I help founders get ready and connect with investors • Seasoned entrepreneur • Building tech startups for 25yrs (zero→£mil ARR, twice)

With 30 years in startups, I now run the Gipity AI Dev Studio: Expert help to launch your MVP in 30 days. www.gipity.com

𝐌𝐲 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲... 👇

1968 BC (Before Computers): Born into analogue world

1982-86: Discovered computers! Vic 20, BBC micro, ICL 2900 mainframe & more

1986-89: Computation degree, UMIST (University of Manchester, Institute of Science & Technology)

1989-99: IT consultant/project manager: Logica, IBM, Reuters, Bankers Trust & Deutsche Bank

1994-97: first side hustle: scuba diving instructor & own London dive school

1996: published first website & first ever disk-mounted website on a UK magazine cover

1999: developer/project manager at 2 early London digital agencies

1999: vision/architect/investor. created first UK under-a-tenner domain name business, Easily

1999: built+launched early/successful dot-com: domain/email/web hosting ISP

1999-2001: ceo. managed growth from 0 to 2,000 daily domain sales & 30+ staff in under 2yrs

2000: invented the web-based DNS dashboard for domains

2000: created early no-code solution for one-page websites: £100k ARR

2000: highly commended "Entrepreneur of the Year": European E-commerce Association E-business 2000 awards

2001: 64th in Sunday Times "Top 100 pre-IPO e-businesses in Europe" E-League

2001: ran one of the first successful web affiliate schemes, generating 40% of rev

2004: hit 400,000+ domain registrations, 30,000+ websites & 40,000+ email accounts

2004: 3,500 commission earning affiliates & word of mouth to 100,000+ customers

2004: negotiated successful multi-million pound dot-com exit/sale of Easily

2002: vision/investor. launched one of the first ever B2B mobile text marketing services: SMS Expert

2007-11: early digital nomad: B2B Saas startup from beach/desert

2007-19: ceo. ran leading text marketing B2B Saas: zero to multi-million turnover

2007-19: cto/architect. developed 850k lines of code & supported 1mil daily transactions/API calls

2020... consultancy/advice/support for early-stage tech startup founders

2022... helping hand-picked founders find the right investors

• 2018: vision/architect/investor/cto...
Clickacall: instant video calls from anywhere with single click
Nearevo: proximity discovery for internet of things
Scan+Click: contactless business cards
Secly: personal online security

• 2021 l2o: supporting next generation of startups
• 2022 Venture Cards: all startups, in one place • connecting the right founders and investors

• 2024 The Gipity AI Dev Studio: Expert help to launch your MVP in 30 days

Steve Procter

After 30 years in startups, with the last 5 helping other founders, I've realised there are other more established businesses out there. Who knew! Apparently, some even have actual budgets to get stuff done 🤣

So, as much as I love founders, it's time to spread my wings and help build apps, tools, AI agents and lots more useful stuff for all these other exciting companies and business people. (founders still very welcome, obvs)

And of course, doing it all using my new found love of AI-assisted development for speed and power. Plus 44 years of coding and engineering experience to guide things along the way.

A year ago, tech cost the earth to create, and developers would take 3-6 months to give you something basic. But with AI, the world has moved on.

What kind of app, internal tool or AI agent could you use today to save a tonne of time and money in your business?

DM, or comment below. I'll provide a free evaluation to get things started.

I’ll build your AI agents & apps | 44yrs in tech | Exited founder (0→£mil * 2)

"Code" is sooooo old fashioned. I've got an old web app I built 10 years ago. just got 1 client who uses it these days. I only think about it for 10 mins every year when I send him an invoice.

A server update created a bug today. I had to go into the code and debug. It was really, really weird - not seen this code in over 5 years.

It felt like walking through a museum.

Did people really used to write this weird language called "code" to make their computers do things in the olden days.

Startup ideas that are too early are brutal. I've been there several times and got the t-shirt. Quite literally, as back in the noughties, printing t-shirts and business cards, and paying for fancy logo designs before you'd even launched was just what you did.

But I'd never put a founder off trying if you have a mad idea in your head.

Because very often, nobody really knows. After 30 years in startups, I've realised that timing is just plain weird.

Something can appear in the zeitgeist on a random Tuesday that wasn't there last week, and will be gone again if you don't launch for another 3 months.

The difference now is you don't need permission, investment, or 6-12 months to build and test it.

It has never been cheaper or faster to build a small, real app and put it in front of people.

Don't overthink it. Cut it down. Ship something real. Then let the market slap you (gently) across the face and tell you what it thinks.

Your gut matters. But the market is the only judge that counts.

If you're sitting on an idea right now, stop polishing it and let's get the first real version built and launched.

You never know.

I heard a very powerful line yesterday, by Olivia Moore at a16z:

"Humans Are for Ideas, AI Is for Execution"

As long as we, as individuals and societies, hold to this belief, then we will continue to have purpose.

The moment we start letting AI take control of the creative juices, it's game over.

Pure chat-based GPT usage in businesses will begin a steady drop. AI agents are where it's at - always on, always working for you, 24/7. Not just politely responding if you ask it stuff, otherwise sitting silently in the corner.

What are AI Agents and Automations? To answer, let me ask you a question:

If you are a business owner, consultant, operator or founder, what's one recurring job you'd like taken off your plate?

Something repetitive, annoying, time-consuming, easy to get wrong, or just plain old boring.

• Not "run my whole business".
• Not "take over my entire marketing outreach".
• Not "do everything".

One thing.

If you claim to love every single task you do (really?), ask a colleague or your assistant. I bet there is something.

That "something" is the best way to understand what an Automation is:

It's simply a workflow that you already have in your business, and currently driven by a human. You know the steps or can easily define them, and you have instructions, a system, and a set of tools that execute them.

And that's what we can automate using technology, removing or hugely reducing the need for that human involvement at every time-consuming step. By the way, these tech-driven automations often don't require AI.

An AI Agent on the other hand, takes your automation and does a lot more. It can execute your workflow with its own judgement. Driven by AI means you can give it an objective, let it figure out the steps (within constraints), use tools, and adapt when things change.

Neither are magic robots. They're just tools (AI-powered or not) that can sit in the cloud, connect to the right systems (docs, email, calendars, call transcripts, your CRM or other internal systems, or whatever), and take over the mundane in your business.

A few years ago, they were out of reach of many small businesses. But with AI-assisted development, experienced builders can now create these at a much lower cost and faster than ever before.

For now, it is likely they will still be overseen by a human supervisor. But think of the hours saved every single week, and imagine what you or your team could do with that time back.

Yes, you can make AI a grand vision. But in the real world you and your business occupy, it often starts with one annoying task that quietly drains your time and energy.

Tell me the task you want to get rid of, and I'll tell you if it's actually a good candidate for tech automations and AI agents.

Richard F. Purcell

Build better businesses by taking action on lifetime value

Richard Purcell's Leadership Purpose:

"Build and maintain meaningful, long-lasting relationships that help individuals live up to their full potential."

+++

In 2014 Richard Purcell came to Silicon Valley from North Carolina to follow the 21st-century gold rush with nothing but his car and his clothes. 

Richard has turned his experience leading GTM at venture-backed SaaS startups into systematic processes to scale efficient growth.

His creative approach to sales & marketing has closed new business with Fortune 500 companies and some of the most valuable private companies in the world: AXA, Expedia, Square, Comcast, Verizon, WeWork, Priceline, Air Canada, RingCentral, Airbnb, Bally's, Live Nation, Affinity Gaming, and more.

Founder

"Superior sales and distribution by itself can create a monopoly, even with no product differentiation. The converse is not true." 
- Zero to One

Just as your product is constantly tested and updated, your distribution strategies should too.

Go-To-Market (GTM) tactics aren't meant to last forever. GTM has evolved from “dialing for dollars” off of printed spreadsheets to the automated personalization we see today.

The democratization of knowledge, channel over-saturation, and the rise of automation inevitably depreciates even the best strategies.

Most companies struggle to objectively test, validate, and scale GTM experiments due to the lack of creativity and unnecessary complexity.

Think about the resources needed for experimentation:

1. Marketer for crafting messages

2. Sales engineer for testing against a control group using objective success criteria

3. SDR for outbound efforts

4. New tools to facilitate campaigns

5. Sales Ops to put all the pieces together

For more mature companies, redirecting these resources from core functions poses uncertain risks many aren't willing to take. 

For less mature companies, these resources are sparse.

It's time for a new era of GTM.

GTM 3.0

If you're seeing depreciating performance in your Go To Market tactics or if you're not sure if you're ready to scale, we are here to help.

🚀 We help you know when & how to scale by objectively measuring Product-Market fit as a spectrum

🚀 We manage unconventional GTM experiments from end-to-end through strategy, messaging, technologies, outbound efforts, and measurement.

Sign up for the weekly newsletter to get step-by-step instructions on how to run unconventional experiments that will supercharge your GTM.

https://moxiegtm.substack.com/

7 months ago, I wrote about Kade Hinkle, an 18-year-old SDR at Common Room who went from 4,000 to 4,500 followers in a week and pulled 350k impressions in 7 days. My paper napkin math projected a 9X ROI on his salary.

Time for an update.



Kade just crossed 10,000 followers. His 6-month impression count from Sep 2025 to Mar 2026: 2,871,608. That's nearly 3 million eyeballs (or 6 million eyeballs if you use Kade's math 🤠 ).

That's ~478,000 impressions per month. 

The average LinkedIn user with 5-10k followers gets maybe 10-20k/month. 

Kade is doing 25-50X that. At 19 years old, with no degree, and outperforming people who've been in B2B sales for a decade (like me!).

So what's the business impact?

I asked Kade if he could attribute any revenue (or pipeline) to his brand. 

His answer: "It's too hard to track that sorta thing 🥲"

Nobody can fully attribute a personal brand to pipeline in 2026. LinkedIn is hoarding the engagement data and recently restricted API access for third-party tools. 

So we're back to paper napkin math.



💲 The funnel (using industry benchmarks):

--> 2,871,608 impressions 
--> × 0.05% visit website 
= 1,436 website visits

--> × 5% convert to trial 
= 72 trials

--> × 15% close rate 
= ~11 deals 

--> × $15k ACV 
= ~$160k revenue (6 months)

.....ROI on his $37.5k in comp: 4.3X

But 4.3X is the conservative floor. 



The napkin doesn't capture:

---Dark social (people Google "Common Room" weeks after seeing a Kade post) 

---Outbound reply rate lift (prospects already know his name before the first DM) 

---Rapid message testing (100k+ people in 48 hours = free A/B tests on hooks, offers, and pain points. Posts that pop become outbound messaging. Posts that flop get killed before they hit a sequence.)


And here's another way to think about it: buying 2.87M LinkedIn impressions at $10-$20 CPM would cost $30k-$57k. 

Kade's organic reach nearly covers his entire salary in ad-equivalent value alone, before you count a single deal.


Factor in dark social, outbound lift, and message testing, and the real ROI is probably closer to the original 9X estimate.



Full breakdown with benchmark sources on my Substack (click link in my profile header to subscribe).

👨‍🔬 Richard F. Purcell

Five companies from Zero to One (4 exits) | Scale GTM systems w/o scaling headcount & tech stack

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