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 works with artists to create 1-of-a-kind cycling kit
❄️ How you can turn the winter weather into a fantastic marketing campaign
🔎 A tool that helps you rank highly in LLMs

✨ Last week’s most clicked link, was this link taking you through to Ben Lang’s LinkedIn post in which he’s looking to invest in a handful of startups.

Happy hustling,

Rich

🎤 Opportunities + Events

📣 SaaStock USA have opened their global pitch competition, with first place winning $500,000 in Investment - apply here!

🐣 Haatch have just announced their ‘Next Wave’ competition for Pre-Seed/Seed stage startups in the UK with up to £2m on the line - apply here!

🇪🇺 b2venture have just closed a €150m Fund V looking to back early stage European Tech startups - connect with the team 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

🧑‍⚖️ Court battle risks £18bn data centre plan central to UK’s AI strategy. Sifted

👮 FinTech CEO and Forbes 30u30 alum has been charged for alleged fraud. TechCrunch

🧑‍🎓 Two Stanford students launch $2m startup accelerator for students nationwide. TechCrunch
 
🤝 Major banks agree to £11bn SME lending package. UKTN

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Book your rental here!

We’re well and truly in the depths of winter, but your marketing campaigns don’t have to suffer as a result!

For Canada, January usually means snow. How did Stella Artois take advantage of this? They got the snow to form the perfect head on one of their beers. As you can see above, they put 2 advertising boards together with nothing but one of their drinks on. However, there was nothing to cover the top, so as the snow came down, the advertising board filled up.

After enough snow had fallen in Toronto, the perfect head was created by the downfall - tempting plenty of people to get themselves a Stella upon seeing it!

How can you use the winter weather to your advantage?

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.

Findable is the complete LLM SEO toolkit to rank well across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google Gemini and more. Monitor, analyse, and optimise your AI search visibility.

🚴‍♂️ Kostüme: High-Performance Cycling Apparel Without the Waste

Kostüme is a technical cycling apparel brand founded by Ed Bartlett, built to prove that world-class performance and genuine sustainability don’t have to be trade-offs.

The brand produces small-batch, high-performance cycling kit using the latest recycled materials, while eliminating the waste that defines traditional apparel manufacturing. By operating a direct-to-consumer pre-order model, Kostüme avoids excess inventory, reduces financial risk, and reinvests savings into better fabrics, smarter construction, and more responsible production.

Each drop features exclusive artist collaborations, making every collection feel rare, intentional, and culturally rooted. Kostüme’s long-term ambition is bold: to achieve true circularity and drive systemic change within the cycling apparel industry.

Creating Demand: FOMO, Craft, and Specialist Credibility

From day one, Kostüme avoided paid advertising.

Instead, the brand leaned into scarcity and desire - producing the best possible product at a competitive price, releasing it in limited quantities, and ensuring sell-outs. The goal was to stay underground, letting word-of-mouth and credibility do the heavy lifting.

The first collection launched with an artist collaboration and was supported by creative partnerships, including Surgeon’s Girl (music) and Sola (light painting). Rather than ads, the brand ran a tightly focused PR push, complemented by behind-the-scenes film content and subtle social teasers.

While the initial launch performed well, sales dropped off faster than expected. The turning point came through independent validation. Positive reviews from respected cycling publications like road.cc and Rouleur reignited momentum, and an invite to exhibit at Rouleur Live helped cement Kostüme’s reputation as a serious, aspirational brand.

One early customer went on to build a prominent cycling club, for which Kostüme later designed a custom kit - an organic moment that further accelerated word-of-mouth growth.

Scaling Through Trust, Community, and Zero Paid Ads

Initially hesitant to add customer reviews, Ed eventually introduced Trustpilot - boosting trust and visibility without compromising the brand’s clean aesthetic.

Growth was fuelled by deep community engagement, supporting influential cycling clubs and local riders who genuinely loved the product. Strategic collaborations followed, including partnerships with a highly respected specialty coffee brand and even a pop-up with Porsche - all reinforcing Kostüme’s premium positioning.

The mailing list became the brand’s core growth engine. Carefully selected social competitions helped grow it quickly and cost-effectively, using product rather than cash as the incentive.

Customer feedback directly shaped product evolution. Demand for more versatile kit led to the introduction of plain cycling shorts, which nearly sold out through the waitlist alone. The result: 200% year-on-year growth, achieved entirely without paid advertising.

Lessons Learned: Organic Growth Still Has a Cost

One of the biggest realisations was that while organic growth can be low-cost in cash terms, it is expensive in time and energy. These channels only work when supported by structure, consistency, and focus.

As the business grew faster than expected, Ed also learned how damaging missteps can be in consumer brands. Momentum matters, and having the right infrastructure in place early is essential to sustain growth without burning out.

Funding the Business: SEIS, Then Bootstrapping

Kostüme raised an initial £250k via SEIS, backed by belief in the concept and Ed’s nearly 25 years of industry experience. That capital funded the e-commerce build, launch range, and early supply chain.

From there, the business has been bootstrapped, with the pre-order model providing upfront cash flow and dramatically reducing financial risk.

The company is now at an inflection point, with strong product-market fit, growing demand, and high engagement. As a result, Ed is currently in discussions to raise a further round to unlock the next phase of growth.

Raising Investment: Trust, Timing, and Track Record

The success of the SEIS round came down to timing and trust.

Ed was the right person, with the right idea, at the right moment. Many early investors had long-standing relationships with him and had taken up cycling during lockdown, making Kostüme’s mission immediately relatable.

That alignment made conviction easy, something far harder to manufacture later without momentum.

The Biggest Challenge: Scaling Capital in a Tough Market

Despite strong fundamentals, the hardest challenge to date has been securing scale-up funding in a difficult economic climate.

Even with growing revenues and proven demand, closing the last round felt slow - reinforcing a hard truth of entrepreneurship: ultimately, it’s the Founder’s responsibility to find and convince the right investors, regardless of market conditions.

Core Principles That Guide Kostüme

Ed’s key takeaways are pragmatic and hard-earned:

• Zig when others zag - differentiation matters

• Cash flow is king

• Consistency compounds - brand momentum is fragile

• Don’t rely on investment - and if you do, plan for 3× the runway

• If the product is exceptional, customers will do the marketing

• Balance research with intuition - behaviour isn’t always logical

If starting again, Ed would build the e-commerce site more cost-effectively, having over-invested early based on confidence that future funding would be easier - a plan disrupted by unexpected market shifts.

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…