80's kid moved to New York as a pro-breakdance. Escaped to Australia to avoid deportation and picked up gigs as a fire-dancer in a travelling circus.

Moved back to europe into the corporate world. 
Climbed up in a Fortune 500 company, overseeing teams in 7 countries.

Music was the next chapter. Produced 4 albums, toured 10 countries. It was intense, it was a blur.

Then came the startups. Launched a few. Some crashed, others soared.

I hit 40 and said screw it time to go all in. After 10+ years as a psychologist, I realized I didn’t just want to talk about care. I wanted to build it.

So I created Hana a voice-based AI that calls patients, checks in, and helps small clinics deliver real care without extra work.

It gives overworked teams superpowers. Flags risks. Helps clinics get paid. And actually feels human.

That’s the goal. Make care work for the people who usually get left behind.

www.hana.health

Matteo Grassi

I read OpenAI's October disclosure twice.
Thought I'd got the numbers wrong.

1.2 million people per week having conversations that indicate suicidal intent.
Safety referral fails 9% of the time.
...
That's 100,000 people. 
Weekly. Not connected to help.

I've been a psychologist for 15 years.
The kind of sessions where you're watching the clock; 
wondering if they'll make it to Monday.

You learn to spot the difference between validation and sycophancy.

Validation: "Your pain is real."
Sycophancy: "You're right about everything. 
Problem's everyone else."

Good therapy does the first.. then gently challenges your thinking.
Warmth → safety → challenge → growth.

These apps skip step three.
Not because they can't.
Because challenge creates friction.
Friction kills engagement.

Engagement is the number on the dashboard.
So.
Infinite validation.

Warm bath that never ends.
Feels great. Heals nothing. 😬

Had an investor call it "user-centric design" last Tuesday.
I laughed. He didn't.

At Hana we track one thing: did they connect to a human.
The bot's job is to get out of the way.
Weird flex for an AI company.

But that's the point.

I wrote a bit about it.

3X Founder | Building AI Infrastructure For Patient Care | Psychologist | My mum says I am special

Your therapist app doesn't care about you. But hey. It's been trained to seem like it cares. And in tech, that's basically the same thing. I've been a

Open article: The Empathy Trap by Matteo Grassi • 7 min read

Building household brands via short-form content (COO and Co-Founder at Havick Media)

Jack Francis Kelly

I’m planning my next webinar series and I want to make sure the content and experts are actually useful and worth your time. 

A lot of the ideas are coming straight from conversations with founders and from the workshops I’ve been running as part of the Investment Readiness Programme.  

Things like:

– How UK businesses should think about tax when selling abroad (how to be efficient whilst not getting in trouble thanks to TilTok Tax experts)
– How to structure Equity without creating problems later
– How to plan properly for future success and exits
– How to use influencer marketing without wasting money
– What it really looks like to build a business remotely as a solo founder (and how you can do it too). 

My question for you, yes YOU - what webinars would you like to see?

No topic too big or too small. If it helps 1 person I’m happy. In the past that’s been everything from pitching investors to building AI automations and workflows that you’ll actually use.  

I love getting industry experts and experienced Founders in to share their thoughts and experiences. Equally if you want to feature on a webinar to share your expertise just let me know 💪

Jack Francis  Kelly

Where capital meets high-growth, prepared founders | Capital strategy, FDI & investment readiness | West Midlands Investment Readiness Programme

LIKE THIS POST AND I’LL INVEST $1 MILLION (joking).

Okay… maybe it’s not that bad. Yet.

But there’s a growing “growth hack” on LinkedIn that’s quietly doing real damage to founder expectations.

It’s engagement bait.
A carrot on a stick.
Cheques dangled alongside promises of opportunity that may never have existed in the first place.

I want to credit Kiran Mehta (UK) and Eduardo Fonnegra (USA), two genuinely high-quality operators with real funding experience, for calling this out publicly. 

I recommend following them for grounded and useful content.

Proximity and ergo access to capital is extremely important when it comes to fundraising. Extremely. 

But let be honest: Venture capital has quietly become part of the attention economy. By inviting, and effectively filtering, high volumes of potential deal flow from around the world the economics of VC can thrive and 'the cream' rise to the top.

The mechanics of influencer marketing but for a different audience (hence why I'm writing this at 8pm on a Wednesday - irony noted).

That's not inherently wrong as in today's world 'attention' is opportunity and  firms like Anti Fund (Geoffrey Woo) are built on a pillar of 'attention' it makes total sense having seen the shift of power in the form of the 'Creator Economy' it makes sense that this market evolves too.

But when I see a post promising investment, meetings or access to a mysterious family office with money to burn I get a little wary.

And no, I’m not saying everyone doing this is fake.
Some investors genuinely want founders to find them.
Sometimes you do have to be loud to be seen.

Also, there's something beautiful about removing barriers and reducing the need for 'warm intros'. (In fact, I hope one day to have too much capital to allocate that I need you to repost me!)

But founders:
 Please take these posts with a pinch of salt. 

Investment Readiness Programme Oxford Innovation Advice Business Growth West Midlands The Black Business Collective

INVESTORS ARE PEOPLE TOO: Most founders do not know how to talk to investors. Never mind how to find them.

The elusive 'high net worth angel' almost feels like a boogeyman.

Invisible.
Unreachable.

Definitely not someone you're going to run into when picking up a pint of milk (or so you think..! after all, why would they LOUDLY announce themselves? Frankly, investors who make themselves known at events etc are often swarmed and hounded by hungry founders). 

And we all know there is a North South divide when it comes to business investment for a plethora of reasons. There are barriers. There is disparity. 

There are dozens of reasons and therefore countless excuses (sorry, not sorry). But equally it's just reality that wealth and therefore access to the wealth like you might need to fund your seed round or introduce you to your next big client just isn't going to knock on your door.

But here is the part we avoid saying.

Technology, media, and the internet have already changed this.
Raising from London now takes the same effort as raising from New York or Dubai.

Your laptop and your phone have given you, yes YOU, the ability to be seen by almost anyone in the world. Now it is less about if it can happen and more about how it happens.

I accept that in person relationships are a real differentiator especially for closng deals.

But if you were brutally honest with yourself as a founder, could you truly say you have done everything you can online before blaming geography?

Being based in the Midlands does not mean you are behind.

It means you cannot rely on proximity.
You have to be more conscious.
More strategic.
More intentional.

You cannot change some things.

So you have to be different.
You have to be better.
That is what this webinar breaks down.
Not how to complain about the system.
But how to operate inside it without pretending it is fair.

And if you have raised from angels or work with high net worth individuals, I would genuinely like to know.

Where have I got this wrong?

Investment Readiness Programme Oxford Innovation Advice Business Growth West Midlands

Blue and red oceans. 🎣 🦈 
I first came across this way of thinking through Jack Ma when learning about how Alibaba.com positioned itself in China.

Red oceans are crowded. Everyone is fighting for the same customers, on the same terms, usually by price, speed, or marketing (and often a 'race to the bottom').

Blue oceans are different. 

They are created when a business stops competing on existing rules and instead reshapes what the market even looks like. Creating a new market low competition and/or nothing but blue sky horizions of space to grow. 

What I found most interesting in Jack Ma’s thinking wasn’t just “be different” but to build where others are not looking, especially where customers are 
underserved, ignored, or misunderstood - creating a infrastructure sturdy enough to weather the storm that's 'ahead of their time' start-ups face and a strong enough foundation to be the $100bn++ group we see today. 

Alibaba didn’t try to beat Amazon at being Amazon. It built infrastructure for millions of small Chinese businesses that global platforms were not designed for.

I also think this concept applies far beyond products.

It applies to:
 Sectors.
 Geographies.
 Demographics.
 Distribution methods.
 Media.

Sometimes the most useful question is not how to win in a market, but whether it is even the right market to enter at all.

Thinking about what this means for you is important.

Because a lot of it comes down to the game you are willing to play.

If it is a red ocean, there may still be money there and you've just got to be better 'fisherman' (fishing deeper... with better hooks... etc).

But if the ocean is only blue enough for a leisure yacht, that might be for a reason. 

Would you rather fish in a Red 🔴 or Blue 🔵 ocean?

Oxford Innovation Advice Investment Readiness Programme

Red or Blue Ocean

This is the video I show UK founders when they tell me they are tired of being UK founders, because for me it works like a double espresso.

Tired of smaller rounds.
Tired of slower decisions.
Tired of feeling like they are pushing a boulder uphill alone, while their American counterparts seem to have someone cheering them on with snacks (and an orange cooler full of Gatorade probably), and maybe even lending a hand.

On LinkedIn, that comparison can sound like UK bashing or USA rose-white-and-blue tinted glasses.

But it is not.
There is a real difference in what it feels like to build and raise in each environment.

And for me, this video captures that difference better than anything else.

Six time Mr Olympia.
Former Ladywood, Birmingham resident.
Mr Dorian Yates.

It shows what mindset looks like in reality.

Success is usually talked about in years or chapters.

But in practice, it is remaining committed to yourself for the next repetition.

Then another.
Then another.

Dorian once described walking through knee deep snow in Birmingham to get to the gym, while his American competitors trained in sunshine.

And he said:
“I’m here trudging through the snow… and they are going to pay for that.”
(Just writing that makes me want to run through a wall.)

And it was not even really about them.
It was about him.

Nothing he could do from the snowy streets of Birmingham would even be a blip on their radar.
He had to fight just to earn the right to be a blip.

Most of us would love to be the version of ourselves driving a Ferrari alongside a California beach (or Mustang on the way to a lake in Texas, but you do you).

But if we are honest…
Most of us relate far more to trudging through the snow on a winter’s day in Brum.

That is where founders are built.

Emails with no replies?
 Do the reps.

Rejections?
 Do the reps.

Deck needs tossing out?
 Do the reps.

Monotonous days?

 Do the reps.
 Do the reps.
 Do the reps.

Because that is what it comes down to.
Do the reps.

That imaginary version of you chilling in the metaphorical sunshine probably is not doing the same reps you are.

Every email is a rep.
Every uncomfortable decision is a rep.
Every day you show up anyway is a rep.

You will bootstrap longer.
You will hear no more.
You will feel lonely.

But when it finally works…

It will not feel like luck.
IT WILL FEEL INEVITABLE.

This is not about UK versus USA.

It is about mindset.
It is playing the cards you were dealt as well as you possibly can.
It is taking full responsibility and choosing to do something about it.
It is about doing the reps.

And then, eventually, making them pay.

More.
For your equity.
There we go. Back on track.

What reps are you doing?

The UK funding gap is not just London vs the West Midlands. It is London vs everywhere.

And the reason is not just policy.

It is history... and honestly it makes total sense.

Economic geography compounds.

Trade routes, power centres, institutions, and capital flows reinforce themselves over centuries.

London did not become a global financial cluster by accident.

It has been compounding advantage since Roman times, through empire, through global finance, into venture capital.

Different tools.
Same underlying logic.

In a recent webinar, I explored how today’s funding patterns can mirror the same dynamics we now study in modern special economic zones like Shenzhen, China. Equally how a region like the West Midlands has the chance to specialize and compete with even a global giant like London.

Not because the histories are identical.

But because the mechanisms of clustering, talent magnetism, and capital reinforcement remain remarkably consistent.

Which is why regional growth is not just about “more funding.”

It is about building long term clusters that can compound in their own right. 

The West Midlands has the foundations and has done it once before and I believe can do it again.

If you are interested in the full webinar recording, comment or message me ⚡

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The Battle

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