Innovators Uncensored

⚡ How this Start-Up is Rebuilding how Gen Z find Careers

Richard Lee — Fri, 15 May 2026 08:30:00 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🔎 How this Start-Up is rebuilding how Gen Z find careers
👠 How to use pop culture to make your product go viral
📈 An AI tool that allows you to have a full-time marketer, without the salary.

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to apply for the Baltic Ventures accelerator, with successful applicants getting up to £100k in funding.

Happy hustling,

Rich

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🇪🇺 Araya Sie Fund has just announced its first close of £7.5m, backing female Founders with £300k cheques across pre-seed and seed stage in healthcare, climate, fintech and deeptech/AI covering UK and Europe - contact the team here!

🎤 FundMyPitch have announced their UK wide pitch competition with a £50k investment on the line - apply here!

⭐️ A* Capital have just raised a $450m fund to invest at the Seed stage. They’re sector generalists that write big cheques - connect with the team here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

🧑‍💻 Mid-Senior Product Enigeers, Cleo AI
🧑‍🎨 Senior Product Designer, Lottie
🐕 Full Stack Software Engineer, Waggel

🗣 Eleven Labs hit with fresh lawsuit over use of voices. Sifted

💰 Andruil raises $5bn, doubles valuation to $61bn. TechCrunch

🏦 FinTech startup Parker files for bankruptcy. TechCrunch

💊 Isomorphic Labs raises £1.6bn to scale AI drug design engine. UKTN

NOAN

Meet NOAN: The Intelligent Operating System for Founders

Still wrangling scattered docs and glorified spreadsheet CRMs? NOAN is your escape hatch. NOAN replaces outdated sales, CRM, project management, and marketing tools - powering your business development with a living, intelligent system controlled by you and AI.

Automate the repetitive. Ditch the manual busywork. Instantly surface the insights and actions that actually drive growth. NOAN keeps your knowledge, strategy, and growth engine in sync - so you can focus on building, not babysitting your tools.

Ready to leave chaos behind? Discover what your business can do when it runs itself.

We’ve partnered with NOAN to offer readers 20% off the first 3 months by using code #UNCENSORED20

Try it now, or book a demo here

Adam Probert

This week’s campaign isn’t an official one, but it’s absolutely genius. Everyone has been talking about the new ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ film, but Adam Probert has come up with an elite marketing campaign for Strava in relation to the release of the film.

Most people who use Strava will post about their run after they’ve completed it. So, Adam suggests that Strava set their runners a challenge. Give them a predetermined route in the shape of a high heel, get them to complete the route and share it on their stories. If they complete the route, they get a free coffee at participating cafes.

This is a genius way to use current pop culture trends to show off your product.

How can you use pop culture to promote your own product?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

Blaze 2.0 is the marketing solution for people who don't have time to do marketing. It learns your business, your audience, and your voice - then creates and manages your entire content strategy, automatically. Like having a full-time marketer on your team without the salary.

Blaze

urfuture

🚀 urfuture: Rebuilding How Gen Z Discover Careers

While much of the recruitment industry still relies on CVs, job boards, and outdated hiring processes, urfuture is building something entirely different. Founded by Thomas, urfuture is a social-first careers platform and behavioural matching engine designed specifically for Gen Z. Instead of asking young people to search for jobs based purely on titles or keywords, the platform helps them discover opportunities based on who they are, their behaviours, motivations, and strengths.

For employers, urfuture offers a smarter way to attract and assess entry-level talent, helping companies move beyond traditional CV screening to find more diverse, better-matched candidates. With over 150 million social views and partnerships with major UK employers, urfuture has quickly become one of the fastest-growing Gen Z careers brands in the country.

Building the Team: From Solo Founder to Mission-Aligned Co-Founders

Thomas initially started the business on his own, but over time realised that building a company of this scale required people who shared both the mission and the responsibility.

His first Co-Founder, Jayel Williams, joined as urfuture’s founding employee and played a critical role in building the operational foundations of the business. Later, Holly Hobbs, already a well-known careers creator through her own business Apprentivia, joined the founding team after the two connected through the early careers ecosystem.

The biggest lesson for Thomas was clear: while you can start alone, scaling a meaningful business requires people around you who deeply believe in the mission and bring strengths that complement your own.

Landing the First Customers: Relationships and an Unexpected TikTok Explosion

urfuture’s earliest customers came through Thomas’s existing network. Having previously worked in the apprenticeship and early careers sector, he already had credibility and strong relationships, which helped open the first commercial doors.

But the biggest breakthrough came from an unexpected place: TikTok.

By creating careers-focused content designed specifically for Gen Z, urfuture generated over 100 million views in its first 12 months. That audience growth didn’t just build awareness with young people, it attracted employers directly. Some of the company’s earliest major customers reached out via TikTok DMs after seeing the traction and recognising the potential of social-first recruitment.

It was a pivotal moment that proved what Thomas had suspected: recruitment could become a discovery experience, not just an application process.

Scaling Beyond Early Success: Turning Social Proof into Commercial Growth

Once urfuture had initial traction, the team built a more structured sales engine around it. They expanded into a multi-touch go-to-market strategy, combining outbound business development, email outreach, LinkedIn engagement, partnerships, and inbound leads generated through social media.

The real catalyst for scaling, however, was outcomes.

As urfuture began delivering measurable improvements in candidate quality, engagement, and diversity for major employers, they built strong case studies and social proof. Sales conversations became easier because they were no longer selling just a vision, they were demonstrating clear results.

Lessons Learned: Focus, Patience, and Choosing the Right Build Partners

One of Thomas’s biggest early mistakes was product development.

As a non-technical Founder, he initially partnered with the wrong development agency - something he estimates set the business back six to eight months. It was an expensive reminder that for non-technical Founders, choosing the right technical partners can make or break early momentum.

The second lesson was around patience.

In the early days, Thomas often expected progress to happen faster. Like many Founders, he chased short-term wins instead of trusting the long-term process. Over time, he learned that startup growth often feels invisible, until suddenly it compounds.

Funding the Business: Building Investor Belief

urfuture initially bootstrapped its behavioural science research before raising a pre-seed SEIS round to begin building the product.

Since then, the company has completed additional top-up rounds and expanded its angel investor network, raising approximately £2.3 million to date.

Thomas found that fundraising at the earliest stage is as much about the Founder as it is about the product. Investors know the idea will evolve, they want confidence that the person leading it can evolve with it. Building credibility, communicating a compelling vision, and demonstrating resilience became just as important as the platform itself.

The Biggest Challenge: Disrupting a Traditional Industry

One of urfuture’s hardest challenges has been changing behaviour in an industry that has remained largely unchanged for decades.

Even when employers acknowledge that traditional recruitment systems are broken, changing internal processes can feel risky. urfuture has had to balance genuine innovation with practical adoption - building something disruptive, while still fitting into the workflows employers already understand.

That balance between disruption and familiarity has been one of the most difficult parts of scaling.

Biggest Lessons: Focus on the Workflow, Build Defensibility

Looking back, Thomas says one of the biggest mistakes was trying to do too much too early.

Like many startups, urfuture experienced feature creep, expanding beyond a clear product identity before pulling back and refocusing. If he were starting again, he’d focus on owning one critical workflow and becoming exceptional at that before expanding.

His second major lesson is about data.

In an AI-driven future, Thomas believes the next generation of successful SaaS businesses won’t simply be interfaces layered on top of large language models, they’ll be built on proprietary datasets that can’t easily be replicated.

For urfuture, that moat is behavioural data, matching science, and the deep trust they’ve built with Gen Z audiences.

As hiring evolves, urfuture isn’t just building another recruitment platform, it’s helping redefine how an entire generation discovers opportunity.

Next week I’ll be highlighting another awesome Start-Up, as well as sharing all the usuals including funding opportunities, Start-Up news, plus plenty of awesome tips, tricks and tools.

P.S. Connect with me on LinkedIn…

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How this Start-Up is Making Bike Safety more Convenient

Richard Lee — Fri, 08 May 2026 08:30:00 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🚴 How this Start-Up is making bike safety more convenient
👟 How a divisive marketing campaign can get you millions of eyeballs
🎥 An AI tool that turns your screen into recordable demos

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to the DFF Ventures fund 3 with which they’re backing software that is highly defensible and touches the world at the Pre-Seed stage.

Happy hustling,

Rich

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🧱 Baltic Ventures have launched the next cohort of their accelerator with successful applicants getting up to £100k in funding - apply here!

🏦 Haun have just raised $1bn to invest in early-stage FinTech and Crypto companies - contact the team here!

🚗 BMW i Ventures have just raised a $300m fund to back AI startups changing the automotive world - contact the team here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

📝 Product Marketing Manager, Skillvue
🎥 Director of Brand Marketing, Vapoura Rum
🎨 Product Designer, Pearl Social

🤝 SAP agrees to acquire German AI startup Prior Labs. Sifted

🚕 Nuro receives driverless testing permit ahead of Uber robotaxi service launch. TechCrunch

🔌 Volkswagen becomes Rivian’s top shareholder, displacing Amazon. TechCrunch

🚁 UK Government pledges £46.5m to drone sector. UKTN

NOAN

Meet NOAN: The Intelligent Operating System for Founders

Ready to leave chaos behind? Discover what your business can do when it runs itself.

We’ve partnered with NOAN to offer readers 20% off the first 3 months by using code #UNCENSORED20

Try it now, or book a demo here

Nike

We’ve got a more controversial campaign this week from none other than Nike themselves.

With all the build up to the recent London marathon, all eyes were on the race. This, of course, is a great opportunity for athletic brands to get some attention from prospective customers.

So, how did Nike do that? They ran a campaign that read “Runners Welcome. Walkers Tolerated.”, which has been hugely divisive! On the one hand, people are saying that Nike are just trying to speak directly to their audience. On the other hand, people are saying they’re devaluing people’s achievements and excluding people.

What are your thoughts? Great campaign or a bit of a mistake?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

Velo 2.0 is a whole new way to make video messages. It turns raw screen recordings into polished videos and docs, with a chat-native editor, real-time processing, voice cloning, and smart script rewriting. Edit by chatting, not timelines. Record once and get both a video and a doc. Write a script even when there is no audio. Change tone anytime. Everything updates live, so the whole experience feels faster, easier, and more natural.

Velo

Newlane

🚀 Newlane: Rethinking Helmets for Everyday Use

In a category that’s barely changed in decades, Newlane is tackling a simple but stubborn problem: people don’t wear helmets because they’re inconvenient. Founded by Dom and Josh, the company has developed a patented folding system called Flip-Clip, allowing helmets to collapse to half their size without compromising safety.

The insight is straightforward - protection isn’t the issue, portability is. By making helmets easier to carry, Newlane is removing one of the biggest barriers to everyday use, particularly for urban riders using bikes, e-bikes, and e-scooters. With over 10,000 units already sold, the concept is clearly resonating.

But the ambition goes beyond cycling. Long term, Newlane is positioning itself as both a product company and an ingredient brand, licensing its technology into other categories like industrial safety, climbing, and snow sports - anywhere portability matters.

Built from a Real-World Frustration

Newlane didn’t start with a grand vision, it started with a near miss.

Dom and his Co-Founder Josh had worked together previously, and the idea came after Josh was almost knocked off a hire bike while not wearing a helmet. At the same time, Dom was carrying his own helmet awkwardly clipped to a bag.

The conclusion was obvious: helmets weren’t designed for real life. So they set out to fix it - a journey that would take the better part of eight years!

Early Traction: Trying Everything, Learning Fast

In the early days, Newlane took a broad, experimental approach to growth.

One of the smartest early decisions was hiring a head of content, which helped them consistently punch above their weight across both organic and paid social. Alongside that, they built out email, affiliates, partnerships, and even tested more unconventional channels, from branded cargo bikes at stations to a TV ad during the Tour de France.

There was no single silver bullet. Instead, progress came from trying multiple channels, measuring what worked, and iterating quickly.

Scaling: Focus and Strategic Partnerships

As the business matured, the strategy became more focused.

Newlane doubled down on the channels that were already working, particularly direct-to-consumer. At the same time, partnerships became a key growth lever. Collaborations with brands like Brompton Bicycle and Forest gave them instant access to highly relevant audiences, along with credibility in the micromobility space.

It’s a classic shift from experimentation to optimisation. Broad at the start, then narrow and deliberate once patterns emerge.

The Reality of Hardware: Slow, Expensive, Relentless

If there’s one theme that defines Newlane’s journey, it’s this: hardware is hard.

Getting from idea to a fully certified safety product took over five years. Along the way, the team failed safety tests repeatedly, an experience that was not just frustrating, but financially draining. At several points, the company came close to running out of money entirely.

Unlike software, where iteration can be quick and cheap, hardware forces you to make high-stakes decisions early. One key lesson Dom highlights is around manufacturing tooling - committing too early made later changes expensive and difficult.

Funding: Backing a Hard Problem

Newlane’s funding journey reflects the realities of building a hardware business.

They started with £20k of their own money and a £20k grant from Innovate UK, before raising £150k from friends and family. Since then, they’ve raised around £2m from a mix of angels and funds, including British Design Fund.

Raising hasn’t been easy. Hardware businesses have previously often sit outside the typical venture playbook, which has traditionally heavily skewed toward software. That means fundraising comes down to conviction, clearly articulating the problem, the opportunity, and why it matters.

Key Lessons: Commitment, Patience, and Partnership

One of the clearest takeaways from Newlane’s journey is the importance of commitment.

This isn’t a business you start casually. It takes years to bring something like this to life, and the path is rarely smooth. Progress is slow, setbacks are frequent, and quick wins are rare.

Another lesson is the value of having the right Co-Founder. When things get tough, and they will, having someone to share the pressure with becomes critical.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How this Start-Up is Fixing Property Maintenance with AI

Richard Lee — Fri, 01 May 2026 08:30:00 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🛠 How this Start-Up is fixing property maintenance with AI
😡 How creating a fake competitor can get your message across
💼 An AI talent agent helping you get candidates and roles you actually want

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to NatWest’s £100,000 equity-free pitching competition.

Happy hustling,

Rich

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🌷 DFF Ventures have just raised fund 3 to back software that is highly defensible and touches the world at the Pre-Seed stage - get in touch here!

🎤 The OnStage Demo day is back for another season, with 350 of the biggest funds in the world in the audience, including a £10m fund of their own - apply here!

🕊 Earlybird have just raised a new €360m fund to back Founders in emerging tech between Pre-Seed and Series A - contact the team here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

📝 Product Marketing Manager, Skillvue
🎥 Director of Brand Marketing, Vapoura Rum
🎨 Product Designer, Pearl Social

👕 Vinted hits €8bn valuation following big secondaries sale. Sifted

🧑‍💻 Lovable launches vibe coding app on iOS and Android. TechCrunch

🍏 Apple loses bid to pause App Store fee changes as case heads to Supreme Court. TechCrunch

💸 LemFi to invest £100m in UK as it relocates to London. UKTN

NOAN

Meet NOAN: The Intelligent Operating System for Founders

Ready to leave chaos behind? Discover what your business can do when it runs itself.

We’ve partnered with NOAN to offer readers 20% off the first 3 months by using code #UNCENSORED20

Try it now, or book a demo here

Wise

Have you ever seen a business create a competitor in order to make themselves look better? That’s exactly what Wise did, and I think it’s genius!

Wise clearly have a deep understanding of the problem they’re solving for their customer, and they’ve really driven that home in this advert. Over 90% of people read left to right, so they’ll read the left advert first and be reminded of how frustrating sending money abroad can be. After they’ve read that and felt frustration, the Wise branded ad on the right swoops in as the hero and shows the reader that there’s a solution to this frustration.

Personally, I think this is a masterclass in creating the perfect environment for your message to land with prospective customers.

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

Meet Clera: your AI talent agent for finding roles you actually want. Clera gets to know what you’re looking for over iMessage and WhatsApp. It surfaces roles you’d actually be excited by and makes direct intros to relevant companies. You hear about good opportunities without spending hours searching and applying.

C lera

PropServ

🚀 PropServ: Fixing Property Maintenance with AI

In an industry weighed down by inefficiency, missed calls, and endless back-and-forth, PropServ is bringing clarity and speed to property maintenance. Founded by Sam and Charlie, the company is building an AI-powered triage platform designed specifically for letting agents, property managers, and build-to-rent operators across the UK.

At its core, PropServ handles one of the most frustrating parts of property management: maintenance requests. Tenants can report issues through an AI phone line, web app, or mobile app, and the platform’s agentic AI triages everything end-to-end. That means false alarms, duplicate reports, and simple fixes are filtered out automatically, while real issues are routed to the right contractor with the right context. The result is less noise, faster resolutions, and significantly reduced operational strain.

Built on Clear Roles and Trust

Sam didn’t build PropServ alone. He was introduced to his Co-Founder Charlie through a mutual connection, and what started as a three-person founding team quickly evolved into the two of them.

From day one, their roles were clearly defined. Charlie focused on the technical side, while Sam led sales and commercial strategy. That clarity removed friction and allowed both founders to move quickly. As the business grew, so did their responsibilities - Charlie stepping into a broader operational role, and Sam transitioning into CEO as the complexity of the company increased.

Early Traction: Starting with a Different Problem

Interestingly, PropServ didn’t start as a maintenance platform.

The original idea focused on helping people moving home gather quotes for removals and furniture - a problem Sam had encountered while working in interior design. That concept gained traction quickly, even landing large estate agency clients and generating revenue early on.

But despite that early success, something was missing. The product wasn’t solving a problem deeply enough. That gap, identified through real customer interaction, ultimately led to the pivot into AI-powered maintenance triage.

Scaling: Listening, Then Positioning Smartly

Two things drove PropServ’s growth after the pivot.

First, they listened closely to their early customers. One specific request, giving tenants a direct way to report issues and adding more control over the process, fundamentally reshaped the product. Instead of building in isolation, they let customer needs dictate direction.

Second, they positioned PropServ as an enhancement, not a replacement. Rather than forcing property managers to adopt entirely new systems, the platform integrates directly into the CRMs they already use. This removes friction, avoids double data entry, and makes adoption far easier.

That decision, to fit into existing workflows rather than disrupt them, has been a major factor in their traction.

Funding: Backed by the Right Signals

PropServ raised a £330k founding round led by Jenson Ventures, but what stands out is where the early capital came from.

Some of the first investors were actually customers - agencies and contractors already using the product. That’s one of the strongest validation signals a startup can have: people not only using what you’ve built, but willing to back it financially.

The business also had an advantage many early-stage startups don’t - it was generating revenue from day one. That meant the raise was about accelerating growth, not simply staying alive.

The Reality: Constant Small Failures

Unlike the typical “one big failure” narrative, Sam describes the journey as a series of small, constant challenges.

Running a startup at this stage means juggling product, sales, hiring, fundraising, and operations all at once. The difficulty isn’t a single defining moment, it’s managing continuous context switching and ensuring small problems don’t turn into large ones.

Key Lessons: Speed, Hiring, and Workflow Fit

The biggest lesson is simple but often ignored: move faster than feels comfortable.

If something isn’t working, whether it’s product, pricing, or people, fix it immediately. Waiting for certainty is a luxury most startups can’t afford.

Another key insight is around hiring. Founder-led sales works early on, but it doesn’t scale forever. Bringing in commercial talent earlier than feels necessary can unlock the next phase of growth.

And finally, in B2B, especially in industries like property, success comes from fitting into how customers already operate. Trying to force new workflows creates friction. Enhancing existing ones creates adoption.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How this Start-Up is Restructuring the New SaaS Era

Richard Lee — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 08:30:00 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🏛 How this Start-Up is restructuring the new SaaS era
🤝 How giving creative refunds can get you thousands of new customers
🔎 An AI tool that helps you rank on search engines and in LLMs

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to EWOR’s application process, with successful Founders getting a €500,000 investment.

Happy hustling,

Rich

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🍊 Passion Capital have just raised a $55m fund to invest in European Pre-seed companies in FinTech and Enterprise risk - submit your deck here!

🎤 NatWest have launched their pitch competition with a share of £100k in equity-free up for grabs - apply here!

🏃 a16z Speedrun is open for applications, with successful applicants getting up to $1m invested into them - apply here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

🧑‍💻 Senior Mobile App Developer, Pearl Social
🎥 Content Lead, Taxd
🎨 Product Designer, Pearl Social

🖇 Synthesia announces major hiring push, opens 3 new offices. Sifted

📈 Revolut eyes valuation of up to $200bn in eventual IPO. TechCrunch

🤷 Anthropic shrugs off VC funding offers valuing it at $800bn+, for now. TechCrunch

⛽️ Synthetic fuel startup Rivan raises £25m investment. UKTN

Final Rentals

Planning a trip for business or pleasure?

Final Rentals, a pioneering car rental fintech headquartered in Wales, has revolutionised the industry with its innovative approach and product-centric strategy. By addressing key challenges within the car rental sector, Finalrentals has experienced remarkable growth, increasing its size sixfold in the past 12 months. The company's expansion is not limited to growth metrics alone; it has also successfully established a robust global presence, extending its footprint across the EU and the Caribbean.

Book your rental here!

Neutonic

We’ve all seen brands give out discounts, or maybe even free product - but how useful is that really? Well, Neutonic wanted to do it a different way, and it has gone down incredibly.

They’ve encouraged fans to order their multi-flavour pack, and if there are any flavours in there they don’t like, Neutonic will refund them for those flavours. This means you get people to try more flavours, which means they can also tell their friends about all the flavours - and you’re getting paid!

There will be a few who ask for refunds, but those refunds more than pay for all the word of mouth that this campaign has given them!

How can you use refunds to get more attention on your brand?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

RankAI is an SEO/GEO agent that handles everything autonomously to drive you millions of visitors from Google & AI Search like ChatGPT. Drop in your website, and RankAI handles the rest: it finds high-intent queries your customers search on Google and ChatGPT, publishes optimised pages, tracks performance, and recreate pages iteratively until they get you visitors.

RankAI

Fullview

🚀 Fullview: Rebuilding Customer Support for a New SaaS Era

In a world where customer support is often slow, fragmented, and frustrating, Fullview is taking a fundamentally different approach. Founded by Daniel, the company is transforming how SaaS businesses interact with their users by removing the friction from troubleshooting.

Instead of long email chains or clunky third-party tools, Fullview enables support teams to instantly access user sessions, co-browse in real time, and even take control of a customer’s screen, all without requiring downloads. The result is simple but powerful: faster resolutions, smoother experiences, and significantly happier customers.

Built on a Shared Vision

From the outset, Daniel knew this wasn’t a problem he could solve alone. He needed a Co-Founder with deep technical expertise and a strong understanding of SaaS products.

They connected through tech networks/groups, aligning on a shared belief that traditional customer support was fundamentally broken. Together, they set out to build something better - not just an incremental improvement, but a complete rethink of how support should work in modern software companies.

Early Traction: Solving a Pain People Felt Immediately

Fullview’s first customers didn’t come from clever growth hacks or big marketing spend - they came from direct, hands-on outreach.

The team leaned heavily on LinkedIn, cold emails, and conversations with SaaS founders to understand real pain points. A consistent theme emerged: support teams were struggling with inefficient tools and time-consuming processes.

By presenting a clear, immediate solution to a well-understood problem, Fullview quickly converted those early conversations into paying customers. It wasn’t about convincing people they had a problem - it was about showing them a better way to solve it.

Scaling: From Useful Tool to Essential Infrastructure

Once initial traction was established, Fullview shifted its focus to scaling in a more structured way.

Content marketing, partnerships, and word-of-mouth became key drivers of growth. But the real unlock came from the product itself. Once teams experienced the speed and ease of resolving issues through Fullview, it became difficult to go back to older methods.

Case studies and customer testimonials played a major role here. By demonstrating tangible improvements in resolution times and customer satisfaction, Fullview built credibility within the SaaS ecosystem and positioned itself as more than just another tool.

Product Philosophy: Listen First, Build Second

One of the most important lessons for the team was the value of staying close to users.

In the early stages, it’s easy to overbuild or chase features that seem exciting internally. Fullview avoided that trap by continuously engaging with customers and letting real feedback guide product decisions.

This ensured the platform evolved in line with actual needs, not assumptions, turning it into something customers relied on rather than just experimented with.

Funding: Timing It Right

Fullview took a measured approach to fundraising. Instead of raising early and figuring things out later, the team focused first on achieving product-market fit.

When they did decide to raise, they leveraged their network, warm introductions, and early traction to attract investors who aligned with their long-term vision. The goal wasn’t just capital, it was bringing on partners who understood where the company was heading.

The Biggest Challenge: Standing Out in a Crowded Market

Customer support software is a busy space, and cutting through the noise wasn’t easy.

Fullview’s solution was clear positioning. Rather than competing directly with generic screen-sharing tools, they defined a new category: instant, in-app support with no downloads required.

That differentiation, combined with strong execution, allowed them to stand out and carve a distinct place in the SaaS landscape.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How this Start-Up Rebuilding how Founders Raise Capital

Richard Lee — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 08:30:00 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
💰 How this Start-Up is rebuilding how Founders raise capital
🪧 How standing in the street can get a different level of marketing reach
🏃 An AI tool that helps you build the software your business runs on

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to MOMENTOUS’ new fund, in which they’re looking to write €50k cheques into pre-seed companies building the infrastructure of human potential.

Happy hustling,

Rich

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🫀 Eka have launched a new £80m fund to invest in early-stage Health, Sustainability + Life Tech startups - submit your pitch here!

✍️ EWOR are accepting applications through their fellowship programme, with successful applicants getting a €500k investment - apply here!

🤙 Convoi Ventures + 4 other VC Funds are hosting their VC Office Hours in which you can book slots with them - find out more here!

🎪 Innovators Uncensored readers get an exclusive 10% discount on tickets to ‘The Founders Playground’ event in Bristol using code IUNC10

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

🧑‍💻 Senior Mobile App Developer, Pearl Social
🎥 Content Lead, Taxd
🎨 Product Designer, Pearl Social

🇬🇧 Wise set to downgrade London listing this year. Sifted

🤝 OpenAI has bought AI personal finance startup Hiro. TechCrunch

🚕 Uber and Nuro begin testing premium robotaxi service in SF. TechCrunch

🇬🇧 UK Government to launch £500m sovereign AI fund. UKTN

Final Rentals

Planning a trip for business or pleasure?

Book your rental here!

Badr Studios

Something slightly different this week, but just as attention grabbing! Often, as a Founder, you can sit for hours thinking about how you can cleverly create ad campaigns that land in your prospect’s lap. You can spend weeks masterminding tactics to get people to notice your latest campaign. However, nothing beats just getting out on foot and going to find the people you need.

That’s exactly what this Founder did in order to find angels for his next funding round. Sammi created a simple bit of text, stuck it on some cardboard with his contact details and just stood in the wealthiest areas of London hoping for conversation. Not only did Sammi get plenty of conversations with great Founders and investors, the Daily Mail also interviewed and featured him!

How can you get out on foot and get in front of the people you need to with something simple like this?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

Softr is the AI platform for building the software your business runs on - portals, internal tools, and operational systems - no code required. Describe what you need, and AI creates the database, app, and business logic, so it’s secure and ready for real users. Now Softr powers over 1 million builders worldwide - from small businesses to companies like Netflix, Google, Stripe, UPS, and Clay - who create and run internal or client-facing systems and tools powering their business operations.

Softr

Caplia

🚀 Caplia: Rebuilding How Founders Raise Capital

In the world of venture capital, where raising money is often messy, fragmented, and time-consuming, Caplia is trying to bring structure to chaos. Founded by Connor and Paul, Caplia is building a new layer of fundraising infrastructure designed to make the process faster, clearer, and more credible for Founders.

At the heart of the platform is the Caplia Passport - a single, shareable link that replaces scattered pitch decks, data rooms, and endless follow-ups. Instead of sending information across multiple tools, Founders can present everything in one place, giving investors a clean, decision-ready view of their business. Built in collaboration with Professor Thomas Hellmann at Oxford, the platform also includes an intelligence layer that helps Founders refine their story, identify gaps, and improve their readiness before they even speak to investors.

Built by Experience, Not Theory

Connor didn’t come from a technical background. His experience at companies like L’Oréal and Dyson, followed by scaling a consumer brand, exposed him firsthand to how broken fundraising can be. That insight shaped Caplia.

Knowing he needed technical depth, he brought on Paul as Co-Founder - someone who had already raised over £150m himself. That combination of commercial experience and real fundraising expertise meant Caplia wasn’t just theoretical. It was built by people who had lived the problem.

Early Traction: Distribution Over Everything

Rather than launching broadly and hoping for traction, Caplia took a focused approach. The first real breakthrough came through a partnership with Opus, a London-based Founder community.

This gave Caplia something most early-stage startups lack: a highly relevant, high-intent user base. Founders preparing to raise capital were onboarded into the platform at exactly the moment they needed it. That tight feedback loop allowed the team to quickly see what worked, what didn’t, and where the product needed simplifying.

It wasn’t just about getting users, it was about getting the right users.

Scaling: Embedding Into the Ecosystem

From there, growth wasn’t driven by ads or traditional outbound. Instead, Caplia leaned into ecosystems - Founder communities, investor networks, and venture funds.

The strategy is simple but powerful: don’t just build a tool Founders choose to use, build infrastructure they have to use.

By working closely with funds and aiming to become part of their deal flow process, Caplia is positioning itself at the point where companies first enter an investor’s pipeline. If successful, this flips the dynamic entirely - Founders adopt Caplia not because they discover it, but because it becomes the expected standard.

Funding: Using the Product to Raise

Caplia’s approach to fundraising was very on-brand - they used their own product.

After initially bootstrapping the idea, they raised a £430k pre-seed round in just two weeks using the Caplia Passport itself. The round was oversubscribed, but more importantly, it was selective. Connor focused on bringing in strategic angels who could actively support the business, rather than just providing capital.

It’s a good example of alignment between product and execution: if you’re building fundraising infrastructure, you should probably use it yourself.

Challenges: Trust, Security, and Early Missteps

One of the biggest early blind spots was security. When you’re handling sensitive company data, credibility isn’t optional, but it wasn’t something they had fully addressed from day one.

Fixing that meant quickly getting up to speed on standards like ISO 27001, bringing in external expertise, and making security a core part of the product. It slowed things down in the short term but ultimately strengthened the foundations of the business.

Another key mistake was overbuilding early. The first version of Caplia tried to do too much, creating friction before users could see value. The team had to strip it back to its core and focus on speed and clarity.

Key Lessons: Distribution Is the Moat

The biggest shift in thinking came from understanding where real value sits today.

It’s no longer just about building a great product, because great products can be replicated quickly. What actually matters is distribution and embedding into real workflows.

Caplia initially over-indexed on building features, but learned that being where decisions happen is far more powerful than having the most functionality.

If Connor were to start again, the approach would be simpler: build less, distribute faster, and get into real user workflows as quickly as possible.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How this Start-Up Helps a Generation Access Healthcare in Peace

Richard Lee — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 08:30:00 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🏥 How this Start-Up helps a whole generation access healthcare information in peace
🍫 How stolen goods can turn into one of the greatest marketing campaigns ever
⭐️ A tool that will build you a one page website based on your Google reviews

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Solid Bond who are looking to write cheques of up to £500k into Pre-Seed B2B tech companies/

Happy hustling,

Rich

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🛠 Perplexity have launched their ‘Billion Dollar Build’ competition, with winners receiving up to $1m in Seed Capital and $1m in compute - register here!

💥 Collide Capital have raised a $95m fund to back early-stage companies in FinTech, Supply Chain and future of work - pitch them here!

🏃 Momentous have just launched their new Pre-Seed fund backing companies building the infrastructure of human potential with €50k tickets - find out more here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

🧑‍💻 Senior Mobile App Developer, Pearl Social
🎥 Content Lead, Taxd
🎨 Product Designer, Pearl Social

⏸ OpenAI pauses Stargate UK in blow to Nscale and government. Sifted

👋 Embattled startup Delve has ‘parted ways’ with Y Combinator. TechCrunch

🐄 Peter Thiel’s big bet on solar powered cow collars. TechCrunch

🤔 Entrepreneurship tax relief package comes into force. UKTN

Final Rentals

Planning a trip for business or pleasure?

Book your rental here!

KitKat

If you haven’t seen, 12 tonnes of KitKats were allegedly stolen from a KitKat truck transporting the goods from factory to shop recently.

Instead of KitKat being down and out about the missing KitKats, they’ve turned it into one of the most viral marketing campaigns ever. The absolute peak of it all? This KitKat lorry getting escorted through Toronto with armoured security vehicles surrounding it.

People all over the world have been following this story and loving every twist in the journey. So much so, it has racked up tens of millions of impressions across social media and has been picked up by every news channel in the world.

At this point, I’m not sure if the KitKats were actually stolen or if it was just made up to support this marketing campaign. The question is, what storyline could you create to build a winning marketing campaign like this?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

Website generators give you a template with made-up copy. You rewrite it for hours – still sounds generic. Brila does content first. It reads your Google Maps reviews, finds why customers actually choose you using Jobs to Be Done, and builds a one-page site from real patterns, real wording, real photos. When a business has enough reviews, the results often surprise even the owners. Not a single prompt – a serious AI system behind every website. Free plan gives you a fully generated site.

Brila

Luna

🌙 Luna: Helping the Next Generation Access Health Advice in Peace

For teenagers today, health information is everywhere, but clarity is not.

Between social media, online misinformation, and the awkwardness of asking adults difficult questions, many young people struggle to access advice they actually trust.

That’s the problem Luna was built to solve.

Luna is an AI-powered health companion designed specifically for teens, giving young people a safe, anonymous place to access reliable guidance on both mental and physical wellbeing. Built alongside doctors and educators, the platform offers judgment-free support on topics that many teenagers find difficult to discuss openly.

Its mission is simple but ambitious:

Help teens make better health decisions by giving them trustworthy information in a format they actually want to use.

At the same time, Luna aims to support parents by helping them raise healthier, more informed, and more confident young adults.

Built Around a Shared Mission

Luna’s Co-Founders, Jas and Jo, met while studying for their MBA at University of Oxford.

Coming from consulting backgrounds, they bonded over a shared frustration with how inaccessible and outdated health education often feels for teenagers.

Both believed that if young people were going to turn to technology for answers anyway, there should be a platform designed specifically to meet them where they are - safely, credibly, and in a tone they understand.

That alignment in mission became the foundation for Luna.

First Users: Grassroots and Manual

Luna’s earliest growth was highly manual.

Before worrying about scale, the founders focused on one thing:

Get in front of real users and learn.

They:

Reached out to personal contacts with teenage children
Conducted interviews with teens and parents
Ran workshops in schools
Introduced the product directly to students

It wasn’t scalable, but it gave them what mattered most in the early days:

Deep understanding of the customer.

This hands-on approach helped them build an initial user base of engaged early adopters while refining the product around real-world feedback.

The Breakthrough: Going Viral on TikTok

Luna’s inflection point came in early 2023 when the brand went viral on TikTok.

That moment transformed awareness overnight.

The viral traction didn’t just drive downloads, it fundamentally shaped the company’s growth strategy.

The team doubled down on a community-led social approach, recognising that teens trust peer recommendations far more than traditional advertising.

When young users began sharing Luna organically, growth accelerated rapidly.

It validated one of the most important dynamics in youth-focused consumer products:

If teens love something, they market it for you.

Product Development: Letting Users Lead

One of Luna’s biggest strengths has been its commitment to user-driven development.

Rather than assuming what teenagers wanted, the team built with them.

They listened closely to feedback from both teens and parents to shape:

Product features
Tone of voice
Brand identity
User experience

This proved especially important given the sensitivity of the category.

Health, wellbeing, and mental health can easily feel preachy, clinical, or uncool if handled poorly.

Luna’s challenge was making a product about traditionally “taboo” topics feel approachable, modern, and genuinely useful.

That only happened because the team stayed obsessively close to the user.

Looking back, one thing they would change:

They would have built referral loops earlier.

Seeing how powerful peer-to-peer recommendation became, the Founders now recognise that referral mechanisms could have accelerated growth even faster.

Funding the Vision

Luna was not bootstrapped.

The business has raised £1.4 million across two funding rounds, backed by a mix of:

Angel investors
Family offices
Early-stage VCs

The first round came primarily through personal networking, with subsequent rounds built on continued investor outreach and momentum.

Interestingly, the Founders view their MBA at Oxford not just as education, but as part of the startup’s foundation - the environment that created both the partnership and early network that helped get Luna off the ground.

The Hardest Challenge: Building Trust Around Sensitive Topics

One of Luna’s toughest challenges has been brand positioning.

Teen health is inherently delicate.

Talk too clinically, and teens disengage.
Talk too casually, and parents lose trust.
Miss the tone entirely, and neither audience adopts it.

Balancing those competing needs required constant iteration.

By involving both parents and teens in the process, Luna managed to build a brand that feels:

Safe enough for parents to trust
Cool enough for teens to use
Credible enough for both to value

That balancing act has been central to the company’s success.

Founder Lessons: Burnout Is Real

Beyond the business itself, one of the Founders’ most important learnings has been personal.

In the first year of building Luna, they pushed relentlessly.

By year two, burnout hit.

Like many Founders, they learned the hard way that intensity without sustainability eventually catches up with you.

That experience reshaped how they think about performance:

Long-term execution requires long-term energy.

Now, self-care and burnout prevention are viewed not as luxuries, but as necessary parts of building effectively.

Building the Health Platform Teens Actually Want

Luna sits at the intersection of several powerful trends:

AI-enabled consumer health
Growing mental health awareness
Teen digital-native behaviour
Demand for trusted information sources

But what makes it compelling is not just the timing.

It’s that the company has approached a difficult category with unusual discipline:

Deep user empathy
Community-led growth
Strong trust architecture
Clear mission alignment

If Luna continues executing well, it has the potential to become more than just an app.

It could become the default health companion for a generation growing up online.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How this Start-Up is Building the Future of Premium Luggage

Richard Lee — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 08:30:00 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🧳 How this Start-Up is building the future of premium luggage
🛠 How you can mockup a fake tool and get your customers all nostalgic
🎨 An AI assistant that already knows how you work

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to SantanderX’s startup competition with £130k up for grabs.

Happy hustling,

Rich

Sponsored by NOAN

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🤝 Solid Bond are looking to invest in B2B tech-enabled Founders at Pre-Seed with cheques between £150k - £500k - pitch the team here!

🛫 Runway have launched a $10m fund to back early-stage AI, Media and world simulation companies - connect with the manager here!

🇺🇸 UnbundledVC are looking to invest £100k into pre-seed AI + Software companies looking at the US as a primary market - apply here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

🎬 Director of Brand Marketing, Vapoura
🎥 Content Lead, Taxd
📈 Growth Marketer, Noxus

💸 Mistral secures $830m loan to fund AI data centre build-out. Sifted

🤑 OpenAI, not yet public, raises $3bn from retail investors in monster $122bn fundraise. TechCrunch

👋 Elon Musk’s last Co-Founder reportedly leaves xAI. TechCrunch

🚀 Pension funds to back UK VC with £200m fund close. UKTN

Final Rentals

Planning a trip for business or pleasure?

Book your rental here!

Cadbury

Easter is around the corner, and it brings plenty of great marketing opportunities. Cadbury are seasoned professionals when it comes to Easter, so there’s no surprise to see them smash this recent Creme Egg campaign.

Cadbury Creme Egg sales go through the roof in Easter, so they’ve really doubled down on what they know works here. If you’ve ever eaten a Creme Egg, you know it can get messy. So, Cadbury have created the ‘GooTool’, a fake tool to help people eat their Creme Eggs this easter without ending up causing a mess.

This, of course, has stirred up all sorts of conversation about Creme Eggs, with people reminiscing about eating Creme Eggs in their childhood and that getting messy was half of the fun! thousands and thousands of mentions, from one fake mockup tool!

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

Littlebird is an AI assistant that already knows your work. Every answer, draft, and plan is more relevant because it has the context behind it. It sees what's on your screen and transcribes your meetings, building a private memory of your projects and priorities. Littlebird connects the dots across all your apps and conversations, giving you answers grounded in your actual work. No integrations required. If you've seen it on your desktop, Littlebird has too. Just ask.

Littlebird

FORTE TRVL

🧳 FORTE TRVL: Building the Future of Premium Luggage

In a world of fast fashion and disposable products, luggage has quietly followed the same path - mass-produced, short-lived, and rarely built to last.

FORTE TRVL is pushing in the opposite direction.

Founded by Harris, the brand is redefining premium luggage through high-quality aluminium cases designed not just for travel, but for longevity. With interchangeable parts and a focus on repairability, FORTE TRVL is built around a simple but powerful idea: buy once, use for life.

It’s a proposition aimed at modern professionals and frequent travellers, people who value both aesthetics and functionality, but are increasingly conscious of waste.

At its core, FORTE TRVL sits at the intersection of timeless design, durability, and sustainability.

A Solo Founder With a Clear Vision

Unlike many consumer brands, FORTE TRVL wasn’t built by a team - it started with a single, very clear vision.

Harris chose to go solo deliberately.

After previous startup experience, he understood both the benefits and trade-offs of having a co-founder. This time, he opted for clarity over collaboration, allowing him to move quickly and stay fully aligned with the brand he wanted to build.

That vision wasn’t purely commercial, it was personal.

Inspired by childhood memories of his mother’s monogrammed Louis Vuitton luggage, Harris set out to create something that captured that same sense of permanence and identity, but for a new generation.

The result is a brand that feels both nostalgic and modern at the same time.

First Customers: Creativity Over Budget

FORTE TRVL didn’t launch with a big budget or agency-backed campaigns.

It started scrappy.

Using his own skills in videography and photography, Harris created the brand’s first ads himself - shooting content against a white bedsheet backdrop in a freezing cold unit.

No studio. No production team. Just resourcefulness.

The very first sale came through a personal connection - a former boss.

But real traction began shortly after, when Harris launched paid ads on Meta platforms.

From there, it became a process of learning by doing:

Testing creatives
Understanding customer behaviour
Iterating quickly
Improving performance with every cycle

There was no perfect strategy from day one, just a willingness to figure it out in real time.

Scaling: Relentless Focus

Where many early-stage brands get distracted by new channels and opportunities, FORTE TRVL took a different approach.

The strategy is simple:

Find what works, and double down.

Rather than spreading effort across multiple growth channels, Harris focused on:

Improving ad efficiency
Testing and refining creative
Increasing conversion rates
Maximising customer lifetime value

It’s a disciplined, almost ruthless prioritisation of what actually drives growth.

No over-complication. No unnecessary expansion.

Just consistent optimisation.

Lessons From the Journey

One of the biggest realisations came from something many founders underestimate:

In premium e-commerce, your website is everything.

No matter how strong your ads are, they won’t convert if the on-site experience doesn’t match the expectation.

For FORTE TRVL, this meant investing time into:

A polished, high-end feel
Seamless user experience
Clear product storytelling

Another key lesson was learning to remove emotion from decision-making, particularly in marketing.

Ads don’t scale because you like them.

They scale because the data says they work.

That shift toward a more analytical mindset, focusing heavily on return on ad spend, became critical in unlocking growth.

And perhaps most importantly:

Trust your own timeline.

Harris emphasises the importance of not comparing an early-stage business to more established brands, a trap that can easily derail focus and confidence.

Bootstrapped and Intentional

FORTE TRVL has been built entirely without external funding.

Harris used savings from his previous career in wealth management to get the business off the ground - a decision that came with real risk, but also full control.

That choice has shaped how the company operates:

Lean decision-making
Careful resource allocation
Focus on profitability and efficiency

There’s no pressure from investors.

Just a focus on building something that lasts, both as a product and as a business.

The Reality of Growth: Operational Challenges

While growth has been strong, it hasn’t come without friction.

One of the biggest challenges has been inventory management.

Like many e-commerce brands, FORTE TRVL has experienced the pain of stock shortages - particularly during peak periods like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Demand was there.

But without sufficient inventory, the business couldn’t fully capitalise.

It’s a classic scaling problem, and one that highlights the operational complexity behind what often looks like simple online growth.

Building a Brand That Lasts

FORTE TRVL isn’t trying to win through volume or trends.

It’s playing a longer game.

By focusing on:

Product longevity
Timeless design
Sustainable principles
Disciplined growth

The brand is positioning itself in a category that values quality over convenience.

And in a market saturated with disposable products, that approach stands out.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How this Start-Up Uses Coffee to Help People "Do The Thing"

Richard Lee — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 09:30:00 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
☕️ How this Start-Up is using coffee to help people “Do The Thing”
🖊 How you can get loyal customers to show their appreciation
🎨 A tool that becomes your design partner using only natural language

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Virgin Money’s new £20m startup funding pot.

Happy hustling,

Rich

Sponsored by NOAN

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🌱 SuperSeed VC have just raised >£50m to invest early in technical teams using AI in the physical world - apply here!

🏆 The SantanderX award are open for application, with a share of £150k equity funding up for grabs - apply here!

💰 Air Street Capital have announced their new $232m fund to invest in early-stage AI-first companies - connect with the team here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

📈 Growth Marketer, Noxus
🧑‍💻 Software Engineer, Adam Health
🛠 Operations Associate, Factored

📈 Revolut hits record profits as it gears up for expansion. Sifted

🤖 Amazon just bought a startup making kid-size humanoid robots. TechCrunch

🐄 Kentucky woman rejects $26m to turn her farm into a data centre. TechCrunch

🥤 Huel agrees to £870m takeover deal. UKTN

Final Rentals

Planning a trip for business or pleasure?

Book your rental here!

Irn Bru

How far are your customers willing to go to show their love for your product? Irn Bru proved that their customers are prepared to go pretty far!

To celebrate the launch of their new cans, Irn Bru offered customers free Irn Bru tattoos, and they came in droves to collect their new ink. For many, it wasn’t even their first Irn Bru tattoo! Of course, this has gone all over the internet, giving Irn-Bru all sorts of publicity - not even accounting for the attention they’ll get from friends asking these newly inked individuals about their tattoo!

Is this too far? How can you get your customers to show their commitment? Maybe temporary tattoos are a nice middle ground?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

Meet Stitch, your AI-native vibe design partner. Create, iterate, and collaborate on high-fidelity UI using natural language, voice, and context-aware agents. Design across images, code, and text in one canvas, generate instant prototypes, and maintain consistency with built-in design systems and DESIGN.md. From idea to interface in seconds - faster, smarter, and more intuitive than ever.

Stitch

Cups Full Coffee

☕ Cups Full Coffee: Fuel for People in Motion

For millions of people, great coffee has become a daily non-negotiable.

But while the demand for speciality coffee continues to grow, access hasn’t kept up - especially for those constantly on the move.

That’s the problem Katherine set out to solve with Cups Full Coffee.

The business produces speciality-grade coffee bags designed to deliver high-quality coffee without the usual friction. No machines. No mess. No compromise.

At a time when café prices are rising and home setups require both time and investment, Cups Full is built for a different kind of customer - people who are busy doing things. Travelling, building, exploring. The ones Katherine describes as “life lovers on a mission.”

The product is simple but deliberate: biodegradable, portable coffee bags that can be taken anywhere and brewed easily, whether that’s on a train, at the top of a mountain, or between meetings.

But the brand goes beyond just convenience.

Cups Full is about enabling people to “do the thing”, and bringing great coffee along for the journey.

Building Solo, Moving Fast

Katherine has built Cups Full as a solo Founder, and for her, that’s been a feature, not a bug.

Being highly action-oriented, she’s embraced the freedom that comes with building alone. There’s no need to align decisions or debate direction, just the ability to move quickly and execute.

That independence has allowed her to lean fully into what she enjoys most: hustling, selling, and building momentum from scratch.

While she recognises that a Co-Founder could complement her skillset in the future, particularly in areas she enjoys less, her approach for now is simple: hire support where needed, and keep moving forward.

It’s a model built on speed, instinct, and self-belief.

First Customers: Pure Hustle

There’s no elaborate growth hack behind Cups Full’s early traction.

No paid ads. No viral campaigns.

Just relentless, hands-on execution.

From day one, Katherine focused on getting the product directly in front of people, through calls, DMs, emails, events, and in-person outreach.

Her approach is grounded in a clear vision of where the product should exist:

Discovered while travelling
Picked up in-store at a destination
Delivered wherever the customer is
Shared as part of people’s journeys

This thinking has shaped a three-pronged strategy:

1. Direct-to-Consumer
Through Shopify, partner stores, and early experimentation with TikTok Shop, Cups Full is building an online presence designed for discovery and accessibility.

2. Retail Expansion
Katherine has taken a hands-on approach here, going door-to-door to secure early listings - including her first major win with Whole Foods Market.

Since then, the brand has continued gaining traction, securing placements with names like Deliveroo and Selfridges, with more in the pipeline.

3. Food Service
Hotels, transport providers, offices, and hospitality groups represent a major opportunity. Katherine is already in discussions around larger contracts, with several in progress.

Every customer, regardless of channel, feeds into a growing system, with email flows and re-engagement built in from the start.

Scaling: One Win at a Time

Rather than pouring money into growth, Cups Full is being built through compounding momentum.

Each new listing leads to another conversation. Each new customer opens another door.

Katherine is intentionally bootstrapping for as long as possible, focusing on building a solid foundation before accelerating.

It’s a slower approach on paper, but one that creates a more resilient business underneath.

The Reality of Retail

One of the earliest and most important lessons came from something deceptively simple: packaging.

On a shelf, customers don’t have context. They don’t hear the founder’s story. They don’t know the mission.

They make decisions in seconds.

Katherine quickly realised that Cups Full’s original packaging didn’t clearly communicate what the product was or why someone should pick it up.

That insight is now driving a full redesign, one she believes will significantly improve long-term performance as the brand scales into more retail environments.

Funding the Journey

So far, Cups Full has been entirely self-funded.

Katherine has financed the business through a combination of personal savings, Shopify revenue, and wholesale income - while also freelancing to support herself financially.

The business isn’t yet profitable, but the strategy is clear:

Secure larger contracts → drive volume → use incoming cash to support cash flow → reinvest into growth.

It’s a careful balancing act, but one that gives her full control over how and when the company scales.

For now, the focus remains on building the machine, particularly around distribution, before stepping on the accelerator.

The Hardest Part: Time and Cash

Like many early-stage consumer businesses, the biggest challenges have been patience and capital.

Large retail listings and contracts take time to secure. Cash flow improves with volume, but volume requires those very same deals.

At the same time, there’s no shortage of opportunities to spend money on marketing, branding, operations - not all of which deliver clear returns.

Learning where to invest, and where to hold back, has been a constant test.

Lessons From the Journey

For Katherine, one of the most surprising parts of building Cups Full has been just how much she’s learned - and how much she’s enjoyed that process.

From navigating retail to refining product-market fit, every step has been a learning curve.

And rather than wishing that away, she sees it as one of the most rewarding parts of the journey.

Building the business has meant:

Meeting people willing to help
Constantly expanding her thinking
Seeing real, tangible personal growth

If she were to start again, she’d simply begin with more knowledge.

But she’s not convinced she’d want to skip the learning phase entirely.

Because in many ways, that’s been the best part.

Coffee That Moves With You

Cups Full isn’t just competing on product quality.

It’s building a brand around movement, ambition, and experience - designed for people who are out in the world doing things, not sitting still.

In a category that has traditionally been tied to cafés or home setups, that positioning feels distinct.

And if Katherine continues to execute the way she has so far, one conversation, one listing, one customer at a time, Cups Full could quietly become a staple for a generation that refuses to slow down.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How is this Start-Up Re-inventing Beer for a New Generation?

Richard Lee — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 09:30:00 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🍻 How this Start-Up is re-inventing beer for a new generation
✍️ How you can turn drawings into a mother’s day marketing sensation
📝 A tool that turns notes into beautiful on-brand presentation slides in minutes

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link to apply for Tech Nation’s NextWave pitch competition, with 6 startups winning £335k each.

Happy hustling,

Rich

Sponsored by NOAN

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🤺 TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield pitch competition is open for applications, with the winner getting $100,000 in equity-free prize money - apply here!

🥇 Tech Nation’s ‘One to Win’ pitch competition is open for applications, with the winner getting a £500k investment - apply here!

💰 Ajira Ventures are looking to write €100k cheques into early-stage tech companies - connect with the team here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

📈 Growth Marketer, Noxus
🧑‍💻 Software Engineer, Adam Health
🛠 Operations Associate, Factored

👮 Allica Bank Founder sues investor for ‘unfair prejudice’. Sifted

👕 H&M wants to make clothing from CO2 using this startup’s tech. TechCrunch

🍏 Apple acquires video editing software company MotionVFX. TechCrunch

🍯 Virgin Startup launches new £20m funding pot. UKTN

Final Rentals

Planning a trip for business or pleasure?

Book your rental here!

Chanel

It was Mother’s day last Sunday, which always brings out great marketing campaigns - including this one by Chanel!

Chanel really wanted to capture what makes Mother’s day special, so they asked all their employees to get their kids to draw their mother’s favourite Chanel product. The outcome? Some incredible artwork that was spread across billboards in every corner of the country in the run up to Mother’s day.

Not only does this campaign lean into the emotions that make Mother’s day so special, but it also gives some ideas on things your Mother might like to receive!

How can you use Mother’s day to build an emotion-led marketing campaign?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

Chronicle is your AI-powered design partner for presentations. Turn notes, prompts, or existing decks into beautiful, on-brand slides in minutes. It asks a few questions, builds an impressive first draft, and lets you refine slides through conversation.

Chronicle

Collider

🍺 Collider: Reinventing Beer for a Different Generation

For centuries, beer has been about relaxation and social connection.

But for many people today, alcohol increasingly comes with trade-offs: poor sleep, next-day fatigue, and a growing sense that the traditional drinking culture doesn’t quite fit modern lifestyles anymore.

That’s the gap Collider was created to fill.

Founded by Harry, Collider is a non-alcoholic beer brand infused with functional botanicals designed to help people unwind without alcohol. The idea behind the product is simple: beer first, function built in.

Each drink contains ingredients such as L-Theanine, Lion’s Mane, and Ashwagandha - compounds traditionally associated with calm and focus. The aim isn’t necessarily to replace alcohol entirely, but to offer a smarter alternative when people still want the ritual of opening a beer without the downsides of drinking.

Collider is built for a new generation of drinkers: people who enjoy the social side of beer but increasingly want to wake up clear-headed the next day.

Building Without a Co-Founder

Harry built Collider as a solo Founder.

In the earliest stages, that can be challenging. Without a Co-Founder, there’s no one else experiencing the same daily pressure - no one sharing the emotional highs and lows in quite the same way.

But as the company grows, that dynamic starts to shift.

Once you begin building a team around the business, people who genuinely care about the mission and product, the sense of shared responsibility grows. The journey may start alone, but it rarely stays that way.

Early Growth: Focus on One Channel

In the beginning, Collider resisted the temptation to spread itself too thin.

Rather than experimenting across dozens of marketing channels, the team focused on doing one thing well: paid social advertising on Meta platforms.

Running campaigns on Instagram and Facebook allowed the brand to scale awareness quickly while also gathering immediate feedback on messaging, positioning, and product appeal.

Alongside this digital strategy, Collider pursued a more selective form of brand-building: placing the beer in a small number of high-credibility hospitality venues.

The goal wasn’t necessarily volume. It was influence.

Getting the product into respected venues meant reaching the “cognoscenti” of the drinks world - bartenders, hospitality professionals, and enthusiasts who shape wider trends.

Expanding Across Channels

As the brand gained traction, Collider began expanding its distribution.

The beer has since launched on tap at well-known venues such as Dishoom and in hospitality spaces like The Hoxton.

Retail expansion followed, with Collider recently launching in Planet Organic and preparing to target broader supermarket distribution.

The long-term strategy is multi-channel: combining direct-to-consumer sales, hospitality partnerships, and retail presence so the brand can meet customers wherever they choose to drink.

Raising Capital Before Launch

Interestingly, Collider secured its first investment before the product had even launched.

The company raised £735,000 in a pre-seed round, backed by a mix of institutional investors and primarily tech angel investors.

Harry’s previous experience as a founder helped open some doors, but the process still relied heavily on introductions. One conversation led to another until Collider found itself within the relatively tight-knit world of consumer venture capital.

Once inside those networks, momentum started to build.

Investor conversations often work like compounding interest, each new introduction expanding the circle.

Collider is now in the process of raising its next funding round, with plans to close a seed round later this year.

The Reality of Brewing

Launching a drinks brand comes with challenges that many first-time Founders underestimate.

Stock and production were among Collider’s toughest early hurdles.

In the first few months, the company went out of stock three separate times - a frustrating situation where demand existed but supply couldn’t keep up.

Brewing itself also proved more complicated than expected. Early batches of the beer were too alcoholic and overly bitter, forcing the team to discard significant quantities before the recipe was perfected.

It was a costly lesson in the realities of beverage manufacturing.

Another ongoing challenge has been staying focused. In a fast-moving startup environment, new opportunities constantly appear. But chasing every idea can quickly derail momentum.

Learning to prioritise has been essential.

Lessons From the Journey

Harry’s biggest takeaway so far is surprisingly simple:

No one really knows what they’re doing.

Entrepreneurship is a cycle of experimentation - making mistakes, learning from them, then making new mistakes and learning again.

Another key insight has been to question conventional wisdom.

The drinks industry is full of long-standing assumptions about how brands should launch, distribute, and market their products. Collider’s approach has been to ignore much of that advice and instead return to first principles.

Focus on the customer.
Focus on the product.
Focus on the brand.

Build from there.

A New Kind of Beer Culture

Collider sits at the intersection of several cultural shifts: moderation, functional wellness, and the growing popularity of alcohol-free drinks.

But rather than positioning itself purely as a health product, Collider is leaning into something deeper - preserving the ritual and social experience of beer while removing the compromises that often come with it.

For a generation redefining how it drinks, that combination might prove to be a powerful one.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How did this Start-Up Raise $1m Through a Twitter DM?

Richard Lee — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:30:00 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
✉️ How this Start-Up raised $1m through a Twitter (X) DM
🎂 How you can cold cake your prospects
🗣 A tool that enables you to collect real customer feedback

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Founders, Inc who are looking to write $250,000 cheques into early-stage startups.

Happy hustling,

Rich

Sponsored by NOAN

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🌊 NextWave is accepting applications for their pitch competition, with 6 startups winning a £335,000 investment - apply here!

🍐 Pear Capital are looking to write $250k - $2m cheques for exceptional consumer Founders - more info here!

😇 Artem Luko is looking to write $100k cheques into 10-20 Pre-Seed/Seed startups - read more here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

📈 Growth Marketer, Noxus
🧑‍💻 Chief Technology Officer, Voxmind
🛠 Operations Associate, Factored

🧑‍⚖️ Legal tech Legora raises $550m Series D at $5.55bn valuation. Sifted

📉 Robinhood’s startup fund stumbles in NYSE debut. TechCrunch

🤑 Cluely CEO Roy Lee admits to publicly lying about revenue numbers last year. TechCrunch

💳 Revolut investor backs AI cross-border merchant startup. UKTN

Final Rentals

Planning a trip for business or pleasure?

Book your rental here!

Mandalo

Sometimes, you’ve just got to go in cold. The problem with cold calls, cold messages and cold emails? They’ve all been done to death for years. So, how do you go in cold but keep it unique?

Mandalo showed exactly how.

As the team were gearing up for their first fundraise, they knew they needed to get in front of the tier 1 funds. So, they got in touch with the team at Daymaker and started cold caking. They made personalised cakes and hand delivered them to the offices of the biggest VC funds in San Francisco.

Not only did this get them in front of the funds that they wanted to speak to, but it also caused them to go viral on LinkedIn - giving them a bunch of inbound!

How can you redesign cold outreach for your business?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

Timelaps conducts primary research, collects responses from 4,000+ real consumers in target demographics, and tells you whether your brand marketing is working. Compared to traditional agencies or trackers, Timelaps is 5x more affordable, based on the latest science of brand growth, and continuously updated in real time.

T imelaps

Cap

🎥 Cap: The Open-Source Screen Recording Tool Challenging the Status Quo

Screen recording has quietly become one of the most important communication tools on the internet.

From product demos to async team updates, millions of people rely on it every day. But many of the existing tools feel restrictive, closed, and built for platforms rather than users.

That’s why Cap was created.

Founded by Richie, Cap is an open-source screen recording and sharing app designed to make capturing and sharing ideas effortless. Originally conceived as an alternative to Loom, Cap has since evolved into something broader: a powerful, local-first recording tool built for creators, developers, and modern teams.

Users can record and share videos in seconds, or capture locally in the highest possible quality and edit inside Cap’s built-in studio. Effects, transitions, AI-generated captions - everything needed to create polished recordings is included.

The philosophy behind the product is simple: keep it fast, open, and creator-first.

Building Alone

Cap is the work of a solo Founder.

While many startups begin with Co-Founders splitting responsibilities, Richie built the company largely on his own. It’s a path that comes with unique pressures.

Family and friends can provide support, but they aren’t experiencing the same daily decisions, uncertainty, and responsibility that come with building a company.

Richie is fortunate that his fiancée is also a Founder, someone who understands the reality of the journey better than most. But even then, the experience of carrying a company on your shoulders is different.

Over time, you learn to become comfortable with that.

The First Users Came From Building in Public

From the very beginning, Richie documented Cap’s development publicly on X.

He shared everything - early mockups, rough prototypes, and product updates as the tool evolved. That transparency created a small but highly engaged audience following the journey.

Eventually, several posts went viral.

Those moments brought Cap its first few thousand users.

Beyond X, Richie also shared Cap in developer-heavy communities like Hacker News and relevant subreddits. The product was launched multiple times on Product Hunt, where early adopters discovered it.

For a product aimed at builders and tech teams, these communities were the perfect distribution channels.

Product-Led Growth in Action

After the first wave of users arrived, Cap began growing through something harder to manufacture: genuine word of mouth.

Happy users started recommending the product organically in forums, comment threads, and social posts. On X especially, Richie noticed people mentioning Cap in replies when others asked for screen recording recommendations.

Those moments are difficult to track in analytics dashboards, but they are often the clearest signal of product-market fit.

More recently, Cap has also started seeing inbound interest from agencies that want to roll the product out across entire teams - another natural step in product-led growth.

Listening Closely to Users

One of Richie’s biggest lessons as a founder has been the importance of empathy.

For him, building a product isn’t just about writing code - it’s about listening carefully to the people using it.

That means answering support messages quickly, often within minutes. It means reading feedback in detail and making users feel heard. And it means paying attention to the people around you, including team members whose ideas might improve the product.

Empathy, he believes, is one of the most underrated Founder skills.

Playing to Your Strengths

At one point, Richie attempted to shift his focus away from building and toward enterprise sales.

He spent a period concentrating on outreach, sales calls, and closing larger deals. But something quickly became clear: it wasn’t where his strengths, or passions, lay.

Revenue slowed. Progress on the product stalled.

Richie realised the issue wasn’t effort, it was alignment. He simply didn’t enjoy that work, and if you don’t enjoy something, it’s difficult to give it your best energy.

His strength is building.

So he returned to it.

Raising Capital Through the Internet

Cap raised a $1.25 million seed round throughout 2024.

The first $250,000 came from early angel investors. Later in the year, a lead investor committed $1 million to the company.

But the way those investors were found wasn’t traditional.

Richie didn’t start with a strong network, especially in the UK startup ecosystem. Instead, he built relationships online, primarily through conversations on X with investors and other Founders in the US.

One connection led to another. An angel investor introduced him to someone else. That chain eventually led to the lead investor.

The most memorable moment came when the $1 million investment was finalised through a simple DM conversation.

After months of casual discussions, the investor said:

“We could do $750k.”

Richie replied:

“Think you could stretch to $1m?”

The answer came back: “Done.”

For Richie, the speed and openness of US investors stood in stark contrast to the slower, more cautious pace he’d experienced in the UK ecosystem.

Learning the Hard Way About Hiring

At one point, Cap had a team of four.

But the structure wasn’t right.

The team consisted almost entirely of developers, including Richie himself, and a single designer. Because Richie loves building, hiring too many developers meant the work he enjoyed most was gradually taken away from him.

He tried shifting into a marketing and sales role, but it didn’t work.

The product slowed down. The business lost momentum. And Richie’s motivation dipped.

Despite having cash in the bank and approaching break-even, he made a difficult decision: he downsized the team.

Returning to a smaller, more focused setup allowed him to get back to building, and things started moving quickly again.

He also began prioritising his personal health, committing to the gym three times a week. With a clearer head and a tighter team, Cap began shipping faster than ever.

Lessons From Building Cap

Looking back, Richie’s biggest lessons are simple but hard-earned.

Take care of yourself.
Founders often neglect their health while chasing growth, but energy and clarity are essential to making good decisions.

Hiring is an art.
If a hire doesn’t feel right early on, it probably isn’t. And when something isn’t working, it’s better to address it quickly.

Trust your instincts.
In a world full of advice and opinions, the founder’s intuition often matters more than they realise.

Building in the Open

Cap represents a new generation of software companies.

Built in public.
Distributed through online communities.
Growing through product-led word of mouth.

And led by a founder who discovered that the most important thing he could do was lean into what he loves most:

Building tools people genuinely want to use.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How has this Start-Up Built the Immortal Sneaker for Kids?

Richard Lee — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 09:30:00 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
👟 How this Start-Up has built the immortal sneaker for kids
🤑 How you can sell without selling
🔗 A tool that enables you to ship custom APIs

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Founders, Inc who are looking to write $250,000 cheques into early-stage startups.

Happy hustling,

Rich

🎤 Opportunities + Events

✨ Techstars have opened applications for their ‘Anywhere Accelerator’ (+ a load more), with successful applicants getting up to $220,000 - apply here!

🦅 Barclays Eagle Labs have launched their next Funding Readiness Accelerator - apply here!

⛏ FirstPick have just raised a €25m fund to invest in Pre-Seed tech startups across the Baltics - apply here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

📈 Growth Marketer, Noxus
🧑‍💻 Chief Technology Officer, Voxmind
🛠 Operations Associate, Factored

🤖 UK pledges £40m for frontier AI research lab. Sifted

🏃 MyFitnessPal has acquired CalAI, the viral calorie app built by teens that hit $30m ARR in under 2 years. TechCrunch

📈 Andruil aims at $60bn valuation in new funding round. TechCrunch

🛰 UK Space Agency unveils £30m satellite funding pot. UKTN

Final Rentals

Planning a trip for business or pleasure?

Book your rental here!

Guinness

Our European readers will know that the Six Nations is well and truly underway, and the brand of Guinness is synonymous with the tournament.

So, Guinness have gone beyond the pitch for their most recent campaign. They’ve headed to where the majority of people watch the games - the pub! This is even better, because this is literally the exact location and time at which these people will purchase Guinness.

By creating these fun beer mats and leaving them throughout pubs, they’ve put themselves top of mind at the exact point the consumer is looking to purchase, but not at all in a pushy/salesy way.

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

Many websites don't have public APIs. Anything API fills that gap. Turn any browser work into a production-ready API. Describe the task, and our agents build a custom function that calls the site directly. Ship a custom API endpoint you can deploy serverless, schedule on Cron, or call via API. Tell Notte what you need. We ship the function endpoint.

Anything API

Dubs

👟 Dubs: The Immortal Sneaker Built for Wild Childhoods

Childhood is under threat.

Too many kids are stuck indoors, glued to screens. And when they do get outside, their shoes can’t keep up - uncomfortable, badly sized, worn out in months, and destined for landfill.

Meanwhile, for parents, buying kids’ shoes is chaos:
Sizing confusion. Endless returns. In-store meltdowns.

Dubs was built to fix all of it.

Founded by Stuart, Dubs creates radically re-engineered trainers designed for adventure. They’re featherlight, flexible, and built to last - with a single-sole sizing system that means once you know your child’s size, you know it forever. No variation between styles. No guesswork.

Layered into that is a circular model designed to keep shoes on kids’ feet and out of landfill.

Dubs is for parents who want relief from the madness, and for kids who just want to run, climb, jump and play without their shoes slowing them down (or wrecking the planet).

Born From Lockdown + One Very Energetic Three-Year-Old

Dubs didn’t begin in a boardroom, it began in lockdown.

When COVID hit, Stuart lost his role as Creative Operations Director at M&C Saatchi. Suddenly it was just him and his “supercharged” three-year-old daughter, Leila - both restless, both slightly bonkers, both refusing to sit still.

They spent their days inventing games and creative projects, including turning her outgrown shoes into flowerpots.

But there was a pattern Stuart couldn’t ignore.

Leila’s feet were growing every two to three months. Shoes were piling up. Most weren’t built properly for kids in the first place. They were uncomfortable. They wore out quickly. And they ended up in landfill.

Every week, Stuart would vent about it on Zoom to his friend Gary, a graphic designer. Gary immediately saw the same problem: waste, poor design, and a complete lack of real innovation in kids’ footwear.

So they set themselves a ridiculous-sounding challenge:

“How do we build the Immortal Sneaker?”

While Leila napped, often for precisely 37 minutes, Stuart would research manufacturing, sustainability, and footwear design. He spoke to anyone who would talk to him.

Two friends. No jobs. No industry background.
Fuelled by lockdown chaos and one fast-growing pair of feet.

That’s how Dubs began.

First Customers: Pure Hustle

There was no marketing budget.

Both founders were freelancing to survive, building Dubs on the side. Money was near non-existent.

So Stuart did what scrappy founders do: he hustled.

He researched small footwear brands, studied their social feeds, then picked up the phone. He offered help with brand tone and social strategy in exchange for advice, introductions, and manufacturing insights. It was pure skill-swap networking.

Eventually, they partnered with an ex-developer from Clarks who helped refine their bold designs into something anatomically sound for real kids’ feet.

Then came a breakthrough: a £25,000 grant from Innovate UK. That funding allowed them to create serious prototypes and conduct proper wear-testing.

After countless iterations, they had something that worked.

With no budget for a traditional launch, they turned to crowdfunding and launched on Kickstarter. In a single month, they pre-sold enough trainers to fund their first production run, raising £9,000.

The first pair went to Leila.

Her friends wanted them.

Then their friends wanted them.

No glossy ad campaigns. No paid social machine.

Just kids refusing to take them off, and parents telling other parents.

Word-of-mouth did the heavy lifting.

Scaling With Heart (and Relentless Listening)

One of the most emotional turning points came from an unexpected place: families in the SEND community.

Parents began sharing that their children, who often struggled with uncomfortable or restrictive footwear, finally had shoes that didn’t slow them down.

Dubs had started as a solution for one child. Now it was solving problems for many.

To grow, the team doubled down on what frustrated parents most:

Sizing chaos
In-store meltdowns
Endless returns

They introduced AI-powered sizing to improve fit accuracy and stuck firmly to their single-sole system - so a size six is always a size six, regardless of style.

Sustainability wasn’t treated as a buzzword. They partnered with London South Bank University and Read London to validate their circularity claims and avoid greenwashing.

Growth has come through awards, pop-ups, partnerships and constant feedback loops - not big ad budgets.

It’s still hustle.

But it’s focused hustle.

Bootstrapped and Built the Hard Way

Dubs has been bootstrapped from day one.

Stuart still works four days a week elsewhere to fund the journey, dedicating at least one full day, realistically many more, to building Dubs.

Funding so far includes:

£25,000 Innovate UK grant
£20,000 of founders’ own capital
£9,000 from Kickstarter pre-sales

No debt. No equity given away.

Every pound has gone back into improving the product and building trust with their growing community.

Now revenue-generating, Dubs is beginning to explore what a pre-seed round might look like, and how to scale properly without compromising its mission.

Breaking Into a Stubborn Industry

Footwear manufacturing is notoriously complex.

Factories prioritise large orders. Supply chains are rigid. Small brands have little leverage. Add sustainability requirements on top, and complexity (and cost) multiply.

Dubs could easily have produced cheap, off-the-shelf trainers.

But that would betray the mission.

Sustainable materials and circular practices come at a premium. Cash flow has been a constant balancing act. There have been failed prototypes. Production delays. Hard lessons.

But each setback has sharpened the product and strengthened the brand.

Lessons From Building the “Immortal Sneaker”

Stuart’s biggest takeaways?

1. Resilience beats perfection.
You won’t have all the answers upfront. Adapt quickly. Listen constantly. Don’t get precious about being “right.”

2. Community matters more than ego.
Parents and kids have shaped Dubs as much as the founders have.

3. Find other Founders sooner.
The Founder community is a source of hard-won wisdom and support, and he wishes he’d leaned into it earlier.

4. Protect your own energy.
This journey is stressful and lonely. Burnout can creep in quietly. Making time for yourself isn’t indulgent, it’s necessary.

Raising the Bar for Kids’ Footwear

At its core, Dubs isn’t just a shoe brand.

It’s a response to waste.
A response to poor design.
A response to the chaos parents quietly endure.

And it all started with one dad, one lockdown, and one little girl who kept growing out of her shoes.

The mission now is simple:

Build the shoe parents recommend.
Build the shoe kids refuse to take off.
And keep childhood wild.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How is this Start-Up Changing the Narrative on Mental Therapy?

Richard Lee — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 09:30:00 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
💪 How this Start-Up is changing the narrative on mental therapy
👜 How you can turn your every day product into a catwalk icon
✍️ A tool that helps you write professional documents

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Redrice who have just raised a £75m fund to back early-stage consumer brands, platforms and B2B tech solutions!

Happy hustling,

Rich

🎤 Opportunities + Events

💰 Founders, Inc. are looking for exciting startups from across the globe for the next cohort, writing cheques of up to $250k - apply here!

🌉 The Bridge Summer 2026 is open for applications for recently graduated Europeans looking to build global companies, giving you 8 weeks in San Francisco and a $250k cheque - apply here!

🥇 Entrepreneur First are accepting applications for their London Fall 2026 cohort, with successful applicants getting up to $250k in investment - apply here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

🧑‍🎨 Lead Product Designer, DevAlly
🧑‍💻 Fullstack Engineer, Tano
👷 Forward Deployed Engineer, Noxus

💽 AI Chip startup Axelera AI raises $250m to take on Nvidia. Sifted

🎨 Canva acquires startups working on animation and marketing. TechCrunch

📈 Stripe’s valuation soars 74% to $159bn. TechCrunch

🍻 Guinness Ventures targets £3m for new SEIS fund. UKTN

Final Rentals

Planning a trip for business or pleasure?

Book your rental here!

Asda

From Asda last week to Lidl this week, I promise I don’t just follow the marketing efforts of popular supermarkets. However, they do seem to be playing in a different league with marketing stunts at the moment!

As London Fashion Week rolls around, there’s always a competition for eyeballs - even for supermarkets! So, Lidl had the genius idea to turn one of their shopping baskets into a bag to be held on the prestigious runway!

When a prestigious event like London Fashion Week is in town, how can you make your product relevant? I’m not saying you actually need to make the product, as I’m confident you could mock something like this up with AI and see exactly what social media thinks of it!

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

Liner Write is a Cursor-style writing agent for professional documents. Co-write business plans, proposals, reports, and more with an AI backed by the world's most accurate search (Liner Deep Research, 95%+ on SimpleQA). World-class output. Near-zero hallucinations.

Liner Write

Mettle

💪 Mettle: Building the World’s Biggest Brand in Men’s Mental Fitness

The mental health industry is worth over $500 billion.

Yet despite the scale of the problem, and the growing conversation around wellbeing, there isn’t a single category-defining brand built specifically for men.

That’s the gap Mettle was created to fill.

Founded by Neil, Mettle is the first digital mental fitness toolkit designed exclusively for men - particularly those who wouldn’t normally feel that traditional wellness or therapy spaces are “for them.”

It’s not positioned as therapy.
It’s not positioned as vulnerability-first self-help.

It’s mental fitness.

Available via the App Store and Google Play, and also purchased by businesses for their teams, Mettle is a subscription-based app containing over 1,000 pieces of science-backed content built specifically for men. It was co-designed with Imperial College London and is the first digital men’s mental health product verified by the National Health Service.

Its mission is simple: help men, at any stage of life, build resilience, take control of their mental fitness, and live happier, healthier lives.

From Global TV to a Global Mission

Neil didn’t have to look far for his Co-Founder.

His business partner is Bear Grylls — the TV adventurer known worldwide for extreme survival challenges and unshakable resilience.

The two had already built a strong working relationship producing global television hits together, often jumping out of helicopters into volcanic lakes and remote terrains around the world. But beyond the adventure, Bear had also written extensively about mental fitness and resilience.

When Neil explained the scale of the male mental health crisis, and the absence of products that truly spoke to men, Bear’s response was immediate: “We’ve got to do this.”

Mettle was born from that shared conviction.

Launching Like a Consumer Brand

Unlike many health-tech startups that begin in clinical or institutional settings, Mettle launched like a modern consumer app.

The team leaned heavily into paid social advertising, particularly on Meta platforms, where direct click-through and conversion tracking made it ideal for subscription growth.

They also invested in brand awareness early on, including a TV advert featuring Bear on Sky Sports.

While the TV campaign didn’t necessarily drive a flood of immediate subscriptions, it played a crucial strategic role: it put Mettle into men’s consciousness. Awareness built on TV later converted through digital ads.

It wasn’t just about performance marketing, it was about brand building.

Scaling Through Experimentation

As Mettle moved beyond its first users, the team continued refining its growth engine.

They:

Tested different messaging angles across Meta
Ran out-of-home campaigns, including train advertising
Focused on broad awareness as well as direct response

Now, they’re doubling down on affiliate marketing and partnerships - seeing it as a more cost-effective and scalable channel compared to paid acquisition alone.

The strategy is evolving from pure advertising to ecosystem growth.

Backed by Belief

Mettle raised an oversubscribed pre-seed round made up of angel investors.

The investors weren’t just backing another wellness app, they were backing a commercial opportunity with a clear societal upside. A massive, underserved market combined with a strong founding team and credible positioning created what Neil describes as a “win-win.”

After six months of building the app, Mettle launched and began generating revenue.

For many of those early angels, belief in the mission was as important as belief in the market, and once a few committed, they spread the word.

The Reality Behind the Brand

Behind the mission-driven messaging, the journey hasn’t been smooth.

There have been challenges across tech, marketing, and team dynamics. Like any startup, Mettle has faced its share of setbacks and missteps.

But Neil’s perspective is pragmatic:

As long as you stay in the game, and keep learning, failures aren’t final.

They’re part of the build.

Lessons From the Journey

Looking back, two core insights stand out.

1. Find the others.
Neil’s personal motto is about surrounding yourself with the right people, but acknowledging that they can take time to find. The right team compounds everything.

2. Put community at the heart from day one.
If starting again, he would prioritise building community even earlier. Not just users, but connection between users. In a space like mental fitness, belonging is powerful.

Redefining Mental Health for Men

Mettle isn’t trying to compete with traditional therapy platforms.

It’s trying to redefine how men engage with mental wellbeing altogether.

By reframing mental health as mental fitness, something you train daily, like your body, Mettle is positioning itself as a movement as much as a product.

And with science-backed credibility, NHS verification, and the storytelling power of a globally recognised adventurer, it’s aiming to do something far bigger than launch an app.

It’s aiming to build the defining brand in men’s mental fitness.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How is this Start-Up Fighting AI with AI?

Richard Lee — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 09:30:12 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🤺 How this Start-Up is fighting AI with AI
💘 How you can turn the search fir love into viral marketing
🧠 A tool that helps access the knowledge of seasoned pros Pro-Bono

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to the Deel pitch competition in which you can win $1m for your startup!

Happy hustling,

Rich

Sponsored by NOAN

🎤 Opportunities + Events

💨 a16z have just launched their Alpha Fellowship programme for pre-idea/pre-team/pre-everything Founders, with a up to $1.27m in funding per startup - apply here!

🗽 Thrive capital have just announced $10bn of new funds, with $1bn allocated to early-stage investments in exciting technology startups - contact the team here!

🍚 Redrice Ventures have just launched a £7m fund to back early-stage consumer brands, platforms and B2B tech solutions - contact the team here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

📈 Growth Marketer, Noxus
🛠 Operations Associate, Factored
🧑‍💻 Chief Technology Officer, Voxmind

🧑‍⚖️ Getir Founders sue investor Mubadala for $700m. Sifted

☁️ Mistral AI buys Koyeb in first acquisitions to back its cloud ambitions. TechCrunch

🦞 OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger joins OpenAI. TechCrunch

✍️ UKRI launches its first-ever AI strategy. UKTN

Final Rentals

Planning a trip for business or pleasure?

Book your rental here!

Asda

Asda went viral this Valentine’s, some people loved it, others loathed it - what do you think?

This Valentine’s day, Asda decided they’d play the role of Cupid and help shoppers find love. So, if you were a single shopper looking for love, you could use their red baskets to signal to other shoppers that you’re open to conversation.

This was sent all over social media, some people said it was a nice way to make the shopping experience a bit more exciting and encourage human connection, others said it was too intrusive.

What do you think?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

All Together offers founders a unique model: pro-bono advice from world leading CEOs and founders who genuinely want to help. Tap into tailored support, handpicked events and a high-quality community built around momentum. If you want clarity, connections and guidance without a sales agenda, All Together is the tool you’ll want in your kit.

All Together

HEDI

🛡️ HEDI: Fighting AI With AI in the War on Insurance Fraud

Insurance fraud isn’t new.

But the scale and sophistication of it is.

Since Covid, insurance claims have surged - and with the rise of generative AI, fraud has evolved from opportunistic to industrial. Deepfakes. Forged documents. Synthetic identities. AI-generated evidence. What used to require coordination and skill can now be produced at scale with a laptop.

That’s exactly why HEDI was created.

Founded by Seif and Roxana, HEDI builds proprietary AI models that help insurance companies detect sophisticated fraud before they pay out. Their technology covers the entire insurance workflow, from onboarding and underwriting to claims processing and contract cancellation - with 92% accuracy.

Already live with major European insurers and expanding into the GCC, HEDI exists for one reason:

Fraud is evolving fast. Insurers need to evolve faster.

A Co-Founder Who Fills the Blind Spots

Seif didn’t look for a clone when building HEDI.

He found Roxana at École Polytechnique. While he brought deep technical conviction around AI and fraud detection, Roxana came with a different, but complementary, edge.

Her background spans Sciences Po, market assessment and sales strategy in the nuclear sector, and leading AI operations for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Same urgency. Same belief in the problem. Completely different skill sets.

And that’s intentional.

That complementary dynamic became foundational to how HEDI was built, technical depth paired with commercial strategy.

Winning the First Customers Without Cold Outreach

HEDI didn’t begin by chasing insurers.

Insurers came to them.

Seif and Roxana focused heavily on content from the outset, not fluffy thought leadership, but detailed breakdowns of how AI-driven fraud actually works. They explained how deepfakes are created. How documents are forged. What synthetic fraud patterns look like in real-world systems.

That positioning changed everything.

Fraud managers began reaching out inbound. And when someone approaches you having already read your analysis and trusts your expertise, the sales dynamic shifts entirely.

You’re no longer convincing them they have a problem.
You’re showing them you’re the solution.

That strategy led to early traction with major insurers like Groupama and La Banque Postale.

Scaling: Double Down on What Works

Like most startups, HEDI experimented.

Not every strategy worked. Some channels didn’t stick. But instead of endlessly testing new ideas, they leaned into what was already producing results:

Deep technical content
Inbound expertise positioning
Strategic partnerships
Accelerator programs

Programs like Qatar FinTech Hub and Founders Inc. gave HEDI credibility, warm introductions, and international exposure - especially into the GCC market.

Partnerships also allowed them to plug into existing distribution channels rather than building everything from scratch.

The lesson?

Find what works. Then go all in.

A Hard Pivot, and an Even Harder Sales Cycle

HEDI didn’t start in insurance fraud.

They initially explored fake review detection. But insurance offered a much larger total addressable market and a sharper, more urgent pain point. The pivot was decisive, and, in hindsight, overdue.

Another tough learning curve? Enterprise sales.

Selling innovation to insurers means navigating compliance, IT security, legal, and procurement, each with veto power. Early on, HEDI underestimated just how long these cycles would take. Some deals stretched 6–9 months when they’d planned for three.

That “pilot-to-contract gap” became a key focus area. Now, Seif qualifies prospects far more rigorously and sets clear timelines from day one.

In regulated industries, patience isn’t optional.
And internal champions are everything.

Bootstrapped, Technical, and Revenue-First

HEDI has been largely bootstrapped.

Supported by the École Polytechnique incubation ecosystem and French startup grants, the team kept burn extremely low. As deeply technical Founders, they built the core product themselves rather than outsourcing.

They reached €150K ARR before seriously pursuing external funding.

Now actively fundraising and expanding internationally, Seif’s philosophy is clear:

Revenue buys leverage.

The Biggest Challenge? Selling to the Risk-Averse

Fraud detection is mission-critical. Insurers know they need it.

But they’re also inherently risk-averse.

Procurement cycles are complex. Stakeholders are layered. Decision-making is cautious by design. HEDI’s biggest challenge hasn’t been product, it’s navigating the institutional inertia of large, regulated organisations.

That experience reinforced one truth:
In enterprise B2B, endurance is a competitive advantage.

The Three Core Lessons

If Seif were starting HEDI again, he’d do three things differently:

1. Start with distribution, not just product.
Brilliant technology is irrelevant if the right decision-makers never see it.

2. Go international earlier.
France was a natural launchpad, but fraud is global. Expansion into the GCC market is now a major focus - and something he would have prioritised sooner.

3. Hire for speed, not perfection.
In a startup, adaptability beats flawless CVs. Some of HEDI’s biggest progress came when they hired hungry, fast learners over “perfect” profiles.

AI vs AI

HEDI sits at the intersection of two accelerating forces: the rise of generative AI and the growing sophistication of financial fraud.

As fraudsters adopt AI to scale deception, insurers need equally advanced tools to defend against it.

That’s the mission.

Not just catching fraud, but staying one step ahead of how it evolves.

And in a world where AI lowers the barrier to deception, that mission is only becoming more urgent.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How is this Start-Up Making Data Speak your Language?

Richard Lee — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 09:30:11 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🗣 How this Start-Up is making data speak your language
🎾 How you can turn competitive sports into a serious marketing campaign
📊 A tool that helps turn your business data into strategic decisions

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Haatch’s ‘Next Wave’ competition for Pre-Seed/Seed stage startups in the UK with up to £2m on the line.

Happy hustling,

Rich

📊 Configur: Making Data Speak your Language

Data is often described as the world’s most valuable resource - but for most organisations, it remains fragmented, underutilised, and difficult to action.

That’s the problem Configur was built to solve.

Founded by Marco and Josh, Configur is a code-free data platform that enables businesses to centralise their data, unlock actionable insights, and deploy AI-driven solutions across a wide range of use cases - from operational automation and supply chain mapping to CRM, ESG, risk, compliance, and AI adoption.

At its core, Configur exists to make data usable. Not just accessible - but practical, operational, and decision-enabling.

Starting with Conversations, Not Code

Configur didn’t begin with aggressive sales campaigns or polished marketing funnels. It began with conversations.

Marco and Josh leaned into their existing networks - previous clients, professional contacts, and people they’d built trust with over the years. Instead of pitching a finished product, they shared the problem they were solving and asked for input.

Tailored emails led to Teams calls. Teams calls led to feedback. And several of the people who contributed during the MVP discovery phase went on to become Configur’s very first clients.

That early validation did more than generate revenue, it shaped the product itself.

Pivoting in a Pandemic

Originally, Configur had its sights set on government and local authorities. Then the pandemic hit.

Almost overnight, priorities shifted. Budgets froze. Decision cycles changed. Marco and Josh had to rethink their target market quickly.

They pivoted to the private sector, launching targeted email campaigns aimed at transformation leaders across multiple industries. In the early days, the approach was deliberately broad - testing different sectors to identify where traction was strongest.

While the outreach was wide, the messaging wasn’t generic. Each sector received tailored communication addressing its specific pain points, informed by the Founders’ previous experience and extensive research into industry forums and customer challenges.

The result? Signals began to emerge about where Configur delivered the most value.

Building a Real Sales Engine

Once initial clients were secured, Configur moved from opportunistic selling to structured growth.

Early attempts to scale through managed service providers didn’t produce the desired results, prompting the founders to bring sales in-house. They built an internal team, automated outreach sequences, and leaned heavily on tools like Sales Navigator for targeted prospecting.

Their outreach strategy became methodical:

Emails
LinkedIn connection requests
Cold calls
Follow-ups scheduled across 8–10 touchpoints per contact

Interestingly, the highest conversion often came on the third chaser email - the seventh step in the process. The lesson was clear: persistence matters, and most deals are won after others would have stopped.

The Power of Referrals

Despite building outbound systems, Configur’s early growth was overwhelmingly relationship-driven.

At one stage, 90% of new business came from referrals - a testament to the trust Marco and Josh had built within their network. They didn’t just focus on prospects; they also nurtured relationships with complementary businesses who could introduce them to clients.

That ecosystem mindset became a core pillar of growth.

Bootstrapping First, Funding Later

Configur’s first year was entirely bootstrapped.

From day one, Marco and Josh focused on generating revenue. They pursued consultancy opportunities and selectively took on projects aligned with their long-term vision for Configur. This disciplined approach led to £160,000 in revenue in year one, validating both demand and delivery capability.

Their first external funding round came through angel investors. Some were family friends who believed strongly in the Founders’ vision. Others came through introductions facilitated by Tramshed Tech, who connected them to investors within their wider network.

The process wasn’t quick, it took around seven months to close, but it provided the capital needed to scale more confidently.

The Hardest Transition: From MVP to Scalable Platform

One of Configur’s most complex challenges wasn’t sales, it was product evolution.

Transitioning from an MVP to a fully optimised, user-friendly platform required a substantial rebuild. During that period, the team maintained two code bases simultaneously, balancing stability with innovation.

It was operationally demanding, but it reinforced two critical lessons:

A clear product vision is non-negotiable
Change control must be structured and disciplined

Without both, scale becomes chaos.

Lessons for Founders

Configur’s journey has reinforced several principles:

Talk to customers before perfecting the product
Be willing to pivot quickly when external conditions shift
Persistence in sales beats premature optimisation
Referrals are earned through trust, not tactics
Generate revenue early, it gives you leverage
Build for scale with structure, not shortcuts

From leveraging their personal networks to building a structured sales engine and navigating a full platform rebuild, Marco and Josh have built Configur with resilience and intent.

They set out to solve one of the most universal business problems, data fragmentation, and in doing so, they’ve built a company grounded in practicality, adaptability, and long-term thinking.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How is this Start-Up Working with Artists to Create 1-Of-A-Kind Cycling Kit?

Richard Lee — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 09:30:14 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🚲 How this Start-Up works with artists to create 1-of-a-kind cycling kit
❄️ How you can turn the winter weather into a fantastic marketing campaign
🔎 A tool that helps you rank highly in LLMs

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Ben Lang’s LinkedIn post in which he’s looking to invest in a handful of startups.

Happy hustling,

Rich

Sponsored by NOAN

🎤 Opportunities + Events

📣 SaaStock USA have opened their global pitch competition, with first place winning $500,000 in Investment - apply here!

🐣 Haatch have just announced their ‘Next Wave’ competition for Pre-Seed/Seed stage startups in the UK with up to £2m on the line - apply here!

🇪🇺 b2venture have just closed a €150m Fund V looking to back early stage European Tech startups - connect with the team here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

📈 Growth Marketer, Noxus
🛠 Operations Associate, Factored
👷 Forward Deployed Engineer, Noxus

🧑‍⚖️ Court battle risks £18bn data centre plan central to UK’s AI strategy. Sifted

👮 FinTech CEO and Forbes 30u30 alum has been charged for alleged fraud. TechCrunch

🧑‍🎓 Two Stanford students launch $2m startup accelerator for students nationwide. TechCrunch

🤝 Major banks agree to £11bn SME lending package. UKTN

Final Rentals

Planning a trip for business or pleasure?

Book your rental here!

Stella Artois

We’re well and truly in the depths of winter, but your marketing campaigns don’t have to suffer as a result!

For Canada, January usually means snow. How did Stella Artois take advantage of this? They got the snow to form the perfect head on one of their beers. As you can see above, they put 2 advertising boards together with nothing but one of their drinks on. However, there was nothing to cover the top, so as the snow came down, the advertising board filled up.

After enough snow had fallen in Toronto, the perfect head was created by the downfall - tempting plenty of people to get themselves a Stella upon seeing it!

How can you use the winter weather to your advantage?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

Findable is the complete LLM SEO toolkit to rank well across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google Gemini and more. Monitor, analyse, and optimise your AI search visibility.

Findable

Kostume

🚴‍♂️ Kostüme: High-Performance Cycling Apparel Without the Waste

Kostüme is a technical cycling apparel brand founded by Ed Bartlett, built to prove that world-class performance and genuine sustainability don’t have to be trade-offs.

The brand produces small-batch, high-performance cycling kit using the latest recycled materials, while eliminating the waste that defines traditional apparel manufacturing. By operating a direct-to-consumer pre-order model, Kostüme avoids excess inventory, reduces financial risk, and reinvests savings into better fabrics, smarter construction, and more responsible production.

Each drop features exclusive artist collaborations, making every collection feel rare, intentional, and culturally rooted. Kostüme’s long-term ambition is bold: to achieve true circularity and drive systemic change within the cycling apparel industry.

Creating Demand: FOMO, Craft, and Specialist Credibility

From day one, Kostüme avoided paid advertising.

Instead, the brand leaned into scarcity and desire - producing the best possible product at a competitive price, releasing it in limited quantities, and ensuring sell-outs. The goal was to stay underground, letting word-of-mouth and credibility do the heavy lifting.

The first collection launched with an artist collaboration and was supported by creative partnerships, including Surgeon’s Girl (music) and Sola (light painting). Rather than ads, the brand ran a tightly focused PR push, complemented by behind-the-scenes film content and subtle social teasers.

While the initial launch performed well, sales dropped off faster than expected. The turning point came through independent validation. Positive reviews from respected cycling publications like road.cc and Rouleur reignited momentum, and an invite to exhibit at Rouleur Live helped cement Kostüme’s reputation as a serious, aspirational brand.

One early customer went on to build a prominent cycling club, for which Kostüme later designed a custom kit - an organic moment that further accelerated word-of-mouth growth.

Scaling Through Trust, Community, and Zero Paid Ads

Initially hesitant to add customer reviews, Ed eventually introduced Trustpilot - boosting trust and visibility without compromising the brand’s clean aesthetic.

Growth was fuelled by deep community engagement, supporting influential cycling clubs and local riders who genuinely loved the product. Strategic collaborations followed, including partnerships with a highly respected specialty coffee brand and even a pop-up with Porsche - all reinforcing Kostüme’s premium positioning.

The mailing list became the brand’s core growth engine. Carefully selected social competitions helped grow it quickly and cost-effectively, using product rather than cash as the incentive.

Customer feedback directly shaped product evolution. Demand for more versatile kit led to the introduction of plain cycling shorts, which nearly sold out through the waitlist alone. The result: 200% year-on-year growth, achieved entirely without paid advertising.

Lessons Learned: Organic Growth Still Has a Cost

One of the biggest realisations was that while organic growth can be low-cost in cash terms, it is expensive in time and energy. These channels only work when supported by structure, consistency, and focus.

As the business grew faster than expected, Ed also learned how damaging missteps can be in consumer brands. Momentum matters, and having the right infrastructure in place early is essential to sustain growth without burning out.

Funding the Business: SEIS, Then Bootstrapping

Kostüme raised an initial £250k via SEIS, backed by belief in the concept and Ed’s nearly 25 years of industry experience. That capital funded the e-commerce build, launch range, and early supply chain.

From there, the business has been bootstrapped, with the pre-order model providing upfront cash flow and dramatically reducing financial risk.

The company is now at an inflection point, with strong product-market fit, growing demand, and high engagement. As a result, Ed is currently in discussions to raise a further round to unlock the next phase of growth.

Raising Investment: Trust, Timing, and Track Record

The success of the SEIS round came down to timing and trust.

Ed was the right person, with the right idea, at the right moment. Many early investors had long-standing relationships with him and had taken up cycling during lockdown, making Kostüme’s mission immediately relatable.

That alignment made conviction easy, something far harder to manufacture later without momentum.

The Biggest Challenge: Scaling Capital in a Tough Market

Despite strong fundamentals, the hardest challenge to date has been securing scale-up funding in a difficult economic climate.

Even with growing revenues and proven demand, closing the last round felt slow - reinforcing a hard truth of entrepreneurship: ultimately, it’s the Founder’s responsibility to find and convince the right investors, regardless of market conditions.

Core Principles That Guide Kostüme

Ed’s key takeaways are pragmatic and hard-earned:

Zig when others zag - differentiation matters
Cash flow is king
Consistency compounds - brand momentum is fragile
Don’t rely on investment - and if you do, plan for 3× the runway
If the product is exceptional, customers will do the marketing
Balance research with intuition - behaviour isn’t always logical

If starting again, Ed would build the e-commerce site more cost-effectively, having over-invested early based on confidence that future funding would be easier - a plan disrupted by unexpected market shifts.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How is this Start-Up Getting you the Contact Details of your Website Visitors?

Richard Lee — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 09:30:14 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🕵️ How this Start-Up helps you get the contact details of all your website visitors
👀 How jumping on pop culture trends can get free eyeballs
🛠 An AI tool that turns your ideas into functional products

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Passion Capital who are looking to invest £400k - £500k into Pre-Seed FinTech + Enterprise Risk startups.

Happy hustling,

Rich

Sponsored by NOAN

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🎶 Karaoke Club are looking to write €50k - €100k cheques into exciting pre-seed European tech startups, right from the very start - apply here!

😇 Ben Lang is looking to angel invest in a handful of Pre-Seed Tech startups, having previously written cheques into companies like Deel, Luma + Lovable - more info here!

🌱 Seed + Speed Ventures have just raised a €90m fund to invest in Pre-Seed B2B software startups in the DACH region - apply here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

📈 Growth Marketer, Noxus
🛠 Operations Associate, Factored
👷 Forward Deployed Engineer, Noxus

🇪🇺 Von der Leyen backs EU inc. in landmark Davos speech. Sifted

🏆 Andruil has invented a wild new drone-flying contest where jobs are the prize. TechCrunch

🧑‍⚖️ LegalAI Giant Harvey acquires Hexus as competition heats up in LegalTech. TechCrunch

💨 OpenAI and Booking.com to launch accelerator programme in the UK. UKTN

Final Rentals

Planning a trip for business or pleasure?

Book your rental here!

On The Beach

Marketing trends move faster than Usain Bolt himself, it feels like you constantly have to have pop culture on the tip of your fingers at every second. But when it works, nothing quite tops it!

Evidenced by On The Beach’s most recent campaign in light of this entire Beckham breakdown. If you haven’t seen it, The Beckhams have fallen out with their son, Brooklyn.

As it’s literally in every corner of social media, OTB decided to capitalise and introduced a ‘Beckham clause’ cancellation policy for holidays ruined by family arguments in the run up.

Of course, this went viral and took advantage of all the traffic the Beckhams were building up. How can you capitalise on trending news like this?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

The most complete AI builder ever made. With Imagine, you turn your ideas into functional products by chatting with AI. No matter your prompt, your applications will always have: - Built-in cloud: Auth, Databases, Storage, Notifications, Hosting - Fullest compliance: GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, CCPA - SSR and server functions, enabling fast load times and strong SEO - Highest security: DDoS, Abuse protection, Encryption, Data migrations - Scalability: Completely managed cloud infrastructure

Imagine

Maverick Intelligence

🧠 Maverick Intelligence: Turning Anonymous Website Traffic into Revenue

Maverick Intelligence helps businesses answer one deceptively simple question: who is actually on my website?

The platform identifies anonymous website visitors and enriches them with actionable data (LinkedIn profiles, email addresses, and mobile numbers) so sales and marketing teams can contact warm leads that would otherwise disappear unnoticed. Beyond revenue, founders also use Maverick Intelligence to spot potential investors or future hires who are actively checking them out.

It’s built for sales teams, marketers, and Founders who believe inbound interest shouldn’t be wasted - and who want to turn attention into conversations, and conversations into deals.

Built with a Long-Standing Co-Founder Relationship

The company was founded by Maverick, alongside his Co-Founder Nick, who he’s known since high school.

Twelve years of friendship created a foundation of trust that’s hard to replicate. That long-term relationship made collaboration natural, decisions faster, and conflict easier to navigate - a huge advantage in the chaos of early-stage startup life.

The First Customers: Relentless LinkedIn DMs

Maverick Intelligence landed its very first customer through LinkedIn DMs.

At the beginning, Maverick sent a lot of them. Speed and responsiveness became a defining habit - inbound messages and customer questions are often answered within 30 seconds. That urgency built trust early and helped turn casual interest into paying users.

Not everything was perfect. The Founder even misspelled a prospect’s name in one of the earliest messages - proof that momentum beats perfection. The lesson was clear: outreach works if you actually do it.

Scaling Through Content, Proof, and Referrals

As the customer base grew, LinkedIn remained the core growth channel.

The team committed to posting relevant, consistent content at least three times per week, focusing on real use cases and outcomes. Case studies became a powerful credibility engine, showing exactly how Maverick Intelligence delivers value.

Referrals, however, became the most meaningful growth signal. Customers actively recommending the product to their network confirmed something far more valuable than any metric - that people genuinely loved using it.

Hard Lessons in Focus

One of Maverick’s most important reminders has been brutally practical:

Only sell to people who have the budget and have the problem.

If one of those is missing, move on. Early-stage Founders can waste huge amounts of energy trying to convince the wrong prospects. Learning to qualify ruthlessly freed up time, improved conversion rates, and reduced unnecessary friction.

Funding: A Cold Email That Changed Everything

Maverick Intelligence raised its first investment from Boost VC in San Francisco - one of the earliest backers of companies like Coinbase and Deepgram.

The process? Cold email.

After seeing that Boost VC were actively looking to invest before year-end, Maverick reached out directly. A couple of emails and two video calls later, the investment was secured. Since coming onboard, Boost VC have played an active and supportive role in the company’s growth.

Failure, Reframed

Ask Maverick about failure and you won’t get a dramatic story, you’ll get honesty.

“I fail pretty much every day. Multiple times per day.”

But failure only counts if you quit. As long as you stay in the game, you’re still winning. Each rejection, missed deal, or mistake becomes part of the process rather than the end of it. The mindset is simple: persistence beats everything.

The Core Belief

The biggest lesson Maverick has learned is also the simplest:

The person who works the hardest and never gives up always wins.

There’s no shortcut, no secret tactic - just consistency, resilience, and refusing to stop. Maverick Intelligence is built on that philosophy, and it shows in both the product and the way the company is growing.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How is this Start-Up Bringing Unapologetic Sichuan Flavour to the UK

Richard Lee — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 09:30:26 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🌶 How this Start-Up is bringing unapologetic sichuan flavour to the UK
🍟 How you can use complimentary products to run a winning marketing campaign
➡ A no-code platform that enables you to build forms and workflows

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Passion Capital who are looking to invest £400k - £500k into Pre-Seed FinTech + Enterprise Risk startups.

Happy hustling,

Rich

Sponsored by NOAN

🎤 Opportunities + Events

😇 Caspar Von Hayek is looking to write cheques up to $100k out of a16z’s Angel Fund, find out more here!

🤖 Prototype Capital are looking to write $200k - $400k tickets into European Pre-Seed frontier tech startups - reach out here!

🛰 Anada Impact Ventures are looking to write cheques of up to €3m into Pre-Seed - Series A frontier tech companies in Europe - connect with the team here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

🧑‍💻 Chief Technology Officer, Voxmind
🛠 Operations Associate, Factored
📲 Social Media Manager, AloYou

🔒 Aikido Security hits unicorn valuation with $60m Series B raise. Sifted

🥽 Meta officially shuts down the Metaverse. TechCrunch

☁️ AI cloud startup Runpod hits $120m ARR, and it started with a Reddit post. TechCrunch

🇺🇸 How will Trump’s tariffs hit UK Tech Businesses? UKTN

Final Rentals

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Heinz

Does your product/service have a complimentary product or service? If so, this is the campaign for you!

Heinz are very aware that the most complimentary product to their ketchup is fries, so that’s where this campaign went. They looked at fries as a product, and tried to identify the problem with them. They realised that most people find it annoying having the ketchup separate to the fries, so decided to tackle it - though this is most definitely a gimmick!

They created the next generation box of fries, with ketchup built it - and the internet went wild for it! Of course, they’re not actually launching or building this - it just creates awareness and conversation around Heinz as a brand!

How can you use complimentary products to drive attention to your business?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

FlowGenie is a no-code platform for building forms and workflows using a visual, node-based flow editor. Inspired by Unreal Engine blueprints, logic lives in the graph, not hidden inside config panels. Build flows you can schedule, trigger externally, or run from form submissions. Designed for developers, founders, and technical teams who want automation without giving up clarity or control.

FlowGenie

Yep Kitchen

🌶️ Yep Kitchen: Bringing Unapologetic Sichuan Flavour to the UK

Yep Kitchen is a Chinese food brand championing bold, uncompromising Sichuan flavours. Founded by Tom, the business was born from a decade spent living in China - years that reshaped his palate and his understanding of what Chinese food really is.

After returning to the UK, Tom saw an opportunity to do more than just sell food. Yep Kitchen exists to demystify Chinese ingredients, give them the respect they deserve, and create a platform where authentic products can thrive. It’s built for the passionate foodie, the seasoned traveller, and the flavour-curious - anyone searching for something deeper, bolder, and more honest than the usual supermarket offerings.

A Solo Founder by Design

Tom chose to build Yep Kitchen as a solo founder, and for the most part, it’s been the right decision.

He thrives on moving fast, taking risks, and making decisions without friction. That independence allowed the business to grow quicker than many early-stage brands. Yep Kitchen is rooted in Tom’s lived experience, and sharing that journey, through food, has been one of the most rewarding parts of building the company.

That said, solo doesn’t mean easy. There have been moments where another fully invested mind would have been welcomed with open arms. Tom has balanced that reality by surrounding himself with strong mentors, leaning on experience and guidance when the weight of decision-making felt heavy.

The First Customers: Markets, Miles, and Real Conversations

Yep Kitchen was bootstrapped in the truest sense, with little strategy and even less polish in the early days.

Rather than obsessing over funnels or paid ads, Tom focused on getting himself and his products directly into people’s hands. That meant weekends spent at London farmers’ markets, telling his story face-to-face, cooking, sampling, and building trust one customer at a time.

Those real-world interactions became the brand’s foundation. Social media and email marketing only came later, once awareness had been earned the hard way. Tom is clear-eyed about the role of paid advertising - it can make a brand look great, but when the ads are switched off, only a real business survives. Early on, it was those human connections that mattered most.

Scaling Beyond the Stall

Once Yep Kitchen had established brand awareness and demand, the next phase was distribution.

Tom turned his attention to the independent grocery sector, working with premium wholesalers to place Yep Kitchen products in delis and farm shops across the UK. This move allowed the brand to scale while staying aligned with its values - quality, authenticity, and respect for the product.

Lessons in Focus and Freedom

One of the most important lessons Tom learned was to stop comparing himself to others.

Yep Kitchen is a deeply personal business, and that means the journey was never going to look like anyone else’s. Letting go of pressure, whether it was comparing listings won or lost, or worrying about where peers were at, unlocked a sense of freedom. Once the mission became clear, momentum followed. Looking back, Tom’s only real change would be setting that mission sooner.

Funding the Business: Intentional Bootstrapping

Tom launched Yep Kitchen with £15,000, alongside £25,000 in personal savings to cover living costs. That runway gave the business roughly a year to grow without the pressure of pulling money out too early.

Rather than drip-feeding capital into the business, Tom found it far easier to manage spending by knowing exactly how much he had to work with. That clarity helped Yep Kitchen grow to a stage where external investment became an attractive, and credible, option.

Raising the First Round: Look to Your Customers

The first investment round came from four individuals, three friends and family, and one external angel investor discovered through Yep Kitchen’s own customer base.

For Tom, this reinforced a powerful insight: your customers are one of your greatest assets. They already believe in the product. The challenge is showing them the bigger picture - why the business is different, how it wins, and where it’s going next.

Burnout, Factories, and Founder Reality

The hardest challenge Tom has faced isn’t competition or cash flow - it’s burnout.

In three years of building Yep Kitchen, he’s experienced it twice. The most recent episode came while building a new automated factory. Juggling multiple roles, switching context constantly, and lacking the resources to hire support pushed him past his limits. The result was illness, exhaustion, and mental fatigue.

Talking openly with mentors helped, but the biggest lesson was learning to be kinder to himself. Founders are experts at convincing themselves they can do everything - and then punishing themselves when they can’t. Tom’s perspective is refreshingly honest: you’re allowed to make mistakes. Growth doesn’t come from perfection, it comes from persistence.

Looking Back - and Forward

When asked what he’d do differently, Tom’s answer is simple: nothing.

Every mistake, every misstep, and every hard moment has shaped the business and the entrepreneur behind it. Doing things wrong made it possible to do them right later. Learning how to use those lessons, rather than avoid them, is what Tom believes builds great founders.

Yep Kitchen isn’t just a food brand. It’s the product of lived experience, hard-earned resilience, and an uncompromising commitment to flavour - and it’s only just getting started.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How is this Start-Up Changing the Future of AR + VR?

Richard Lee — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 09:30:24 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🥽 How this Start-Up is changing the future of AR + VR
🏃 How you can build a viral marketing campaign on New Year’s resolutions
🤖 A tool that allows you to build AI agents in plain english

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Active Capital, who are looking to write $500k - $750k cheques into Pre-Seed companies.

🇺🇸 I’M IN SAN FRANCISCO 🇺🇸 - I’m currently out in SF and will be until the 22nd of Jan, I’m looking to speak to as many people out here as possible. If you’re out here, know anyone out here or know of any events to head to, please send your suggestions! Either respond to this email, email me direct at richard@innovatorsuncensored.com or send it on LinkedIn 🦅

My Elite Editing Skills

Happy hustling,

Rich

Sponsored by NOAN

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🍊 Passion Capital are looking to invest £400k - £500k cheques into Pre-Seed Fintech + Enterprise Risk Startups, saying they’ll invest pre-revenue and pre-product. Find out more here!

🏆 Stelios has launched his UK Young Entrepreneur competition, 1st place wins £150k, 2nd wins £100k and 3rd wins £50k - apply here!

💰 A16z have just raised $15 billion across multiple different early-stage funds, covering pretty much every industry - connect with the team here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

🧑‍💻 Fullstack Engineer, Tano
🧑‍🎨 Lead Product Designer, DevAlly
♟ Creative Strategist, Stocked

🏦 Revolut in talks to buy Turkish Neobank FUPS. Sifted

📍 App downloads declined in 2025 but consumer spending soared to nearly $156bn. TechCrunch

🚗 Discord IPO might happen in March. TechCrunch

📈 Record number of UK tech incorporations in 2025 UKTN

Final Rentals

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Franco Manca

Everyone knows that January is the time for New Year’s Resolutions and commitments, and Franco Manca really took advantage of that!

Their latest campaign, map your pizza, capitalises on all the people who have turned to running and getting fit for their New Year’s resolution.

How did they do it? They’ve said that if you do a run in a pizza shaped route (as seen in the image above), you’ll get £1 off your pizza for every KM you run - 10KM = £10 off your meal!

This was genius because people had to share their run publicly, which gives Franco Manca the networks of everyone posting, without lifting a finger themselves!

How can you capitalise on New Year’s resolutions with your business?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

Build AI agents by describing your task in plain English. Vellum turns it into a working agent you can run on a schedule, trigger via API, or use through a UI. No code, no setup; just automation you understand and control.

Vellum

Virtus Tech

Virtus Tech: Changing the Future of AR + VR

Virtus Tech is on a mission to make VR and AR content creation accessible to everyone, not just developers with specialist skills. Much like WordPress democratised website creation, Virtus Tech’s no-code platform allows businesses to create, edit, and deploy immersive VR experiences quickly and without technical complexity.

Built for organisations across the UK and US, the platform is both industry-agnostic and device-agnostic, giving customers flexibility as hardware and use cases continue to evolve. Combined with AI-driven analytics that help teams continuously improve performance, Virtus Tech enables companies to use immersive technology not as a novelty, but as a measurable, goal-driven tool.

Behind the product are founders George and Robin, whose journey started long before VR and AR became mainstream business tools.

Landing the First Customer: Cold Outreach Done Right

Virtus Tech’s first customer didn’t come from inbound marketing, introductions, or a warm network - it came from good old-fashioned cold outreach.

The approach was simple but deliberate:
a cold email, followed by a cold call one week later.

That follow-up call served two purposes. First, it confirmed the email had actually been seen. Second, it shifted the dynamic - instead of waiting passively for a reply, George and Robin created a moment of engagement. While cold outreach can feel uncomfortable, especially early on, it worked. That first “yes” validated both the problem and the solution, and gave the Founders confidence that there was genuine demand for what they were building.

More importantly, it laid the groundwork for a repeatable early sales motion.

Growing Through Reputation, Not Hype

Once Virtus Tech had initial traction, the focus shifted from outbound sales to building credibility.

Rather than chasing fast growth, the team invested time in delivering real value to early customers and letting results speak for themselves. Word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied users began to play a bigger role, supported by a growing and consistent social media presence that showcased both the product and the thinking behind it.

This combination of customer advocacy and visible thought leadership helped Virtus Tech build trust in a space where many businesses were still unsure how VR and AR could deliver tangible ROI.

Bootstrapping from Day One

Virtus Tech’s journey has been deliberately capital-efficient.

Founded in 2018, the first two years were spent on deep market research and product refinement. Rather than rushing to sell, George and Robin focused on understanding where immersive technology genuinely solved problems - and where it didn’t.

In 2020, Virtus Tech made its first commercial sale, officially entering a new phase as a revenue-generating business. From that point on, growth was entirely self-funded. Profits were reinvested, spending was tightly controlled, and the company scaled at a pace it could sustain.

It wasn’t until 2022 that the Founders began exploring external funding, engaging with angel investors and venture capitalists through referrals and direct outreach. By then, Virtus Tech had a proven product, real customers, and a clear sense of direction.

Challenges, Lessons, and Growing Pains

Like many Founder-led companies, Virtus Tech’s toughest challenges weren’t purely technical.

Early on, cold outreach took an emotional toll. Rejection felt personal - until the Founders learned to detach emotionally and see each “no” as part of the process. That mindset shift became a turning point, building resilience that still shapes how the team operates today.

Another major challenge came from success itself. The platform matured faster than the company could hire the people needed to accelerate sales and revenue. This mismatch highlighted a critical lesson: technology growth and team growth must stay aligned. Without the right people in place, even the best product can struggle to reach its full potential.

From a Student House to the VR/AR Frontier

What started in a student house has grown into a serious player in the VR and AR space. For George and Robin, the journey has been as much about personal growth as it has been about building a business.

The path hasn’t been linear or easy, but each challenge has sharpened their thinking, strengthened their resilience, and shaped Virtus Tech into what it is today.

Advice for Other Founders

One of the biggest lessons George and Robbin share is simple but powerful:

Don’t compare your journey to anyone else’s.

Every Founder’s path looks different, and progress takes time. The myth of overnight success rarely holds up - even Rovio, the creators of Angry Birds, built over 51 games before finding their breakout hit.

Focus on your own trajectory, stay patient, and keep building. Success compounds when you give it time.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How is this Start-Up Turning a Japanese Hit into a Global Phenomenon

Richard Lee — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 09:30:17 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🌏 How this Start-Up is turning a Japanese hit into a global phenomenon
☂️ How joke campaigns can spread a message be
🖱 A tool that allows you you to copy any website’s design and assets in one click

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Clover’s new $30m fund looking to back early-stage future of work startups

🎄 This is our last issue of the year, but we’ll be back in the New Year with all sorts of Opportunities, Openings and News updates - have a great festive period!

Happy hustling,

Rich

Sponsored by NOAN

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🤞 Belief Capital have just raised $20m to invest in AI, robotics and infrastructure. They’re looking to write $500k - $3m tickets at the Pre-Seed/Seed stage. connect with the team here!

🚀 Active Capital are looking to write $500k - $750k cheques into highly technical Pre-Seed startups, find out more and connect with the team here!

🎨 The brothers behind ‘The Players Fund’ have just launched ‘The Artists Collective’, a fund backed by creatives and media superstars to invest between £50k - £300k into Seed - Series A startups. Connect with the Founder here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

🧑‍💻 Fullstack Engineer, Tano
🧑‍🎨 Lead Product Designer, DevAlly
♟ Creative Strategist, Stocked

😡 Octopus Energy to spin off tech arm Kraken at $8.65bn valuation. Sifted

📍 Plaud launches new AI pin and a desktop meeting notetaker. TechCrunch

🚗 Tesla annual sales decline 9% as it’s overtaken by BYD as global EV leader. TechCrunch

💰 UK tech funding totals £11.7bn in 2025. UKTN

Final Rentals

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Guinness

Guinness have been on a legendary run over the last couple of years, with splitting the G becoming common vocabulary for most in the UK.

However, you don’t always have to shout about how good the product is in order to sell it. Sometimes, subtlety helps, and Guinness have nailed that here.

The team over at Guinness ran a joke campaign where they said they were launching small umbrellas to attach to your Guinness glass to protect it from the rain.

This campaign does 2 things. 1, shows that Guinness is so good, people will stand out in the rain to drink it. 2, people love Guinness so much, they’ll go the extra mile to protect it from the rain - even when they aren’t protecting themselves from the rain!

Both of these things communicate that people really love Guinness, without actually saying it.

How can you come up with a funny campaign or a joke product to do the same for your business?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

The fastest way to copy any website's design. MiroMiro is a Chrome extension that lets you inspect and extract design assets from any website without opening DevTools. Hover over any element to instantly copy its CSS, colors, fonts, and spacing. Download images, SVGs, and even Lottie animations with one click. Extract design tokens and export them as Tailwind config or CSS variables. Built for designers and developers who want to stop rebuilding from scratch and start shipping faster.

MiroMiro

Kwenched

Kwenched: A Cleaner Way to Drink, Built With Intention

Kwenched is a premium saké cocktail brand founded by Faith and Dan, a Scottish couple now based in London. The business was born out of personal experience. After years of struggling with how traditional alcohol made them feel, they set out to create something better - cleaner, more enjoyable, and more aligned with a balanced lifestyle.

Kwenched is designed for people who are intentional about what they consume. Its customers care about ingredients, prefer lower sugar, value natural processes, and want to enjoy alcohol without the downsides that often come with cheap spirits and artificial additives. They’re active, wellness-aligned, culturally curious, and drawn to products with heritage and story behind them.

Instead of relying on the same spirits used in almost every cocktail, Faith and Dan chose to innovate with saké - a fermented, sulphite-free alcohol that’s low in histamines, tannins and congeners, and naturally gut-friendly. The result is a drink that tastes great, feels lighter, and reflects a more mindful approach to alcohol.

A Fitting Meeting: Founders Behind the Bar

Faith and Dan met in a cocktail bar - a detail that feels almost inevitable given what followed. Dan was working behind the bar, serving Faith and her friend cocktails throughout the evening, offering an early glimpse into their shared future.

Today, they’re not only partners in life, but Co-Founders of Kwenched. Their relationship forms the backbone of the business, built on trust, complementary skills, and a shared belief that the drinks industry could do better.

Finding the First Customers the Hard Way (and the Right Way)

Rather than over-engineering early sales strategy, Faith and Dan took a refreshingly direct approach. With no polished playbook and no guaranteed product-market fit, they focused on one thing: getting the product into people’s hands.

They made a list of independent grocery stores and bottle shops, filled the biggest backpack they could carry with samples, and went door to door - meeting buyers, building relationships, and letting people taste Kwenched for themselves.

They did this for months.

That process taught them more than any book, framework or online tool ever could. They learned how people reacted in real time, what resonated, what didn’t, and how the product performed in the wild. Every conversation became feedback. Every rejection became data. Those early months shaped not just the product, but the founders themselves.

Scaling With Focus, Not Scatter

Once Kwenched reached a point where product-market fit felt real, the approach shifted. This was the moment to introduce process and strategy - but with discipline.

Rather than trying to be everywhere at once, Faith and Dan narrowed their focus to the channels and retailers that were clearly working. Independent delis, for example, proved to be a strong fit. From there, they doubled down region by region, parking channels that didn’t perform and resisting the urge to overextend.

Clear objectives played a big role in this phase. One early goal was simple: get into 100 retail stores as quickly as possible. After reaching that milestone, focus shifted to revenue growth, with the next major target set firmly on the horizon. Their target? To reach £1 million in sales in 2026.

Learning to Move Fast (and Trust the Gut)

One of the biggest lessons from building Kwenched has been the importance of action over perfection. Faith and Dan openly acknowledge that their first branding wasn’t where they wanted it to be - but it was all they could afford at the time.

Instead of waiting, they launched anyway.

That first year, imperfect as it was, proved invaluable. It gave them clarity on who their customer really was, how the brand should feel, and what direction they wanted to take long-term. Rebranding later became a strategic evolution rather than a guess.

If they were to do anything differently, it would be to trust their gut even more. While frameworks and playbooks can guide decisions, no one understands the business, the product, or the customer better than the Founders themselves.

Bootstrapped, Grounded, and Built to Sell

Kwenched has been completely bootstrapped using Faith and Dan’s personal savings. From the outset, they understood a simple truth: businesses don’t make money unless people actually want to buy what you’re selling.

Early years were spent refining the product, testing demand beyond friends and family, and building real commercial traction. That groundwork, not shortcuts, is what creates sustainable economics.

They are planning to raise external funding in 2026, once the business has reached the right stage to do so from a position of strength.

The Hardest Battle: The One in Your Head

The biggest challenge hasn’t been logistics, production, or distribution - it’s been the internal battle. Food and drink are deeply subjective. For every person who loves a flavour, someone else wants it spicier, lighter, stronger, or different entirely.

Trying to please everyone is impossible.

After hundreds of tasting sessions, Faith and Dan learned to step back, remove emotion from decision-making, and focus on building for their customer - not all customers. Accepting that not everyone will love Kwenched has been one of the most freeing lessons of the journey.

What Matters Most: Trust, Balance, and Enjoying the Ride

Their biggest lesson? Choose your Co-Founder wisely. Having someone you trust, rely on, and whose skills complement your own makes all the difference. Building a business with a clone of yourself would be painful and ineffective.

Just as important is remembering to enjoy the process. Building Kwenched has been intense, chaotic, and demanding - but it’s also a rare opportunity to create something meaningful that genuinely improves how people feel.

And if they were starting again?

They’d order double the amount of saké, just in case.

Connect with me HERE

⚡ How is this Start-Up Helping Kids become Planet Protectors

Richard Lee — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 09:30:15 +0000

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🌏 How this Start-Up is helping children become planet protectors
🍺 How you can use your marketing campaigns to spread an important message
🗣 A tool that allows your audience to engage with your powerpoint in real time

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Clover’s new $30m fund looking to back early-stage future of work startups

🎄 This is our last issue of the year, but we’ll be back in the New Year with all sorts of Opportunities, Openings and News updates - have a great festive period!

Happy hustling,

Rich

Sponsored by NOAN

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🌠 Lightspeed Ventures have just announced a mammoth raise of $9bn across multiple funds, predominantly focusing on AI - connect with the team here!

🕸 The Nordic Web Ventures have raised a $6 million fund to back early-stage Founders in the region - connect with the GP here!

🛤 Twin Track Ventures have raised a £5m fund to invest in defence and dual use startups - contact the team here!

We now have a community of thousands of Start-Ups and Founders, here are the hottest Start-Up job opportunities from the Innovators Uncensored community on our very own Start-Ups Job Board!

💼 Start-Up Jobs

🧑‍💻 Senior Software Engineer, DevAlly
📊 Head of Product, SuperFI
✈️ Founding Software Engineer, TRVLR

😡 Monzo shareholders revolt over CEO exit. Sifted

🍕 DoorDash rolls out Zesty, an AI social app for discovering new restaurants. TechCrunch

🩺 Uber Eats alum lands $14m seed from a16z to fix WhatsApp chaos for LatAm’s doctors. TechCrunch

💳 Monzo secures European banking licence ahead of international growth. UKTN

Final Rentals

Planning a trip for business or pleasure?

Book your rental here!

Carlsberg

At this time of year, most people are well and truly in the swing of Christmas parties. People are celebrating, drinks are flowing and good times are being had.

However, Carlsberg took a moment to send a message that is never more relevant than at Christmas time. With their latest campaign, they reminded people to use their product sensibly, and to avoid driving after they do consume it. They’ve removed the ‘Carl’ from their logo to represent what happens as a result of drink driving - Carl being the name of someone that could potentially lose their life from an accident like this.

Aware this week’s marketing stunt is slightly somber, but how can you use this time of year to spread an important message in your marketing?

Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our Start-Up community have recommended.

For 38 years your PowerPoint slides have been talking to your audience. Now it's time for them to listen. Using nothing but the chat in Teams, Zoom or any other meeting platform, StreamAlive enables your audience to author and update your slides in real-time. Add all kinds of interactions from polls, word clouds, interactive maps, quizzes, and spinner wheels DIRECTLY inside your existing PowerPoint slides. Note: works with PowerPoint v16.100 and above.

StreamAlive

Planet Protector Box

Planet Protector Box: Turning Small Actions into Lifelong Values

Planet Protector Box is an educational, action-led sustainability product designed to help children make small, achievable changes that benefit the planet. Founded by Reece, the business sits within the wider Face It mission: teaching children strong values and morals from a young age, and empowering them to grow into thoughtful, environmentally conscious adults.

At a time when technology dominates childhood, Planet Protector Box aims to keep essential principles, responsibility, empathy and care for the world, firmly in focus. The product combines education with action, helping children feel that their individual choices can genuinely make a difference.

Building Together: A Founder Partnership at Home

Reece started Planet Protector Box alongside his girlfriend, whose design skills played a crucial role in bringing the concept to life. Together, they shared a vision of creating something that was not only impactful, but also capable of becoming a sustainable business.

Working as a duo allowed them to blend creativity with purpose, combining Reece’s mission-driven mindset with strong visual storytelling and product design. It was a partnership that made the idea tangible.

Finding the First Supporters Through Storytelling

The first customers didn’t come from paid advertising or large campaigns. Instead, Planet Protector Box grew through direct outreach and honest storytelling on social media.

Reece leaned on existing networks, openly sharing the why behind the product rather than simply promoting what it was. By focusing on the mission, helping children develop environmental values, early supporters connected emotionally with the idea.

Pre-orders played a vital role, allowing the team to validate demand before committing to larger production runs. Those first customers weren’t just buyers; they were believers in what Planet Protector Box stood for.

Scaling with Purpose: Partnerships Over Promotion

With the initial launch complete, Planet Protector Box is now entering its next phase of growth. Scaling isn’t about pushing volume at any cost, it’s about alignment.

The focus is on strategic partnerships with organisations that share the same values. Partners earn a set amount per sale with no upfront cost or financial risk, creating an ethical, mutually beneficial way to expand reach while keeping the mission front and centre.

It’s a model designed to grow impact alongside revenue, not at its expense.

Lessons from the Journey: Progress Over Perfection

One of Reece’s biggest learnings has been the importance of momentum. Waiting for perfection only slows progress.

Launching early, testing ideas, listening to feedback and iterating quickly proved far more valuable than trying to get everything right from the start. If he were to do it again, Reece would simplify even further and get into the hands of customers sooner.

The journey has reinforced the importance of flexibility, humility and staying close to the people the product is built for.

Bootstrapping with Grit and Creativity

Planet Protector Box has been fully bootstrapped from day one. Early funding came from a £2,300 prize won at a pitching competition, combined with revenue from pre-orders and profits from a previous clothing brand Reece ran and later closed.

This mix of small wins and reinvestment allowed the team to cover production and launch costs while laying the groundwork for growth, without giving up control or compromising the mission.

When Everything Goes Wrong at Once

The toughest moment came during a particularly difficult November. A pitching competition the team had been relying on for funding fell through. A major opportunity to showcase Planet Protector Box at Simon Squibb’s live event was unexpectedly cancelled. At the same time, manufacturing issues emerged, with some products failing to meet quality standards.

Everything seemed to unravel at once. But that period forced a shift away from chasing single moments of opportunity and towards building something more resilient, structured and sustainable.

The Bigger Lesson: Resilience Builds the Brand

The biggest lesson has been learning how to stay steady when plans collapse. If starting again, Reece would avoid relying on single opportunities and instead focus earlier on building stronger foundations.

Planet Protector Box is a reminder that impact-driven businesses are marathons, not sprints. By staying adaptable, trusting the process and keeping the mission at the heart of every decision, Reece continues to build something designed to last - and to shape a better future, one small action at a time.

Connect with me HERE