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The Founders Hub Investment Programme

The Founders Hub Investment Programme has been giving founders the edge since 2019. We’ve developed two 24 month programmes that supercharge young businesses, turning new ideas into successful companies and powering scale-ups so they can reach the next level.

What’s in it for us ?

We take a share of your venture in return for our investment in your business. If you grow we gain. And if you don’t, then we lose. So you can be sure we're in this together.

What’s in it for you?

A growth programme tailored to your business. Ongoing support from a team of experienced mentors. £100,000 of services, from experts in tech, marketing, finance, and more. And a community of like-minded businesses in the programme.

What to expect

Matt Ansell outlines the three stages of the Founders Hub investment programme. The framework is specially designed to fast-track growth, offering a proven mix of investment, development and support.

Lessons from
experienced leaders

Each week we canvas the world’s top leaders for bitesize wisdom bombs. Browse hundreds of fireside life lessons in the incredibly moreish leadership compilation.

View all Leadership Lessons

How can small businesses compete with established market players and win?

Justin Adams

CEO

Global Chair

In my experience, the best small businesses use their natural agility to out-serve and out-manoeuvre larger more stable and more structured competitors. This requires an obsession with understanding what customers truly want and value. This of course is constantly changing as the world around customers changes. Large well-staffed incumbents often assume that what worked in the past and "the way we do things around here" will continue to work in the future. Challenging this is what enables small disruptors to create an exciting new normal. New businesses that maintain this obsession and constantly look for customer problems to solve, will in my experience find opportunities that others miss or are too slow to grab. Having the confidence to then invest in their growth ensures this is sustainable. However, as they grow and need to add new people and build their own processes and disciplines, the challenge is to ensure they don't become the bureaucratic, "stuck in their ways" incumbents themselves and free the path for further new entrants. This requires them to be careful in hiring people with similar values and work ethics to the founding team and thinking hard about getting the right balance between structure and control to support a scaling business less able to co-ordinate informally, and flexibility/freedom to do the right thing to ensure ongoing agility.

What is the single most important message your sales material should communicate?

Catharine Vama

Head of Sales

Procode

What makes your product or service useful to the person you are selling to? There is a real focus currently on unique selling points, however, if the product is unique, clever, and innovative but not useful to the person you are pitching to, they may be impressed, but they are unlikely to buy it. Unique is great but useful is vital, so make sure you do your research on why it will specifically help them.

What three qualities would you associate with successful founders?

Mansi Biyani

founder

MBDH Wellness

1. Curiosity An entrepreneur's ability to remain curious allows them to continuously seek new opportunities, learn/unlearn and keep innovating. 2. Collaboration over competition Two brains are better than one and once you start brainstorming and sharing ideas with like-minded people, the sky is the limit in terms of creative ideas and achieving goals. 3. Humility: Humility strengthens self-image while simultaneously helping tone down the unhealthy ego. C.S Lewis said it right - 'True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.'

What are the top 3 traits of a gifted leader?

Gaurav Biyani

founder

MBDH Wellness

1. Great communication skills. 2. Ability to negotiate. 3. Power to motivate people.

3 things I wish I knew when I started

Harri Helvon-Hardy

Founder

FABRIC

1) How my "Big plans" years later would seem small because we often underestimate our ability to achieve. Dream Big! When I started FABRIC I was aiming to create a job for myself that I could do for the rest of my working career that wasn't in statutory social work. I didn't know what an entrepreneur was I was simply trying to find a way to have a job where I was making the difference I wanted to young people in need. 6 years after we opened and I am applying for funding to create a franchise model so that young people across the UK and potentially globally can benefit from our model. 2) The power of numbers- yep the self-confessed word lover now places huge value on the power of numbers. When I started FABRIC I had a business partner who was an accountant and I left all things numbers to them. I leaned away from what I didn't like and essentially gave all my power away. Knowing the figures in your business can be as powerful as the difference between succeeding or going insolvent. I am now the sole shareholder and director of my business, knowing the numbers enables me to answer questions confidently when applying for funding, feel strong in my day-to-day management of the business and helps me make even bigger plans! P.s get a great accountant, one you connect with and one who empowers you to understand the finances of your business. If they don't have time to help you understand- go elsewhere! 3) That business is a rollercoaster and not just over a year, sometimes it's daily and even hourly. Understanding and expecting this has enabled me to flow with the challenges. The business rollercoaster is challenging at times but don't fall into the trap of feeling you need to hustle, 16hr work days don't do anything positive for you or your business. When the rollercoaster is tough, make more time for self-care not less. Over time the peaks and troughs get less high and low and you learn to ride the wave. "The sweet ain't so sweet without the sour"- take time to look in the rearview mirror and at what you've surpassed!

Free resource library

Access a library of free resources, all designed for startups. Download business templates - from product roadmaps to sales decks. Browse our library of videos, including webinars and in-depth guides.

Founders Supporting Founders

Our webinar exchange programme connects businesses looking for their next webinar guests with awesome subject experts from our community.

Browse a library of discounts and offers listed by our community of businesses and startups, and list your own to promote your business.

Regular webinars, a library of useful business templates, and over 1,000 posts of advice from experts and business leaders. Get access to exclusive content designed to help your business grow.

Founders Supporting Founders

Our webinar exchange programme connects businesses looking for their next webinar guests with awesome subject experts from our community.

Browse a library of discounts and offers listed by our community of businesses and startups, and list your own to promote your business.

Regular webinars, a library of useful business templates, and over 1,000 posts of advice from experts and business leaders. Get access to exclusive content designed to help your business grow.

Join the world’s best FREE social platform for founders

Join our platform

The best peer
support
platform

Join our network with other founders, and promote your business on our platform.

Our Founders

Syra Marshall

CTO & Co-founder

Elemendar

“Working with Founders Hub has been a great experience. They've been there every step of the way: through project management, development resources and financial support to commercial strategy and marketing. Wonderful (and fun!) talks about what extra features are needed, finding edge cases, and planning extensions for the future. Having been involved in the tech start up community around the UK for nearly a decade now, I can confidently and happily say that Founders Hub have been some of the best, most grounded people I've worked with: they get things done.”

Dominic Maxwell

Co-Founder

TellJO

“What can I say… faster, better, and (let’s be honest) far more effective than we could have imagined. From building our initial website, through defining, developing and launching our tech platform… managing finance, even our marketing was taken care of. A great team. Here’s to many more years working together!”

Barry Sheldrake

Managing Director

Examagram

“The perfect mix of experience and energy. A truly great partnership.”

Oliver West

Service Designer

Foudner

“We had clear plans from day 1. Working with Founders Hub gave Minglur access to product experts, commercial guidance, digital marketing, technical planning, finance and even admin support… meaning we could concentrate on our natural strengths; building and scaling an awesome service.”

Fergus Parker

Founder

Pitch121

“For any business that is looking to dramatically accelerate their growth Founders Hub have the resources, know-how and track record to deliver. They have a team that will genuinely care about your business as if it was their own. It has been a great experience that has already tripled the size of our organisation this year.”

Kevin Rowe

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“Every business needs a driver… and working with the Founders Hub is like driving with SatNav. The directions were clear from day one and our early growth plans were well resourced and well executed. We took the shortest path from inception to profitability and (unexpectedly) exited successfully in our second year of trading. I have no hesitation recommending Founders Hub as a proven growth agent, the team bring bags of experience and hard-to-believe levels of dedication to the table. ”

Brilliant brands

We believe that every company should have:

A purpose

That goes beyond the core offering

A point of difference

To stand out from the crowd

A brand story

That’s genuine, unique and memorable

Loyal followers

Who believe in what you do