Nick Telson

trumpet

Co-Founder

sequel

First Check Investor/Ideator

Horseplay Ventures

Horseplay Ventures is a Startup Playground for the new generation of startup founders. As recently exited founders we understand the pressures of being a founder and what it takes to scale and exit. Horseplay incorporates Pre-Seed/Seed Angel Investing, a free investor syndicate, a podcast and free tools for founders to use.

Co-Founder - Angel Investor

Pitch Deck - @pitchdeckpod

Pitch Deck:

- Top 10 Global Business Podcast
- Top 10 Global New Podcast
- Top 5 UK Career/Entrepreneurship Podcast 

Real investors, real founders, real pitches. In each episode, a startup founder has 10 minutes to pitch their business to Nick and guest Angel Investors/Mentors. They then all discuss the pitch and the business itself, asking questions an Investor would ask in a real pitch. The guest Angel and Nick then discuss what they make of the business and investment opportunity.

Podcaster

Proud Ventures

Member

London & Partners

Business Mentor

Virgin StartUp

Delighted to be an official mentor on the Virgin StartUp Programme; a not-for-profit organisation that exists to help founders start up and thrive.  

They provide funding, straight talk and useful advice to make the entrepreneurial road less bumpy and access to a supportive and dynamic community to help founders have some fun along the way.

Mentor

EMW Global | Sports & Entertainment

EMW Global is an international sports and entertainment marketing agency with offices in London, Hong Kong, Shanghai and São Paulo. They matchmake top class rights holders and athletes with global brands and entertainment IP. Some clients include the Brasilian National Team, Clube Flamingo, Dani Alves, Douglas Costa, Emerson and Marco Materazzi.

Advisor

The Access Group

Co-Founder of DesignMyNight . Acquired by The Access Group in December 2017. Remaining at DesignMyNight.

Co-Founder DesignMyNight

WFL Media LTD | www.designmynight.com

I am co-founder of UKs fastest growing nightlife website www.designmynight.com. Receiving over 6.5 million monthly views and several industry leading B2B softwares including Tonic, our DesignMyNight ticket platform and Collins; the first booking and enquiry management software for casual dining restaurants, bars and pubs. DesignMyNight was acquired by The Access Group in 2017.

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

Hey!

I’m a London-based entrepreneur, 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.

Nick Telson-Sillett

When we hit $1M ARR at both my startups, I thought we’d made it. 
I was wrong.

That milestone didn’t feel like success, it actually felt like survival.
Everyone told us $1M was “product-market fit.”

But all I saw behind the scenes was a brittle system held together by caffeine and duct tape!

Our pricing didn’t match value.
Our ICP was fuzzy.
Our team was doing too much of everything and mastering nothing.

The truth?
$1M ARR isn’t validation. It’s the starting line of the real company.

That’s where you stop experimenting and start operationalizing.
If I could go back, I’d systemize earlier and faster.

Milestones don’t necessarily mean stability. 
They mean responsibility.
Time to step up.

Co-Founder trumpet 🎺 | Founder DesignMyNight (Acquired '19) 🍹 | Investor in 55+ Startups 🤑 🏳️‍🌈

Every founder says, “We’re product-led.”
Most aren’t.

They’re product-first. Which is not the same thing.

Product-first means: “We’ll build what we think is awesome and hope they come.”
Product-led means: “The product is the growth engine, not just the feature list.”

A truly product-led company designs moments where the user experiences success before a salesperson ever shows up.

That might be a personalized trial that nails the buyer’s use case or a dashboard that instantly quantifies value or a shareable artifact that helps your champion explain the ROI to their boss.

Those are the product-led mechanisms that sell for you while you sleep.

Because people don’t buy just products anymore, they buy internal momentum.

And your product should be the one creating it.

If your product can make someone feel the win before they buy, you’re already halfway to closing them.

AI drop #4 of our AI-Suite.
Let me introduce you to Spark AI.

Write. Re-write. Ask Anything.

This is not just the usual AI writing tool that says "make it more concise"

Built directly into every Pod, Spark AI helps teams create deal-ready content in seconds, without tab-hopping, rewrites, or guesswork.

Our AI doesn’t just write, it understands who you are and who you're writing for, adapting every message to the buyer, persona, and stage of the deal.

↳ Rewrites Pod content for any audience, from CFOs to Champions.
↳ Summarises, translates, and localises content instantly.
↳ 30+ pre-trained prompts for Sales and Success teams
↳ Refines messaging with live buyer context 
↳ Helps handle objections or strengthens ROI messaging in one click.
↳ Keeps tone and quality consistent across every buyer touchpoint.

Spark AI brings the context to make that the AI efficiency meaningful.

From follow-ups to onboarding plans, it helps every team speak with precision, confidence, and intent.

Context built in. Clarity guaranteed.

I speak to 100s of founders and "growth" is what they say they are searching. Few admit they’re addicted to motion instead.

In our early GTM days, I kept mistaking speed for progress.

We were testing every channel, hiring faster than our process could handle, rewriting the strategy too regularly.

Slack looked alive. The dashboards were busy. But we weren’t actually taking big steps forward; just sideways, very quickly.

Here’s what I eventually learned:

- Most GTM problems are focus problems wearing different clothes.
- Growth isn’t found in “what else can we do?” it’s in “what can we stop doing?”
- A bloated strategy doc usually signals insecurity, not ambition.
- The best teams don’t chase motion; they compound signal.

When we started cutting; clarity returned.

Deals closed faster. Messaging sharpened. The team felt lighter and more confident.

The sharpest GTMs aren’t the biggest. They’re the most precise.

Collinson

Global travel facilitator, operating airport lounges & experiences, loyalty, customer experience and insurance programmes. Collinson works with 1,400 banks, 90 airlines and 20 hotel groups, and supports 400+ million travellers.

Strategy Consultant

Tech platform providing a holistic approach to recognition, reward and retention for a brand's most important people.

DataHawks

Consultancy helping hospitality and retail clients to maximise and monetise their customer data. DataHawks prepares bespoke reports to identify and profile a brand's most valuable customers and creates CRM-based campaigns to power acquisition, retention and incremental revenue.

Peckish

Hospitality tech platform, helping operators complete stock takes within seconds and automate orders, reducing wastage, increasing profits and ensuring the right stock turn up, on time, every time.

Servo AI

Hospitality tech platform helping multi-site hospitality operators drive service improvements, enhance guest experience and increase revenue using insights from current CCTV infrastructure.

Selbey Anderson

Faculty member for Selbey Labs, part of the Selbey Anderson group, helping SME & enterprise clients make sense of an increasingly complex world with research, foresight and innovation.

Faculty Member

The Big Table Group

Operator of 230+ casual dining restaurants, employing 6,000 people across UK & Ireland, including Las Iguanas, Bella Italia, Banana Tree and Frankie & Benny's. The group continues to create, develop and acquire brands throughout high streets, resorts, shopping centres and concessions.

Strategy Director

Wildfarmed

Vertically integrated regenerative farming, flour and food company, literally writing the book on regen ag, paying each member of the supply chain fairly, and bringing better bread to supermarket shelves, restaurant menus and bakery windows across the country.

Canvas Offices

Rapidly-scaling flexible office provider with design-led, low-waste spaces in London's most vibrant neighbourhoods.

Forty Eight Point One

Challenger creative agency focused on strategy, brand, and digital, working with category-defining brands including Coca Cola, LEON, Fairline Yachts, Diageo, Franco Manca, and Gozney. 

Led strategy, new business, partnership, and client services functions. Exited in August 2022.

Co-Founder & Strategy Director

Commercial + Brand Strategy with Operational Rigour for Food, Drink & Experience businesses.

Enterprise consultancy. Startup advisory.

James Sandrini

This has been hard and manual.

It's been tiring and challenging.

It's involved flooded basement hotel rooms (don't ask), early morning karaoke (I won't tell) and thousands (I counted) of hours spent networking and discussing.

And it's been entirely worth it.

If you're a eComm, retail or CPG founder in Europe - let's talk. 

To those already a part of Venice Founders Network - let's go.

Founder at Venice | Building Europe’s consumer brand network.

18 months ago I came to the realisation that there were plenty of US centric eCommerce communities - But none purpose built for Europe.

The first person I rang was Kasper Brandi Petersen: “How do you meet other founders and keep your finger on the pulse of what's new?”

His reply: “Honestly? It’s a full-time job to keep on top of it. You should facilitate it for us!”

So I set out to build Venice Founders Network - One central point for the European Consumer space.

Today, Venice is 175+ founders & CEOs of Consumer Brands doing €1m+ in ARR. Connecting, problem-solving, and opening doors for each other.

What started as a community, has now become a fully fledged network.
✅ Founders sharing real numbers and strategies in our All Hands calls
✅ IRL events in Amsterdam and London (new cities launching in 2026!)
✅ Expert sessions with people like Tom Gozney and Kevin Indig
✅ 50+ exclusive SAAS partner discounts negotiated for members
✅ A vetted agency list built from founder recommendations 

The most rewarding part is the stuff we don't orchestrate:
📈 1000's of DMs, 1:1 Founder calls and in-person meet-ups
💬 Late-night Slack threads solving supply chain crises
✈️ Even founders flying to different countries to meet up for strategy sessions!

Huge shout out to our early members who believed in this vision, opened up countless doors and made Venice what it is today. Anders Reckendorff, Harry Zalk, Isobel Ridley, Micha Medendorp, Daisy Kelly, Tom Reid, Ruben Peters, Madi A, Tom van der Kolk, Marien Jansen, Julian Osborne to name just a few!

& to James Sandrini, Ash Read and Hope Kelly for putting in the hard yards!

If you know a European Brand founder who should join, send me a DM or tag them in the comments :)

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The Battle

Nick Telson-Sillett

James Sandrini

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The Battle

Nick Telson-Sillett

James Sandrini

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Engagements

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Nick Telson-Sillett's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreNick Telson-Sillett's LinkedIn Performance