⚡ How this Start-Up Turned a Side-Project into 1 Million Users

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 did this Start-Up turn a side project into 1 million users?
🥳 April fools marketing done right
🛠 A tool that turns prompts into react applications in seconds

✨ Last weeks most clicked link was this link taking you through to Daybreak Ventures’ new $33m fund to invest in Pre-Seed and Seed consumer and enterprise Tech companies!

📣 HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT - We’ve launched our very first Start-Up Show, called Sharks, Snakes and Shareholders, where Start-Up Founders and Entrepreneurs share horror stories of Shady term-sheets, toxic boardrooms and investors you wish you declined. We’ll be discussing $500k investors who disappear into thin air, investors who have wiped out entire rounds, investors who tried to tear the company up from the inside, and soooo much more! We’ll have new guests every week ranging from VCs and Angel Investors to Deal Makers and Founders, who will be ranking these stories on our Investor red flag scale 🚩 You can watch episode 1, with exited Founder and Angel Investor Kevin Smith, here - we’d love your feedback!

Happy hustling,

Rich

🎤 Opportunities + Events

📣 NatWest have launched their £1m pitch competition for Start-Ups and SMEs in the UK, you can enter here!

💰 Y Combinator have opened applications for their summer 2025 cohort, with successful applicants receiving a $500k cheque - you can apply here!

🥽 Creative Businesses in England can apply for up to £200k for innovative projects they’re working on, you can 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

🏎 Business Development Executive, Finalrentals
🫀 Growth Marketing Lead, Gut Wealth
🏡 Business Development Manager, Open Moove

📍 IPO-bound Klarna to close three offices in cost cutting push Sifted

🤝 Elon Musk says xAI acquired X. TechCrunch

👮 Javice found guilty of defrauding JPMorgan in $175m Start-Up purchase. TechCrunch

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 MP launches ‘Y Combinator’ for Wales’ UKTN

Carta is a platform that helps people manage equity, build businesses and invest in the companies of tomorrow. Our mission is to unlock the power of equity ownership for more people in more places. Carta is trusted by more than 40,000 companies, over 8,000 investment funds and a million employees for cap table management, venture capital solutions and more. In the UK, we support founders who are raising money through SEIS/EIS, helping with Advance Assurance, round modelling and more. To find out more, take a look at their website, or get in touch with [email protected].

Following on from last week’s April Fools day marketing controversy, we’ve got a brand who did it correctly!

Lubella are a pasta company who wanted to conjure up some opinions and controversy across social media. So, they pretended that they’d created pasta flavoured macarons and posted them across their socials.

Some people were disgusted, some people were intrigued. Whichever way they felt, it ended up in huge conversations across social media, and a lot of attention for the brand.

How can you use your product to spark conversations online?

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

HeroUI Chat turns prompts or screenshots into beautiful, production ready React applications with AI. Built on their open-source HeroUI library (23k+ stars, 600k+ downloads), it’s design and code, all in one.

Concentric Health: Transforming Patient Consent in Healthcare

What is the company and who is it for?

Concentric Health is a leading UK HealthTech company revolutionising the patient consent process before medical procedures. Traditionally, patients were handed stacks of paperwork filled with medical jargon, often moments before surgery, while they were already stressed and wearing nothing but a hospital gown. Concentric Health has fully digitised this outdated system, making it not only more efficient but also significantly clearer for patients, empowering them with the information they need to truly understand their treatment.

How was the first product built?

It all started as an unintended side project. Dafydd was working as a Junior Doctor and found himself expected to explain complex procedures, some of which he had only briefly studied years ago in medical school. With little time to prepare and a growing responsibility to provide clear explanations, he built a simple memory aid for personal use, ensuring he could confidently inform patients about their treatment.

This small tool completely changed the nature of his patient interactions. What was once a rushed, transactional process, where a patient was expected to sign a form with minimal understanding, became an informed discussion. As it turned out, this wasn’t just a problem unique to him. Colleagues quickly took notice and started requesting access to the tool. Fast-forward to today, and Concentric Health has now supported over 1 million patients.

How did the founding team come together?

Dafydd’s Co-Founders, Martin and Ed, joined the journey in two very different ways. Martin, his brother, had spent years in the tech and development space. During family gatherings, Dafydd would excitedly explain his idea, and Martin would challenge him on how to build it better. Before long, he was fully on board.

Ed, on the other hand, started out as a competitor. Working at a different hospital, he was developing a similar tool to solve the same problem. Initially, the two were unknowingly working against each other, each trying to build their own solution. But after being encouraged to talk, they spent months assessing whether they were allies or rivals. Eventually, they realised that scaling the idea alone while juggling full-time medical careers was impossible. They joined forces, and Concentric Health’s founding team was officially formed.

How did they land their first customer?

At first, Concentric Health was more of a collaborative project than a business. This meant that instead of chasing revenue or scrambling for funding, they were able to work directly with the hospitals they worked at to refine the solution. With no overheads or pressure to monetise immediately, they took their time to build something truly valuable. The result? By the time the product was ready, industry partners that were part of the research and development were already eager to adopt it.

How did they secure their first investment?

The company’s first major funding came via an Innovate UK grant, but getting there wasn’t easy. Dafydd and the team had already applied for two separate £50k grants and had been rejected both times. After those setbacks, they started to doubt whether Concentric Health was even a viable business.

Then, a turning point: They met an entrepreneur who had successfully navigated the grant funding process. He was adamant they should try again, offering to help write their next application. The team, sceptical after two failures, reluctantly agreed. But instead of applying for another small grant, their new mentor wrote an ambitious £500k bid.

Innovate UK initially responded with another rejection, stating that after two failed applications, they couldn’t approve this one either. But this time, Dafydd and the team refused to take no for an answer. They pushed back hard, urging the evaluators to at least read the full application. After an intense back-and-forth, the persistence paid off. On a random Friday evening in October, they received an email confirming they had secured the £500k grant.

How did they hire their first employee?

The first hire was a developer named John. Martin had spoken to him first and was thoroughly impressed, so Dafydd was eager to get in touch before leaving for a family holiday to Italy.

After countless failed attempts, he finally managed to reach John while parking a car in Florence. Just as he launched into the conversation, an aggressive local started knocking on his window, demanding €1 for supposedly helping him park. What followed was a completely chaotic phone call, filled with distractions from this Italian chap smashing on Dafydd’s window as he tried to sell John on the Concentric Health vision. Despite the less-than-ideal first impression, John saw past the chaos and joined the team.

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…