⚡ How this Start-Up is Educating your Customers Before They're Even Customers

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 is this Start-Up educating your customers before they’re even customers?
😌 How plain and simple can get you the exact attention you want
📜 A tool that helps you build prospect lists in seconds

✨ Last weeks most clicked link was this link taking you through to Vinted’s new VC Fund, Vinted Ventures, who are looking to invest between €500k and €10m in recommerce Start-Ups!

Happy hustling,

Rich

🎤 Opportunities + Events

🤩 Baltic Ventures have opened up applications to their next accelerator cohort, with successful applicants receiving a £30,000 investment via an ASA - apply here!

🏆 AXA have launched their 2025 Start-Up Angel Competition with 2 successful Start-Ups receiving £25,000, amongst many other benefits, you can apply here!

🛍 The Assembly Ventures Future Consumer Angel Group are looking to invest in consumer product or consumer content-focused Start-Ups with S/EIS - find out 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

👷 Service and Operations Executive, PerfectTed
🌊 Founder’s Associate, Oshen
🚦 Brand Activation Executive, PerfectTed

📱Revolut to take on telecom industry with mobile plan push. Sifted

🚕 Amazon owned Zoox issues recall following robotaxi crash. TechCrunch

🧓 NewLimit, founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, raises $130m to develop age reversing treatments. TechCrunch
 
🤝 Terms agreed on DoorDash’s billion-pound Deliveroo takeover. UKTN

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Sometimes, the most impactful marketing stunts are the most simple ones. Our marketing hack of the week is exactly that, painfully simple!

This Founder (I can’t find who this Founder is but I’d love to credit them + their Start-Up) has been plastered all over social media with people saying how genius this stunt is. All they’ve done is taken a piece of paper, written 10 words on it about their company and stuck it on the back of their laptop for when they’re working in public places.

From this, everyone immediately knows exactly who they are, what they want and how they can be helped. This enables you to access those around you who you might not speak to, but could also cause you to go viral like this one example!

What one painfully simple thing could you do to raise awareness of your company?

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

Ciro Autopilot is an AI agent that builds, scores & enriches your perfect prospect list in under 5 min. It learns your ICP, tests search strategies across 500M+ profiles, pulls verified emails & mobiles, then syncs to your CRM or exports to CSV with one click.

RevvedUp: Supercharging ABM + Educating Every Prospect, At Scale

RevvedUp is a platform designed to scale Account-Based Marketing efforts and ensure every single prospect within your total addressable market is educated, intelligently and effectively. Founded by Mark Walker, a seasoned Chief Revenue Officer in high-growth tech, the platform is built to solve one of the most persistent challenges in B2B sales and marketing: meaningful, scalable prospect education.

RevvedUp empowers sales and marketing teams to deliver targeted messaging that drives engagement across entire industries; turning cold prospects into warm, informed buyers.

From Frustration to Foundation: Building the First Product

RevvedUp was born out of real-world pain points that both Mark and his Co-Founder Mitch had experienced first-hand. With Mark’s background in scaling go-to-market teams, and Mitch’s expertise in deploying enterprise CRM systems at Deloitte, they tackled both the customer-facing and operational sides of the problem.

The duo moved fast, iterating quickly with feedback from key communities in sales and marketing. Mark recalls fixing bugs on a balcony while on holiday with his children - testament to their commitment to getting the product in users' hands as early as possible. This wasn't just a build; it was a hands-on, boots-on-the-ground development process driven by deep domain expertise.

A Perfect Match: Finding the Right Co-Founder

Mark met Mitch via the Y Combinator Co-Founder Match platform, a kind of dating site for Start-Up dream teams. After chatting with 30 to 40 potential partners and having deeper discussions with a handful, it was clear that Mitch shared not just Mark’s ambition, but also his values and work ethic. The result? A truly complementary partnership that’s been magical ever since.

An Unexpected Win: The Accidental First Customer

RevvedUp’s first paying customer was a surprise - literally! While the team thought they were still in feedback mode, a potential user went ahead and made a purchase overnight. That moment turned into a real turning point. The client had come through Mark’s network: a friend of a friend who had been introduced without any formal pitch. It was a powerful reminder of the value of long-term relationship-building and the serendipity it can bring.

Raising Capital: A Sales Funnel with a Twist

Mark approached fundraising like a seasoned CRO would a sales cycle. The RevvedUp team built a detailed list of potential investors, complete with tailored profiles including backgrounds and investment theses. What began as a targeted angel round evolved into a full-blown VC interest fest, thanks to their iterative outreach and disciplined process.

Daily course corrections and brutally honest feedback sessions helped them fine-tune their pitch, and ultimately secure the capital needed to scale.

First Hires: The Power of Trusted Talent

The first hire at RevvedUp was a contractor sourced via UpWork to support initial development needs. But the real team-building began when Mitch brought in engineers he’d worked with before. Hiring from a trusted pool meant the team hit the ground running, avoiding the teething problems that can slow down early-stage startups.

This approach allowed RevvedUp to build quickly, with confidence in the skills and fit of each new contributor.

A Platform Built by Practitioners, For Practitioners

What sets RevvedUp apart is the deep domain alignment of its founding team. Mark and Mitch aren’t just technologists, they’re practitioners who’ve lived the very problems their platform solves. That authenticity shines through in every part of the product, from its functionality to its user-first approach.

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…