Investing in high growth pre-seed startups. 

Dan heads up investments into new companies at Solid Bond which invests £150k-£500k into UK based pre-seed tech/ tech enabled startups.

Dan Dudley

What makes pre-seed such a difficult stage (and why so much of UK venture waits till seed) is the reality that the founders have to almost do everything.

You often don't have the money to spend it on ramping up tech, the founders have to fundraise, sell, account manage, track cash, find market fit and yes while all those things are easier in a smaller company, it can be so easy to lose pace or focus on making you need to go and close the next round of funding. 

Takes massive energy to do this well.

Pre-seed Investor at Solid Bond | Actively Investing | Finance and Commercial Director |

One of the key fractional hires to get in earlier than later for startups is a good CFO. 

A CFO is not your accountant or bookkeeper. I've seen way too many startups hire £100k+ FD's only to realise pretty soon that that FD also needs a bookkeeper/ management accountant to do the accounts work and all of a sudden you have a massive cost for a small business. 

When your business is still really simple, simple invoicing and costs then you can get by with a decent firm of accountants. 

A good fractional CFO will help you do some of the following:

- Cash flow management
- Financial modeling
- Margin analysis
- Build up your core finance team
- Review banking arrangements
- Support on securing more capital (equity/ debt)
- Prep for DD/ transactions

More businesses could do with a really commercially focused finance mind in as soon as they can afford it. I've seen it add tonnes of value, particually when the business is early enough to avoid painful mistakes later. 

#startups #venturecapital #preseed #fractionalCFO #founders

I'll be the first one to praise the UK for the SEIS and EIS investment schemes. They genuinely do more good than bad, particularly at attracting retail money into early stage companies. 

However, many SEIS rounds will close with the c. £250k limit but that often leaves them undercapitalised to make the progress needed to unlock the next wave of funding. If your £250k round doesn't get to launch and £250k ARR at least then it's easy to fall into this space. 

It leaves a lot of business in this awkward in-between stage. Not having enough runway to get the revenue traction to unlock seed investors, valuation expectation and lack of SEIS now precluding a lot of angels from joining certainly makes closing another round at pre-seed increasingly difficult. 

Makes it so important to plan how you get there with the funding you close at pre-seed. Raising another pre-seed might not be as easy as the 1st time you did it.

Seeing a lot of founders either using or pitching to raise using ASA's as their main instrument. We've even had a few at Solid Bond. that have closed with this as part of their round, so wanted to write a bit to explain when they are best to use. 

ASA is the UK's SAFE, with a couple of small differences.

In short it is a agreement to invest now and purchase equity in the future. It isn't debt, it is a structured agreement to buy equity in the next round, usually at a discount for coming in early. 

If you don't close enough in a priced round within a certain period of time then the investment converts at a pre-determined price for those ASA investors. 

If you are going to preserve S/EIS then HMRC dictates it needs to be issued into shares within 6 months of investment. This is the major issue with them - you cannot use them as a round, it pretty much reduces them essentially to a bridging instrument. You could use them outside of this is you are okay with the "backstop" valuation or the pre-agreed valuation but it isn't usually how people use them. 

I've found the most common use case is to close enough on an ASA to secure enough runway to close out the seed and you literally have to be running both processes at the same time. Can be a great tool if used right but it's important to know when they should be used.

Customer service is going to be one of the biggest disrupted industries because of AI. 

The number of startups we see now who are "AI Receptionist" or "AI Customer Service Agents" has grown loads over the last 6 months. 

The reality is some of their platforms are actually great as well. We will see an explosion of front line agents with high quality integrations to a few core systems in niche verticals. They can just serve their needs and build the workflows for that niche vertical so well. Not convinced they can all raise money but there are some ace bootstrapped businesses in this group that'll form over the next 12-18 months. 

One of Solid Bond.'s portfolio companies, Answer Ai has seen loads of it's retailers realise 90%+ support automation for Shopify ecommerce/ fashion retailers. It's a big market but you can see that AI, with great workflows built around it will literally end most customer service roles as we know them.

#startups #venturecapital #preseed

Having a super deep understanding of your market, the buyers, ICP (well thought through/ proven), budget holders, other systems in use, barriers, indirect competitors/ workarounds etc. adds massive credibility when you're raising money. 

So clear to see when someone knows this and and when they use some McKinsey top down market sizing stat. 

#Startups #Preseed #Founders #VentureCapital

Had a great conversation with one of Solid Bond.'s founders recently about the state of AI in 2026. Same message is what I am hearing across the industry as well.

The foundational models are genuinely good enough now and the issue now sits in the application layer. This has totally changed in the last 12 months and the realisation is that great product is what will drive the next wave of agents and deliver on the automation we thought we'd start to see. 

I am sure they'll be a lot of improvement in models to come with the sheer about of capital going into compute over the next 5 years, but right now for a lot of applications it is the product/ tuning of agents that is a big opportunity.

I'm vibe coding a data platform for Solid Bond. to massively speed up our investment process, deep research and IM writing linking our systems together and I can see when Replit is handing over to "sub-agents" like the "architect" to perform a specialist task and then use that output to continue. 

Building sub-agents and better product is what's needed now, not significant changes to the quality of the models.

Interested to know what some of the best use cases venture funds are seeing for AI in their internal process and what platforms are being used. 

Any insights? 

#venturecapital #startups #preseed #seriesA

Can't wait to try Claude CoWork (always last to come to Windows!!)

This year will be massive for AI chat apps becoming proper workflow tools.

I think we'll see a section in them - similar to how Projects work now - where you can build automations across desktop and cloud apps just by describing what you want in natural language.

This used to be reserved for RPA specialist software and businesses that could afford the implementation. But it's coming to everyone pretty soon.

The barrier to automating repetitive work is dropping. It'll be a precursor to being able to set outcome-based automations where the route to automating it won't be a rigid process.

Feels like this will live in your AI chat apps.

Ferenc Fekete

Helping non-tech Founders transform Ideas into SaaS products @ VeryCreatives | Product Agency, SaaS & MVP Development | Startups

I've watched many startup founders fail at the same exact point: turning their validated idea into actual software.

They waste months (or even years):
→ Trying to hire the right developers
→ Burning cash on poor planning and execution
→ Second-guessing every technical decision along the way

Meanwhile, competitors move faster, investors demand traction, and the pressure to deliver keeps building more and more.

After watching this pattern destroy countless promising startups, we built VeryCreatives to fix it.

But here's what makes us different:

We don't just build your MVP and disappear. We're product people who think like founders, not just developers who code to spec.

👉 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻-𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵: We start by pressure-testing your assumptions before writing a single line of code. If the market doesn't want it, we'll tell you straight.

👉 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝗻𝗲: We build like it's our own startup, obsessing over user experience, scalability, and investor readiness from the first sprint.

👉 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱: Whether you're at napkin sketch or Series B, we've been there. We've helped founders go from zero to acquisition, and we stick around for the entire journey.

For the past 14 years, we've built products for venture-backed startups, fast-growing scale-ups, and globally recognized brands like Red Bull, Nestlé, and Philips.

The startups we work with have:
✅ Launched investor-ready MVPs in under 90 days
✅ Secured funding from top-tier investors and VCs
✅ Scaled from first users to thousands of paying customers
✅ Successfully exited to strategic acquirers

Got a SaaS idea that's been sitting in your head for months? 
Let's map out your 90-day path to launch → https://verycreatives.com/book-a-call

Co-Founder

At VeryCreatives, we are a team of expert developers who create powerful SaaS apps that solve problems and drive growth for founders with initial funding. We believe in empowering our clients with innovative software that helps them achieve their goals and stand out in their industry.

Our audience consists of driven and ambitious founders who have just received initial funding for their startup. They are looking for a software development partner who understands their vision, can help bring their ideas to life, and deliver results that will help them achieve their business goals.

Founders with initial funding have a pressing need to build their product quickly and efficiently to maximize their chances of success. At VeryCreatives, we understand this need and are dedicated to creating high-quality SaaS apps that not only meet their requirements but also exceed their expectations. We are committed to delivering value and results that help our clients succeed.

VeryCreatives stands out in the market for our ability to deliver high-quality, innovative solutions that meet the needs of our clients. Our unique approach to software development, coupled with our expertise and commitment to excellence, is what drives us to provide outstanding results to our clients.

Industries our clients operate in, using the SaaS products we've built: 
- Digital marketing, Event marketing & Influencer marketing SaaS
- Foodtech & Delivery 
- Fintech, Banking & Investments
- 2-sided marketplace platforms
- Agriculture & Livestock management
- Packaging compliance & Waste

Markets we cover: UAE, EU, UK, US.

Your product isn't the problem. Your budget split is.

I've built countless SaaS products and apps over the past decade for some of the biggest brands in the world. Here's the biggest mistake I see first-time SaaS founders make that kills their product:

They map out their entire product budget... and allocate 100% of it to development.

They're planning to build the full product, launch it, then HOPE customers show up.

But the problem is, a good product is only 50% of the equation. The other half is getting it in front of the right people (which costs a lot of money too).

Especially in B2B, you'll need to spend some cash to speed up your learning curve and learn:

👉 Which channels work
👉 What messages resonate
👉 What makes your ideal customers actually convert

Some founders ignore this until it's too late. And by that time, they've burned through their development budget and launched something that MIGHT be great without anyone actually knowing it exists.

That's why whenever we work with clients, we often help them adjust the product scope before building anything out. Because we want to free up budget for marketing, user acquisition, and proper positioning so they can actually get customers and scale the business.

You could have the best product in the world. But if nobody knows it exists, it won't mean a thing.

Before you finalize your budget, ask yourself:

What's my plan to get 100 people to see this?

Helping startup founders & innovation labs validate and scale ideas into exit-ready products @ VeryCreatives | 🔥 Two decades in tech

You created your own bad developers.

I have seen this pattern too many times.

Founder says:

"My devs are slow"
"They do not get it"

Then we look closer.

And see a decision vacuum the team is trying to survive.

There are three calls only you can make as the founder.

If you dodge them, even a strong team will look useless:


👉 Decision 1: Who is our primary user right now?

One founder I worked with tried to serve agencies and tiny solo founders at the same time.

Sales promised custom features to big accounts, product built self serve onboarding for tiny ones, devs got whiplash.

Nine months of work, nobody truly happy.


👉 Decision 2: What is the next business outcome we are willing to bet on?

MRR from a segment, activation rate, expansion from existing customers.

If this is not written down, every feature feels urgent.

You ship a lot of stuff and still cannot answer why revenue or usage is flat.


👉 Decision 3: What constraints are non negotiable?

Time, budget, compliance, integrations.

If these move every week, scope will quietly double and your v1 will arrive six months late.


Which of these three have you been dodging?

Most failed software projects don't fail at the finish line.

They fail in week 2, when the team realizes the core feature can't actually be built.

That's why one of the smartest things you can do as a SaaS founder, before writing a single line of code, is build a proof of concept.

Not a full product or MVP. Just enough to answer one question: "Can we actually build this thing?"

We've gone through this exact process hundreds of times for both our clients and our own internal tools.

Here's how it works:

👉 Proof of Concept (PoC): Does this work technically?

This is where you test your riskiest assumption. Can it even be built the way you imagine? It's not going to be pretty, and it's not public-facing. But it's real.

Skip this, and you're three months into development before realizing your AI feature needs data you can't legally access.

👉 Prototype: What will it look and feel like?

Map the user flow, add just enough UI to walk someone through it, and start shaping the product experience.

Skip this, and your dev team builds something technically correct that no user can figure out how to use.

👉 MVP: Will people actually use and pay for it?

Now you're testing the market. You've built something lean and functional to prove there's demand and that your positioning makes sense.

Skip this, and you spend 18 months perfecting a product nobody asked for.

A good proof of concept helps you spot technical roadblocks early and gives stakeholders the confidence that your idea is real.

It's faster (and cheaper) to find the cracks now than to rebuild everything later.

What's the riskiest technical assumption you've had to validate before building?

Your first 10 customers are friends.

Your next 100 are stress tests.

Most MVPs crack right there.

And it's rarely the thing you're watching for.

Not because of one big bug.

Because of 4 invisible gaps almost every founder forgets:


1. Role and permission basics

A single login is fine at the very start.

Then a bigger account asks "Can my team have different access levels?"

If the answer is no, that deal quietly dies.

👉 By month 6, if you don't have this, you'll start losing deals you never knew you lost.


2. Bulk actions for power users

Clicking one by one feels fine with 10 records.

At 1,000, people hate your product.

They will export to Excel and never come back.

👉 By month 6, if you don't have bulk edit or export, your power users are already halfway out the door.


3. Password reset that does not melt support

In the early days, you just "help people manually."

At 150 accounts, your inbox turns into "I cannot log in" hell.

👉 By month 3, if you don't have a clean self-service reset flow, your support load will bury your roadmap.


4. An internal admin tool

If every tiny change needs a developer, your roadmap will stall.

You cannot build new features and play support at the same time.

👉 By month 9, if you don't have a simple internal panel, your engineers are stuck doing data cleanup instead of shipping.


Audit your stack against this list. What's missing?

I Spent 6 Months Building a Product Nobody Wanted. Then Buffer Launched for $5.

Around 2010, we worked at a media agency.

We saw the chaos every day: social media posts bouncing between marketing, legal, and clients. Approvals lost in email threads. Deadlines missed.

So we decided to build the solution ourselves.

We went all in:

• Multi-tenant account management
• Multi-platform posting (Facebook, Twitter)
• Custom approval workflows
• Notifications, previews, media library
• Analytics dashboard
• Unified posting interface

Six months of nights and weekends. Thousands of lines of code.

We never talked to a single customer.

We thought we knew exactly what agencies needed. We worked in one. We lived the problem.

That was the trap.

While we were perfecting our approval flow logic, Buffer launched with a single post scheduler and a $5 beta signup.

They validated demand before building anything else.

We validated nothing. We just built.

Here's what I learned the hard way:

👉 Working in an industry doesn't mean you understand the market

Your experience is one data point. Not a business case.

👉 Features don't prove demand

Nobody cares about your feature list if they never asked for it.

👉 Skipping customer development is not a shortcut

It's the longest, most expensive path to failure.

The product died quietly. No dramatic crash. Just silence.

If you're building something right now, ask yourself:

Have I talked to 10 people who would pay for this?

If the answer is no, close your IDE and pick up the phone.

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