutton for punishment”, she decided the best time to start was with a baby still feeding and life in total chaos!

The first big contract, the week of lockdown

Her first proper, grown-up contract landed the very week of the first Covid lockdown. Another perfectly timed event! It came through a recommendation from a friend she’d met through Heropreneurs, and suddenly she and her husband were locked in neighbouring bedrooms, swapping their son between them, mornings and afternoons.

Getting help sooner than you think

This is one I bang on about on our start-up course. Year one goes well, you get busy, and then you hit the wall because you’re trying to do everything yourself.

Lindsay brought in help early: a former boss she nicknamed her “business dad”, other trusted people from her network including fellow military spouse Annabel Mead, and then her VA, Suzy Stanier. Hiring Suzy was an overhead, but Lindsay saw it simply: while she was messing about doing admin, she wasn’t billing clients. Her advice? Pick good people, spot your mistakes quickly, and stick with the ones who are good.

Why she hires military spouses

Lindsay employs several military spouses, including two working abroad. When they’re in the UK, they’re employed. When they’re posted overseas, they freelance. It’s simply how Canny works.

And it’s never been a problem. Because everyone gets it, they talk early. Her calendar says “husband away” at the top, and the team plans around moves and deployments rather than hiding them. As she says, not everything is urgent, and if one person needs to step back, the others happily pick up the load. It goes both ways.

I loved this, because it’s exactly what I see in our community. Military spouses aren’t a burden. Flexibility isn’t a favour, it just makes sense.

The guilt nobody talks about

Lindsay was really honest about going back to work after her first baby. Her son was so unsettled at nursery that she’d sneak him home, put him down for his nap and work desperately while he slept.

That guilt is a big part of why she ripped up the rule book and built a business with her own rules: still brilliant for clients, but with no guilt about the school play or the drop-off.

The network is the plan B that always works

Before we recorded, Lindsay sent me a line that said : “The network you build over the years is the plan B that always works.”

Her advice for anyone starting out? You already have a network, you just don’t call it that. It’s your friends, the spouses around you, people from old jobs. We worry we’re imposing, but most people are flattered to be asked for help, and it always pays back somehow. Stay curious, keep in touch, and cheer each other on. It’s not competitive.

Heropreneurs and an MBA, with a baby and a deployment

The same military spouse friend who passed Lindsay her first big client also suggested she apply for an MBA through Heropreneurs. She threw her hat in the ring, didn’t expect to get it, and won a place at Warwick, while secretly pregnant!

Warwick let her defer, and then, of course, her husband deployed. But she did it, using Canny in every piece of coursework, making lifelong friends, and finishing with the distinction she wanted.

Keeping the business going through cancer

And she finished that MBA through breast cancer treatment: chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy. When she told her team, their first reaction was, “Don’t you worry about it. We’ve got this.”

It worked because, from the very start, Lindsay set out to build a business that could run without her. Every big life event, from babies to deployments to cancer, has tested that. Things still went wrong: in her first month of chemo, they realised they’d forgotten to invoice anyone! But the clients were brilliant, and now there’s a process so invoices go out whatever is happening.

Her operations director, Helena, has built “the Canny way”, and has a brilliant question for whenever Lindsay insists she has to do something herself: “But do you, though?” I think we all need a Helena!

Lindsay’s first steps for getting your business noticed

Of course I had to ask the comms expert for some free advice! Here’s where she says to start:

1. Who first. Get super clear on who you’re trying to reach. It can’t be everyone. If you don’t know yet, go and test it.
2. Then what. Work out what problem you’re solving for them, and talk from their perspective, not yours.
3. Write it down. Your key messages shouldn’t live in your head. Once they’re written down, you can hand them to a VA, a web designer or anyone else who helps you.
4. Then pick your channels. Once you know who they are, you’ll know what they read and watch. There’s no point advertising in The Times if your customers don’t read it!

She also made a point that really stuck with me: you’re often most valued by the people who can’t do what you do, not the people who are most like you. So don’t just stick to your comfortable crowd.

Do the brave thing

Lindsay remembers taking Teams calls wedged into the corner of a magnolia bedroom, next to the sink, feeling like it wasn’t a “real” business. Then she’d go to an event, see her team on a stand, and think: no, this is real, and I should be ambitious.

Her advice: get out of the house, to cafés, business hubs or Military Coworking Network spaces, and stop playing small. And if an idea keeps coming back to you, you owe it to yourself to do something with it.

As I always say on the course, if you can send your favourite person off to a war zone, you can start a business. We do brave things all the time.

Listen now

Thank you so much, Lindsay, for such an honest, inspiring and genuinely useful conversation. Her final words of wisdom? Just do it.

So grab a cuppa and catch the full episode on The InDependent Spouse, on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Jess x

• Find Lindsay on Instagram: @cannycompton
• Reputation Masterclass 2027, Canny’s conference for comms and marketing people in defence and security: 24 February 2027, London
• Join the Milspo Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MILSPO
• More episodes: https://milspo.co.uk/podcast