The Moment I Realised Small Businesses Deserved a Guardian Angel

By Karen Rudich, CEO & Co-founder of sherloc

I didn’t set out to build another startup.

I set out to solve a problem that almost ended my last one.

A few years ago, my team was growing from twelve to seventy-five people. We were expanding fast, signing new clients, developing technology - everything looked like success.

Until one day, in a meeting with our accountants, I heard the words every founder dreads:

“You’ve got two weeks of cash left.”

It was like the room stopped. I remember thinking, I’m responsible for seventy-five livelihoods. We’d had millions in the bank just a month before - but growth had outpaced visibility.

That was the moment I realised how fragile small businesses really are. We don’t fail because we’re bad at what we do; we fail because the system isn’t built to warn us in time.

Banks hold our data, accountants review it - but no one joins the dots fast enough.

If someone had sent me a simple text - “You’re running low on cash; call your clients” - I could have acted.

That idea stayed with me.

Then one day, walking down my local high street in Croydon, I saw shuttered shops, empty windows, and silence. Once-vibrant businesses were gone.

And it hit me: this isn’t just an economic failure - it’s a social one.

When small businesses die, communities crumble.

That’s when sherloc was born - not as another financial tool, but as an intelligent guardian angel for SMEs.

A digital brain that helps you see what’s coming, not just what’s happened.

A system that gives founders what they need most: time. Because with time, entrepreneurs can fix anything.

Today, our mission is simple but bold:

• To bring financial foresight within every SME’s reach.

• To rebuild resilience - one business, one community at a time.

Karen Rudich is a seasoned entrepreneur and strategic leader with two successful exits and a career spanning chemical engineering, corporate & investment banking, and fintech innovation. Originally from Canada, she transitioned from engineering to global banking during the dot-com boom, leading transformation programs at UBS, Barclays, BNP Paribas, and Lloyds. Her latest venture, sherloc, emerged from her third startup, ELEMENTARYb, to address the financial intelligence gap faced by SMEs. Recognised by The Telegraph and NatWest as one of the “Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch,” Karen is a passionate advocate for small businesses, equipping them with real-time insights and forecasting tools to help them grow with confidence.