Nick Telson

Founder DesignMyNight (Acquired '19) 🍹 | Co-Founder trumpet 🎺 | Investor in 55+ Startups (Currently not investing in new deals) 😇 | Podcaster 🎙️| 🏳️‍🌈

Hey!

I’m a London entrepreneur, currently living in Boston.  Also an angel investor, podcaster, startup mentor and public speaker, whose speciality lies in talking no-nonsense founder/investor advice and help. I'm currently co-founder of new B2B sales tool, trumpet, host of Pitch Deck podcast and co-founder of an angel investing venture-arm, Horseplay Ventures

I previously co-founded DesignMyNight, back in 2010 and managed to grow that over 7 years with minimal angel funding, to 100+ employees, 15,000 SaaS customers and 8m monthly uniques on the website. We exited to Access Group in 2017.

I live for the early stages of startups - building the brand, finding product market fit, iterating quickly and building out a team. Most of my content is centred around this, as well as tips from an angel investor. Even after exiting to financial freedom, I caught the founder bug again and have co-founded my next startup, trumpet, in 2022; looking to disrupt B2B sales and kill the sales pdf deck. Follow me on here while we build out this new journey in public.

Please feel free to ask for any advice or help, whether a founder, startup employee or investor and I will always endeavour to do what I can. I'm also a regular guest on podcasts, startup speaking gigs and webinars, so feel free to reach out to me if you are looking for guests/speakers. 

I do respectfully ask not to be pitched for investment in my Linkedin DMs and instead go through Horseplay Ventures. Hopefully my podcast is also a treasure trove of information for those looking to raise early-stage investment, thinking about it or just interested in it - search for Pitch Deck by Nick Telson.

Co-Founder

Nick Telson-Sillett

Having scaled 2 startups the hardest phase is

0 to 1.

It’s lonely. Messy. And very different to scaling.

A few things I wish every first time founder knew early:

- Speed matters more than polish. Perfect is usually just fear in disguise.

- Customers beat opinions. Including your own.
One clear problem is better than five clever ideas.

- Do things that don’t scale. It’s literally the point.

- Momentum is emotional. Protect it aggressively.

- Revenue fixes more problems than strategy sessions ever will.

- Hire later than you think. Fire earlier than you want to.

- Focus is saying no when saying yes feels productive.

- Most things won’t work. That’s not failure. That’s the process.

- Your job is belief. Especially on the days it feels irrational.

0 to 1 isn’t about building a company.
It’s about proving one should exist.

Co-Founder trumpet 🎺 | Founder DesignMyNight (Acquired $30m+) 🍹 | Investor in 55+ Startups 🤑 🏳️‍🌈

15 years building startups but still managing to have new pinch-me moments 😁 

5 years ago when we were ideating on trumpet 🎺 on a whiteboard, never did I think it would become a billboard on Times Square! 

It may have been -15 degrees but that wasn't going to dampen my excitement to see trumpet flashing over-head in one of the most iconic locations in the US. 

We said we were going big in the States, so why not plant a flag, right?!

Moments like this as a founder are only possible thanks to the team around you and the wonderful customers who took a punt on us, and continue to do so. 🙏 

Immensely proud of what we're building and how we're building it and selfishly allowing me to have lifetime moments like this still

After investing in 50+ startups I am more wary of second time founders than first timers.

Sounds backwards, I know. 

I used to think a previous exit was the ultimate green flag.

Then I watched second time founders blow up companies for, what I thought were, very predictable reasons.

A few patterns I look for now:

• They copy paste old playbooks

What worked in a different market at a different time with different capital conditions often falls flat. Playbooks are context not scripture.

• They hire for the company they remember not the one they have

Big salaries senior titles early stage chaos. They forget the scrappy generalists who made their first win possible.

• They overestimate skill and underestimate luck

Timing market structure and competitors all played a part. If you think you were the sole reason it worked you will misread new risk.

• They get bored of doing the unsexy work again

Talking to customers. Manually selling the first deals. Sitting inside product pain. They want to fast forward to PLG as if it just happens.

• They reference their last company more than their current customer

Every answer starts with “at my previous startup we”...I want to hear “this customer told me yesterday” instead.

• They protect their ego more than the truth

First timers ask naive questions. Second timers can be scared to look like they do not know. 

Don't get me wrong I love backing second time (successful) founders.

I just want to see they know this:

Experience is not the cheat code.
It is the library.

The real skill is pulling the right lesson off the shelf at the right time.

Mind blown. Our trumpet 🎺 tees and totes actually sold out 🤯
We thought a little merch store would be a fun side quest.

A couple of tees for the team.
A tote for my mum's shopping.
A fun little marketing/brand project
Job done.

Reality check
We accidentally created a mini fashion brand. 😂 

Some things I did not expect as a CMO of a Saas brand:
 🎺 Approving colourways like I am in product design
 🎺 Debating tote handle length on Zoom
 🎺 Hearing phrases like “we need a restock” about clothing, not features

But there is a serious element to all this too:

1️⃣ People want to wear the brands they feel part of
2️⃣ A great logo on a great tee beats a mediocre ad every single time
3️⃣ A tote bag is a walking billboard that people pay you to carry
4️⃣ Merch is the quickest gut check on whether anyone actually cares about your brand

We did not run ads.
We did not discount.
We just let the community play. And they cleared us out.

We have now restocked, with a few new ideas up our sleeve too (#limitededition)

Apparently trumpet is not just in the SaaS game anymore
We are now competing with your favourite streetwear brand too 😅🎺

👏 Charlotte Lorna

Having built a 90+ person company where everyone was in the office every day, one thing is clearer to me now than it was back then.

Culture was easier.

Not better because we were smarter. Easier because proximity does a lot of the work for you.

Back then, culture happened by default.
You absorbed it just by turning up.

Now, building teams remotely, I see the trade offs much more clearly.

A few honest reflections:

Culture in an office is ambient. You learn how to behave by watching others. Remote culture has to be explicit or it doesn’t exist.

Momentum used to come from energy in the room. Remote teams need systems to replace that energy, not just good intentions.

Trust used to be built out loud table to table, and lunches. Remotely, it’s built through consistency and follow through.

Feedback used to be casual and constant. Now it has to be intentional or it never lands.

None of this makes remote worse. It just makes it harder to get right.

Remote gives flexibility, focus, and access to great people.

Office gives shared context, speed, and emotional glue.

Different tools. Different costs.
The mistake is pretending the cost isn’t there

A snippet taken from a Solutions Engineer Manager in a joint slack channel with a new customer (2000+ employees and a 6-figure deal) at trumpet 🎺as we began onboarding them.

As well as the very nice things he had to say about us (having looked at all other Sales Rooms during the sales process), for me it shows the huge importance of internal advocacy when kicking off a new partnership.

So many new customers can fall through the cracks between super excited sales cycle to actually onboarding the team. 

Here are some tips before launch to help set up advocacy and context

- Pick an internal owner and three to five champions
One senior sponsor who cares about the outcome
Three to five power users in different teams who are curious and vocal
Give champions early access and ask them to collect rough edges and quick wins

- Sell the problem, not the tool
Run a short internal teaser; what painful thing this will fix
Use one sentence per audience
Put this in every invite and kick-off deck

- Line up specific use cases by team
Do not launch as generic tooling
Create one or two flagship use cases per function that you know work well
Prepare before and after screenshots so people see the difference in seconds

- Remove as much setup work as possible
Pre create workspaces, projects, groups
Pre load example data or templates
Make sure login, SSO, permissions are smooth on day one

You do not build advocacy with features. You build it with the way you roll them out.

Having watched thousands of Pods run through trumpet 🎺, one thing is clear...

The deals that win are the ones that travel inside the buyer

When a Pod gets shared internally by the prospect, win rate jumps from 28% to 56% and when a Pod has an engaged Mutual Action Plan the win rate 2x 🤯 

So we asked a simple question

What if the MAP made those internal shares and engagement effortless? 

That is why we have rebuilt our MAP from the ground up and launched a new experience inside every trumpet Pod

What's new?

• Horizontal progress timeline that shows what is done, what is next, and who owns what

• Automatic nudges to keep everyone on track

• All context and attached docs now live inside the plan, not in scattered docs

• Bulk actions to update the plan easily when plans invariably change

• Calendar view to see zoomed out responsibilities in the month

• New MAP dashboard to see all your live MAPs across all Pods and all overdue and upcoming tasks

The new Mutual Action Plan is live for all customers and already getting rave reviews 🥳 

In the end, the more obvious you make the path, the easier it is for your champion to walk everyone else down it...

When should a startup test, conserve or spend on marketing?
After a being in and around early stage companies, I've seen the patterns.

Most teams are either spraying cash with no signal
or clamping down so hard they never learn anything.

Here is how I think about the three modes.

1) Test mode
Use this when you are still trying to answer basic questions:
• New product or big new feature
• No clear winning channel yet
• You do not really know your payback period

Principles in test mode:
- Set a small fixed pot per channel for a short window.
- Define what success looks like before you start.
- Optimise for learning speed, not for perfect efficiency.
- Kill experiments fast when the numbers are clearly awful.
- If you are arguing for weeks about creative on a tiny budget, you are not testing, you are procrastinating.

2) Conserve mode
This is where more founders should live by default.
Use conserve mode when:
• You have less than 9 to 12 months of runway.
• Your unit economics are not working yet.
• You are between fundraising.

Principles in conserve mode:
- Double down only on channels that are clearly profitable.
- Pause everything that “might work with more time”.
- Shift focus to retention and referrals, not paid acquisition.
- Spend more time on positioning and messaging than on media spend.

Conserve does not mean go quiet.
It means move the energy from ad accounts to customer conversations and product.

3) Spend mode
This is the fun one and also the one that kills companies if mistimed.
You earn spend mode when:
• You have a clear core channel that is already profitable at smaller scale.
• You understand your funnel metrics end to end.
• Churn is under control and customers actually stick around.
• You have enough runway or fresh capital specifically to grow.

Principles in spend mode:
- Increase budget gradually while watching payback like a hawk.
- Invest in brand and content alongside performance, not instead of it.
- Build repeatable playbooks so growth does not depend on one hero marketer.
- Assume the channel will saturate and plan the next one early.

If you go into spend mode before you deserve it, you are just setting money on fire with nicer dashboards.

The real skill is not how much you spend, it is knowing which mode you are truly in and being honest enough to act accordingly.

🌴 Making your "time off" the most productive thing you do.

You work hard but remain invisible. 

The problem isn’t your talent, my queen. 

It’s that your message doesn’t land and your courage is on mute.

You didn’t build a business to beg for attention.

You built it to lead.

But you’re struggling to find the magic. 

You’re posting from the “shoulds,” second-guessing every line, hiding the price.

Your launches feel like roulette...

Your calendar is full of content you don’t believe in, and a brand that reads like everyone else’s. 

You know you’re meant for premium clients and stages, but your story is diluted and your DMs are quiet.

I am the bridge between your struggles and your future. 

One where your voice sounds like you.

Your posts make people pause.

Your offer is clear and priced like the value you deliver. 

Your launches follow a rhythm you can repeat.

Dream buyers find you without paid ads.

Your name opens rooms you used to scroll past.

That is the work I do with female founders.

We make LinkedIn your best sales channel by pairing identity with architecture.

LinkedIn Leopard is the identity work that makes you unmistakable. 

The Viral Soul Marketing Method is the content and launch system that sells without shouting.

Together, they turn your story into steady demand. 

And when you want it handled, my agency, Viral Soul Agency, translates your ideas into DFY LinkedIn content that grows the audience, books stages, and brings the right buyers closer.

I know receipts matter.

So here are some of mine: 

I’m a Top 1% LinkedIn Creator in the UK with 72k+ following, featured in Times Square, hosted 12+ retreats for over 200+ people. 

I built it all on organic content.

Before this chapter, I cut my teeth in a Lord Sugar–backed startup, became a top performer, and picked up a few trophies with my name on them. I built and sold out international retreats, grew an online yoga studio during lockdown, and have mentored hundreds of founders from invisible to in-demand.

There are a few ways to work with me: SANCTIFY, my 12-month mastermind for scaling with soul; 1:1 mentorship when you want a high-touch partner; Viral Soul LIVE Event for momentum you can feel; and Viral Soul if you want the done-for-you version. 

If you want the details and to see which path fits, DM me the word “SANCTIFY.”

Yes, I’m a fairy. And yes, I'm here to remind you: 

When you sound like you, buyers find you.

Georgia St John-Smith

You were told that viral content = great for business!! 

Because the more eyes on your brand

…the more clients would line up ready to pay you 💰

But in reality this focus on churning out as much content as possible to “grow your account”

Is exactly what distracts incredible women from actually building QUALITY 🫠

There was a time where I looked at trends, and what "goes viral" in order to grow my account

You know what that led to?

⏰ wasting time searching for trends, rather than setting them 
🪫 diluting the power of my business to try and match what’s “trending”
😩 exhausting myself trying to keep up with the content treadmill 

Yes I’d get visibility 

As well as people in my DM’s like:

“I love your work sooo much!!” 

Without ever having any intention to *pay me* for that work. 

THEN I focused on writing long form legacy style content on LinkedIn. 

The kind that acts like a portfolio of my work...

As well as creating: 
 - my specific positioning for my linkedin profile
 - methods to attract paying clients 
 - storytelling that sells
 
 My LinkedIn account didn’t just grow by 40k NEW followers. 
 
 But I also had my first ever $80k month. 

(both happened in 2025!)
 
I now use the same method for EVERY single piece of content I create.
 
Which means I have: 

🎙️Podcast episodes that attract high ticket clients without me having to post tones of short form content

📈 LinkedIn posts that combine into a portfolio that builds trust and attracts the most incredible clients 

I’ll be use my own frameworks, that have been proven to work again and again. 

This is about creating content that works FOR you

For YEARS. 

Rather than you churning out 1000 posts to get your business noticed. 

Long form content that: 
 - Builds trust for your dream clients 
 - Nurtures your audience without endless launching 
 - Showcases your actual genius (rather than boxing you into a ‘trend’)

That’s what I teach you how to create when you work with me. 

This year, for the first time ever, you can join:
 
The Renaissance Retreat in Florence, Italy 

For FREE*, when you join the Sancti Mastermind. 

(*offer expires in 48 hours)

So that you can:
→ Ditch the shallow short form content that drains your creativity
→ Create the specific kind of long form content that actually converts 
→ Get visible to your favourite kind of people to work with 

These are the exact strategise I used to:

Reach 300K eyes with my content in 30 days on LinkedIn 
& generate over $500K in my business quicker than I hit my first 6 figures

You can join us for the Renaissance Retreat as a Mastermind BONUS, this week ONLY:

Comment or DM me RENAISSANCE to get the full details ⬇️

You’re about to get off that content hamster wheel forever.

Georgia St John-Smith 

$500K doing what I love, and posting on LinkedIn. Featured in Times Square. Want DMs from premium buyers? Read my About section. Find your New Ocean™ and you’ll never “compete” again.

I pinch myself EVERY time I realise that I've now hosted over 12 retreats, for 100's of entrepreneurs 🥹🫶🏼

Some said: 

"there really is no more that you could ever want from a retreat" 
- the amazing Sophie Miller

"it was such a pivotal moment for me and my business" 
- the wonderful Chloe Banks

"I didn't expect to connect with the women on this retreat the way I have! Georgia doesn’t just give you the answers, she gives you the tools to find them yourself" 
- the one and only Emma Gaskin

They are just 3 out of hundreddddssss of amazing women who have been at our retreats. 

This year we are BACK. 

& I'm inviting YOU to join us in Italy!! 

Especially if you're a woman who's sooo busy building your business. 

✈️ Let us whisk you away to Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance 

forrrrrrr

🥁🥁

✨The Renaissance Retreat!!✨

It's time for you to connect with your inner wisdom, heart, soul, intuition. 

To be living like a goddess in the most gorgeous Italian villa that I've booked for us. 

Strategy sessions by the pool 🤌🏼💸

Connections with other women in business that become the crucial kind of friends who actually *get it*. 

And entering a curated space for you to create your most inspired work yet. 

Welcome 🫶🏼

Let's create a legacy. 

(and eat lots of pastaaa 🍝)

There are only 11 spots on this retreat, and already 49 women on the waitlist. 

Spots will open up to the waitlist first for 24 hours. 

Weds 25th Feb waitlist opens. 

Mark your calendar. 

But first... make sure you're *actually* ON the waitlist so that you can save your spot!!!

Get on the waitlist HERE: https://lnkd.in/grJUM5kS

These retreats ALWAYS sell out very quickly. 

So don't wait if you're dreaming about Aperol, deep chats by the pool, & brand photoshoots in the glorious Italian sunshine ;) 

Ciao bella, 

Xx
Georgia St John-Smith 
Sancti Retreats

If you want to collapse time & reach your goals 3000x faster? 

Hang out with other people building cool things. 

Italy Retreat 2026. 

12 hours til launch.

Ciao bella 
Xx

Georgia St John-Smith
Sancti Retreats

Sooo many entrepreneurs chasing cash & quick visibility & it makes your content REPELL the best type of clients 🤦🏼‍♀️ 

When you curate your content from a place of wanting to serve your audience… 

Instead of chasing vitality and conversions

And you’re super strategic with how you blend together your mission, values & messaging 

You will find that content creation is:

1. EASY 
2. 10x more profitable 

Every time I launch something people buy. 

Because I care more about my mission than chasing vanity metrics. 

And I have the experience on various strategies that make content creation profitable. 

Stop guessing and chasing. 

Post what makes you feel alive, helps people & combine that with content strategies that actually convert 😉

Eeeeek, I can hardly contain my EXCITEMENT!!! 

Because in 24 hours spots will open up for the 2026 Italy Retreat for women entrepreneurs!

I've spent the past 4 years hosting luxury retreats & seen the most powerful shifts happen. 

Often answers these women had been searching YEARS to find, happen in a matter of days. 

Because your environment changes everything. 

👀 Working from home can often mean: 

- Getting business advice from people you love dearly, but have never actually done what you're looking to achieve 

- Relying on yourself to constantly stay inspired in isolation

- Getting into routine, and finding yourself craving the sunshine + women who just *get it* when it comes to growing a business that you care about. 

✈️ The moment you are going to this retreat?

- You KNOW things are about to change, simply by the environment you're putting yourself in

- Creating time for deep creativity, step back from the daily grind and have a fresh perspective on business 

- You know you're going to leave transformed and that's exciting for you, because you love personal growth, and that also fuels your business growth! 

I know the power of it because of the 100's of incredible women I've hosted at retreats. 

Like Chloe who joined the retreat with a rebrand in mind that she'd been *thinking of* for a while... but hadn't put her finger on. 

Then she runs up to me on day 2 of the retreat having spoken to another woman on the retreat and says "Georgia I've got it!! The full rebrand" 

Or Niamh who attended the retreat whilst feeling unsure about staying in the UK, not sure of her next move... now she's thriving, living in Dubai with her partner and growing her fitness brand to the next level!!

Or Rachel who was already super successful, and came to the retreat for some new zest of life, inspiration and her next move... she's now been travelling the world! 

(stalk my website if you wanna see more videos of what these women had to say!)

But this year we are truly taking this retreat to the next level. 

Inspired by the mastery of the Renaissance, we're heading to a glorious villa in Florence, Italy. 

👀❌ I noticed AI and the rise of the content rat race has been taking so many incredible women away from their actual talents. 

🖼️🤌🏼 So this is the Renaissance for women entrepreneurs 

We're saying no to: 

- ChatGPT or Claude input every single day...
- Trying to fit your genius, creativity, and purpose of your business into a content formula 
- Online comparison of others "further ahead" than you

And YES to: 

- The perfect environment to spark your most creative ideas YET
- A step away form technology & into YOUR inner intelligence 
- True innovation making way for your most pivotal year 

In 24 hours the retreat spots open exclusively to the waitlist. 

There are only 11 spots. 
55 women already on the waitlist. 

Join the waitlist now: https://lnkd.in/grJUM5kS

Xx
Georgia St John-Smith 
Sancti Retreats

The Renaissance Retreat in Italy 2026 has been YEARS in the making... and now it is officially open exclusively to the waitlist!! 

If you’re seeing this, you’re here for a reason.

For 4 years I’ve hosted retreats for women entrepreneurs, and everyyyyyy single time, the clarity they’ve been searching for (potentially for months or even years), lands in days.

This is a sacred space for female entrepreneurs building iconic movements from a place of creativity and purpose. 

We're saying goodbye to your business decisions being warped by AI & bots watering down your magic... 

And bringing you on the pathway the masters of the Renaissance took. 

Being inspired by the greats. 

It's time to grow your high-cashflow business that scales with your creativity, purpose, heart and soul at the forefront.

Italy is calling us, and if you're a woman who resonates with this... that's your sign.

I can’t wait to see you there 🤎

If you’re seeing this post, congrats!!! 🥳🎉

Some people’s LinkedIn feeds are full of negativity.

“LinkedIn is just full of robots” 
“These AI comments annoy me so much” 
"It's not easy to grow on LinkedIn anymore..."
“Nobody has morals they're just selling courses”

I wouldn't blame you for hating LinkedIn if this was all you saw everyday!! 🫨

Buuuut, if this post showed up for you, your algorithm knows something about you.

It knows you’re not here to entertain negativity. 

You’re here to grow. 

You care about hope, dreams and living freely. 

You're not about to give up just cos life got challenging. 

Over the last few years I’ve grown to 75,000+ followers on LinkedIn, built a multi-six-figure business, and watched clients become top 1% creators, land speaking gigs, close high-ticket offers and change their industries.

❌Not one of my posts was me complaining about other people.
❌My clients never complain about AI. 

(we accept that life is changing and adjust accordingly!)

And that MAYBE.... juuuuust maybe, positivity can lead you to your goals faster than negativity ;)

→ Your feed reflects your standards.

If you engage with drama and negativity, LinkedIn will give you more.

If you engage with leadership, expansion and possibility, it compounds.

So if you’re seeing this post, your corner of the internet is already shifting 

Welcome to the positive side of LinkedIn!!! 💃🏼🕺🏻

Where we focus on growing our own businesses, connecting, and supporting each other. 

What's your FAVOURITE thing about LinkedIn? 

Comment below & let's spread the positivity! 👇🏼

♻️ Repost this to save someone from falling into a negative content spiral. 

PS: someone who is happy with themselves and what they're building would never waste their energy complaining about what others are doing. 

They would be focused on their mission... not dragging others down. 

Do yourself a huge favour and protect your energy by:

- muting them
- removing connections or followers

Ciao bella, 
I've got another retreat to plan! 

Xx
Georgia St John-Smith
Sancti

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