⚡ How this Start-Up is Revolutionising the Greatest Commodity on Earth

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

📊 How this Start-Up is Revolutionising the Greatest Commodity on Earth
🤺 How you can use your competitor to go viral
🌍 A great tool making your website readable across the globe
🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world
📰 The biggest news stories in the Start-Up world

✨ Last weeks most clicked link was this link to take you through to find the relevant person at Index Ventures after they just announced they’ve raised $2.3 Billion in new funds.

⚡ We’ve only got a handful of tickets to our next event on the 26th September at Dirty Martini in Cardiff, featuring the Founder of CareerCake, Aimee Bateman left!

Happy hustling,
Rich & Gary

🎤 Events/Opportunities

🛒 Amazon are running their consumer product programme. They are interested in supporting early-stage start-ups developing sustainable and innovative physical consumer products that have recently launched or are on the cusp of go-to-market. Selected start-ups will benefit from a 10-week accelerator, a £10k/€12k cash grant, $10k AWS Activate Credits, mentorship and much more. You can apply here

💡 Ignite is an incubator programme that will provide financial support, financial services expertise, and an extensive industry network for anyone who wants to turn a disruptive fintech idea into a reality. You can apply here

💸 Fuel Ventures are looking to invest in Pre-Seed companies who are fast growth digital/tech businesses. They like software, fintech, marketplaces, platforms and e-commerce companies, B2B and B2C. Take a look here, but always make sure to do thorough Due Diligence before taking any money.

💼 Job opportunities

🕹 Senior Product Designer, Alguna
🧑‍💻 Marketing Director, Limbic
👷 Software Engineer, dexter

👗 Fashion tech startup gets £2.2m to ‘snap, search and buy’ clothes in 60 seconds. UKTN

🤖 A path to AI legislation has been officially announced in the King’s Speech. UKTN

🎉 How a B2B payments startup won Max, Jack and Sam Altman, JP Morgan as investors. TechCrunch

🤑 Menlo Ventures and Anthropic team up on a $100M AI fund. TechCrunch

📊Configur: Revolutionising the Greatest Commodity on Earth, Data

In the rapidly evolving landscape of technology, where data has become the cornerstone of strategic decision-making, Configur has emerged as a pivotal player. This code-free data software solution has not only enabled businesses to centralise data and empowered them to make data-driven decisions and deliver AI solutions across a variety of sectors for a number of use cases ranging from operational automation, supply chain mapping, CRM, ESG, AI Adoption, Risk and compliance to name a few. Here, we dive deep into the journey of Configur, exploring the strategies, challenges, and lessons learned that have shaped their path to success, providing valuable insights for other Start-Up founders navigating their earliest days.

Building the Foundation: Identifying and Engaging the First Customers

Configur's inception was rooted in solving a widespread problem in data management. With a clear vision in mind, the founders, Josh and Marco, began by leveraging their existing network. They reached out to known contacts, previous clients, and professionals they had networked with, explaining the solution they were building and soliciting feedback on how it could address specific challenges. They sent tailored emails explaining the solution we were building and asked for input into how specifically the platform might be able to assist with their challenges. People were very supportive and eager to provide feedback by jumping on a teams call or two with them. Several of those people they spoke with in the MVP discovery phase became their first clients. 

Navigating Uncertainty: Defining the Ideal Customer Profile

The outbreak of the pandemic forced Configur to pivot their initial market focus from government and local authorities to the private sector. This shift involved a series of targeted email campaigns aimed at transformation leaders across multiple sectors. It was a scattergun approach to see where they started to gain traction, but they made sure that each sector had specific emails about the challenges they could help with. They were able to do this by leaning on their previous experience and lots of research into forums and articles relating to customer pain points. 

Scaling Up: Building a Robust Sales Strategy

With initial clients onboard, Configur sought investment to scale their operations. The journey to building a solid sales approach was not without its challenges. Early attempts with managed service providers yielded limited success, prompting the founders to invest in an internal sales team. They automated outreach sequences, leveraging tools like Sales Navigator for targeted engagement. Persistence was key, with the most successful touch points occurring after multiple follow-ups. They had emails, LinkedIn requests and cold calls all scheduled for around 8-10 touch points per contact, actually seeing the most success on the 3rd chaser email which was the 7th step in the process.

Leveraging Relationships: The Power of Networking and Referrals

Configur recognised the immense value of networking and building relationships not just with prospects but also with businesses who could refer them to their clients. Initially, 90% of their business came from referrals, a testament to the strength of their network and the trust they built within their industry.

Funding the Vision: Funding for Growth

Configur started the first year fully boostrapped. They started trying to make money from day one, and set off asking for consultancy opportunities or the chance to build solutions to help other businesses. They were selective and took on projects with a similar vision for what they wanted Configur to do, achieving £160,000 in revenue in year one.

Their first round was via Angel investors. A couple of them were family friends who were business owners in their own right that were very supportive and backed the vision of what they wanted to do. Then they worked with Tramshed Tech, who were supportive of connecting them to potential investors. That led to a keen investor sharing their pitch deck with his wider network and encouraging them to hear a pitch from Configur. It was actually a fairly drawn-out process, taking around 7 months to finalise.

Learning and Adapting: From MVP to Optimised Product

One of Configur's biggest challenges was transitioning from their MVP to an optimised platform that was user-friendly and promoted data literacy. This involved a comprehensive rebuild and maintaining two code bases during the transition. The process highlighted the importance of having a clear vision for the product and a structured change control process.

Everyone has competitors, and everyone needs to find an edge over their competitors. What edge did Pizza Hut go for in the crowded pizza industry? Well, they decided to use the name of their competitors in a viral marketing campaign!

Pizza Hut’s biggest competitors are Dominos, who have a huge share of the Pizza market. So how did they get one over on their biggest competitors? They sponsored the dominoes World Championships and plastered it everywhere!

Of course, the irony of this partnership lead to it going extremely viral! We’re not suggesting that you can sponsor a World Championship event and hire expensive vans to highlight it to everyone, but can you creatively use their name or something about their brand to get a laugh and some exposure?

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

Most people Google in their native language. Let AI translate your website into 93 languages to reach customers globally. GlobalSEO is an AI-powered tool that enables you to translate your website your website immediately, opening you up to markets across the globe.

Next week we’ll be highlighting another awesome Start-Up (if you want us to feature you, drop us a message), as well as sharing all the usuals including funding opportunities, Start-Up news, plus plenty of awesome tips, tricks and tools.

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