How One Start-up Cereal Brand Gate-crashed Kelloggs on Their Own Turf and Got 100,000s of Views in the Process

Morning Innovators 👋 This week (in less than 5 minutes!) we’ll explore…

🎥 How a struggling marketplace start-up pivoted to video recording software to secure a $975m exit
📰 All the biggest news stories in the start-up world
👀 Our 3 favourite start-ups to keep an eye on this week
🥣 How one start-up cereal brand gate-crashed Kelloggs on their own turf and got hundreds of thousands of views in the process
🥳 All the best job opportunities and events in the start-up world
📱A tool that enables you to get better feedback from your customers than you’ve ever had before

👆 The most clicked link in the last week’s newsletter was WrumerSound, a device that plugs into your car's OBD2 port and plays engine sounds through the speakers.

Happy hustling,
Rich & Gary

Famous pivots. This week, we’re looking at Loom and its spectacular rise to the forefront of video messaging. It's easy to marvel at its success today, but not many know of the early trials that shaped its destiny.

Before becoming a leader in video communication, Loom's precursor, Opentest, was bracing for impact in a market resistant to its offerings. The founding trio—Joe, Vinay, and Shahed—students pooling their skills and aspirations, found themselves grappling with a user feedback platform that skirted the edge of start-up survival. Frustrated by the tepid response and dwindling runway, they faced a crucible moment, with only weeks left before their funds would dry up entirely.

It was in this crucible that Loom, emerged from the ashes of its original incarnation. When Opentest's path looked bleakest, the founders shifted gears dramatically, leveraging their know-how to create Openvid (later to become Loom).

Openvid, introduced to the market through Product Hunt, was an overnight sensation, drawing in thousands of users with its elegant solution for screen and video recording.

So how did Loom's team galvanize this early interest into the mammoth success it enjoys today?

In the same vein as Tinder's clever sorority and fraternity marketing hustle, Loom's creators executed a pivot that seized on the evolving needs of the digital age. While Tinder simplified dating into a 'swipe,' Loom distilled communication into a 'click'—recording and sending personal videos with ease. They targeted professionals starved for time but hungry for connection, offering a way to convey tone, nuance, and information not possible through text alone.

The founders also possessed an acute understanding of their user base. They attended to their community with almost parental dedication, nurturing each user's experience, fine-tuning their platform, and releasing features that addressed the pressing demand for a more personal touch in a remote working world.

To help further grow awareness, Loom engaged with the power users who used their service most—business professionals, educators, and designers—to spread the word far and wide. They transformed users into ambassadors, encouraging them to share their Loom experiences within their networks.

Loom's growth surged as users applied the video messaging service to a myriad of new, often unexpected uses. What began as a tool for user feedback evolved into an indispensable resource for instruction, collaboration, and communication across various industries.

Loom's journey, demonstrates how a pivot at the right moment can transform a good idea into a grand success. It showcases the strength of vision, the agility to adapt, and the audacious drive that can turn a precarious venture into a pivotal player. This story isn't just about climbing to the top—it's about redefining the mountain itself.

🏦 Revolut appoints interim CFO as 2022 accounts deadline looms
UKTN
Revolut has appointed Victor Stinga, an employee of almost six years, as interim chief financial officer as the fintech prepares the release of its latest accounts.

💺 Social media startup raises £3.2m to capitalise on Facebook’s Gen Z ‘decline’
UKTN
Lounge, a British social media startup aiming to capitalise on “Facebook’s decline” among a Gen Z audience, has raised $4m (£3.2m) in funding.

📹 Atlassian Buys One-Time Unicorn Loom At Hefty Discount To 2021 Valuation
Crunchbase
Video messaging startup and one-time unicorn Loom was bought for $975 million by collaborative software giant Atlassian.

🚕 Lyft’s price war with Uber yields mixed results
TechCrunch
Lyft’s strategy of slashing ride-hail fares to compete with Uber has resulted in slow and steady gains for the company, but competition remains fierce.

Each week we’ll be spotlighting some of the most exciting start-ups you haven't heard of yet. This week we decided to look at a range of food & drink start-ups.

Dishpatch emerges as the UK's premier meal kit platform, delivering a gastronomic experience right to your doorstep with menus from culinary giants like Angela Hartnett and Michel Roux Jr., as well as rising stars in the food scene. By providing pre-prepared dishes from an array of renowned and neighbourhood restaurants, Dishpatch has revolutionized at-home dining with a novel, profitable channel for eateries. These finish-at-home kits differentiate from services like Deliveroo or Gousto by offering restaurant-grade meals ready to be heated and served, emphasizing convenience without compromising on the excitement and quality of a fine dining experience.

Field Doctor revolutionises healthy eating in the UK with chef-made, nutritionist-designed ready meals targeting specific health conditions like IBS with their pioneering Low FODMAP range. Upholding 'food as medicine,' their offerings are backed by rigorous nutritional science to enhance gut health, immunity, and mental well-being. With an emphasis on natural, local ingredients and sustainable practices, their award-winning meals are flash-frozen to seal in flavour and freshness, delivering convenience without compromising on taste. Recognized by media and industry awards, Field Doctor blends scientific integrity with culinary excellence, delivering healthful, delicious meals directly to customers' doors.

Launched in 2019, Drop Bear Beer Co has become a forerunner in the alcohol-free beer market, achieving international acclaim and significant growth as a female and LGBTQ+ led B-Corp brewery. Their beers cater to health and environment-conscious consumers, offering vegan, gluten-free, and low-calorie choices. Emphasising sustainability and inclusion, Drop Bear supports charity work, boasts a diverse team, and is expanding its low and no-alcohol products into global markets and UK supermarkets, with continued innovation to minimise their environmental impact.

How courageous are you when it comes to stepping outside of your comfort zone to get the attention of some customers? Well, it looks like Surreal might just be the most courageous of the lot!

Surreal, the healthy cereal brand, decided to go straight after their biggest competitor, Kelloggs, on their own turf! Kelloggs were running a cereal cafe as a new and exciting way of getting consumers to try their products. However, the GENIUS team at Surreal decided to open their own pop-up cereal cafe right on the doorstep of the Kelloggs spot.

Not only did this help Surreal steal all the customers on the street from their biggest competitor, it also helped them get 100,000s of impressions across social media platforms, increasing their reach and exposure exponentially!

Are you feeling courageous and risk hungry? Could you steal the wind right out of your competitor’s sails?

As start-up founders ourselves, one of the areas we’re really passionate about is raising awareness of opportunities. If you’re not mixing in the right circles, it can be really easy to miss a pitch event, or job opportunity that could be game-changing for you. We’ve included a few upcoming events and opportunities below, but this is where we really want to leverage our community of innovators. Please reply to this email with any tips and opportunities you think we should be featuring.

💼 Job opportunities

🥪 Full Stack Engineer, ZOE
🤝 Growth Marketing Specialist, Amplemarket
🏠 UI/UX Product Designer, Tembo

🎤 Events

The Creative Business Roadshow is a must-attend event tailored for creatives looking to supercharge their ventures. Whether you're an artist, designer, writer, filmmaker, or any other professional, this event will provide valuable insights, networking opportunities, and free business advice from industry experts.

Data room essentials for a successful funding round. When start-up founders in Ireland successfully close an investment round, they often reflect on how they could have been better prepared. SeedLegals Ireland are turning those insights into a webinar to explore how you can get your deal across the line quicker and more easily.

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

This week we wanted to share Nolt. A great feedback tool we’ve personally used with our previous start-ups to get suggestions from our users on what features they most want us to build next. Nolt offers a streamlined solution for feedback collection and management through an organised, user-friendly feedback board that enhances product decision-making and fosters community engagement. It enables both internal team members and external customers to post, discuss, and prioritise feedback while admins track progress with status updates. This approach not only improves collaboration and ensures user input directly influences product development but also cultivates a connected user base where everyone's input is valued. With Nolt, feedback is centralised and visible, eliminating the inefficiency of scattered communication methods and making it an ideal alternative to traditional tools like spreadsheets or messaging apps.

Next week we’ll be looking at how one serial entrepreneur went from setting up the UK’s first QR code paying platform to pioneering the braincare supplements space, how everyone’s favourite pizza company got huge exposure by winding up the nation’s football fans, along with highlighting more great tools and start-up news.

P.S. Connect with us on LinkedIn…