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 helps you get the contact details of all your website visitors
👀 How jumping on pop culture trends can get free eyeballs
🛠 An AI tool that turns your ideas into functional products

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Passion Capital who are looking to invest £400k - £500k into Pre-Seed FinTech + Enterprise Risk startups.

Happy hustling,

Rich

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🎶 Karaoke Club are looking to write €50k - €100k cheques into exciting pre-seed European tech startups, right from the very start - apply here!

😇 Ben Lang is looking to angel invest in a handful of Pre-Seed Tech startups, having previously written cheques into companies like Deel, Luma + Lovable - more info here!

🌱 Seed + Speed Ventures have just raised a €90m fund to invest in Pre-Seed B2B software startups in the DACH region - apply 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
🛠 Operations Associate, Factored
👷 Forward Deployed Engineer, Noxus

🇪🇺 Von der Leyen backs EU inc. in landmark Davos speech. Sifted

🏆 Andruil has invented a wild new drone-flying contest where jobs are the prize. TechCrunch

🧑‍⚖️ LegalAI Giant Harvey acquires Hexus as competition heats up in LegalTech. TechCrunch
 
💨 OpenAI and Booking.com to launch accelerator programme in the UK. UKTN

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Book your rental here!

Marketing trends move faster than Usain Bolt himself, it feels like you constantly have to have pop culture on the tip of your fingers at every second. But when it works, nothing quite tops it!

Evidenced by On The Beach’s most recent campaign in light of this entire Beckham breakdown. If you haven’t seen it, The Beckhams have fallen out with their son, Brooklyn.

As it’s literally in every corner of social media, OTB decided to capitalise and introduced a ‘Beckham clause’ cancellation policy for holidays ruined by family arguments in the run up.

Of course, this went viral and took advantage of all the traffic the Beckhams were building up. How can you capitalise on trending news like this?

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.

The most complete AI builder ever made. With Imagine, you turn your ideas into functional products by chatting with AI. No matter your prompt, your applications will always have: - Built-in cloud: Auth, Databases, Storage, Notifications, Hosting - Fullest compliance: GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, CCPA - SSR and server functions, enabling fast load times and strong SEO - Highest security: DDoS, Abuse protection, Encryption, Data migrations - Scalability: Completely managed cloud infrastructure

🧠 Maverick Intelligence: Turning Anonymous Website Traffic into Revenue

Maverick Intelligence helps businesses answer one deceptively simple question: who is actually on my website?

The platform identifies anonymous website visitors and enriches them with actionable data (LinkedIn profiles, email addresses, and mobile numbers) so sales and marketing teams can contact warm leads that would otherwise disappear unnoticed. Beyond revenue, founders also use Maverick Intelligence to spot potential investors or future hires who are actively checking them out.

It’s built for sales teams, marketers, and Founders who believe inbound interest shouldn’t be wasted - and who want to turn attention into conversations, and conversations into deals.

Built with a Long-Standing Co-Founder Relationship

The company was founded by Maverick, alongside his Co-Founder Nick, who he’s known since high school.

Twelve years of friendship created a foundation of trust that’s hard to replicate. That long-term relationship made collaboration natural, decisions faster, and conflict easier to navigate - a huge advantage in the chaos of early-stage startup life.

The First Customers: Relentless LinkedIn DMs

Maverick Intelligence landed its very first customer through LinkedIn DMs.

At the beginning, Maverick sent a lot of them. Speed and responsiveness became a defining habit - inbound messages and customer questions are often answered within 30 seconds. That urgency built trust early and helped turn casual interest into paying users.

Not everything was perfect. The Founder even misspelled a prospect’s name in one of the earliest messages - proof that momentum beats perfection. The lesson was clear: outreach works if you actually do it.

Scaling Through Content, Proof, and Referrals

As the customer base grew, LinkedIn remained the core growth channel.

The team committed to posting relevant, consistent content at least three times per week, focusing on real use cases and outcomes. Case studies became a powerful credibility engine, showing exactly how Maverick Intelligence delivers value.

Referrals, however, became the most meaningful growth signal. Customers actively recommending the product to their network confirmed something far more valuable than any metric - that people genuinely loved using it.

Hard Lessons in Focus

One of Maverick’s most important reminders has been brutally practical:

Only sell to people who have the budget and have the problem.

If one of those is missing, move on. Early-stage Founders can waste huge amounts of energy trying to convince the wrong prospects. Learning to qualify ruthlessly freed up time, improved conversion rates, and reduced unnecessary friction.

Funding: A Cold Email That Changed Everything

Maverick Intelligence raised its first investment from Boost VC in San Francisco - one of the earliest backers of companies like Coinbase and Deepgram.

The process? Cold email.

After seeing that Boost VC were actively looking to invest before year-end, Maverick reached out directly. A couple of emails and two video calls later, the investment was secured. Since coming onboard, Boost VC have played an active and supportive role in the company’s growth.

Failure, Reframed

Ask Maverick about failure and you won’t get a dramatic story, you’ll get honesty.

“I fail pretty much every day. Multiple times per day.”

But failure only counts if you quit. As long as you stay in the game, you’re still winning. Each rejection, missed deal, or mistake becomes part of the process rather than the end of it. The mindset is simple: persistence beats everything.

The Core Belief

The biggest lesson Maverick has learned is also the simplest:

The person who works the hardest and never gives up always wins.

There’s no shortcut, no secret tactic - just consistency, resilience, and refusing to stop. Maverick Intelligence is built on that philosophy, and it shows in both the product and the way the company is growing.

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…