AI has made building startups easier and winning harder .
Easier, because you can prototype in days what used to take months. Harder, because the barrier to entry has collapsed, copycats move faster, and the internet is now a 24/7 hype machine that will happily distract you into shipping nothing.
So what actually separates highly successful entrepreneurs in 2026?
When you strip away the noise, the best founders aren’t the ones with the fanciest tools. They’re the ones with the best operating traits — the internal wiring that turns chaos into momentum. That’s exactly the game LettsGroup is built for: founders as operators who need infrastructure, not vibes.
Here are the five traits that matter most, and why they’re perfectly suited to building tomorrow’s great AI-native startups.
Everyone loves the “rocketship” story. Nobody loves the 18-month slog where your CAC doubles, your MVP breaks, and your best engineer gets poached.
Psychologist Angela Duckworth defines grit as perseverance and passion for long-term goals — and shows it predicts real-world outcomes across demanding environments. That’s the founder advantage: staying in the game long enough for the compounding to kick in.
Even modern tech icons say the quiet part out loud. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has repeatedly emphasised resilience as a critical ingredient for success.
In the AI era, grit matters more because the feedback loops are faster — and so are the failures. You’ll run more experiments, which means you’ll also absorb more punches. The founders who win don’t avoid the pain. They metabolise it.
AI can generate features. It can’t generate taste .
Steve Jobs put it bluntly: start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology . That’s still the best product strategy on Earth, especially when “AI-first” temptations push teams to ship clever demos instead of meaningful outcomes.
Jeff Bezos makes the same point in a different language: customer obsession keeps you in “Day 1.”
The AI era rewards founders who are obsessed with:
a specific user pain
a specific workflow
a specific moment where the product feels like magic
Not “we added AI.” More like: we removed friction so aggressively it feels illegal.
AI multiplies options. Focus multiplies results.
Jobs again: focus is “saying no” to a hundred other good ideas. This trait is underrated because it’s not glamorous. But focus is what turns a scattered startup into a sharp one.
In practical terms, focus means:
one ICP you can describe without adjectives
one core metric you’d fight someone for
one wedge product you can actually dominate
In a world where you can spin up ten prototypes in a weekend, the winners are the founders who pick one and ship it relentlessly.
The AI era is an experimentation era. Your job isn’t to be right — it’s to get right faster than everyone else.
Bezos argues that high-velocity decision-making matters, and notes most decisions should be made with ~70% of the information you wish you had. That’s basically the modern startup doctrine: place smart bets, learn, iterate, repeat.
But “risk-taking” doesn’t mean chaos. It means:
reversible decisions (“two-way doors”)
tight experiments with clear pass/fail criteria
fast correction without ego
AI gives you leverage. This trait tells you how to use it without lighting your roadmap on fire.
Your startup is not just a product. It’s a nervous system.
Daniel Goleman’s work in Harvard Business Review argues emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership. Translation: if you can’t manage yourself, you can’t scale a team — especially when things get weird (and they will).
In the AI era, EQ is a competitive advantage because teams are smaller, cycles are tighter, and the emotional load is heavier. Founders with emotional awareness:
hear hard feedback without spiralling
hire better (and keep them)
avoid co-founder cold wars
build cultures that don’t burn out
And yes, research reviews of entrepreneurial success factors consistently surface traits like persistence, innovativeness, and strong personal/behavioural capabilities. EQ is what makes those traits usable with other humans .
The most successful entrepreneurs aren’t superhuman. They’re consistent : gritty enough to last, obsessed enough to care, focused enough to finish, experimental enough to learn, and emotionally intelligent enough to lead.
Or, in Jobs’ words: “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”
In the AI era, those five traits don’t just build startups. They build startups that actually ship.
LettsGroup's AI VentureFactory powers some of the hottest new startups. Start building today at Letts.Group .
Startups don't need more inspiration. They need systems that work under pressure.
For decades, the startup world has operated on a simple premise: great ideas, talented founders, and enough capital will somehow combine into success. But the data tells a different story. Most startups fail not from lack of vision, but from poor execution. They drown in disconnected tools, conflicting advice, and the overwhelming chaos of building something from nothing.
The modern founder faces a paradox: unlimited access to resources, yet paralysed by fragmentation. They're told to move fast and break things, but given no system to do either effectively. They're sold productivity tools that don't talk to each other, frameworks that don't adapt to reality, and advice that lives separately from execution.
This is broken. And it's time for a new category.
Venture building as software isn't an accelerator offering mentorship and a demo day. It's not a venture studio building companies for you. And it's certainly not another project management tool claiming to solve everything.
It's the complete re-engineering of how ventures get built — transforming the entire process from idea validation to scale into a connected, intelligent system that founders actually use in the moment they need it, tying it all together. It's like your personal AI venture team optimised for each stage. It's an end to end operating system for startups like never seen before.
From ideation to building a prototype, developing your positioning and early strategies, validating the market, sizing the opportunity, creating your first website, attracting early customers, raising money, planning with perfection, marketing efficiently, forecasting and so on.
Think of it this way: software transformed how we communicate, how we work, how we learn. But somehow, the process of building a company, one of the most complex, high-stakes endeavours humans undertake, has remained stubbornly analogue, fragmented, and reliant on luck.
LettsGroup is changing that.
Startup building is a process, not magic. Behind every "overnight success" is a series of disciplined decisions, rapid experiments, and systematic learning. The winners aren't the luckiest, they're the ones who learned fastest and executed the cleanest.
Speed without discipline is chaos. Discipline without speed is death. Modern venture building requires both. You need velocity, but not recklessness. Structure, but not rigidity. The future belongs to founders who can move with precision at pace.
Execution beats ideas — every time. The world is full of brilliant ideas that died in PowerPoint. The differentiator isn't what you think; it's what you ship, test, learn, and iterate.
We reject the status quo: fragmented tools that create more work than they solve. Advice divorced from action. Vanity metrics disguised as progress. Hustle culture that burns out founders without building leverage. And the patronising approach of building "for" founders rather than "with" them.
The current system treats founders like children who need guidance. We treat them like operators who need infrastructure.
The future of startups belongs to smaller teams with clearer systems. Faster learning loops. Lower burn rates. Higher conviction. And the teams who win won't just have better ideas — they'll have better execution infrastructure.
They'll operate inside a system where learning is embedded into every action. Where AI accelerates meaningful work instead of generating noise. Where progress is measured in validated learning, not activity theatre. Where every tool, framework, and insight connects into one coherent operating system for venture building.
Not an accelerator. Not a studio. Not another tool collecting dust in your stack.
This is venture building as software — re-engineered for the speed, pressure, and possibility of what comes next. This is the infrastructure layer the startup world has been missing.
And this is just the beginning.
Build your startup faster and smarter with LettsGroup's AI VentureFactory . Get started today!
LettsGroup, the pioneering AI-native venture builder enjoyed a breakout year in 2025. This was the year we proved that startup founders and investors no longer need to accept the costly, chaotic grind of traditional venture building. Instead, with our AI VentureFactory platform and a suite of new core apps, LettsGroup delivered a smarter, faster path from idea to market. The result? A future-forward venture ecosystem where companies build faster, run leaner, and make it BIG – all while having more fun along the way.
2025 saw the full launch of LettsGroup’s AI VentureFactory, a milestone that revolutionised how startups are built. After an extensive internal beta, the platform opened to external founders in June, and its impact was immediate. This AI-native venture-building system slashes startup build costs by up to 90% through Seed stage and dramatically accelerates time-to-market. Early adopters confirmed what we knew from our own ventures: the VentureFactory’s integrated AI “startup team in a box” confers a huge advantage.
Startups on the platform are reaching milestones in record time, and the first six private beta ventures all hit Seed stage with 80–90% lower costs than industry norms. In fact, founders have gone “from idea to market launch in under 12 months for under £200k”, a cycle that used to take years and millions. Key processes that once took weeks or months – writing business plans, building websites, developing prototypes and forecasting – are now done in minutes or days. It’s as if the traditional full-time team has been augmented (or dare we say, partially replaced) by full-time bots, heralding a new startup operating model.
Central to this is Innov@te™, our intelligent startup agent that guides founders through 7 stages, 49 steps and hundreds of sub-steps from idea to exit, generating AI outputs at every step. Instead of juggling 15–20 disjointed tools, founders get one AI-powered venture system covering product development, marketing, operations, financial modelling, and investor readiness. It’s like having an on-demand CTO, CMO, and CFO, all powered by AI, building your startup alongside you. As our CEO Philip Letts quipped, “the AI VentureFactory is the first venture platform that feels truly modern – powerful, flexible, and fast”, moving companies from “zero to IPO” with unprecedented speed.
Crucially, we made this power accessible. Pricing plans start at just £19/month for a solopreneur-friendly Lite plan, ensuring every founder can leverage the same platform that built our own ventures. For growing startups and scale-ups, we rolled out Startup Ultra and Enterprise plans with features like multi-user support, advanced AI tools, and expert “Co-Pilot” coaching. We even introduced a new Investor/Advisor plan so VCs, accelerators, and mentors can plug into the system for due diligence and portfolio support. By democratising and unifying venture building tools that were once the privilege of well-funded teams, LettsGroup’s VentureFactory is leveling the playing field between a couple of folks in a garage and the best-funded Silicon Valley startups. No hype, just real, measurable outcomes: 90% lower build costs and substantially higher success rates for VentureFactory-powered startups.
Another critical part of 2025’s success story was the roll-out of core applications built to turbocharge ventures. These AI-enabled apps, all integrated with the VentureFactory, saw major launches and adoption this year, showcasing LettsGroup’s dynamic, multi-app approach.
Meet Jot, the AI-native diary and personal organiser that became one of 2025’s breakout stars. Jot set out to reimagine one of the oldest consumer products (the diary) for the AI era, and it’s succeeding with flair. After adopting the VentureFactory early on, Jot aimed to be one of the first startups built 100% with AI – and they delivered. The lean Jot team leveraged AI for everything from product development to marketing, collapsing their time-to-market. Jot went from idea to private beta in mere months, and all the way to public launch in just 5 months – a lightning pace that made it the fastest VentureFactory-built startup to date. Upon launching this November, Jot immediately started signing up free and paying customers from day one (helped by a creative “Lola and JotBot” viral marketing campaign).
So what does Jot do? In short, it’s the personal organiser you always dreamed of. Users simply jot down a diary entry, and JotBot, the app’s AI assistant, springs into action. JotBot automatically creates calendar events, tasks, and reminders from your entry, populating them into an integrated calendar and task manager – no more switching between separate journal, calendar, to-do, and contacts apps. By unifying journals and productivity tools, Jot saves time and keeps life organised in one place. Jot launched with an attractive freemium model and affordable subscription plans, so whether you journal a few times a week or keep a rigorous daily log, there’s a plan for you. (Pro tip: Jot’s Max plan runs under £5 a month for power diarists, and all plans were 20% off for the launch promo – an absolute steal for an AI life-assistant!). The momentum is real – Jot’s early success shows how a small startup with a big idea can use AI to punch above its weight, delight consumers, and monetise quickly.
Jot’s “Lola and JotBot” campaign added a fun, human touch to its AI-powered diary app. Jot is more than a cool product – it’s a proof-of-concept for our AI venture model. By doing “EVERYTHING with AI” (as the Jot team proudly says) and focusing on a massive market ripe for innovation, Jot exemplifies the founder-driven, AI-augmented approach LettsGroup champions. Founders and investors alike have taken notice that Jot’s user adoption is entirely organic – achieved with near-zero marketing spend, thanks to viral content and built-in network effects. Keep an eye on Jot as it scales in 2026; it’s not every day you see a centuries-old product (the diary) reborn as an AI app with both mass-market appeal and subscription revenue from the get-go.
Another 2025 highlight was the public beta launch of LettsCore, our groundbreaking AI and blockchain-powered Content Management System. After three years in R&D, LettsCore went live at the end of Q3 and is already performing nicely with thousands of users on board in just a few months. LettsCore addresses a pressing need for digital creators, media companies, and agencies: giving them total control over content ownership, monetisation, and distribution in a way legacy CMS platforms can’t. Every piece of content becomes an autonomous asset in LettsCore – stored with blockchain-backed security, enriched with AI for search and auto-tagging, and tokenized for micro-payments and NFT minting. In other words, LettsCore isn’t just another CMS; it’s a full-blown content operating system for the Web3 era.
This year, the LettsCore team hit key technical milestones: off-chain content storage integrated with Solana blockchain for transparency, AI tools for automated social media content generation, and robust subscription/micropayment infrastructure. By Q4, we saw enterprise interest solidify – our first enterprise client fully rolled out LettsCore, validating the product’s market fit. The story is building as LettsCore positions to capture an emerging market: content-rich businesses seeking decentralised, intelligent alternatives to old-school content management. With new enterprise features in development (advanced analytics, bulk content uploads with AI-generated descriptions and tags, and more.) and a clear first-mover advantage, LettsCore is poised to become a vital new cog in the media-tech landscape. It’s not often you see “blockchain” and “CMS” in the same sentence without an eyebrow raise, but LettsCore made believers out of skeptics in 2025, and we’re excited to scale it further in 2026.
Also in 2025, LettsGroup launched LettsNews, our AI-powered newsroom platform that boldly proclaims: “Newsroom tech for everyone.” In an era when the media is fragmented and independent journalists struggle for resources, LettsNews arrived as a game-changer. Public beta kicked off in late July, and by Q4 we had dozens of news creators and marketers onboard – with a strong percentage converting into paid subscribers for premium features. The appeal is clear: LettsNews gives freelance journalists, content marketers, and small media teams the kind of sophisticated publishing and distribution tools previously reserved for big newsrooms, but at a fraction of the cost. It’s a full-stack digital newsroom: users can capture stories in text, image, audio, or video (even on the go via mobile apps), leverage built-in AI for research and content generation, assemble complete stories in minutes, and auto-distribute them across sites and social channels. Tedious tasks like formatting articles, sourcing images, and scheduling social media posts are handled by smart automation. The result? Up to 10× faster content production and dramatically lower operating costs for independent news organisations and content marketers alike.
And we didn’t stop at launch. Throughout 2025, LettsNews kept innovating. The team introduced an intelligent social promotion system (even integrating Mastodon for decentralised reach), and began building the pièce de résistance: the NewsAgent. Slated for release in January 2026, LettsNews’s AI NewsAgent will function like an entire virtual newsroom team at your disposal – helping writers with everything from story ideation and research to assembling all the content assets (text, images, videos, audio) needed for a story, editing with inline AI assistance, and fact-checking before publishing. It’s an end-to-end generative news AI that could redefine content creation.
Also in the pipeline is the LettsNews Content Store, a marketplace for users to buy and sell news content (think Getty Images meets news), opening new revenue streams for our community. And for larger organisations, LettsNews is rolling out an “Organisation Plan” to let entire news teams run a fully functional, AI-optimised newsroom in-house. In short, LettsNews spent 2025 quietly gearing up to become a universal online news agency for the masses. As independent media continues to rise, we’re proud to be providing the tech backbone to support it.
Looking ahead, one of the most exciting developments is VOICES, a new social platform set to launch in Q1 2026. While not live in 2025, VOICES was brewing behind the scenes all year – and it represents LettsGroup’s forward-looking ethos at its best. VOICES is conceived as a “new town square” for creators, writers, entrepreneurs and innovators. Think of it as a filtered, Web3-friendly social network that values meaningful conversations over noise – a safe space for solopreneurs and thought leaders to share ideas and connect. What makes VOICES especially powerful is that it will be fully integrated with the VentureFactory ecosystem. Core app users and startup founders can seamlessly plug into VOICES to network, collaborate, and amplify their reach. In an online world plagued by toxicity and algorithmic chaos, VOICES will offer curation, community, and control. We’re incredibly excited about its potential to expand the LettsGroup platform into the social realm, creating a virtuous loop between our venture-building tools and a vibrant community of innovators. Stay tuned as VOICES goes live – early adopters of our 2025 products will feel right at home in this new social universe.
Beyond product launches and tech milestones, 2025 was the year LettsGroup cemented its influence in the startup space. Our VentureFactory platform didn’t just attract users – it attracted partners and a community. In the new year, we will start to forge cornerstone relationships with accelerators, VC firms, and other startup hubs to integrate the VentureFactory into their programs. We also launched the “LettsTalk Tech” event series in collaboration with industry partners, bringing together founders and investors to discuss the future of venture building. The overwhelmingly positive response to November's debut event showed that LettsGroup is not just participating in the conversation – we’re leading it.
Our customer base swelled throughout 2025, reflecting genuine product-market fit. We saw multiple new customers signing up daily for the VentureFactory and/or its core apps, creating early network effects that continue to accelerate growth. The expanding advisory board (with seasoned investors and tech leaders joining) is another testament to LettsGroup’s rising profile. These advisors are helping guide strategic moves as we scale, and their involvement signals strong confidence in our mission to re-imagine venture building and its relationship with venture capital (from “artisanal” to AI-driven, as we like to say).
Crucially, we’re also seeing success stories from our ventures and users that validate the LettsGroup approach. Jot’s rapid growth and paying customers are one example, but many other VentureFactory-powered startups are quietly building in stealth, set to make waves soon. The new startup metrics emerging from our platform are eye-opening: tiny teams (often no more than 5 people) achieving what traditionally took armies of developers and MBAs, and early-stage companies securing investor interest faster as our process collapses funding stages by delivering traction sooner. Founders are telling us that using the platform not only saved them money, but also made their startups fundable – by the time they approach VCs, they have solid products, market validation, and even due-diligence data auto-prepared by AI. That’s a win-win: founders retain more control (less dilution early on) and investors get startups that are de-risked and primed for growth.
From a business standpoint, LettsGroup’s own performance soared. Our software revenues doubled in 2025 (driven by surging subscriptions across our AI SaaS offerings) and our venture pipeline grew rapidly. From our beta launch in June 2025 we added roughly one new startup per month; by year’s end we’ve set in motion plans to scale that up to one new startup per week by end of 2026. It’s an ambitious goal – but if there’s one thing 2025 proved, it’s that the combination of passionate founders + AI automation is a formula for unprecedented scaling. The customer adoption momentum and the results our ventures achieved have given us the confidence to push the envelope even further.
Meanwhile, our wider core apps continued to thrive, adding to our influence. LettsArt, the AI no-code platform for artists and galleries, crossed a major milestone with over 1,300 online galleries and 5,000 collectors using the platform. It rolled out version 2.5 with new AI features and multi-user plans, and is now gearing up to launch LettsArt Market – an online art marketplace that will instantly become one of the largest of its kind, connecting emerging artists with collectors worldwide. And LettsSafari, our nature rewilding venture, quietly expanded its community and is preparing to open its first commercial rewilding safari parks in the UK, blending ecological impact with sustainable business. By year-end, LettsSafari even announced the upcoming AI-powered “Safari Guide” assistant to help people rewild their gardens and land, bringing conservation tech to anyone with a patch of green. These success stories from our branded ventures underscore the versatility of the VentureFactory model – from media and fintech to climate and art, our approach works across domains.
As we look to 2026, LettsGroup is poised for even greater things. The foundation laid in 2025, with product innovation, proven traction, and a growing community, positions us to scale venture building like never before. Our roadmap for next year is brimming with exciting developments: the VentureFactory will continue evolving with even smarter AI agents and features (we’re already on Dashboard version 0.3 and climbing, and as more startups and investors join, the platform’s capabilities and network effects will only grow. We plan to significantly ramp up our venture customer numbers: where we added a number of new startups in 2025, by the end of 2026 we aim to be adding one every single week. This step-change in scale isn’t wishful thinking – it’s the logical progression of our method. With automation handling the heavy lifting and a scalable “startup assembly line” in place, multiplying our throughput is just a matter of onboarding more founders and letting the AI fly.
On the product front, early 2026 will see the launch of major new tools that have their genesis in 2025’s work. We’ve talked about LettsNews' upcoming AI NewsAgent and content marketplace – these will come to fruition and further empower independent media. VOICES will go live, weaving a social layer through our ecosystem. LettsArt Market will open as a bustling hub for creative commerce and entrepreneurs, likely boosting LettsArt’s user growth even more. And across all our apps, expect continuous improvement: more AI magic, more user-friendly polish, and more integrations, driven by user feedback and our relentless drive to innovate.
Strategically, we’re also entering a growth and market expansion phase. Until now, a lot of our multi-product build phase was about proving the model; having done that, 2026 is about capturing market share. You’ll see LettsGroup starting to expand beyond the UK market, engaging new regions where startups are eager for an edge. We’ll be rolling out new marketing initiatives and perhaps yet more mini-apps and automation to cater to a broader audience of entrepreneurs (because every visionary with a great idea should be able to afford their own AI venture team!). Our expanding advisory board and partner network will be integral in this push, helping tailor our approach to different startup ecosystems globally.
All of this momentum also fuels our corporate trajectory. We haven’t been shy about our goal to take startups from zero to IPO, and that applies to LettsGroup itself as well. With our platform seeing strong revenue growth and a robust pipeline, we have our sights set on an IPO in the not-too-distant future. We envision LettsGroup becoming one of the defining tech companies that champion a new model of venture building – operational venture building + capital powered by AI, at scale. LettsGroup's trajectory is clear. As one investor put it, LettsGroup might just be building the “5-person unicorn” factory – and public markets love a good unicorn story.
In summary, 2025 was a transformative year for LettsGroup. We launched industry-shifting products, doubled down on our mission to make venture building smarter and faster, and saw our vision validated by the market. From key metrics (like 90% cost reductions and 10× speed-ups) to human stories (founders regaining focus, investors finding gems with our data), the impact has been tremendous. And through it all, we maintained the LettsGroup spirit: authoritative in our strategy, insightful in our thought leadership, dynamic in execution, future-forward in technology – and always enjoying the ride. To all our users, startup founders and investors who joined us this year: thank you. You’re part of something special – a new era where innovation thrives on intelligence and efficiency. Here’s to an even bigger 2026, as LettsGroup continues to accelerate venture building and help you, the visionaries, build the future faster than ever before. Onwards and upwards!
This article first appeared at the LettsGroup blog.
LettsGroup is ending the year on a high. Much of the group's multi-product build phase and pure investment phase has been completed with the full launch of its AI VentureFactory and core apps. The group is now tightly focused on its commercial growth phase, with multiple new customers signing up to its VentureFactory and/or core apps on a daily basis reflecting early network effects.
As a result, LettsGroup is expanding its advisory board ahead of strategic developments in 2026. If you are interested in joining our investing advisory board contact us at [email protected] .
The AI VentureFactory has completed its early beta and is now moving to full commercial launch. The team just released the latest, most powerful version of its startup agent, plus a bunch of new AI tools and core apps.
Instead of 15-20 disconnected tools, you get a single AI-powered venture system with:
Innov@te™ Startup Agent – an intelligent co-pilot guiding you through 7 stages, 49 steps and hundreds of sub-steps, covering the full venture lifecycle from idea to exit. With AI outputs at every single step to effortlessly propel startups forwards.
Core Apps & AI agents – a suite of specialised apps and AI agents for marketing, product, operations, forecasting, fundraising prep and more – your “AI startup team in a box”.
Investor intelligence & readiness – tools for valuations, decks, models and due diligence workflows so you look like a serious company, not a hacked-together side project.
LettsGroup’s own venture building track record is built on this methodology – reducing the typical cost of building startups to seed stage by up to 90% and dramatically improving success rates versus industry norms. Plans and pricing start at just £19 per month , making the VentureFactory probably the most powerful, yet cost effective venture building platform on the market.
Its subscription plans are built to match where startups are on their journey:
Startup Lite – £19/month for solopreneurs and new startups (1 user, full Innov@te™ startup agent, step-by-step AI venture-building system, GTM and investor tools, access to all VentureFactory apps, plus AI support and optional Co-Pilot expert hours).
Startup Ultra – £129/month for seed-funded and scaling teams, with 2 users, a Co-Pilot programme for CEO & CTO (monthly expert review), access to the AI Agent Store, and the LettsGroup venture network. Extra users at £29 per user / month.
Enterprise – £399/month per venture for larger scale-ups and corporate incubators, with 3 users, deeper Co-Pilot support, AI-automated core processes and advanced analytics. Extra users at £39 per user / month.
Most recently the team launched the new Investor / Advisor plan at £39 per user. See all VentureFactory plans at the Pricing page .
The LettsNews product team has been busy building its latest AI capability - the NewsAgent - which is an end to end AI agent for independent writers, journalists and content marketers. It enables users to build stories from scratch or amend existing, and auto-add other content assets, including images, video and audio from their LettsNews library or generate new ones. The NewsAgent helps you edit in as much detail as you like, with in-line AI and tools. It automatically generates content assets, orders and lists them, compiling them into stories that, once completed, can be fact-checked, shared with team members and edited with AI support prior to publishing. It is a fascinating new way to build quality news stories with what feels like a newsroom team with advanced tools supporting you.
The team has also been working on rounding out their auto-promote capabilities so its users can rapidly promote distributed stories to all the major social networks.
The team at LettsNews are determined to build the most easy to use, yet advanced AI-powered news story-building and distribution system available. With the wider LettsNews newsroom tech surrounding, it is a major step toward that goal - giving independent writers, PRs and journalists a system to rival any traditional enterprise newsroom software. Once the LettsNews (content) Store is added later in Q1 2026 it could position LettsNews as a universal, online news agency for the masses. You can try for free at LettsNews.com .
*LettsNews is an AI VentureFactory core app.
LettsCore is performing nicely with thousands of users, following its launch a few months ago. As a result, its product team has been working on adding product infrastructure for enterprises and app vendors including an advanced data and usage analytics dashboard. Following this, they will add bulk content uploading with AI support, and enhanced content sharing capabilities with tracking / usage / time bound social media sharing embedded.
LettsCore is in early beta and targeted at digital, SME media companies, agencies and creators looking for a content and media management system with an edge - blockchain, crypto-enabled and token-based pay-as-you-go, with the ability to deliver value, at higher performance with embedded, out of the box approaches to content monetisation, distribution and protection.
*LettsCore is an AI VentureFactory core app.
Jot , the AI-native diary and personal organiser, has completed its early beta at their usual high-octane pace. Today the team rolled out its AI calendar and task manager. Users simply write a diary entry and JotBot (its AI) kicks in, auto-creating calendar appointments and tasks that are instantly surfaced in its new calendar and task manager apps for users to view, edit and add new. Who needs multiple disconnected calendars, journals, diaries, tasks, organisers, note takers and address books when you have Jot.
As Jot goes from early beta to full launch they have today rolled out their full go-to-market pricing and subscription plans.
3 Subscription Plans:
1. Free - For people who journal 3 times a week. 12 diary entries a month, access to ALL features. 500MB storage.
2. Smart - For people who journal daily. £2.99 / month or £29 / year, 30 diary entries a month, more AI and access to ALL features. 2GB storage.
3. Max - For the most advanced diary keepers and journalers. £4.99 / month or £49 / year. 200 diary entries a month, unlimited AI, access to ALL features and 5GB storage.
There is a 20% launch discount on both paid plans until the end of January. Start for free at getjot.ai .
*Jot is an AI VentureFactory core app.
With LettsArt continuing to scale with 1,300 gallery users, and approaching 5,000 art collectors and 6,000 artworks, it has been working behind the scenes to monetise the platform further with the launch of the LettsArt Market - a next generation art marketplace for new-trend art collectors who want to go online and direct to the hottest new artists and gallerists. With LettsArt, not only can independent artists and gallerists build and operate their own branded AI no-code online art gallery to better show and manage their art, but art listed on sale in their gallery will also appear in the LettsArt Market, which, from the day it is launched, will be one of the largest, most advanced online art marketplaces. It uses search and AI for collectors to discover art easily, and the art available on sale will be categorised by genre and filtered by price range, medium and style.
Collectors will be able find some of the most exciting independent and emerging art, and buy at artist galleries and studios powered by LettsArt - leaning into the new trend for buyers to discover and collect art directly from the makers. The LettsArt Market will launch in January 2026.
*LettsArt is an AI VentureFactory core app.
VOICES is launching in early 2026 as a new, connected social platform for creators, writers and entrepreneurs - and a fully integrated social network for VentureFactory core apps and startup customers wanting to connect to it. The team is excited about the potential for VOICES as a next generation, Web3, filtered-network and safe space for solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, innovators and creators. People with valuable voices.
*VOICES is an AI VentureFactory core app.
LettsSafari is launching the world's first AI rewilding assistant in the new year. The LettsSafari Guide will be a dedicated, highly intelligent AI tool to help anyone understand about rewilding, nature restoration and wildlife conservation - answering questions, providing tips and techniques and guiding you quickly and easily through the rewilding process, supported by LettsSafari's wide-ranging insights and unique, pioneering approach to smaller-scale, mass market rewilding and nature restoration.
In Q1 2026 LettsSafari will also be launching its definitive guide to smaller-scale rewilding as a digital, coffee table type book - included free for any paying subscriber. Try it, gift it, wild it .
We highlight just a few startups in each monthly edition of LettsGroup's NewsFlash. To explore other companies powered by LettsGroup's AI VentureFactory go to LettsGroup/ventures.
The biggest problem startup founders face today is not ideas - it's execution chaos. And the silent killer is fragmented execution.
In fact, most tech and digital founders are quietly drowning in fragmentation.
You’re juggling:
15+ SaaS tools
A rotating cast of freelancers and agencies
Well-meaning advisors
Random AI prompts
A graveyard of half-finished plans and strategies
Yet there’s no single operating system connecting strategy, experiments, product, growth, fundraising and finance. Everything is ad-hoc. Every week you’re reinventing your own process. The result?
Slow learning → you don’t iterate to product/market fit fast enough
Burnt runway → you spend like a scale-up while still proving basics
Founder fatigue → you’re operating the machine and building it
Traditional accelerators give you a sprint, not a system. Generic AI tools give you outputs, not a joined-up venture. Agencies give you activity, not accountability. None of them actually run your venture building process end-to-end.
LettsGroup’s AI VentureFactory is an AI-native venture building platform that builds, scales and optimises your company at every stage – from idea to exit.
Instead of ten disconnected tools, you get a single AI-powered venture system with:
Innov@te™ Startup Agent – an intelligent co-pilot guiding you through 7 stages, 49 steps and hundreds of sub-steps, covering the full venture lifecycle from zero to exit.
Core Apps & AI agents – a suite of specialised apps and AI agents for marketing, product, operations, forecasting, fundraising prep and more – your “AI startup team in a box”.
Investor intelligence & readiness – tools for valuations, decks, models and due diligence workflows so you look like a serious company, not a hacked-together side project.
LettsGroup’s own venture building track record is built on this methodology – reducing the typical cost of building startups to seed stage by up to 90% and dramatically improving success rates versus industry norms.
And the kicker? Access starts at just £19 per month on the Startup Lite plan – including full use of the Innov@te™ startup agent and the core venture building system.
In practice, using the AI VentureFactory looks like this:
Day 1 – plug in, don’t spin up
You enter your company info and one-line description of your idea or offering.
The system adapts to your business model and builds a tailored venture blueprint in front of you.
Each week – one clear execution track
Innov@te™ tells you exactly which step to focus on next.
Carefully designed AI outputs, agents and tools generate product roadmaps, GTM plans, experiments, content, and financial models in minutes – not months.
Each funding moment – investor-grade in hours, not weeks
You spin up investor materials, forecasts and structured narratives using the same platform that’s been running your strategy and operations all along.
Instead of fragmented execution, you get compounding momentum : one system, one source of truth, one AI-augmented way of building.
For the price of a single SaaS seat or a couple of freelancer hours, you can:
Replace chaos with a proven, AI-powered venture methodology
Replace random tools with a joined-up venture operating system
Replace “hero founder mode” with a personal AI venture team backing you 24/7
If your biggest problem is fragmented execution – too many moving parts, not enough progress – then LettsGroup’s AI VentureFactory is likely the most leverage you can buy for £19 a month .
You don’t need more tools - you need a state of the art factory for your venture.
Head to Letts.Group and start building with the AI VentureFactory today.
LONDON, UK – LettsGroup (www.Letts.Group) is proud to announce the successful completion of its early beta phase and the official launch of the latest, most powerful version of the AI VentureFactory. This cutting-edge, AI-native platform is designed to revolutionise how early-stage tech and digital startups, as well as scale-ups, build, operate, and grow their businesses.
The AI VentureFactory represents a seismic shift in the venture ecosystem. By integrating advanced artificial intelligence directly into the venture building process, LettsGroup empowers founders to move from "Zero to IPO" with unprecedented speed and precision. The platform allows users to build faster, run leaner, and scale more effectively by automating complex tasks - from generating business plans and product roadmaps to executing go-to-market strategies, valuation models and financial forecasting.
With this full release, LettsGroup is also announcing its aggressive go-to-market pricing structure, designed to make elite venture-building tools accessible to everyone, from solopreneurs to scale-ups and corporate incubators.
Breaking down the barriers to entry for high-growth startups, LettsGroup has unveiled a tiered pricing model that starts at just £19 per month for the "Startup Lite" plan. This entry-level package includes full use of the Innov@te™ startup agent, a step-by-step AI venture building system, and essential tools for investor readiness.
"The AI VentureFactory is the first venture building platform that feels truly modern. It's powerful, flexible, and fast to build with," said Philip Letts, CEO & Founder of LettsGroup. "By moving out of beta and introducing our new pricing tiers, we are ensuring that every founder, regardless of their funding stage, has access to the same powerful AI tools used by the hottest startups."
Key Features of the AI VentureFactory Include:
Innov@te™ Startup Agent: An intelligent co-pilot that guides founders through every stage of the venture lifecycle.
Comprehensive Automation: Capabilities to handle marketing models, brand strategies, and operational tasks in minutes rather than months.
Core Apps: providing your scale-up infrastructure from day 1.
Flexible Tiers: Options ranging from the £19/month Startup Lite for solopreneurs to the Startup Ultra (£129/mo) for post-seed teams, and Enterprise solutions for corporate incubators.
Investor Intelligence: A dedicated plan for VCs, accelerators and advisors to perform due diligence and support portfolio companies at just £39/mo.
Founders and investors can explore the full range of features and subscription plans at https://letts.group/pricing/.
About LettsGroup
LettsGroup is a leading innovator in the digital economy, focused on building the next generation of technology ventures with its AI venture building platform. Through its flagship AI VentureFactory, LettsGroup combines your AI startup team with AI-native efficiency to help startups and scale-ups execute their strategies with precision.
For more information, visit https://letts.group/.
Thank you to everyone who joined LettsGroup and Brown Rudnick for "LettsTalk Tech" on 13 July. It was a fantastic event for entrepreneurs and investors. The next edition will be in April 2026.
LettsGroup is expanding its advisory board ahead of strategic developments in 2026. If you would like to join our investing advisory board please contact us at [email protected] .
Since early on, we understood that LettsGroup's AI VentureFactory and its core venture building process, Innov@te, deliver a sizable advantage to startups that use it. They build faster, run much leaner. It gives them a huge advantage in the market. With the AI VentureFactory now scaling, its users are demonstrating a new set of metrics for the tech and digital startup sector. Here are some of them:
First 6 private beta startups on the platform are now at or beyond Seed stage with new model economics having lowered cost to Seed by between 80 and 90%
Funding stages collapsing - faster cycles can inspire investors to ‘jump in earlier’.
From FTE to FTB (full time bots) - FTE count as a metric is dead. It’s about how much AI you use.
Team no bigger than 5 through scaling (beyond series A).
From idea to market launch in less than 12 months , less than £200k burn
Elapsed time for first business plan from 6 weeks to 6 minutes.
Time to first website less than 2 days
Draft forecasts in minutes
Equity analyst-grade reports for startups now a reality
Advertising agency grade brand narratives and organic marketing outputs enabled
Advanced product roadmaps in hours not weeks.
Plus much more…
Using LettsGroup's AI VentureFactory founders can now finance their startup to market launch - so professional investors participate later, which is a win-win, delivering greater founder control, with more data and proof points for investors when they are required.
This week the AI VentureFactory is starting to roll out its latest version with a new dashboard and numerous new breakthrough enhancements ahead of scaling further with larger numbers of startups and investors adopting the pioneering AI platform.
The LettsNews product team is building 3 new features that should make it the most innovative newsroom tech on the market by quite a distance.
*LettsNews is an AI VentureFactory core app.
Now that LettsCore is scaling nicely with thousands of users following its launch 3 months ago, its product team is starting work on more tech infrastructure for enterprises and app vendors including an advanced data analytics dashboard, bulk content uploading with AI support, and enhanced content sharing capabilities with tracking / usage /time bound sharing embedded.
LettsCore is on a solid path to become the new generation AI and Blockchain CMS for content-rich companies seeking to control and micro-monetise individual content assets at-scale better than they can today with traditional, more silo'd CMS platforms. We believe that LettsCore can become a vital new cog in the media landscape.
*LettsCore is an AI VentureFactory core app.
Jot , the AI-native diary, launched just 2 weeks ago and is adding paying customers at a clip thanks to its creative 'Lola and JotBot' campaign. It is also the fastest startup powered by the VentureFactory to date:
1. Idea to market launch in 5 months - started private beta just 6 weeks before launch
2. Do EVERYTHING with AI - the new style software startup approach?
3. Paying customers arriving through organic and viral marketing alone
4. Adding new product features every month
5. Available for a limited time on a special Black Friday deal - from just £19.99 for 12 months!
We all experience the frustration and fatigue from too many productivity tools - with a calendar, agenda, journal, notebook, address book, task manager and more sitting in isolated silos. Jot makes our lives easier by unifying them in one AI-native digital diary. Just add a diary entry and JotBot (AI) does the rest - creating calendar entries, appointments, tasks and more. The personal organiser you always dreamed of. Available on mobile, tablet and desktop.
*Jot is an AI VentureFactory core app.
As LettsArt powers towards 1,300 galleries, 4,500 art collectors and 6,000 artworks, and with the release of LettsArt's (AI) Assistant - the leading AI no-code platform for the art world can shift gears to its next phase of growth: data-powered, community-enabled and collector-driven with a slew of new features being released next year to support new generation, independent minded artists, gallerists and art collectors.
These include a significant new step into community engagement, advanced social features and inter-gallery comms. Beyond this, LettsArt will launch more premium features for higher tier plans, including auto-distribution to online digital art marketplaces.
VOICES will launch in early 2026 as the new town square for creators, writers and entrepreneurs. It will become the fully integrated social network of choice for VentureFactory core apps and startup customers that want to connect to it. The team is excited about the potential for VOICES as a next generation, Web3, filtered network and safe space for solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, innovators and creators. People with valuable voices.
*VOICES is an AI VentureFactory core app.
Membership of LettsSafari , the pioneering platform for smaller-scale rewilding, continues to be one of our most popular holiday gifts. After all who wouldn't want a bit of extra 'wild' in their lives. Becoming a member of LettsSafari is also the best way to start your rewilding journey. This experience will evolve further with its exciting new AI tool which is coming soon. Who would have thought of inventing your very own AI (Letts)Safari Guide!
LettsSafari is also soon launching its definitive guide to smaller-scale rewilding as a digital, coffee table style book - gifted to any paying member. Try it, gift it, wild it .
We highlight just a few startups in each monthly edition of LettsGroup's NewsFlash. To explore other companies using LettsGroup's AI VentureFactory go to LettsGroup/ventures.
Happy Thanksgiving!
The story of corporate venture building begins not in Silicon Valley, but in late 18th-century Britain with an entrepreneur named John Letts. In 1796, John launched what is recognised as the world's first corporate incubator, a revolutionary business model that would take two centuries to truly evolve into its modern form.
John Letts' original venture studio was ingeniously simple yet remarkably effective. His operation comprised a large storefront that sold products and prototypes directly to customers, with venture studio space in the back rooms where new prototypes were developed and products manufactured. Letts himself bridged these two worlds, moving between the retail front and the development back, selling products while simultaneously gathering crucial customer feedback to inform the next iteration of innovation.
This integrated approach proved extraordinarily productive. Within the first twenty years, John Letts' incubator launched an impressive array of products that we now take for granted: the commercial diary in 1812, journals, calendars, address books, and parliamentary ledgers. His methodology - combining direct customer interaction with rapid prototyping and product development - contained insights that remain valuable to this day. His ethos of making products with customers, not for customers was groundbreaking.
It would take approximately 200 years for the concept of Corporate Incubator 2.0 to emerge. The late 20th and early 21st centuries saw the rise of accelerators, venture studios, and operational venture capital as the latest iteration of organised venture building. However, despite their proliferation, most of these models have operated as what critics describe as "body shops" or "classroom models", lacking the full end-to-end methodology and integrated systems that characterised even the original John Letts model.
The fundamental problem has remained consistent across centuries: innovation delivery and financing have been too ad hoc. The traditional venture building approach has been artisanal, dependent on analogue processes and individual heroes rather than systematic methodology. The statistics are sobering, venture capitalists typically deliver one successful venture out of ten investments, while corporate venture success rates are even lower, hovering around one in fifteen or twenty.
This ad hoc approach to venture building and what entrepreneur Paul Graham termed "founder mode" has lacked the standard methodology and systematic approach that other industries have long employed to improve outcomes and reduce risk.
Philip Letts, a descendant of John Letts, has spent decades working to systematise and modernise his ancestor's insights. After building his first incubator in the Web1 era and his second in Web2, Philip founded LettsGroup's VentureFactory five years ago. His track record speaks to the power of systematic approaches - his first two incubators achieved a venture success rate of one in four, dramatically outperforming industry averages.
Now, with the AI VentureFactory, LettsGroup has created what they describe as the world's first AI-native venture building platform. This represents not just an incremental improvement but a fundamental reimagining of how startups can be built and scaled in an artificial intelligence-enabled world.
The AI VentureFactory's approach centres on scaling startups with technology rather than people. The platform delivers what LettsGroup calls "startup intelligence" - an AI agent combined with chat functionality and a personal AI startup team that handles the operational heavy lifting. This is complemented by over fifteen core applications providing scale-up infrastructure from day one, allowing founders to focus 80% or more of their time on product development and customer relationships while the VentureFactory handles the rest. Added to this they have recently launched a vetted, 3rd party Agent Store.
The vision extends beyond simple automation. LettsGroup positions the VentureFactory as evolving from a "sat nav" for startups to enabling truly "self-driving" companies. The platform is supported by experienced hybrid player-coach teams across LettsGroup who understand how to build and co-pilot startups through various growth stages, augmented by the VentureFactory's personal AI startup team.
This combination of human expertise and AI automation aims to make possible what they call the "one man/woman unicorn" - companies that can achieve massive scale without proportionally massive teams.
The power of the AI VentureFactory lies not just in its technology but in the proprietary venture building system that underpins it, a methodology proven over decades and multiple incubators. LettsGroup's venture building process has been developed and refined over fifteen years across more than twenty startups, taking tech and digital ventures from initial idea through to exit.
The current iteration of the system extends to seven stages, forty-nine steps, and hundreds of sub-steps, each AI-enabled. Critically, the system improves with the advancement of each venture through an integrated rating system, creating a virtuous cycle of continuous improvement.
The platform doesn't simply provide advice or guidance - it actively executes tasks . The VentureFactory builds products, creates websites, generates analyst notes, connects ventures to customers, and will soon facilitate investor connections. This active execution is what LettsGroup describes as "the magic" that sets it apart from traditional advisory or consulting models.
The economic impact of this approach has been dramatic. LettsGroup claims the AI VentureFactory reduces the cost of building startups by up to 90%. While the average cost of building tech startups to seed stage is approximately $2 million, the average cost of building the AI VentureFactory's first six tech startups to seed stage was less than $200,000.
The first six ventures powered by the platform have now reached seed stage, demonstrating new model economics across multiple metrics. Funding stages are collapsing with faster cycles encouraging earlier investment. The traditional metric of full-time employees (FTE) is being replaced by what LettsGroup calls FTB (full time bots), measuring how much AI a company employs rather than how many people.
Under this model, teams need not grow beyond five people even through scaling beyond Series A. Ventures can progress from idea to market launch in less than twelve months with less than $200,000 in capital burn. Business plans that once took six weeks now take six minutes. First websites launch in under two days. Draft forecasts generate in minutes. The platform can produce equity analyst-grade reports and advertising agency-quality brand narratives for startups - capabilities previously accessible only to well-funded, mature companies.
The fastest startup powered by the VentureFactory to date exemplifies these capabilities. Jot , an AI-powered digital diary that consolidates multiple productivity tools into a single platform, progressed from idea to market launch in just five months and began its private beta six weeks before that milestone. The venture operates with a team of five - none full-time - and has already begun acquiring paying customers.
Jot represents what LettsGroup believes may be the pure AI startup model, where virtually everything is accomplished through AI assistance, dramatically reducing the need for traditional full-time headcount during early growth stages.
Following a private beta period with internal ventures and core applications, the AI VentureFactory launched to market in July 2025. The platform now offers four subscription plans , starting at just £105 per month, catering to different customer segments: Startup Lite for new ventures, Startup Ultra for scale-ups beyond Seed stage, Enterprise for corporate incubators, and a newly launched Investor plan.
Since market launch, the platform has been adding one new customer per month, with plans to scale to one new startup per week by the end of 2026. External startups can now subscribe to access the platform, with some Startup Lite customers, after 6 months on the platform, can become eligible to pay cash-and-equity models where LettsGroup takes a stake in particularly promising ventures.
LettsGroup's vision extends beyond the current platform capabilities. Future development will expand the system's steps, AI outputs, and agent connectors to enable even deeper automation across the entire venture building lifecycle: Create, Build, Shape, Finance, Scale, and Exit. The company plans to connect the platform to pools of capital at each stage of the venture building lifecycle, creating an integrated ecosystem for venture formation and growth.
As Rob Wirszycz, Advisory Board lead, notes in the presentation materials, "The way startups are built and financed is changing thanks to AI, blockchain and crypto. LettsGroup is part of that change."
Two hundred years after John Letts opened the first corporate incubator, his descendant has created a platform that realises the full potential of that original integrated model, combining customer proximity with rapid development cycles, but now amplified by artificial intelligence to achieve scale and efficiency that would have seemed magical even a decade ago. In doing so, LettsGroup may be charting the course for how the next generation of ventures will be built, financed, and scaled.
If you're building a tech or digital startup - build smarter with LettsGroup's AI VentureFactory .
With Voice-First Capture , you simply talk for up to three minutes. Jot automatically converts your thoughts into a clean, structured entry, complete with tags and suggested hashtags, so you can capture more in less time.
Jot goes beyond transcription. Contextual Capture (opt-in) can use relevant life signals like recent locations and, soon, calendar cues to recommend what you might want to reflect on. Rather than staring at a blank page, you’ll see smart suggestions tied to your day.
Jot includes an adaptive AI that learns how you like to journal. It offers:
Personalised prompts and “micro-quests”
Summaries and mood insights
Smart tagging and organisation
JotBot for conversational follow-ups when you want a dialogue
From day one, privacy is fundamental. Jot is private by design with local encryption, zero-knowledge cloud backup, and optional app locks (biometric or passcode). Your entries are yours—full stop.
Frictionless capture: Journal hands-free, anywhere.
Timely prompts: Reflect on moments that matter, when they matter.
Clarity & momentum: Turn scattered thoughts into entries you’ll want to revisit.
Own your data: Strong privacy and security by default.
Jot is available now with simple, annual pricing that mirrors the tradition of a yearly diary. Jot Smart covers the essentials; Jot Max unlocks unlimited AI assists and deeper insights. For launch, enjoy a limited-time 50% discount with code JOTLAUNCH through November 30, 2025 .
Ready to make journaling effortless?
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Get started at
getjot.ai
Have questions or want to share feedback? We’d love to hear from you at [email protected] .
We are at the cusp of a transformation in how new ventures are created and scaled. The traditional image of startups – chaotic garages, massive burn rates, and long-shot odds – is giving way to a new paradigm: startups as engineered products of a systematic process, supercharged by artificial intelligence and automation. We distil some key insights and recommendations for new style venture building for both entrepreneurs and investors:
AI-Driven Venture Building is a Paradigm Shift: It’s not just incremental improvement but a fundamental change. By treating venture creation as a repeatable process and leveraging AI at every step, we can dramatically improve success rates and efficiency. New style venture building differs from traditional artisanal methods as assembly lines differ from craft workshops – the potential scale and consistency are vastly greater. Entrepreneurs should embrace this systematic mindset, and investors should recognise startups that do so as potentially lower-risk, higher-reward opportunities.
Traditional vs. New – Know the Difference: The old approach often meant each startup learning by itself, reinventing the wheel. The new approach means standing on the shoulders of accumulated knowledge encoded in platforms. Traditional was manual and people-heavy; new is automated and software-heavy. We should be conscious of when we’re falling into old patterns (“We need to hire lots of X to do Y”) versus asking “Is there a tool or process that can do this better?”. In practice: Founders, audit your operations for anything repetitive or standardisable – that’s a candidate for automation. Investors, ask startups not just what they will do, but how they will do it with technology – the how might be the difference between needing $5M or $50M to achieve the same result.
LettsGroup’s VentureFactory Example – a Glimpse of the Future: By implementing their venture building methodology and its AI-native platform , LettsGroup showed it’s possible to institutionalise innovation. Their claims of doubling startup success rates and dramatically reducing costs may seem bold, but they are backed by logic – address known failure points systematically and you will get better outcomes. The takeaway is that methodology matters . Startups should adopt a structured framework (whether the VentureFactory's Innov@te methodology or others) to ensure they aren’t missing critical steps. Investors might encourage or require portfolio companies to follow such frameworks or even provide access to them. Even if you don’t use a formal venture factory, having a checklist of venture-building steps and actively managing against it can be invaluable.
Economics Favour the Lean and Automated: We saw how small teams can reach massive scale with automation – the high revenue-per-employee case studies. The economics of startups are shifting to favour those who invest in automation early. A rule of thumb for founders: before hiring for a function, exhaust the automation options. Use humans for creativity, strategy, and nuanced relationship-building; use AI/automation for process, analysis, and scale. This will not only save money but also often produce faster outcomes (machines operate at high speed and 24/7). For investors, the “burn rate” conversation changes – it’s not just cutting burn, but smart burn. A company spending $100k on cloud services to automate may be far more efficient than one spending $100k on salaries for the same output. So dig into how the startup plans to use your capital – on building tools and scalable systems or on brute-force execution.
Scaling Challenges Can be Anticipated and Engineered Away: One of the most actionable insights is that startups fail in scaling often due to lack of planning for it. But now we know how to plan – build operational platforms in parallel with product development. Founders: don’t wait for a crisis to implement proper infrastructure and process. Use “growth hacks” but also build “growth infrastructure.” Implement at least rudimentary systems for customer management, deployment, analytics, CRM, content management, business planning etc., early – these will carry you through growth spurts. It’s the concept of building the aeroplane while flying, but given the new tools, you can at least have blueprints ready from the start. For investors: when doing due diligence, assess whether the startup has thought about scale beyond just acquiring customers – do they have an architecture that won’t crumble? If they’re using a venture building platform or methodology, that’s a positive signal of foresight.
The Right Tools Make a Difference: The landscape of startup tools and AI is rich. We identified categories from AI coding assistants to automated marketing and beyond. Founders should continuously scout for tools that can give them leverage. Adopting the right CRM or analytics platform or devops tool can save dozens of hires worth of effort later. However, integrate them well – disconnected tools can cause chaos; integration and automation between tools yield the real productivity gains. Both entrepreneurs and investors should view a well-curated, integrated tech stack as a sign of a mature, scale-ready startup. It’s akin to having good machinery in a factory – you can produce reliably. Don’t skimp on foundational tools due to cost; the ROI is usually high.
Leadership Must Evolve (But Don’t Kill the Founder Spirit): We saw the tension between Founder Mode and Manager Mode . The recommendation is clear: in early stages, favour Founder Mode , and let creative, flexible leadership drive innovation. As you grow, gradually layer in Manager Mode via processes or selectively hired managers, but do so carefully and in areas that need it. Founders should remain at the helm if possible, supported by systems (and people) that provide structure without suffocating creativity. Investors who back founder-led companies should help founders get resources to handle management tasks – maybe an ops advisor or connecting them to platform services – rather than reflexively pushing for a “professional CEO” too soon. Conversely, if a founder is resistant to any process even when the company is faltering under chaos, investors should counsel them on the need for some Manager Mode or bring in help in a limited scope (e.g., a fractional CFO to tidy finances rather than a whole new C-suite that displaces the founder). In AI-first startups, leverage the AI as a pseudo-manager for routine oversight, letting founders focus on vision.
Case Studies Prove It’s Possible – Emulate and Learn: The examples of WhatsApp, BuiltWith, etc., should serve as inspiration and playbooks. Founders: study how those companies operated. For instance, WhatsApp’s mantra was to do one thing exceptionally well (messaging) and not get distracted – which, combined with efficient tech, let 50 people serve half a billion users. Think about what is the “one thing” your startup must excel in, and apply extreme automation and focus there. If you’re an enterprise SaaS startup, maybe your one thing is a certain type of data processing – automate that fully. If you’re a marketplace, maybe it’s matching supply and demand – leverage AI to optimise that without manual brokers. Use AI case studies like the one-person marketing team to inform how you structure your team: perhaps you don’t need a full marketing department until much later if you use those techniques. Investors: when you see a startup taking such approaches, reward them, because they might do a lot with modest capital. Also, encourage sharing of best practices among your portfolio – each success story can teach others (e.g., one portfolio company’s success with an AI sales assistant might be implemented at another, raising overall performance).
Venture Capital Itself Must Adapt: For investors reading this, the message is that the old VC model is being disrupted from within. If startups need less money and prefer platforms, you should consider how to provide a platform or partner with those who do. Building out operational teams, AI tools, or even creating your own venture studio capabilities may be critical. Consider offering portfolio services not as an informal “extra” but as a formal product (e.g., your fund gives every startup access to an AI toolkit or platforms like LettsGroup's AI VentureFactory). Embrace data in your own decision-making – maybe use AI to triage deals – but more importantly, embrace the shift to human capital and tech enablement over just capital provision . The future might see venture firms that win deals not by highest valuation offered, but by having the best platform of support. If you can help a startup succeed systematically, that’s worth more than a few extra million dollars thrown at them. LPs (the investors in VC funds) will also start to expect that VCs leverage tech to improve their outcomes – after all, if success rates can double, funds can yield better returns with fewer write-offs.
Empower Entrepreneurs Globally: A wonderful implication of the new style is that it lowers barriers. As venture building becomes more of a learned skill and service, entrepreneurs from anywhere can tap into it. This means more diverse problems get tackled and more communities benefit from innovation. Founders and investors alike should look beyond traditional hotspots. If you have a great idea in a region without a big startup scene, consider joining a venture platform or online accelerator that can provide structure and remote support. Investors, consider investing in or creating platform-based incubators in emerging markets to capture untapped talent. The tools and methods discussed don’t require being in Silicon Valley; they mostly require internet access and some training. We might see a world where a founder in Africa, plugged into an AI venture factory, builds a company that competes globally – indeed that’s already starting to happen.
Balance Structure with Innovation: A cautionary note – while we promote structure, we should guard against over-standardisation. Sometimes great innovation comes from breaking rules or taking an unconventional path. Venture methodologies must allow for pivots and creative strategies that weren’t in the original plan. As an entrepreneur, don’t become slavishly dependent on a playbook if evidence suggests a different approach is needed; use the playbook as a guide, not a prison. As an investor or platform operator, remain open to adapting the system when a unique opportunity or challenge arises that doesn’t fit the mould. The future should be flexible . Think of the venture factory like agile manufacturing – able to retool quickly for new designs if needed.
In conclusion, the convergence of AI and venture building is enabling a new era where startups are built smarter, cheaper, and faster . The key takeaways for entrepreneurs are to leverage automation early and often, follow a structured process without losing your innovative edge, and be prepared to scale not just your product but your whole company intelligently. For investors, the key takeaways are to support startups with more than just cash – offer platforms, demand efficiency, and adapt your model to these new realities.
The prize is huge: an ecosystem where far more ventures succeed, capital is used more effectively, and innovation can flourish without being bottled up by operational hurdles or lack of know-how. We could see an explosion of viable startups tackling every niche, including pressing global challenges (climate, health, education) that were previously under-invested because they didn’t fit the high-burn model. When venture building is as optimised as, say, modern manufacturing, we might consistently create companies that both generate profits and solve real problems at scale.
To borrow the manufacturing analogy one last time: the industrial revolution transformed production and prosperity. We may be at the dawn of an innovation revolution in venture building – one that could unleash a wave of entrepreneurship akin to an assembly line of world-changing ideas made real. Those who embrace these new methods early will be at the forefront of that wave, much as early industrialists leaped ahead by adopting new machines. In the world of startups, that means more founders achieving their vision and more investors seeing returns, with fewer casualties along the way.
As this guide has shown, the pieces of this puzzle – from LettsGroup’s venture factory to AI case studies – are already falling into place. The future of venture building is being written now, in code and algorithms as much as in pitch decks and term sheets. Entrepreneurs and investors should seize this moment : adopt the new style of venture building, and be part of creating the future rather than competing with it. The companies – and venture firms – that internalise these lessons will likely be the leaders of the next decade.
In the end, successful venture building – old style or new – still hinges on creating real value: a product or service that customers want and a business model that sustains it. AI and automation don’t change that fundamental truth; they simply equip us with better tools to reach that goal. So, equip yourself with those tools, combine them with vision and grit (that unique human spark), and go build the future. The assembly lines of innovation are starting up – don’t be left handcrafting in the age of industrialised venture. Embrace the AI-driven, automation-enabled approach, and you just might build the next big success story with unprecedented speed and efficiency.
If you're a tech or digital startup founder, build faster, run leaner and make it BIG with LettsGroup's AI VentureFactory .
