⚡ How this Start-Up is Turning Tax into a Few Simple Clicks

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 tax into a few simple clicks
🧑‍🍳 How to create an environment for viral growth
📞 A tool that enables you to host Stand-Ups with ease

✨ Last weeks most clicked link was this link taking you through to apply for Y-Combinator Start-Up School in London, it’s a rare chance to get involved with YC in the UK!

Happy hustling,
Rich

🎤 Events/Opportunities

🌱 20VC have closed a new $400m fund to invest in European Start-Ups, with $125m going into Seed companies and $275m going into Series A. Seed stage apply here, Series A apply here.

🦄 Node VC have just closed a new €71m fund to invest in the next generation of Unicorns across the Nordics and the Baltics, you can submit your pitch here.

💨 Barclays Eagle Labs are hosting their female Founder accelerator programme, AccelerateHER. You can apply here.

💼 Start-Up Jobs

📲 Product Owner, Booost
📈 Head of Marketing, YON Living
🧮 Trainee Accountant, Sytrus

🚗 Vay secures €34m Investment Bank loan to bring teledriven cars to Europe. Sifted

🛩 Google now lets you search for the cheapest flights available for your trip. TechCrunch

👷 Meta lays off employees across multiple teams. TechCrunch

🏦 Start-Up funding sunk in Q3 but FinTech and HealthTech still ride high. UKTN

Taxd: Simplifying and Automating Tax Filing for Individuals and Small Businesses

Taxd is a platform that automates tax filing and provides personalised tax support for individuals, especially expats, landlords, and solo-entrepreneurs. The service aims to simplify the entire tax return process by eliminating lengthy questionnaires and the need for accountants, while keeping fees low. Users can file their taxes in one sitting using Taxd’s efficient technology that maximises tax efficiency and reduces stress. The company's long-term vision is to enable completely autonomous tax filing.

Finding a Co-Founder: A Shared Vision for Tax Automation

The founders, Eamon and Arjun, met while working at PwC. They bonded over their shared experience working on automation technology and complex international tax issues. Through this friendship and collaboration, they realised they could leverage their skills to automate tax filing, addressing the lack of innovation and high costs in the traditional tax services industry.

Getting the First Customers: Grassroots Marketing and Data Gathering

Taxd’s initial customers were acquired through a mix of digital marketing and direct outreach strategies. They experimented with PPC campaigns, organic content, and even mass letters sent through Royal Mail. They also tried in-person outreach by handing out flyers and speaking with people on the street.

While their strategy wasn’t fully refined at the start, they offered a low launch price of £50, along with the opportunity to book a free call with an accountant. This allowed them to interact directly with hundreds of potential clients, gather valuable feedback, and validate their product idea. In hindsight, their early efforts were more about data gathering than scaling.

Scaling the Business: Building Relationships and Expanding Digital Efforts

To scale beyond their initial customer base, Taxd focused on providing maximum value to clients, building strong relationships through excellent customer service. Though scaling took time, the long-term approach fostered client referrals and trust. Taxd also expanded its digital marketing efforts and formed partnerships with property, small business, and expat communities, aligning their product development closely with client feedback.

Lessons Learned: Niche Focus and Consistency

One major lesson for Taxd was the importance of finding a niche and focusing their marketing and product development efforts around it. Despite having a background in expat and international tax, they only leaned into this expertise after 12 months. This delayed decision impacted their early growth, but also allowed them to learn what worked best for them. They emphasised the importance of tracking everything and focusing on long-term consistency.

Funding the Startup: Bootstrapping and Angel Investors

Taxd began by bootstrapping with personal savings and was able to generate revenue early on. This initial phase allowed them to validate their idea without needing much external capital. Eventually, they raised external funding from angel investors and a VC, who believed in their vision of automating tax filing. The funding allowed them to transition from a hobby into a scalable business.

Raising the First Round: Gaining Investor Trust

After facing initial rejections, Taxd secured its first round of funding by showcasing their expertise in tax and technology. Their pitch focused on early client traction, positive reviews, and their ability to operate on a low budget. Once they secured their first investor, others followed.

Biggest Challenge: Gaining Trust in a Traditional Industry

One of the biggest challenges Taxd faced was earning trust in the tax industry, where people are accustomed to working with human accountants. To overcome this, the company focused on creating a seamless user experience that emphasised simplicity, security, and accuracy. By providing transparent, high-quality service, Taxd built trust with early adopters and demonstrated that automated tax services could be just as reliable—and even more efficient—than traditional methods.

Biggest Lessons: Balance and Consistency

One of the key lessons learned by the founders was the importance of focusing on their holistic well-being. Balancing physical and mental health is essential for maintaining long-term productivity and avoiding burnout. Additionally, the founders emphasised that consistency over time, paired with intensity where it matters, is critical for ensuring the long-term success of the business.

Carta is a platform that helps people manage equity, build businesses and invest in the companies of tomorrow. Our mission is to unlock the power of equity ownership for more people in more places. Carta is trusted by more than 40,000 companies, over 8,000 investment funds and a million employees for cap table management, venture capital solutions and more. In the UK, we support founders who are raising money through SEIS/EIS, helping with Advance Assurance, round modelling and more. To find out more, take a look at their website, or get in touch with [email protected].

Lululemon have recently taken to the world of Golf, and they believe that it’s ripe for disruption. Traditionally, brands would sponsor golfers, give them some apparel and hope that they got plenty of TV time.

Well, Lululemon have taken that to the extreme and made sure that they were going to get plenty of TV time. Lululemon recently started sponsoring the golfer, Min Woo Lee, whose fans have coined the phrase “Let Him Cook”, and repeatedly chant it at Min Woo Lee.

So, Lululemon dressed hundreds of Min Woo Lee fans head to toe in Lululemon, but most importantly, gave them each a bright red chefs hat with ‘Let Him Cook’ written across the front.

This was so out of the ordinary for golf that it shook the fanbase and got huge amounts of coverage. The real genius comes in sponsoring the fans, not the player. By doing this, Lululemon were able to create an environment entirely focused on the brand.

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

Feta is the only video-calling tool built for product and engineering teams. Run seamless standups, retros, sprint sessions, or syncs with AI-powered documentation and automated workflows.

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…