Matt Jonns

Investing in, and building, tech companies with non-technical founders | Founder and CEO @ Founder + Lightning

I build and back ambitious ventures - with product, capital, and talent.

It started with helping to digitise my family’s business 15 years ago. Since then, I’ve worked with 40+ startups to turn ideas into companies - raising millions and launching dozens of products along the way.

That journey led to Founder + Lightning and now The Lightning Group - a group of connected services that help startups, scale-ups, and corporates move faster and smarter.

What we do: 

• Strategy and product development that gets you to launch and beyond 
• Access to capital and investor networks
• High-performing, flexible talent (onshore + offshore)
• Designing and building venture studios 

If you’re looking to raise, launch, or scale - or you’re just figuring out where to start - feel free to reach out.

https://www.founderandlightning.com


Founder & CEO

(Formerly ucreate.it)

We partner with ambitious, Non-tech Founders and equip them with the team, tools, expertise and scale to build highly successful technology companies

100+ team - 25 portfolio companies - £100 million + valuation - £30 million + raised 

Our offices are in London, Cardiff, Chandigarh and Kraków

Startups don’t die because the idea is bad. 

They die because the founders run out of energy.

I’ve seen it too many times.

Smart team, real problem, good product… but the founders are burnt out. Physically, emotionally, mentally done.

And once that happens, it’s hard to come back.
Momentum fades. Decisions slow down. Doubt creeps in.

It’s easy to forget that energy is a resource. You can’t run at 110% forever - not without a cost.

The founders who last are the ones who learn to pace themselves. Not lazy. Just smart about when to push and when to protect the engine.

No one talks about this early on. But staying in the game is often the difference between success and “almost”.

Venture Studio Founder & Startup Investor.

If you’ve spent all weekend thinking about one difficult decision, you’re probably a founder.

Most people switch off on a Saturday. 

Founders rehearse difficult conversations in their head.

Just don’t forget - you’re not the only one carrying that weight !

Support for founders isn’t just funding.

It’s belief when the numbers still look bad.

I’ve seen it first hand over the years… Those early months when revenue is thin, confidence wobbles, and everything feels fragile.

The support that matters most rarely comes as a big cheque.

It’s someone saying, quietly, “You’re not mad. This is hard.” Or making an intro at the exact moment it’s needed. Or sticking around when the metrics aren’t pretty yet.

Sometimes it’s an early team member who takes a risk on you.

Sometimes it’s a first angel who backs the person before the business.

Sometimes it’s a customer who gives honest feedback and a bit of patience while you figure things out.

That kind of support doesn’t show up in pitch decks or press releases. But it’s often the reason a company survives long enough to find its feet.

Belief compounds just as much as capital.

Who was the first person that really backed you as a founder?

You can’t outsource conviction.

You can hire salespeople. Bring in advisors. Get warm intros and polished decks.

But if you’re not the one who believes (deeply !) it shows.

I’ve seen founders try to delegate the hard conversations early on. Pitching investors. Closing customers. Delivering tough news.

It never lands the same.

Because early on, people aren’t buying the product. They’re buying the energy. The clarity. The sense that you see something they don’t yet.

That can’t be faked. And it can’t be handed off.

You have to carry it - especially when the numbers aren’t there yet.

That’s what earns belief.

Over the last decade I’ve spent most of my time working with early-stage founders.

When you sit close to companies at that stage you see a lot. 

- The pressure founders carry.
- The decisions they have to make with incomplete information.
- The persistence it takes to keep going when things aren’t obvious yet.

Every so often you come across founders quietly building very solid businesses in industries most people aren’t paying much attention to.

Operationally strong, capital efficient, and often in industries that VC’s tend to overlook. 

Those are the types of companies we now spend most of our time investing in and building. 

They’re businesses that already have real revenue and customers, but where better technology - and increasingly AI - can unlock a very different level of growth and create substantial upside for the founders and investors. 

If you’re an investor interested in that type of opportunity, or a founder building a business that fits that description, please get in touch.

Every founder has a make-or-break moment.

It’s rarely dramatic.

More often it’s a quiet fork in the road where things could easily have gone the other way.
Most founders don’t realise when they’re in that moment. It usually just feels like a bad week.

A few famous examples:

Airbnb (2008)
The founders were weeks from shutting down. Investors kept saying no.

So they designed novelty cereal boxes - Obama O’s and Cap’n McCain - and sold them online for $40 each just to stay alive.

It raised about $30k. Not life-changing money.
But it bought enough runway to get into Y Combinator.

Without that strange survival move, Airbnb probably dies in 2008.

FedEx (1973)
The company had about $5,000 left.

They needed $24,000 just to buy fuel so planes could fly the following week.

Founder Frederick W. Smith flew to Las Vegas.
He played blackjack all weekend.

He came back with roughly $27,000 - enough to keep the company alive long enough to raise more capital.

Instagram (2010)
It started as a complicated check-in app called Burbn.

But the founders noticed something in the data:
Users ignored almost everything except the photo feature.

So they deleted most of the product and rebuilt the app around fast, simple photo sharing.

That ruthless simplification created Instagram.

Netflix (late 2000s)
Netflix was still a thriving DVD-by-mail business.

Streaming looked risky and barely worked.

But leadership could see where the world was going. So they invested heavily in streaming - even though it meant slowly undermining their own DVD model.

For years the two ran side by side. That decision reshaped the company.


Closer to home, I’ve seen founders:

- Narrow their ICP when growth was finally starting to work
- Turn down a big contract because it would take them off strategy
- Delay hiring and do the work themselves for another year
- Pause growth to rebuild the product properly
- Focus on one thing that worked instead of ten things that might

None of those decisions look heroic at the time.

They just look like slowing down when everyone else is speeding up.

But they quietly change the trajectory of the company.

If you’ve built a company, you probably know the moment I’m talking about.

What was yours?

Doing anything is hard. So you may as well make it a big thing.

Starting something from scratch takes energy - whether it’s a tiny side project or a business with real ambition.

You’ll still have to figure it out. You’ll still hit resistance. You’ll still be up late thinking about it.

So if you’re going to put in the work… 

Make it count. Make it something that stretches you.

Something you’ll still care about when it gets hard (because it will).

I’ve seen founders play small - and still get overwhelmed. And I’ve seen others go after something ambitious - and find an extra gear because it mattered.

The effort’s coming either way. Might as well aim for something that moves the needle !

How can it still take 2.5 hours to complete a simple task in 2026?

It took me that long to add two people to a British Airways flight recently..

Multiple logins. Error messages. Dead ends.

We talk about AI, automation, transformation. Yet basic workflows in major organisations are still painful.

The bar has moved. Customers expect simplicity. Not friction.

The companies that win won’t just “add AI”.
They’ll simplify the entire journey.

It’s easy to give advice when you’ve never had to make payroll.

Of course, there are some brilliant investors who’ve never built a company.

But there are plenty who give advice that sounds perfect in theory… but doesn’t survive contact with reality.

It’s easy to spot problems from the outside.

Harder to let someone go when you hired them yourself.

Harder to launch something that isn’t perfect because the clock’s run out.

Harder to carry the weight of a team relying on you.

Context matters.

If you’ve never been in the arena, it’s easy to underestimate the pressure.

Theory is useful, but scar tissue is much better.

The best teams I’ve seen are slightly too small.

Not comfortable. Not bloated. Just stretched.

When teams get too big too early, things get sloppy. Meetings expand. Ownership blurs. Standards soften.

When the team is lean:
– Decisions get made
– Priorities are clearer
– Waste shows up quickly

It forces discipline.

I’ve seen businesses become more productive after reducing headcount, not increasing it.
Growth doesn’t automatically mean bigger teams.

Sometimes it means tighter ones.

Nothing sharpens the mind like a curveball !

You think you’ve got a plan. Numbers look fine. Team’s aligned.

Then something shifts.

A client pulls out. A deal stalls. Investor pulls out. A key hire doesn’t work. A regulation changes.

And suddenly you’re making decisions under pressure.

Founders grow the most in those moments. Not when things are smooth. But when they’re forced to think clearly, quickly, without perfect information.

You don’t find out how strong your business is when it’s calm. You find out when it bends.

What’s a curveball that forced you to step up?

Sometimes the bad months turn into bad quarters.

And you still have to lead. You still have to show up with clarity.

Make decisions with limited data. Keep the team focused - even when you’re not.

I’ve seen this happen in more businesses than I can count.

Pipeline dries up. A big deal slips. One thing breaks and knocks everything else out of rhythm.

And as the founder, there’s no real hiding. You carry the pressure. You take the calls. You try to stay steady -  even when it feels like you’re losing control.

This is the part of leadership that doesn’t get posted. The bit between the wins. The days when you’re just trying to keep the wheels turning long enough for something to land.

Most companies go through it. The good ones find a way through it.

🎥 Gabriel Isserlis

Unlocking space for creativity: Founder/CEO of Tutti

My expertise lies at the intersection of creativity and technology, which has inspired 
1. Tutti: "AirBnB for creative spaces" (2018-2025)
2. SuperScout: "Your personal database of locations, supercharged with AI" (2024- )

(Side note: I won't accept connection requests unless you give me a compelling reason, or I've met you in person)

With degrees in film making and software development, as well as a decade of work in music, theatre, and photography, and years building tech startups, I have a unique set of insights. 

These have inspired creative technical solutions to problems I have experienced first hand in the creative industries, one of the fastest growing sectors that is already worth more than $3tr to humanity. 

Follow Tutti & SuperScout to see those ideas become a reality

www.tutti.space - www.superscout.ai

Follow me here to get honest stories, insights, and thoughts about the highs, lows, and in-betweens of building a startup: 

- It's not an easy or quick journey, but it's a bloody rewarding one. 

- You can't do it alone. If you think you can, you're kidding yourself. 

- You don't know what you don't know - you'll always be learning things you never knew you needed to know.

- Everything is about relationships. Start building them early and often. You never know who might be able to help you. 


Lastly, this is me behind the companies and experience: 
I love to: 
- Invent solutions
- Design product (UX - I'm great at functional, not so good at pretty)
- Support other founders (it's a bloody difficult journey)
- Inspire others
- Dream up & build the future!

I've never been more excited for the future of my company, and I've been building for many years! 

💸  Today we have more cash in the bank than at any point in the last 2 years! 
😇  We've just had 3 more customers invest because they loved the product so much as a client, they had to back us as investors too!
🤩 Tomorrow we have a call with a massively famous film location that got told 3 times in 48 hours that they should check us out! 

👀  Major clients in the industry are getting seriously blown away by our tech. 
😮  We're working on features literally never seen before in this industry (that will make a lot of people want to be part of the SuperScout network)
🎉  And importantly, our recurring revenue is growing! 

Talking of major clients, here's one to shout about: English Heritage has recently joined us! 

Below is a sneak peak of their SuperScout powered database, that we'll be launching soon!

Thank you for the ever ongoing support Dharmil Trivedi Alan Jay Bhaskar Zala Vidhi Bhatt Joseph Ferreira Campos Oliver Laurenson-Gore Alex Brooks Richard Williams-Bulkeley Gary Kinch Ruth Bryant Pippa Cawdron Dan Douglas Christina Pascoe and so many more its impossible to tag here!

Follow me if you want to be notified when that launches!

Empowering filmmakers with radically better software (SuperScout); Dad, Founder, Mentor, Cat Dad

I'm thrilled to share that Dharmil Trivedi has officially become co-founder of SuperScout. 

Honestly, from an internal perspective he's been a co-founder since SuperScout's inception. He built the initial prototype we took to Berlin Film Festival, and has been the mastermind of the tech since then. 

While I come up with the ideas of what to build and which product features to add, Dharmil is brilliant at turning my ideas into reality. 

I love working with Dharmil. We've been working together almost 6 years now and I've seen him step up and up into every single challenge I've thrown at him. 

And he is as dedicated to making SuperScout a success as I am (which is saying something). 

As I said, internally, he's been fulfilling the role of co-founder for years but as we're entering the most exciting period of the company yet, I just wanted to make it official publicly. 

We have some very exciting new partners coming on board right now and the future is looking very bright. 

Here's to the future Dharmil Trivedi!

I received a wonderful email this week from a location manager in Spain! 

"I just discovered SuperScout & I honestly think it's the best tool of its kind that I've come across"

"I mainly wanted to write to congratulate you, as it really feels like a tool finally built by people who truly understand what is needed" 

This made me grin from ear to ear! 

While I ask people for critical feedback all the time, it is also wonderful to hear stuff like this! Means we're really on the right track!

Dealing with the emotions of founder life is bloody hard, but I'm now realising it's so much harder as a founder dad. 

Founder life really is an emotional rollercoaster. I heard this from other founders including Nick Telson-Sillett and Dan Murray when I was getting started. 

But I also experienced it early on: 
  📈 From closing big sales to losing big sales hours apart. 

  ™️ To almost getting a trademark but then being blocked by pre-Musk Twitter at the 11th hour (a story for another time). 

  💸 To closing my first big fundraise after months of work, and then the reality hitting me hours later that I had received hard-earned money from friends, family, and supporters around the world and that I needed to put it to good use, and that's when the real work had to start. 


So as a founder, I do my best to keep my emotions as level as possible for my team. Yes I try to celebrate the wins, but I don't go over the top for them because the higher I go the harder I fall. And I don't want my team to experience the rollercoaster that's inside me almost every day. 

But now, as a work at home dad, this is even tougher. My team and I are not on call 24/7. But I am around my son basically 24/7. I work from home most of the time. I travel with my wife and my son, so my wife can work. Since my son was born 13+ months ago, we've never been apart for more than 8 hours. 

The highs in the emotional rollercoaster are fine. He doesn't understand why I'm happy but he's happy that I am. It's the lows that are tough. Sometimes I lose a sale. Or have a particularly tough conversation. And then right after, it's my wife's time to work and my time to go on dad duty. 

I do my best to shield him from my negative emotion. And yet, I often need to process why I'm feeling the low. So I have to project this sense of joyfulness to him while also trying to process the negativity inside, and telling myself I can find time to process later once he's gone to bed (never works...) 

Fortunately my wife is amazing and helps me massively in all this - she's my biggest supporter and every time I have a low she reminds me how much I've achieved! 

But it's still a bloody tough balance, and I imagine only going to get tougher as my son understands more and more! Anyone else experience this? Got any tips? 

(I know this isn't exclusive to founders but I feel like it's amplified with the founder emotion rollercoaster) 

Photo of me dealing with the emotions of 8+ hours of trains in a day last week...

One way we've caught some attention in our industry, is speed! 

Speed of communication
& Speed of development 

Our customers are used to updates happening once a year and customer service being over email and taking days if not weeks to get a response. 


That's not how we do things!!!
 
If they're happy with it, I ask customers to message me over whatsapp - I just find it so much faster for quick asks & questions. 

And I try to get everyone to tell me when they're having frustrations with SuperScout: If something doesn't work how they want or expect; or if they expect it to do something it doesn't. 

And when possible we build small things fast. In this age of AI I don't just take feedback and assign to my team... I build what I can myself (and my team check my work haha) 


Yesterday I got a feature request from Pippa Cawdron: can we have the the M25 ringroad around London in SuperScout as a boundary that everyone can access?

Last night after my day of meetings was done, I worked with Claude Code to build a boundary of that (couldn't find off the shelf data in the right format). 

Then I used Cursor to implement it into our existing code base. 

This morning, my team pushed it with a load of other updates. And what was an idea yesterday, was a fully functioning feature today. 

Our customers have time and again said how they're loving the speed we operate at. As our processes improve, we're only going to speed up!!!

I'm thrilled to be building a company slap bang in the middle of this awesome industry. 

We have so many exciting developments in the works and to hear last year was the biggest year ever (as an industry) makes me so excited for the future.

In case you hadn't heard, the British Film Institute (BFI) revealed a £6.8 billion film and high-end TV production spend in the UK in 2025!

💥 High-end TV accounted for the majority of spend, contributing £4 billion (59%), up 17% on 2024

💥 Feature film production delivered £2.8 billion (41%), up 31% on 2024 - the highest annual spend on record

💥 Inward investment films and HETV combined generated £5.8 billion, representing 85% of total production spend and reinforcing the UK’s global reputation as a world-leading centre for international film and TV production

There continues to be strong international confidence in the UK screen industries, and we're proud to be a part of it alongside our national and regional partners 🤝

📸 Universal

British Film Commission

#filmandtv #ukfilm

I'm proud to announce that I've earned my most important title ever: "Mama" 

Before this week my son, when genuinely upset, always called out and reached out to my wife, saying "Mama!" 

Now I seem to have earned the title too in his mind. He's started reaching out for me saying "Mama!" even sometimes when he's in my wife's arms. 

Pretty proud of this achievement :) 

Next challenge: to have the same connection, but known as Dada!

Love it when a new feature leads to value within 24 hours! 

We built in a powerful new system on SuperScout where users can share locations between accounts in bulk, and updates automatically sync between accounts.

This is applicable in all sorts of ways: 
- Any film office can share all or some of their locations with any other partner film office.
- Any company with a portfolio of locations can easily share a few options with relevant film offices across our network. 
- Individual location managers and scouts who are working together on a project can temporarily share a few relevant options directly into the leading location manages account for a project. 

We launched the latest part of that tech yesterday. 

I set up the first proper share from English Heritage - Christina, sharing to Essex Film Office - Gary last night at 10pm. This morning, Gary received an email enquiring about one of the EH properties for a shoot! 

That's a pretty awesome turnaround time. 

And this is barely scratching the surface of the power of this feature set. This system will unlock so many incredible capabilities that will save our users so much time. Can't wait to share what's next.

🏛️ George Devey designed the house to look like it evolved over centuries, not built all at once; red brick base, half-timbered upper floors - more informal English country house, not stately home.

Ascott House and Gardens is a 4,400-acre Rothschild estate near Leighton Buzzard, given to the National Trust in 1947:

🎨 The ground-floor rooms showcase artwork from Gainsborough, Reynolds, Stubbs, in addition to Chinese ceramics dating to Han Dynasty 
🏗️ 3,500 acres of working farmland, 290 acres of woodland & 78 kilometres of hedgerows 
🏏 A First-class cricket pitch with Victorian pavilion dating back to the early 1900’s
🚛 Large areas for unit bases and temporary film lots (subject to planning) 
🚗 Private roads throughout the estate 
📺 Perfect for period dramas, contemporary rural stories & sports films.

The 30-acre gardens include a topiary sundial made entirely from box and yew. Interior features include trompe-l'oeil dining room walls and hand-stencilled wallpaper in the hall. The estate's 78 kilometers of hedgerows, 290 acres of woodland, and private roads provide infrastructure for base camps, multiple units, and extended schedules across varied terrain.

Get in touch with Buckinghamshire Film Office to learn more about shooting here. https://lnkd.in/ezSubQNP 

#FilmLocation #PeriodDrama #Buckinghamshire #UKFilming #LocationScouting #CountryEstate #HeritageLocation #ProductionLife

🏛️ Rafael Viñoly turned the traditional white cube gallery inside-out. This golden crescent houses a 2,000-year-old Roman mosaic and won Museum of the Year 2021.

This location in Colchester was designed by Rafael Viñoly:

✨ TECU Gold cladding applied by hand (copper-aluminum alloy)
🎬 3,200 square meters of curved gallery spaces
🎥 180-seat tiered cinema with 6-meter screen
📺 Works for contemporary settings, sci-fi, architectural features, exhibition/museum scenes

The concrete raft foundation sits on protected archaeological land with a no-dig policy preserving Roman remains beneath. The mosaic from AD 200 was unearthed here in 1923, and a first-century Roman wall is visible from the galleries. The 140-meter curved wall was clad by a team of 20 plumbers working by hand. Located fifty minutes from London Liverpool Street.

Get in touch with Essex Film Office ( Gary Kinch ) to learn more about shooting here. https://lnkd.in/ew9N5iwh 

#FilmLocation #ContemporaryArchitecture #Essex #UKFilming

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