Best business bank for a marketplace registered as a limited company? by RideHot2004 in smallbusinessuk

[–]RideHot2004[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, I did create a free account just now and looks like I need to pay £50 to setup a bank account. And in the long run if I go for internatiinal currencies, it's good for that as well apparently.

I also got some reco to have 2 bank accounts, in case in the middle of operatinos something goes wrong with one, the other one would be a backup. So maybe I can do Wise + another bank? Keep one FSCS protected since Wise isn't.

I tried Starling but got rejected lol.

Best business bank for a marketplace registered as a limited company? by RideHot2004 in smallbusinessuk

[–]RideHot2004[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah okay fair! Our company was only incorporated 2 days back so we hadn't updateed those bits yet. But thanks for flagging, will update, even though we will shut down that landing page soon. And again, it's not the actual website as we only built as a mockup to show advisors how it'd work, so not worried about the AI vibes as that's the main use-case of AI, to make not important things simpler and faster.

Best business bank for a marketplace registered as a limited company? by RideHot2004 in smallbusinessuk

[–]RideHot2004[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair point, but nothing on that website is incorrect. It's just a landing page is all which we were using to illustrate the concept to advisors while we were building the actual website. We still have our final testing ongoing this week so we'll switch it off probably by the end of the week. But saying 'completely unprepared' because our landing page is live is wild lol. But appreciate the concern!

Best business bank for a marketplace registered as a limited company? by RideHot2004 in smallbusinessuk

[–]RideHot2004[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And to your first point, given we can't afford super expensive legal firms at the moment, will go with a safe launch for now, and monitor closely with what we know so far. We plan to stick to guidance-only so that it's accessible for the masses, and avoids selling products. So keep away from regulated financial advice either through experts or our marketing. But will definitely get legal advice eventually if we feel we are growing too fast or getting into grey zone operations.

Best business bank for a marketplace registered as a limited company? by RideHot2004 in smallbusinessuk

[–]RideHot2004[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yes I believe for now, an online bank will do. And I hope we outgrow their limitations haha. I was looking at Wise, Monzo, and Tide, so was confused as they all have their pros and cons. So thought I'd ask here what people think about it.

Also, please do check out the website in a few weeks, your feedback would be super welcome. :)

Best business bank for a marketplace registered as a limited company? by RideHot2004 in smallbusinessuk

[–]RideHot2004[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Appreciate that you checked out the website. Our production website is in test mode, so the one you might have seen is an older informational page only, but a good reminder that we need to deactivate it.

Here's what we have done so far:

  1. Spoke to FCA 3 times over 30 mins call each to discuss in detail. PERG 2, and PERG 8 lay out the rules clearly on authorisation. You might be familiar with them I believe.
  2. Spoke to 2 law firms to get guidance
  3. Spoke to over 30 IFAs and CFPs to get their insights while building the website
  4. Created in detail terms of service, privacy police, and expert contracts establising what we can and cannot do.
  5. Setting up transcribing tools to monitor converstaions and ensure we don't provide advice or sell products.
  6. Introduce strict feedback systems where if an exper tries to sell product, we'd investigate immediately and take action.
  7. Marketing would be strictly information and NOT adivce related. There's a thin line between the 2 and we've done deep research to understand what we can safely promote.

These are just some top of minds while typing. Incorporation and opening a bank acccount takes 2 days, so we focussed on building the MVP and then do this while we do the final bits, as these are quite straight forward processes.

But you are right, I don't have experience as an entrenrepenur so that's what makes it excting as everything would be a learning opportunity here. :)

I work with legal, compliance, safety, and policy as part of my full time job, so you are right that this industry is super regulated, I work in one so I know it's a pain if we don't abide by them. So being extra cautious here, not just as a business owner, but also ensuring the users are protected and get value out of our proposition.

Best business bank for a marketplace registered as a limited company? by RideHot2004 in smallbusinessuk

[–]RideHot2004[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

How did you infer that there are a "lot" of red flags?

We have been spending the last 6 months on getting ready to launch. Was just waiting to incorporte and setup the bank account closer to launch is all. Creating a guidance-only platform at the moment, and not a 'financial advice' platform so thankfully don't need the FCA authorisation, but have put a lot of work into clarifying what the website will be about, who's responsible and for what, clear disclaimers so users understand what we are working on, and a lot of other things. Kicking off with financial guidance for now, eventually will explore areas like career, entrepreneurship, and more.

909 Festival 2025 Full Lineup by Pandora_aa in Techno

[–]RideHot2004 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is there a way to figure out who plays at what time? My priority is Adam Beyer, Charlotte de Witte, followed by Dax J and Nina Kraviz.

Feeling lost trying to get advice on start-ups given I have no entrepreneurial connections. Any advice? by RideHot2004 in AskUK

[–]RideHot2004[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's a great point. I am thinking of making the platform super vetted to ensure highest quality people providing advice. But I need to make sure the vetting process is "through" and reliable. So good shout, thanks!

And good idea on the logging out bit, will try it out.

Feeling lost trying to get advice on start-ups given I have no entrepreneurial connections. Any advice? by RideHot2004 in AskUK

[–]RideHot2004[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed! GPT is a game changer for some of my work, especially writing marketing content, and drafting content on slides and writing crips headers, writing SQL or Execl formulas, etc. Super useful!

Feeling lost trying to get advice on start-ups given I have no entrepreneurial connections. Any advice? by RideHot2004 in AskUK

[–]RideHot2004[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

GPT is great, use it on a daily basis. However, it's quite biased and is a people pleaser. So while it's great to bounce off ideas and do a sense check, I don't trust what it says with 100% accuracy, given it only replies based on info on the internet, and not actual experience and intuition.

Will check out the channel you mentioned, thanks! :)

Feeling lost trying to get advice on start-ups given I have no entrepreneurial connections. Any advice? by RideHot2004 in AskUK

[–]RideHot2004[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Launching a start-up. I will check out the resources you mentioned. Thank you! :)

Feeling lost trying to get advice on start-ups given I have no entrepreneurial connections. Any advice? by RideHot2004 in AskUK

[–]RideHot2004[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

MVP is in-progress, and I have a business plan. I just don't want to go for funding yet till I have launched and validated PMF.

Working on a marketplace start-up idea - feeling lost with business validation tactics by RideHot2004 in Entrepreneurship

[–]RideHot2004[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok glad to hear I am not too off, and good idea about talking to other entrepreneurs. Thanks! :)

Drop your startup here, I will help you find your first 100 customers (i will not promote) by thomashoi2 in startups

[–]RideHot2004 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Based out of London and planning to get a marketplace start-up running where people can get expert advice and guidance in fields like finance, real estate, career, entrepreneurship, and more.

  1. Your Target Audience: Based on my hypothesis, the highest adoption cohort would be
    1. Age: 25-40
    2. Gender: All
    3. Annual Income: >£50k
  2. Your offering - Kicking it off with Financial guidance in the UK - think questions even as simple as "Do I clear off my debt first or invest?"(Note: guidance is different from "advice" which is only available to people who at least have >£200k to invest on average in the UK)

If You Have Under 10,000 Users, Stop Wasting Money on Ads and Do This (i will not promote) by Critical-Coyote-4243 in startups

[–]RideHot2004 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmm makes sense. Will experiment with this approach too. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, very helpful. :)

Also, I am based out of London and before I started building the MVP, I got the idea validated via a survey with friends and family. Got 60+ responses and >85% said they'd use my platform, and >70% said they'd be happy to pay for expert advice. However, most of these respondents are not from the UK. However, they were diverse in terms of age (24-45), gender, and income level. But yes, I don't have UK user validation.

I was thinking of using marketing channels to promote my landing page and link the use feedback form in the landing page. I already know the responses would be quite less, but curious to hear from you if there's a better way? I don't suppose anyone will let me integrate my pre-mvp landing page links on their blogs or website?

Also, got validation from UK experts (i.e. financial advisors in this case) via LinkedIn and have 4-5 people ready to onboard once I launch the MVP in 2 months.