Services that support and empower entrepreneurial ecosystems.
After working for several years as a startup operations lead and experiencing the fast-paced environment at three different accelerators (🗝️ Entrepreneur First, 🚆 The HackTrain and 🐅 The Family), Maxx Turing joined the ➕ NEF Programme as a part-time founder participant in late 2019 to work on developing his own business idea, whilst also working full time in a Founder Associate placement role at tech startup 🏠 Kantan.
During his time on the programme, Maxx ideated through several different opportunities and settled on leaning into his experience working with hundreds of founders over the years to launch a B2C community, ⛺ Founder Tribe, which provided diverse founders with the tools, events and workshops they needed to help them stay accountable and succeed. He also negotiated 20+ partnership agreements with leading startup software and service suppliers in order to provide startup deals, discounts and offers to his growing founder community.
In March 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic and resultant lockdown caused Maxx to reassess his initial community and events-based focus and instead pivot the business model and go-to-market offering to a B2B SaaS solution for entrepreneurial ecosystems. He built and utilised a no-code MVP (🛹) for the entrepreneurship programme he was taking part in, which resulted in the most successful set of NEF Pitch Days since the programme's inception; upon completing the programme Maxx was awarded the 🏅 CEO's Award by Neeta Patel CBE for his entrepreneurial leadership skills.
Soon after finishing the programme Maxx entered a startup competition in summer 2020, pitched his business idea to a panel of judges and won a £20,000 🏆 CVC Young Innovator Award to help launch the business and make it a reality. After winning the grant money, Maxx incorporated FOUNDER TRIBE LTD in July 2020 and used the funds to contract a software engineering consultancy to build the product's first coded MVP (🛴).
After the two-month MVP build was completed, Maxx left his day job and went full time on the business in October 2020 to focus on finalising the Alpha app (🚲). In order to sustainably fund growth and make up for the expected limited initial SaaS revenue, the business also began offering services, taking on clients such as 🔸 The Centre for Entrepreneurs, ⬡ CyLon and 🔳 TownSq Islington, as opposed to raising capital or other sources of finance.
With a steady base of revenue, Maxx was able to onboard SaaS clients such as 🏫 Imperial College London, 🏛️ UCL and 💂 London Demo Day. A lot of hard work and determination resulted in a 100% YOY revenue growth - sales doubling from year 1 to year 2 - which allowed for reinvestment of profits into the development of a refreshed Beta app (🚗) and rebrand to ⚡ Startbook, which were both completed in summer 2022.
The business continues to go from strength to strength with new clients onboarding and more in the growing sales pipeline. As a solo founder, Maxx has built the business up to a six-figure turnover, supported by a talented team of part-time contractors who have helped make Startbook into what it is today.