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.

UP AND TO THE RIGHT

Helping more early stage and aspiring founders create and build successful businesses.

Founder

Dream Factory

Making impactful content isn't easy, it takes money, production expertise and time, which isn't something many early-stage businesses have in abundance.

Dream Factory is here to bridge that gap and help founders create groundbreaking content they've always wanted to.

Investor

Jennis

The Jennis app: “personalised daily workouts mapped to the four phases of your menstrual cycle” using our innovative CycleMapping technology. Built in collaboration with top female health experts. Founded by Jess Ennis-Hill.

Move smarter for more good days.

Valarian

Maximum security, Minimum effort.

Worldr secures your Microsoft Teams application with zero trust security in less than three minutes without disruption to your existing deployment. At its core, Worldr's Microsoft Teams solution delivers data sovereignty, security and control over your most sensitive digital assets.

Sama

Sama connects your employees to the best professional coach for them. Our powerful digital platform and proprietary algorithm matches people to the right coach - based on their professional development needs and personal profile.

Kolleno

Kolleno is on a mission to help businesses streamline credit control and collections whilst maintaining positive client relationships. We automate key credit control functions and use intelligent omnichannel communication to recover outstanding payments. 
 
Our custom-built solution is designed to provide you with a 360° view of your receivables, boost your finance team’s productivity and optimise your working capital.

Investor and Advisor

Farewill

We’re a multi-award-winning wills, probate and funerals company, with a mission to change the way the world deals with death. We create beautifully designed and easy to use products - with customers at the heart of everything we do.

Heights

Heights is a BrainCare company
We make products, create content and connect community to care for your brain's health and optimize your human potential.

Clim8 Invest

The app for sustainable investments. Make an impact on climate change with your savings. Capital at risk.

Nomio

Documents Suck. They contain the world's most important information, but most of that information is trapped merely as potential energy.

To unlock it, Nomio has built an engine to transform documents into usable data with 99%+ accuracy (seriously)

Startup know-how for early stage founders.

I have spent the last 20+ years building and running tech and digital services businesses.

I completed my first exit in 2011, and have been an active angel investor and adviser since 2014.  

Here is the story since then:

→ 25 investments

→ Over $1bn in venture capital raised by companies I have invested in

→ Fund returned 2.3x to date, still 90% invested

→ I typically make 2-3 investments a year

→ I prefer to spend a few months getting to know founders before I invest

→ I have advised and given mentoring to hundreds of founders

I am on a mission to help more founders succeed.

I have turned some of the advice I give into products.

They provide early stage founders with tools and advice, helping avoid common mistakes and making it easier to succeed first time.

I see hundreds, if not thousands of pitch decks every year.  

Most of them make it difficult to understand whether the business would be a good investment or not.

Here are some things that might help.

PITCH DECK COURSE

A suite of tools and advice that will get you into the minds of investors.

It will help you craft a compelling story and robust content, step by step that will stand up to investor scrutiny.

GO TO: https://www.u2r.co/ultimate-pitch-deck-course


PITCH DECK REVIEW

If you have a deck and want to get friendly, structured, comprehensive feedback from experienced investors:

GO TO: https://www.u2r.co/pitch-deck-review


1:1 FOUNDER COACHING

If you need help and advice that is a bit more bespoke, you can book in with us for some 1:1 advice.

GO TO: https://www.u2r.co/founder-coaching

taplio

The Battle

Nick Telson-Sillett

Marcus Exall

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taplio

The Battle

Nick Telson-Sillett

Marcus Exall

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

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