What I Learned at Rare Founders London: The Realities of Startup Pitching and Building Traction

The Rare Founders Demo Day in London was an experience worth every minute.
Hosted at the Belgian embassy, it brought together startups and investors under one elegant roof — an initiative from startup.flanders and hub.brussels that genuinely helps founders understand what investor matchmaking looks like in practice.

How it works

A month before the event, startups must send their pitch deck and a one-minute video to Vasily from Rare Founders.
Then comes the real magic: investors evaluate your submission, giving you a score and feedback. Based on that ranking, you can be selected for a live pitch.

If you make the cut, you get a 15-minute coaching session with Caroline Kay, who helps you fine-tune your story — especially valuable if public speaking isn’t your strong suit.
On demo day, all founders join a group energy session before stepping into the spotlight. You get exactly one minute to pitch, followed by Q&A. Investors in the audience hold up auction-style numbers when they want a one-on-one meeting. Efficient, clear, and surprisingly human.

My experience as a founder

For me, this was pure energy.
Networking is my natural habitat, so the reception afterward felt like home. I met incredible people — founders, investors, ecosystem builders — but I didn’t actively hunt for investors.

Why? Because I believe you need traction before funding.
Finding an investor to build your MVP is, in most cases, like saying “Look how smart our idea is!” Maybe it works once in a while — but usually not. Unless you’ve already started, grown, and exited a business successfully, investors won’t (and shouldn’t) fund your idea on paper.

For early-stage founders, the most valuable currency is time and execution.
Once you have an MVP and ten pilot customers, that’s when conversations shift from “what if” to “how fast can we scale?”

My 3-second, 10-second, and 15-second pitch

Over two days, I probably repeated what ReplyFabric does a hundred times — but it paid off.
I refined my pitch to three versions: 3 seconds, 10 seconds, and 15 seconds. Each one landed. People instantly got the pain and the solution. That’s validation in itself.

I also attended great sessions in Flanders House, visited Level39 in Canary Wharf, and absorbed the London tech scene.
There’s a different kind of energy there — faster, bolder, more capital-driven.
Ask for €1M in Belgium and people hesitate; ask for €2M in London and they ask about your roadmap. It’s all about perspective.

What’s next

If traction follows, it means product–market fit is real. Then I’ll shift from build mode to scale mode — and that’s when conversations about CAC, funding, and growth acceleration start to make sense. I’ll likely spend a few months in London, maybe even work from Level39, a true tech startup hub.

My plan is simple:
Keep building.
Launch in November.
Execute our go-to-market strategy and grow as fast as possible.

Once ReplyFabric gains momentum, the next phase will be about exponential growth — scaling wisely, learning fast, and staying true to the mission of bringing AI-powered efficiency to every shared inbox.

A word of warning for new founders

Events like these attract a special kind of crowd: the startup sharks.
They smell opportunity — and insecurity. I’ve never met so many self-proclaimed GTM gurus and scale coaches in one room.
They all pitch beautifully, drop buzzwords, and radiate confidence — but don’t confuse persuasion with competence.

If you’re just starting out, don’t buy into the noise.
In Belgium, there are excellent public and community programs that offer real, unbiased support: imec.istart, Start it @KBC, VLAIO, and many others. Start there. Build trust first, then traction.

And remember: you can finance your startup through debt, equity, or revenue.

• With debt, you keep control — risky but empowering.
• With equity, you get help but lose some freedom — like having a smart but opinionated mother-in-law.
• With revenue, you win twice — independence and validation.

That’s the road I’m on with ReplyFabric.
And London was a reminder that in startups, money follows momentum — not the other way around.

I could get used to London. I could work there. I could live there.
The energy blew me away — it’s startup life on steroids.

👉 Visit Rare Founders website