From Idea to £250k: The Ting Journey (So Far)

What really happens between ‘I have an idea’ and ‘We’re funded.’

Hey everyone,

A lot has happened since the last update. Ting is now in closed beta.

We’ve got over 500 people waiting to get in, have sent more than 250 invites, booked 40+ meetings, and have about 30 users who seem to really like Ting and are already highly active (booking at least one meeting in the last seven days).

But how did we get here, and how the hell did we raise £250k before we’d even launched?

EU-Startups.com + UKTechNews.info

As some of you know, I left my job to focus on this idea full time. My career before this was pure corporate bee - agency, platform, brand, and startup gigs. I’d never built a company before.

I love to learn, though. I’ve worked in sports, tech, gaming, and entertainment, and lived in the UK, US, China, Germany, and Brazil. I’ve had to figure stuff out in all kinds of contexts.

This post is my step-by-step guide to going from idea to investment. Every founder’s path is different, but if I can save you a bunch of podcast hours and late-night Google sessions, I’d be glad to.

One thing I believe deeply - thanks in part to The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek - is that success isn’t a finite resource. The pie gets bigger when we share. So here’s my contribution to the bigger pie.

How a week of rescheduling sparked the ting idea

For me, it was lived experience: every day I wasted time rescheduling meetings.

Meetings are how we get things done. But life changes daily - energy levels, priorities, emergencies - so we reschedule constantly. Legacy scheduling tools treat it like a fixed puzzle. It’s not. It’s a moving target.

Large language models offer a better way - tools that adapt, understand context, and work in natural language.

That’s Meet-Ting and where we’re going.

The DM that changed everything

I had conviction, but no experience building.

I DM’d my now co-founder Ol asking if he knew any developers I could talk to - just to sanity-check whether this was even possible.

It was the best decision I made early on. He liked the idea, we jammed on the brand (an assistant with personality that signals something about the user), and he introduced me to a few devs.

He also asked to be kept close.

Why “not technically impossible” was all I needed to hear

Talking to developers, the feedback was:

• Simple idea, more complex than it looks

• Not technically impossible = bingo

• “I’d pay for it”

That was enough for me. I had conviction, and now I had outside validation. I committed to building a proof of concept.

CC’ing an AI to run my calendar - could it work?

The proof of concept wasn’t commercially ready, but it answered the original thought that I couldn’t shake out of my head:

Could you CC an AI that reads your calendar, preferences, and email context - then handles booking, rescheduling, and cancelling for you?

Turns out, yes.

How a pitch deck turned an idea into a fundable business

The real turning point from “fun idea” to “fundable business” was writing the pitch doc.

It forced me to:

• Map the market opportunity - where’s the gap, and is it big enough?

• Learn the competitive landscape - pro tip: search company names and execs on podcasts; you’ll hear things they’d never write in a press release.

• Talk to customers - key insight: scheduling sucks for everyone, no matter their industry or seniority.

• Mine social listening - I keep a running list of tweets, LinkedIn posts, and Threads just from searching “Calendly pain.”

• Forecast growth and revenue - even if it’s rough, it forces you to think like a business from day one.

Doing this challenged my assumptions and clarified what was novel about Ting - and how it could become a durable business.

Looking back, if we’d started with the document, we probably would have moved faster. I’ll share ours soon - it might save you weeks of work.

The moment we polished our pitch doc…

The question every investor will ask: “are you full time?”

A lot was happening in my life - I was inspired by an idea, had growing family obligations, and had just turned 40.

As I’ve mentioned before, listening to Rick Rubin really left a mark on me. Maybe it’s my love of music, or the fact I wear the same shades as him and now sport a grey beard - but I tuned in and thought: it’s now or never.

Someone once told me: when you pursue an idea, you have to go all in - because if you don’t, nothing is truly bet on it. So, having just bought a house with a mortgage (yikes), I handed in my notice and rolled the dice, determined to give this my full attention.

Later, I learned every angel and VC will ask you: “Are you on this full time?” And it makes sense - why should they put money down if it’s only part of your focus?

Going full time is a fascinating moment. Suddenly, you’re not following someone else’s playbook - you can write the docs your way, set the pace, shape the culture from day one.

It’s freedom, focus, anxiety and possibility all rolled into one. And weirdly, it’s pretty intoxicating.

Assembling advisors and knowing my limits

The “team” slide in your deck matters, a lot, especially if you’re new.

I went back to past mentors and leaders, shared what I was building, and asked if they’d join as advisors.

At the time, I was still trying to build Ting myself. I quickly learned the hard way that technical leadership is one area you need dedicated and full-time. Having experienced technical people around me early helped keep me on track - and validated my eventual realisation that I’d hit my limits.

Advisors’ time is precious, so I made sure each had a small equity stake in exchange for their guidance.

If you don’t have a strong network yet, find people who’ve worked in your space (or a similar one). Make a clear, respectful ask. Spell out exactly what you’d want from them, how much time it would take, and what they’d get in return.

How SEIS became our early-stage secret weapon

In the UK, SEIS is a game-changer for early-stage founders. You can raise up to £250k, and investors get generous tax relief plus some downside protection.

You need to apply and be accepted, but once you have it, it’s a powerful thing to put in front of angels.

The LinkedIn search hack that got us meetings

We pulled every possible contact into a master list - angels, VCs, friends-of-friends.

Then I DM’d almost everyone I knew on LinkedIn to ask if they invest. It’s awkward, but if you frame it politely, with a bit of self-awareness, you’ll be surprised who replies.

One simple hack: search your 1st-degree connections for “angel” or “investor.” That way, you know you’re knocking on the door of someone already open to these conversations.

James (my co-founder) brought a strong angel network, and my background in viral growth gave us credibility - a combination that got us in the door.

Why I shared every question, projection, and risk

I kept an FAQ doc. Every investor question went in there, word for word. After calls, I’d send it over. They seemed to really like the transparency - it showed we listened, we learned, and we didn’t waste time repeating ourselves.

I also shared a 24-month projection - users, churn, revenue, growth. Some founders avoid doing this because they’re scared it’ll scare people off. For me, it was the opposite: I wanted investors to see it and love it, see it and hate it, or poke holes in it so I could make it better. Eyes wide open. Never be afraid to share.

And I leaned into the risks rather than hiding them. The big one everyone asked: “What if Calendly or Google do this?” My view:

Calendly’s brand and positioning make pivots slow - engineering, customer education, the works. We can move faster.

Google already has Calendar, yet Calendly still exists. There’s always a bigger fish, but speed, focus, and execution matter.

From zero raised to turning down a VC offer

When you’ve raised nothing, it’s hard. “How much have you raised so far?” is brutal when the answer is zero. But when you can say “we’re 25%” or “50%,” FOMO kicks in.

At 75%, we had a VC offer to take the whole round and push angels out. We said no - we believed in our angels and wanted them on the journey.

At 90%, we got to the final stage of a $1M VC pitch. We didn’t need it, but it was a name-brand firm I’d admired for years. The grilling was intense - 15 minutes that felt like an interrogation. Still admire them, maybe slightly less.

How we landed $350k in Google Cloud credits

Alongside pitching angels, I went looking for every grant and corporate program I could find. There’s a lot happening in AI right now, but very little that really stuck for us.

One I’d always had a soft spot for: the Google AI Startup Program. Maybe it’s because I grew up with Google, especially early in my career, or because I’ve done so much work with their people and products over the years. I’ve always admired their “Googlyness.”

The program offers $350k in cloud credits over two years, access to engineers for complex problems, and the credibility of being backed by Google. That combination of resources and signal is huge for an early-stage AI startup.

When we applied, we had an impressive idea, a sharp advisor team, early funding, and a clear growth and innovation path. I even told the Google team straight: we can double down with you or go to a competitor for our LLM choice. They liked our conviction. We got in.

Now we run almost entirely on Google - OAuth, Google Calendar, Gmail, GCP, Gemini - and we love building with their tools. It’s not just credits; it’s speed, trust, and having the right people to ask when you hit a wall.

The boring-but-critical foundations you can’t skip

At some point, you have to move from “we have an idea” to “we are a company.”

For us, that meant ticking off the unglamorous (I’m learning to love them, really) steps that make it official:

• Register with Companies House - It’s quick, but it’s the first step to becoming a Ltd company. Once you’re registered, you can open a bank account, apply for SEIS, take investment, and all that good stuff.

• Issue shares - To advisors, employees, and investors. This is where equity actually changes hands and commitments become formal.

• Get a Company Secretary (CoSec) - We found a brilliant one. They keep you compliant as you add directors, allocate shares, and deal with all the filings you don’t want to mess up.

• Trademark your name, logo, and slogan - In the UK, you file with the IPO, pay a fee, and wait. If approved, it gives you protection and unlocks a lot in the digital world - like applying for a verified sender tick on email or taking action against impersonators.

• Get insurance - I learned more about corporate insurance than I ever thought I would. The list is long: Directors & Officers (D&O), Cyber, Errors & Omissions (E&O), Key Person cover, Employers’ Liability, and Employment Practices insurance. A good broker will tailor it as you scale.

It’s not the part that gets you headlines, but it’s the part that makes sure the thing you’re building can stand.

VAT, payroll, and avoiding Ozark-level drama

Bring in an accountant early. They’ll help with VAT, taxes, payroll, and cash flow. Not the Ozark kind.

The smiles that kept me going

One of my favourite memories is my wife sitting beside me, going through the pitch deck and brand book slide by slide, smiling as Ting came to life on the screen.

Building a company doesn’t happen in a vacuum - it happens with the people who believe in you, long before the rest of the world does.

Have your cheerleaders. The ones who’ll lift you when something flops, and who’ll celebrate the wins like they’re their own.

Why I’ll never build without an LLM beside me

It wouldn’t be a true Ting story if I didn’t mention how much AI has had my back throughout this process.

I’ve already mentioned using ChatGPT Voice to rehearse and stress-test my answers for VCs, but I’ve also leaned on it for researching areas I know nothing about, brainstorming when I’m stuck, and bouncing ideas before taking them to humans.

You can’t (yet) outsource every problem to Gemini, GPT, or Claude - but as thought partners and research tools, they’re lifesavers.

There’s never been a better time to start a business when the world’s collective wisdom is just a prompt (or a voice command) away.

The journey’s just getting started

The wild part? The hard work hasn’t even started. This was just to get to the beginning.

Now comes the real test: building, shipping, and delighting our community.

We’re lucky to have the attention of 500 of you already - and we don’t take a second of it for granted.

If you want to see what we ship each week, keep an eye here. And if you haven’t already, join the beta: meet-ting.com

Thanks for reading.

-Dan
Chief Ting