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Featured

Before You Try to Raise Money, Read This

Fundraising is one of the most misunderstood parts of building a startup. At our Open Mic Pitch Night, Jamie broke down what founders consistently get wrong and what investors actually want to see. These are the practical lessons founders in the room walked away with.

Mar 4, 2026

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11 min read

Vasily Alekseenko

Fundraising

How to Herd Investors Into a Close

Most founders ask investors for money too soon and kill the deal. My friend Chris Howard shared his "Snail Strategy" with me, a method he used to raise over $100M by spiraling from advice to commitment. Here is the exact 6-step process to close your round without appearing desperate.

Jan 7, 2026

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10 min read

Vasily Alekseenko

Chris Howard Series

Latest Post

The Only Moat AI Can't Copy

Product moats have a shelf life measured in quarters. Technology moats decay in weeks. Data moats aren't real if the data doesn't compound. What survives in an AI-native market is the one thing money and models can't parallelise - the distribution you spent years earning. Here's what US investors are actually underwriting now, and why the European founder gap on this is bigger than most people realise.

Jul 15, 2026

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7 min read

Vasily Alekseenko

Scaling

Join Rare Founders on Our Journey

Rare Founders is raising a £250K SEIS round to launch a data-driven social graph that helps founders and investors build stronger, more intentional relationships. Early investors have a chance to join before the round closes.

Mar 12, 2026

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8 min read

Vasily Alekseenko

Behind the scenes

The Reason I Can’t Sleep

AI agents are moving from hype to real operational impact, and founders who ignore this shift risk falling behind. In this personal reflection, I share my early experiments with OpenClaw, the uncomfortable realisation about automation, and why learning to work with AI agents is quickly becoming a survival skill for modern startups.

Mar 11, 2026

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9 min read

Vasily Alekseenko

Behind the scenes

The Only Moat AI Can't Copy

Jul 15, 2026

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7 min read

Vasily Alekseenko

Scaling

The Company Shape That's About to Disappear

I've been in San Francisco for two weeks and I'm leaving with an uncomfortable question about the shape of the company I'm building. YC is reporting numbers from inside the ecosystem that suggest the whole 200-to-500 person startup - the one every European founder is still optimising to become - is about to become the worst place to be. Here's what I'm seeing on the ground, why the middle is breaking, and what it means for founders reading this from London.

Jul 9, 2026

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8 min read

Vasily Alekseenko

Fundraising

The Company Shape That's About to Disappear

SF Will Chew You Up

I've spent the last week in San Francisco, and it's changed how I think about running a business in London. Most European founders don't know how to work hard, and the data backs it up - the funding gap, the hours gap, the cultural gap, all of it points the same way. Here's what SF showed me up close, and why I'm coming home with less guilt about the grind.

Jul 1, 2026

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8 min read

Vasily Alekseenko

Founder stories

The AI Bill Is About to Land on Your Desk

Most founders are running their entire businesses on AI subscriptions that look like the bargain of the century. They aren't. Between a class action against Anthropic, Tim Cook's "hundred-year flood" warning, and trillion-dollar AI IPOs landing this year, the real cost of AI is about to surface - and the founders tokenmaxxing on borrowed runway are the ones who'll feel it first.

Jun 24, 2026

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7 min read

Vasily Alekseenko

Trends

The AI Bill Is About to Land on Your Desk

Join Us in Leeds: We're Bringing the Open Mic Up North

On 1-2 July we're heading to Leeds for Climb26 - the UK's festival of business growth - and we'd love you there with us. We're hosting our London Meets Leeds Open Mic on the Wednesday evening, alongside 60+ sessions, 2,000 founders and investors, and partners including Meta, Google, NatWest and the British Business Bank. Grab £100 off your ticket through us before prices increase on 30 June.

Jun 21, 2026

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2 min read

Vasily Alekseenko

Join Us in Leeds: We're Bringing the Open Mic Up North

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Read by 8,000+ people. Subscribe for free startup ecosystem news, trends, and learnings + handpicked list of London startup events and webinars for founders and investors.

Featured

Before You Try to Raise Money, Read This

How to Herd Investors Into a Close

Latest Post

The Only Moat AI Can't Copy

Trending

Join Rare Founders on Our Journey

The Reason I Can’t Sleep

Archive

The Only Moat AI Can't Copy

The Company Shape That's About to Disappear

SF Will Chew You Up

The AI Bill Is About to Land on Your Desk

Join Us in Leeds: We're Bringing the Open Mic Up North

Chris Howard Series

Scaling

Trends

Behind the scenes

Founder stories

Fundraising

Upgrade Plans

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