How a Game Development Studio, Days Away from Death, Pivoted to Become a Software Behemoth with over 20 Million Users

Morning Innovators 👋 This week (in less than 5 minutes!) we’ll explore…

🎮 How one struggling Game Development Studio, days away from death, pivoted to become a world-famous communication tool with over 20 million users
🎾 How one company shook everyone at the Wimbledon tennis tournament and broke the internet with just one sentence
💳 How one ground-breaking FinTech plans to save people £130m in debt repayments

Each week we’ll be writing about crazy pivots, secret stories of how huge companies almost failed in the beginning, the untold journeys that the most successful founders took to get to where they are today, breakdown mind-blowingly successful acquisitions and investments whilst spotlighting some of the most exciting start ups that you haven’t heard of yet, plus throwing in a few tips and tricks along the way.

If you have any feedback or suggestions for next week’s edition let us know.

Happy hustling,
Rich & Gary

In the realm of tech innovation, few tales are as intriguing and inspiring as that of Slack. To understand the genesis of this global phenomenon, we must first rewind to the early 2000s and cast our gaze upon another tech giant: Flickr.

The visionary behind both Flickr and Slack is none other than Stewart Butterfield—a master of pivoting and an architect of change. In those early days, Flickr was the epitome of photo-sharing applications, pioneering new technologies and introducing concepts like open APIs, now a standard in forward-thinking companies.

But here's where the pivot takes its initial steps. Flickr's origins can be traced back to a unique photo-sharing feature within a video game called "Game Neverending," crafted by Butterfield. When it became evident that the game had limited financial potential, a decision was made—a pivot that would reshape the tech landscape.

Stewart Butterfield and his team harnessed the potential of that very photo-sharing feature and presented it to the world. The result? A swift and resounding success in the realm of commercial innovation. Soon after, Yahoo! recognized this potential and acquired Flickr for a remarkable sum exceeding $20 million.

Yet, as fate would have it, the story took a twist. New management stifled the innovative spirit within Flickr, pushing Butterfield and others to seek new horizons. In the wake of their departure from Yahoo!, the desire to craft something transformative still burned within Butterfield.

Stewart sought to create a new venture that would blend gaming and social interaction—an ambitious project called "Glitch." Glitch was envisioned as a whimsical and imaginative online game, a vibrant universe where players could explore and collaborate in a quirky, cartoonish environment. The game was an attempt to revolutionize the gaming space by incorporating a social, cooperative element that was relatively uncommon in the industry at the time.

However, despite its innovative concept and captivating design, Glitch faced financial hurdles that impeded its progress. The team poured their hearts and souls into this creative endeavour, only to witness its financial viability slip away. Yet, amid the adversity, they identified a crucial element within Glitch that held immense potential—the game's messaging platform.

Realizing the strength and promise of this communication tool, Stewart Butterfield, along with Eric Costello, Cal Henderson, and Serguei Mourachov, made a decisive move. They pivoted, shifting their focus from the gaming realm to the communication space, leveraging the core of Glitch's messaging capabilities. This pivotal decision saw the birth of Slack, a communication platform that would go on to reshape the way teams collaborate and communicate within the professional sphere.

Thus, from the remnants of a gaming dream emerged Slack, a revolution in workplace communication and collaboration. The transformation underscored the team's adaptability and foresight, demonstrating that even in the face of apparent setbacks, there can lie the foundation for ground-breaking success.

Slack soared to incredible heights, eventually achieving a $27.7 billion acquisition by Salesforce in 2021 - a testament to the impact of a well-calculated pivot.

📺 BBC Adopts Generative AI, Setting Firm Ground Rules
TechRound
The BBC, a principal news entity in the UK, has articulated its intent to evaluate and adopt Generative Artificial Intelligence in its operations, all while adhering to a stringent set of principles to protect public interest and the veracity of its journalistic efforts.

🥻 Virgio's fast-fashion dream is over
TechCrunch
Fast-fashion start-up Virgio, founded by former Myntra chief, is contemplating shutting down its operations less than a year after raising funds at a valuation of over $160 million, according to two investor sources familiar with the matter.

🗺️ The 10 best-funded UK start-ups outside of London, Oxford and Cambridge
Sifted
According to data from Crunchbase, of the 524 new companies registered in the UK during 2022, 403 were in London, with crypto and fintech the most popular sectors. But that still means that almost 20% (51) of start-ups registered in 2023 are based outside the Golden Triangle.

🍟 AMD to acquire AI software start-up in effort to catch Nvidia
Reuters
AMD said on Tuesday it plans to buy an artificial intelligence start-up called Nod.ai as part of an effort to bolster its software capabilities.

🏠 Sustainable smart home start-up Myenergi raises £30m
UKTN
Myenergi, the smart home energy start-up backed by HSBC, has raised a further £30m in an investment from Energy Impact Partners.

Each week we’ll be spotlighting some of the most exciting start-ups you haven't heard of yet. This week we decided to look at some fin-tech start-ups...

First up, SuperFi - a platform providing personalised debt support to help people achieve debt freedom faster. SuperFi offers a range of features such as showing you all your debt in one place, helping you understand when you’ll repay it, allowing you to allocate your spare change towards paying off your credit card’s minimum repayments and providing payment reminders to ensure you don’t miss any payments. Having just raised a $1m pre-seed round, SuperFi estimates that it will be able to save users more than £130m in debt repayments over the next five years, by providing them with an overview of their debts, analysing their financial circumstances, and offering access to suitable debt prevention tools and services.

Next up, Treecard - a company dedicated to creating easy ways to fight the climate crisis. Their flagship product is an eco-friendly debit card that dedicates 80% of profits earned from merchant transaction fees into planting trees. Every $50 you spend with your Treecard, you help plant one tree. Each Treecard is made from sustainably sourced cherry wood and recycled plastic bottles, making it a planet-friendly alternative to a plastic card. They also have a step-counter, called Walk to Plant, which plants trees every 10,000 steps you take. Treecard uses brand sponsorships to fund these trees, advertising eco-brands in their rewards section.

Finally, Menna - a small business finance assistant. Menna helps UK small businesses become smarter about money, engage more with their finances and grow faster by reducing their costs and improving access to affordable funding. By allowing SMEs to view all their financial and business information in one place, Menna can be smarter, simpler to use and more relevant. Menna uses the latest AI technology and language learning models combined with the broadest range of data to understand each business and give it the engaging and personalised support it needs. Menna gives each SME a clear and actionable assessment of its financial position and recommends tailored savings and credit options.

Earlier this year, canned water company ‘Cano Water’ took to the big stage at the annual Wimbledon tennis tournament to show just how passionate they are about their mission of reducing single use plastic.

This genius marketing stunt didn’t only show off their product and get millions of views across the globe, but it also positioned them as serious thought leaders and heads of the movement when it comes to getting rid of single use plastics!

Cano Water got hold of a huge digital screen and placed it just outside of the entrance to Wimbledon. The headline on the screen read ‘Hey Wimbledon! Are you stuck in a toxic relationship?’, referring to Wimbledon’s huge partnership with frequent plastic bottle users, Evian.

What Cano Water did really well here was that they focused the marketing stunt around the mission, rather than them as a company. This meant that it didn’t feel salesy at all, and people were far happier to engage with it!

Could you use your mission as the focal point for a crazy marketing stunt?

As start-up founders ourselves, one of the areas we’re really passionate about is raising awareness of opportunities. If you’re not mixing in the right circles, it can be really easy to miss a pitch event, or job opportunity that could be game-changing for you. We’ve included a few upcoming events and opportunities below, but this is where we really want to leverage our community of innovators. Please reply to this email with any tips and opportunities you think we should be featuring.

💼 Job opportunities

🏦 Sales Development Associate, Griffin
🧠 Growth Engineer, ElevenLabs
🧼 Digital Marketing Growth Executive, Creoate

🎤 Events

Looking to elevate your marketing game - we’ve got the perfect event for you to attend.

Marketing leader and entrepreneur Adam Smith is hosting a talk and fireside chat at Tramshed Tech on the 25th October. Book tickets here.

The event includes Adam guiding you through the essential tools and strategies that can turn your marketing team into a content-producing powerhouse, as well as a fireside chat, giving you the inside scoop on how he scaled his previous business to a staggering £4.5 million in yearly revenue, and how he plans to do it again with The Content Machine.

💷 Funding opportunities

If you’re a pre-seed or seed stage company, Pi Labs are currently recruiting for their 2024 Growth Programme. They’re looking for companies innovating the way we live, own, work, build, move and experience, focusing on companies with impressive metrics or with clear opportunities for growth in the market. They offer successful companies £250k for 5-10% equity.

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

This week we came across Tango. An super helpful tool that automatically documents any process and turns it into a step-by-step interactive walkthrough. Creating the guides and walkthroughs is really easy - you just click through your steps, and Tango will format screenshots, write descriptions, and create a shareable link to your new guide.

Next week we’ll be looking at how one global company got it’s earliest users through a clever use of T-shirts and poor punctuality, how one founder set up 20 companies in 2 years which eventually led to a $9bn IPO, along with highlighting more great tools and start-up news.

P.S. Connect with us on LinkedIn…