⚡ How is this Start-Up Turned Coaching into an AI Podcast Powerhouse

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 turned a struggling coaching business into a podcast powerhouse
📇 How to rename your business for maximum reach
👁‍🗨 A tool that enables you to generate ad creatives and launch great campaigns

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to the new Concept Ventures $88m UK based Pre-Seed fund, looking to write $1m+ tickets.

Happy hustling,

Rich

🎤 Opportunities + Events

💰 Activate Studio have opened their winter funding applications. They’re looking for companies with early traction, deep expertise and are raising £250k - £2m - apply here!

😇 Neel Jain is looking to write angel cheques within 24 hours of first meeting via a16z spreedrun - find out more here!

⚽️ Burnley Football Club have launched their Innovation Hub, looking to give SportsTech Start-Ups access to a live Premier League environment, world-class staff and facilities + access to capital and decision makers - 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

📊 Commercial Lead, Allica Bank
🧑‍🎨 Senior Marketing Manager, CO2 YOU
🧑‍💻 Founding Full-Stack Engineer, TRVLR

🦄 N8n hits $2.5bn valuation after $180m Series C. Sifted

📈 OpenAI is the world’s most valuable private company after private stock sale. TechCrunch

🏦 Revolut aims to take on Indian banks and their forex fees. TechCrunch
 
💳 GoCardless records first profitable quarter. UKTN

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They say lightning doesn’t strike twice, ALDI beg to differ. After striking gold on the Oasis tour by renaming one of their stores to ‘ALDEH’, the’ve gone double platinum with Lewis Capaldi’s tour.

After the singer recently announced he’d be kicking off his tour, ALDI rebranded one of their stores to ‘CAP-ALDI’. As you can imagine, Lewis Capaldi’s fans have eaten it up and it has absolutely covered the internet.

How can you capitalise on a wave of pop culture in 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.

An AI agency in your browser. The Brief helps you discover insights, generate creatives, launch everywhere, and optimise results, continuously. No handoffs, no tool chaos, just smarter campaigns, faster. Built by marketers for marketers.

PodEngine.AI: The Complete Podcast Operating System

PodEngine.AI is redefining how creators and founders grow through podcasts. Billed as the complete podcast operating system, it helps users land three times more podcast interviews in half the time - automating the process of researching, pitching, and monitoring shows. For anyone looking to scale their reach without the manual grind, PodEngine is the ultimate behind-the-scenes engine.

From Struggling Coaching Start-Up to Podcast Powerhouse

The technology behind PodEngine didn’t start in podcasting at all. Joe and his Co-Founder Luke originally built an AI coaching platform, but scaling challenges forced them to rethink their direction.

As a self-confessed podcast fanatic, Joe found himself overwhelmed by the number of shows he wanted to listen to and learn from. That pain point led the team to build a simple internal chatbot - a tool to generate content more efficiently. Though the coaching business didn’t take off, users loved the chatbot. When the team spun up a quick landing page for the tool, they hit 50 signups in the first week - clear validation that they’d found something special. From there, PodEngine was born.

Early Customers Through Authentic Storytelling

When asked how PodEngine landed its first customers, Joe’s answer is refreshingly simple: He’s not really sure, but he thinks radical transparency.

“I just talk about what we’re building,” he says. “I’ll post updates, share numbers, and tell the story of how we’re building it.” People like honesty - it draws them in.

By openly sharing progress across social media, Joe attracted a wave of early adopters who were excited by the mission and momentum behind PodEngine.

Finding the Perfect Co-Founder

Joe and Luke’s story started long before PodEngine. Before university, Joe was running small design side hustles, offering free logos with a pay-if-you-like-it model through GumTree. Around that time, Luke was building his own SaaS product and posted an ad looking for a marketer and designer.

Instead of sending a standard response, Joe annotated Luke’s job description in Photoshop and sent it back. That creative move landed him a chat. As fate would have it, Luke was flying to the UK the following week from Seattle, and the two met up in Bristol. They’ve been building together ever since!

A Chance Encounter Turned Investment

At first, Joe and Luke were clear: no venture capital. They wanted to stay lean, experiment, and learn. But as momentum built, they realised taking PodEngine seriously meant raising a small round.

The opportunity came unexpectedly at a startup meetup in Portland, hosted by well-known investor Jason Calacanis. Only eight people showed up, but one of them was Luke, and another was Jason’s principal investor, Kelly. The two struck up a conversation about podcasting, which led to a follow-up meeting.

When the three finally jumped on a call, Kelly asked whether they wanted to pitch or just chat about podcasting. They chose the latter, spending 25 minutes discussing the industry. In the last five minutes, Kelly said, “You know, I think you’re venture backable.” A week later, PodEngine had its first investor.

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…