Start-ups are born to fail. Around three quarters of venture capital-backed new companies never return cash to investors. Upscale is about the other 25 percent.

"I feel like I woke up one morning to find I have a board, investors and 80 people to manage - and I don't have a clue how to do it." (Asi Sharabi, co-founder, Wonderbly)

At a time when more people than ever are starting companies in Britain - over 2,000 new businesses are launched every day - Upscale focuses on the moment founders floor the accelerator and their company goes from a bunch of friends in a co-working space to hundreds of employees often scattered around the world.

Speaking to some of the UK's leading technology entrepreneurs and investors - including Brent Hoberman (lastminute.com, Founders Factory), Wendy Tan White (BGF, Moonfruit), Neil Rimer (Index Ventures), Suranga Chandratillake (Balderton Capital), Saul Klein (LocalGlobe), and Sarah Wood (Unruly) - who, between them, have built or backed companies worth billions, journalist James Silver covers the most pressing, practical and often painful issues founders face: from coping with stress to getting shot of a bad hire to handling a tricky board member and opening a first overseas office.

By founders for founders and those toying with starting a business, Upscale (based on the Tech Nation program of the same name) avoids the theorizing and platitudes of typical business books, in favor of hard-headed advice from those who've succeeded and the mistakes to look out for along the way.