⚡ How this Start-Up is Using AI to Help Teens Live a Healthy Life

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 AI to help teens live a healthy life
🥳 How to create excitement within your customer base
💡 A tool that enables you to test your Start-Up ideas in a heartbeat

✨ Last weeks most clicked link was this link to Start-Up Bootcamp’s climate and energy accelerator, with successful applicants receiving £25,000!

Happy hustling,
Rich

🎤 Events/Opportunities

📚 Y-Combinator are holding their Start-Up school in London on the 23rd of November, you can apply here.

☕️ Playfair Capital are hosting their female founder office hours, at which female founders can secure time with over 200 leading European VCs. You can apply here.

👷 Barclays Eagle Labs are running their Product Builder programme, helping you build your MVP and take it to market, you can apply here.

🦌 Antler are accepting applications to their next cohort, with successful applicants receiving £100,000 investment, you can apply here (I forgot to add the link last week)

💼 Start-Up Jobs

🧑‍🎨 Product Designer, KodyPay
📊 Head of Data Services, Count
🎤 Junior Marketing Specialist and Event Manager, Ikerian

🚕 Flying Taxi Start-Up, Lilium, faces insolvency if not able to “immediately” raise more capital. Sifted

🤖 Uber to launch OpenAI powered AI assistant to answer driver EV questions. TechCrunch

💰 Emma Watson invests in reproductive health company, Hertility. TechCrunch

🛍 Shein’s UK sales almost double to top £1.5bn ahead of London IPO. UKTN

Luna: Empowering Teens with an AI-Enabled Health Companion

Luna is an AI-powered health companion designed specifically for teens, providing a safe, anonymous space to access reliable advice on both mental and physical well-being. Built in collaboration with doctors and educators, Luna offers judgment-free support to teens, helping them navigate overwhelming or confusing health information with ease. The app aims to empower young people with the knowledge they need to make informed decisions, while also supporting parents in raising healthier, happier teens.

Finding a Co-Founder: A Shared Vision for Teen Health

Luna's co-founders, Jas and Jo, met during their MBA studies at Oxford University. They bonded over shared experiences in consulting and a mutual desire to make health information more accessible and engaging for teens. This common mission led them to join forces in building Luna.

Getting the First Customers: Word of Mouth and Going Viral

Luna’s initial users came through word-of-mouth and hands-on outreach efforts in schools across the country. The founders reached out to personal contacts who had teens, conducted interviews, and organised workshops to introduce the app to their target audience. This grassroots strategy wasn’t scalable, but it helped the team establish a small, dedicated user base.

A major breakthrough came when Luna went viral on TikTok in early 2023. This viral moment significantly boosted the app's visibility and shaped their social media strategy, focusing on a community-led approach. Teens who used the app shared their positive experiences, leading to rapid growth and amplifying Luna’s reach.

Lessons Learned: User-Driven Development and Referral Power

One of Luna’s biggest lessons was the importance of user-driven development. From the beginning, the team listened to teens, allowing them to create a product that truly resonated with their audience. If they were to do it again, they would have introduced a referral mechanism earlier, recognising the power of peer-to-peer recommendations among both teens and parents in building a loyal community.

Funding the Startup: From MBA Debt to £1.4M Raised

While the founders didn’t bootstrap Luna, their MBA investment at Oxford laid the groundwork for the business. They raised £1.4 million across two rounds of funding, primarily from angel investors, family offices, and early-stage VCs. The first round came from personal networking, while subsequent funding was secured through continued outreach.

Biggest Difficulty: Tackling “Taboo” Topics with Teens

One of the hardest challenges Luna faced was creating a product and brand around topics that teens often see as taboo—such as mental health and physical well-being—while making it feel cool and approachable. The key to overcoming this challenge was collaborating closely with Luna's community to get the tone of voice, branding, and design just right. By working with teens and parents, they succeeded in developing a product that both groups love and trust.

Biggest Lessons: Self-Care and Avoiding Burnout

For the founders, one of the most significant personal lessons was about self-care and preventing burnout. In the first year of running Luna, the founders pushed themselves too hard, leading to burnout in the second year. Reflecting on this, they realised the importance of implementing better self-care measures to ensure long-term performance and well-being.

Soul Films is a creative video production company. It consists of filmmaking duo Dan and Nat, who used to work on productions for BBC, Netflix, Amazon and Channel 4, and now use those skills to make standout content for businesses. With a combined experience of over 30 years, they pride themselves on making the experience as comfortable and easy as possible for anyone hesitant to be on camera. Because of very lean overheads they promise good value for money and an excellent end result. Visit their website to find out more, or get in touch at [email protected]

We’ve seen the fashion industry nail “The Drop”, but Crumbl Cookies have taken it to a different level altogether!

Crumbl took America by storm through their creative packaging and great cookies. However, one little twist they employed was to have a weekly menu that rotates every Monday. Every Sunday afternoon, millions of their followers wait in excitement to see what flavours will be on the menu this week. These customers know that they’ll only have a week to try these flavours before they disappear forever, so they make sure to get in there and buy them all up.

This cycle of creating hype has pushed Crumbl right to the top of the food chain, but how can you create hype with your product launches? Could you hype up a new feature release each month, or a new design every quarter? Can you make it limited in time or quantity?

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

Biome Bot is your AI Co-Founder. Ideate, validate, experiment with, and refine your startup idea in minutes. Get customised suggestions for experiments to validate your idea, straight out of Biome’s proprietary playbook.

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…