⚡ How this Start-Up is Gamifying Business Training Using AI

Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…

🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the start-up world
📰 The biggest news stories in the start-up world
🏆 How this start-up is using AI to gamify business training
👑 How this water company managed to get free publicity from the Royal Family
📢 The easiest way to add a referral programme to your SaaS

✨ Last weeks most clicked link was this link to Creandum who’ve recently raised a new fund.

Happy hustling,
Rich & Gary

🎤 Events/Opportunities

🎤 The Pitch UK's 2024 programme launched this week, with a brand new website. If you're looking for funding, you can find out more about how they help start-ups from across the UK meet investors here:

🦅 The Black Venture Growth Programme is a dedicated 16-week programme that focuses on growth and removing barriers to fundraising through targeted support. Applications close on 19 June and there are only 20 spaces available, so you don't want to miss out. Apply here.

📣 Win a €1m investment in your marketplace start-up! Europe's best marketplace investors (Speedinvest, FJ Labs, DFF (Dutch Founders Fund)) and VOY have partnered up for this year's The Marketplace Conference to grant a €1m investment into a standout marketplace start-up. Applications are now open until the 2nd of August - only takes 3 minutes.

💼 Job opportunities

🧮 Mid Level Full Stack Software Engineer, Novabook
🚘 Account Manager, loveelectric
📚 Community Growth Manager, Reedsy

💳 UK digital bank Starling has reported its third year of profitability as high interest rates buoyed the UK neobank’s top line. SIfted

🤳 BeReal is being acquired by mobile apps and games company Voodoo for €500M. TechCrunch

💵 Black Semiconductor nabs $273M in Germany to supercharge how chips work together. TechCrunch

🚗 General Motors is investing $850 million into Cruise as the autonomous vehicle subsidiary slowly makes its way back to testing in Phoenix, Dallas and, as of Tuesday, Houston. TechCrunch

🏆 UJJI: Revolutionising Learning in the Business World with AI

UJJI is a pioneering "Learning as a Service" platform, harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to transform traditional business materials (PDF/PPTs/DOCs, etc.) into dynamic, micro-learning experiences with no time or work required. Designed for start-ups, scale-ups, and SMEs, UJJI facilitates the creation of training programs that are 30 times faster and at a fraction of the cost of traditional learning and development methods. UJJI is being built by Ludmila, Rafael and their awesome team!

Early Customer Acquisition: Building from the Ground Up

UJJI acquired its first 15 customers through network effects and relationship building. Their acquired their very first customers at The Business Show in London (an industry-wide event) as well as identifying and reaching early customers through Linkedin where they were able to leverage the personal networks of the founders. Their initial strategy involved directly addressing the needs of potential clients by demonstrating how UJJI could uniquely resolve their challenges. The founders' deep industry knowledge and their ability to offer personalised, in-depth service allowed them to secure their first 15 customers. This was very much a case of “doing things that don’t scale”, but allowed them to learn alongside their early customers as well as produce case studies to support future customer acquisition.

Scaling the Business: A Strategic Mix of Product and Sales

Once a solid base of initial users was established, UJJI transitioned to a more aggressive growth strategy. This included a blend of product-led and sales-led approaches, incorporating both inbound and outbound marketing techniques. Content marketing played a significant role, with the distribution of case studies, e-books, blog articles, social media posts and their People Championing Podcast enhancing UJJI's online presence. Meanwhile, traditional sales tactics like cold emailing, calling, and further LinkedIn networking were employed to expand their reach.

Lessons Learned: The Importance of Scalability and Focus

From its early days, UJJI embraced the philosophy of starting by doing things that don’t scale, but then figuring out how to automate the things that worked. In fact, their product UJJI AI, was born out of a scrappy use of Chat-GPT and other AI solutions which today see’s their APIs plugged into their main product.

Funding the Vision: A Mix of Bootstrapping and External Investments

UJJI was initially funded by a mix of the founders' personal savings and an investment from Oxford University Innovation, which gave them £100k to start the company with. This early support was crucial, enabling the creation of their MVP and the acquisition of their first clients. As the business grew, further funding was secured through family, friends, and angel investors, which meshed up with a full-on pre-seed round when their first two institutional investors joined.

Overcoming Challenges: Fundraising in a Difficult Climate

One of the most daunting challenges UJJI faced was attempting to raise capital during an economic downturn with minimal initial traction. Most of UJJI’s investment came from family & friends and angels that truly believed in the founders as a team. These investors had seen what they’d done in the past and so, wanted to see what they were capable of doing this time. Those early investors also ended up also introducing them to other investors who ended up joining. And with that, a bit of a natural current took them to meeting the two VCs who joined UJJI in their pre-seed round. Early on they did spend some time trying to raise from investors who they didn’t really know, but due to their lack of product traction, this resulted in a "speak to us again in a years' time" response. The founders learned the hard way that engaging investors without a solid product or significant market presence was counterproductive. This experience taught them the value of achieving minimum viable traction before seeking substantial external funding. Their biggest advice from this is “If you can bootstrap until you've achieved enough traction, they’d genuinely recommend it. If not, try getting to a minimum viable traction for fundraising. But do not try going to VCs with no traction whatsoever as this will just trim down your confidence”.

Building on Experience: The Power of a Strong Partnership

Reflecting on their journey, the founders of UJJI believe that having a co-founder with complementary skills has been instrumental to their success. This partnership has provided mutual support through highs and lows, underscoring the importance of teamwork in navigating the tumultuous waters of entrepreneurship. If you don’t have a co-founder, find someone you can trust and make sure you balance each other out during both your highs and lows.

How controversial are you willing to be with your marketing? Well, DASH Water were really willing to push the boat out and capitalise on the media attention the Royal Family were getting.

Everyone was constantly hearing about the removal of Prince Harry from the Royal Family, it was the most talked about topic for months! DASH Water wanted to ride the wave of this global conversation and decided that his recent court case would be a good opportunity to take some of that attention.

They decided to stand outside court, handing out free products to the media and passers by whilst holding a sign that read “Harry doesn’t want the limelight but we do”, whilst being covered in DASH Water branding. This got the attention of many people in the location itself, but also sparked a lot of conversation online. So the question is, how can you use current news stories and events to your advantage when building out a marketing campaign?

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

Cello is a B2B SaaS platform that streamlines referral programs for businesses. It allows companies to integrate user and affiliate referral systems into their products quickly, aiming to convert users into a primary growth channel. With features like automated billing, flexible rewards, real-time performance tracking, and seamless integration with existing tools, Cello enhances word-of-mouth marketing. Its user-friendly setup and success-based pricing model make it an accessible option for companies looking to boost sign-ups and conversions through efficient referral mechanisms.

Next week we’ll be highlighting another awesome start-up (if you want us to feature you, drop us a message), as well as sharing all the usuals including funding opportunities, Start-Up news, plus plenty of awesome tips, tricks and tools.

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