The fastest warm intros we’ve seen

Hi {{first_name}},

We meet and speak to hundreds of founders every week. Three themes seem to be dominating my conversations right now: investment (as ever), community (and why connection is so important for entrepreneurs) and unsurprisingly, AI.

This edition covers all three, with a tool you can use today, a five-minute video you should watch, access into the UK’s largest founder community and how you can put AI to work in your business.

Boardy is an AI that introduces you to investors, founders, and partners. Kind of like a digital super-networker that never sleeps! You can call or WhatsApp ‘him’ and it feels human (he speaks) and it works. He’s made 150,000+ introductions to date.

Boardy was built by Andrew D’Souza. he co-founder and former CEO of Clearco (formerly Clearbanc). We met last year and I loved what he was doing so much that Ideas Fest became the first large scale live event to really lean in to using AI to make connections faster and better.

Ahead of Ideas Fest, attendees messaged Boardy and were matched with a “Boardy Buddy” so they arrived with the right meetings lined up. Outcomes included partnerships, mentors, investors and friendships.

Right now, Boardy’s ambition is bold: help 500 founders complete their round by year-end. If that’s you drop him a WhatsApp and tell him you’re looking to raise.

We went one step further at Ideas Fest this year. We used Boardy to make introductions again but we also put AI on stage, literally. In the bigtop with 600 audience members, Boardy interviewed Daniel Priestley live with no human moderator and no script.

You can see founder Andrew in the below image holding a phone up to the microphone watching his creation interview Daniel live at ‘Glastonbury for Business’ (no pressure then!)

If you like events that push boundaries with the UK’s most ambitious entrepreneurs in attendance then you can check out if Ideas Fest is for you with this quick 60 second quiz.

Daniel is a long-time friend of this community, a Great British Entrepreneur Awards winner, the most-recurring guest on Diary of a CEO, and a regular Ideas Fest speaker and supporter. He’s one of the clearest, most practical voices on AI for founders that I know.

I got a lot out of this 10-minute video he recorded recently, and I think you will too:

Watch: Your business is already dead (and what to do about it)
https://youtu.be/FXqG6H0rSwA?si=Vxae_TBpv7OvUIkN

What you’ll learn:

If like many I speak to you’re keen to see how AI can work for your business beyond using Chat GPT I’d urge you to reach out to the team at Implement AI (led by Piers Linney). We’ve partnered with them to help founders embed AI to increase output without increasing payroll.

Take a minute & speak with their AI agent to explore possibilities with your business 👉 https://implementai.io/sales-engagement-ai-agent/

Everyone featured in this email is an Ideas Fest regular. If you want to be in the room field where founders, operators and investors network, experiment and grow together, be sure to join us next year.

Want to evaluate if this is an event for you? Take our 60-second quiz

Hope this email was useful, if I can help you with anything or you’d just like to connect, please do add me on LinkedIn.