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

🎤 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

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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.

🎥 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.

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…