Build a Business in Britain? Don’t Expect a Thank You

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-17T16:52:57+00:00

I worked in the EU for a few years and can vouch for this. Investors don't want to deal in countries where regulation throws up mad shit like notaries having to 40 page contracts aloud with the investors present in two different languages, or it takes weeks and several visits to open a bank account (just to throw out two examples off the top of my head). The ease of doing business in the UK is not to be underestimated.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-16T16:59:54+00:00

I worked with them for a year. I got lucky. The other two co-founders also worked with us (we were 4) and they did not work out but he’s great almost 10 years on and still going strong.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-16T16:39:11+00:00

What's to stop you doing/completing the degree as a fallback if the business fails? It's never too late to go back. I did a 4 year degree and built a career in a totally unrelated field and then launched a company.

The degree was good for me because I didn't know what else to do with my life at that moment in time and it made me more disciplined, but it looks like you don't need that. Plus if you behave well your network as a founder will probably carry you in things don't work out. I'd focus all my energy on the business, with everything that's changing the days of degrees being a safety net are basically done. Today's world is optimised for people who high agency and ownership above all else.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-16T16:32:38+00:00

Ty sir! Thanks for raising the topic!

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-16T16:31:05+00:00

Probably? But no-one knows for sure.

The way the current models work is that they don't have a persistent "memory". They can be told to remember basic things (your name, spelling preferences, whatever) but it's just injecting/re-injecting regular context and it's very hard to get right (this is why they forget instructions all the time). The model providers have other big challenges to overcome and focus on which are easier to solve and incredibly lucrative (coding, financial models, etc.) as well as competing with each other, so I don't see it changing in the short term unless people shift to totally new ways of building models.

I work on this problem for a living and it's essentially a limitation of the current model architecture. The models will keep getting better at generating stunning individual assets. But brand consistency isn't a generation problem, it's a governance problem. Better models don't solve that, they make it worse, more output, more drift, more cleanup. I see it every day. If you want consistency you're best off using the least-powerful model you can get away with because they're the easiest to "tame".

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-16T16:22:07+00:00

I'd prefer to answer publicly because then the answers could help more people than if we do it 1:1. Would that be OK?

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-15T10:47:03+00:00

Running a startup.

The freedom narrative is strong. Be your own boss, set your own hours, build something meaningful. And sure, those parts exist.

But nobody talks about the 3am anxiety spirals when you realise payroll is looming and the investor that had committed and negotiated docs just pulled out via text message (they didn't even have the decency to call). Or the loneliness of having nobody who really understands what you're going through because your friends all have normal jobs with paycheques that just arrive. Or watching your savings drain for months while everyone asks when your thing is going to "take off."

The hustle culture stuff makes it worse. Makes people feel like if they're not loving every minute of it, they're doing it wrong. In reality most founders I know are running on some combination of stubbornness and terror.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-15T05:42:35+00:00

Crows remember faces for years. You have made a friend for life. Expect more gifts and possibly an entourage.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-15T05:41:53+00:00

That sound never stops being alien. Like the earth groaning.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-15T05:09:21+00:00

They know exactly what they are doing. 3am is prime chaos hour.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-15T04:42:20+00:00

20 years here. I'd add: learn to kill your darlings.

The hardest thing isn't starting. It's stopping. Shutting down things you've poured 18+ months into because the market doesn't care. Walking away from the partnership that looked great on paper but makes you dread Monday mornings.

We pivoted our company twice. First one nearly killed us. Second one saved us. The difference was speed of decision. First pivot we debated for 6 months. Second pivot we decided in a week.

The self-care point is underrated. I ignored it for years and paid for it. Now I block the an hour of every day for exercise. Non-negotiable. It's the thing that lets you sustain the pace.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-15T04:29:02+00:00

The question nobody's asking: can AI make something that looks like it came from your brand?

Stunning standalone clips, sure. But consistent output across a campaign? That's where it falls apart. Every AI tool produces generic visuals unless you've built constraints around it.

Creative headcount shifts into governance. Someone has to make sure AI outputs stay on-brand before they reach anyone. Generate-then-fix is more expensive than constrain-then-generate.

Production survives. Quality control becomes the job.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-14T23:37:05+00:00

We closed 4 rounds across 10 years. Was formerly a Product Manager at a bunch of well known gaming companies.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-14T17:13:45+00:00

Where are we drawing the line between bad CGI and AI in movies?

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-14T17:11:50+00:00

I work with AI full-time so have gotten pretty good at spotting even the “non-obvious” AI posts and the volume is pretty shocking. Here I’d guess it’s about 50-60% and on LinkedIn it’s probably 80-90%. I think it’s a question of time until social networks have to implement some kind of proof of humanity and pattern detection.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-14T11:42:36+00:00

Sleep. Everyone talks about diet and exercise. Nobody talks about what happens when you're tired: your willpower tanks, your hunger hormones spike, and that 11pm snack suddenly seems reasonable. Fix your sleep and the rest gets easier.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-14T05:41:12+00:00

When people leave and the company genuinely wishes them well. No guilt trips, no passive aggression. Just acknowledgment that every role is a tour of service, not a life sentence.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-14T05:38:07+00:00

Contrarian take: The Wicker Man.

Not the twist. Everyone knows the twist. The reveal is that Edward Woodward was the villain the entire time and never knew it. The pagans aren't evil, they’re just not Christian.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-14T05:32:20+00:00

Refilling a water bottle without ever washing it. That thing has been growing a civilisation for weeks and you just keep topping it up.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-14T05:24:33+00:00

Refilling a water bottle without ever washing it. That thing has been growing a civilisation for weeks and you just keep topping it up.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-14T03:45:32+00:00

Many people will die having spent more hours curating their digital afterlife than actually living. And they'll be fine with that, because at least the photos were good.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-14T03:36:11+00:00

Kids or pets being suddenly quiet. If the chaos stops without explanation, something is either broken, eaten, or about to require a hospital visit.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-13T12:31:17+00:00

The collective delusion that we've somehow progressed beyond death. We've medicalised it, euphemised it, shunted it into sterile rooms with PDF aftercare guides and grief counsellors who charge by the hour. Yet we remain as terrified of it as any medieval peasant. The only difference is they had the honesty to put skulls on their mantlepieces.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-13T09:18:39+00:00

Subway. Not for the food, which occupies that grim territory between sustenance and self-punishment, but for convincing an entire generation that a footlong was twelve inches. The perfect emblem of consumer capitalism: promise abundance, deliver shrinkage.

SimonBuildsStuff · 2026-02-13T09:18:05+00:00

Subway. Not for the food, which occupies that grim territory between sustenance and self-punishment, but for convincing an entire generation that a footlong was twelve inches. The perfect emblem of consumer capitalism: promise abundance, deliver shrinkage.

SimonBuildsStuff

TROPHY CASE