💡 Post-exit learnings from a GenZ founder
Founders Factory Startup Bulletin #11
Welcome to the Founders Factory Startup Bulletin - “Created for founders, by founders”.
Each month, we bring you a round-up of startup and investment stories, key learnings from founders, and insights from the Founders Factory team.
Welcome to the 260 new subscribers who joined us last month! Be part of our 14,697-strong community of founders, investors, and startup enthusiasts—subscribe here:
Timothy Armoo admits he sort of got into entrepreneurship by accident.
His first business came off the back of a bet with his best friend, and a desire to prove him wrong. His second business emerged out of something he loved doing (writing) as opposed to a clearly structured business plan.
Even with his most recent success, Fanbytes, he very nearly missed the application deadline for the Founders Factory accelerator program. His excuse wasn’t too bad—he was finishing his finals at Warwick University that same morning.
Speak to any founder and there’s always an element of unpredictability to their journey. In truth, there’s a lot to learn about being an entrepreneur: some of it you can read in a book, most of it you can’t. But whatever Timothy’s learned along the way about being a founder, it’s clearly worked: at the age of 27, he’s now sold his second business, Fanbytes. He shares some of the most important lessons he learned during his journey.
In this month’s newsletter:
Timothy Armoo, Fanbytes co-founder & CEO: 5 Lessons I’ve Learned
Founder Dilemmas—submit a question to top founders, investors and operators
Our top recommended reads—from unbridled power to the anti-creativity bias
The latest news from our portfolio
Looking to find out more about Web3, crypto, NFTs? Read & subscribe to our other newsletter, ff3, to read about our latest Web3 venture building insights.
💡 Timothy Armoo, Fanbytes co-founder & CEO: 5 Lessons I’ve Learned
At 27, Timothy Armoo has just scaled and sold his business Fanbytes, a social media and influencer marketing agency for GenZ, to global digital agency Brainlabs. He started his first business at 14, and sold his second business at 17. Here’s some of the important lessons he’s learned about entrepreneurship along the way:
1. Your visibility is a superpower
Taking the decision to be ‘visible’ as a founder has seriously played to my strengths and given me a competitive advantage.
Initially, being visible made business sense. In the early days of Fanbytes, we had little to show our clients in terms of previous work, so we had to convince them to invest in us. This meant doing a lot of PR, speaking, and writing, something I quickly found I enjoyed and was good at. Elevating my profile was a way of showing brands what we were capable of.
Subsequently, though, my visibility has been more about being a role model to other founders from similar backgrounds to me. I want to show them that anyone can achieve what I have achieved.
2. Some things are intuitive, most you have to learn
Rule #1 of entrepreneurship: you don’t know what you don’t know. There is so much you need to know about running a business, so many things you wouldn’t even know existed unless you were told them. Ambrose (my co-founder) and I launched Fanbytes when we were at university, and had very little in the way of entrepreneurial knowledge. Joining Founders Factory was our access to this knowledge, from a team of experts many of whom had launched their own ventures. For us, this included:
Fundraising (and pitching)
Product vision & roadmap
Customer acquisition
3. Identify where the value lies in your business—and leverage that
This was actually something I learned at EntrepreneurExpress (my first exited business). I was writing blogs around running a business, interviewing top entrepreneurs. When we were acquired, I thought it was this content they were after. But actually, our value lay in the communities - the Facebook groups - we had built to engage our audience. At Fanbytes, similarly, our value lies in our ability to engage GenZ audiences through the channels they’re native to—TikTok, Instagram, etc. Everyone was still chasing Facebook when we launched.
4. Find co-founders who can be your emotional support
Many people say that you should find founders with complementary skill sets: but being a founder is tough, and everyone has their highs and lows. So find someone you feel is able to be there for you during those tough times, and of course, someone you’re willing to be there for too.
5. Your product doesn’t need to be for everyone
As an entrepreneur, your job is to solve particular problems. To do this, you don’t need to be for everyone—you just need to solve it well for your audience. Fanbytes is a GenZ-first marketing agency: we wanted to help fill a gap that brands needed, and to help create something that’s really valuable to them. Find your niche - and hyper focus - your product cannot possibly appeal to everyone.
Read the full story of Timothy’s founder journey leading up to their recent acquisition
🤔 Founder Dilemmas
“What’s the best balance of funding?”
“Where can I find the best design talent?”
“How do I tell my co-founder I think they’re wrong?”
Every founder has tricky decisions to make. If you have questions that need answering or challenges that need solving, put your dilemmas to our expert panel of top founders, operators and investors. We’ll be answering the best questions every month on Twitter, LinkedIn, over on our blog, and in the monthly newsletter.
Submit your dilemma now to: dilemmas@foundersfactory.co. All dilemmas will remain anonymous.
📚 What we’ve been reading
Power (No Mercy/No Malice) - renowned professor Scott Galloway dives into the implications of unguarded power for founders like Elon Musk
25 tweets on Twitter’s future (Guardian TechScape)
The Invisible Hand’s Visible Swarm (Not Boring) - investor Packy McCormick takes an optimistic view on how the tech community can solve the climate crisis
We have a creativity problem (New York Times) - analysing our worrying implicit bias against innovation
Lessons for building online communities in Web3 (Soaked by Slush) - our CCO Damian Routley shares his experience on why community comes first in Web3
💸 News from the Founders Factory portfolio
Fanbytes, social media and influencer marketing agency for Gen Z, have been acquired by global digital marketing agency Brainlabs
Again, who are building smart cleaning technology for reusable packaging, raised £2.55 million in their pre-seed funding round, led by Eka Ventures
Shop Circle founders Gian Maria Gramondi and Luca Cartechini were named in Forbes 30 Under 30 in the Europe Technology category. Shop Circle acquires and grows e-commerce apps
Kidswear resale platform Dotte launched their crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs. They’re nearly 180% funded, but the campaign runs until May 12th, so it’s not too late to invest
Creator Fund, investing in PhD founders at UK universities, has raised a $20 million fund to invest in deeptech, science-led businesses
Metalchemy crowdfunded over £450k to produce nanotechnology-powered packaging that extends the life of food
NFT studio Eterlast announced their partnership with boxing promoter Frank Warren to launch ‘House of Boxing’, the first officially licensed boxing NFT collection
Tapkit, creative link and microsite tool for sustainable packaging, was acquired by custom packaging company noissue
🗓 Opportunities for founders
Women Who Build (May 19th, 11:30-13:30, London) - a new community we’re building in partnership with firstminute capital, bringing together Europe’s most ambitious women technical leaders. Find out more and register
Investor Showcase (May 26th, 9:00-13:00, London/Hybrid) - a number of our top startups are pitching to 100+ investors in person and online. If you’re an investor interested in attending, complete this form
Join our startup community - many of our portfolio companies are hiring. Check out the full list of positions here
Studio 55 Ventures (applications close May 16th) - ITV’s startup incubator is investing in the next generation of innovative media ventures. Apply here
See you next month 👋
What did you think of this month’s newsletter? Let us know what we can do better.
Excellent | Good | Average | Poor
The Founders Factory Startup Bulletin brings you a round-up of startup and investment stories, key learnings from founders, and insights from the Founders Factory team.