Q1. Briefly, what does your business do, and what is the purpose?
Felix Research sits at the intersection of AI and financial research. We’re building FelixOne, an intelligence platform designed to help investors research faster and more effectively, without diluting the quality of the information they rely on. We’re currently in development, with the first version of FelixOne set to launch later this year.
Q2. What originally sparked the idea to start the business?
My background has been in private equity, and I’ve been active as an angel investor for some time. In those roles, I saw the same inefficiencies play out day after day – things that cost teams real time and led to avoidable mistakes. Eventually, I decided that rather than complain about what bothered me, I should put my money where my mouth is and try to fix at least some of it.
Hardest Challenge
Q3. What’s been the toughest challenge you’ve faced so far?
No amount of books or talks can truly prepare you for the founder experience. Thankfully, the long hours aren’t new to me, but there’s so much that changes when it’s your business – from legal and compliance work to managing people and projects. The hardest part is knowing what to focus on at any given moment, and making sure everyone on the team is set up to do their best work.
We’re a small group of four, so there’s a lot of overlap. On any given day, I might go from reviewing the design for a new piece of branded merchandise to a deep conversation with our founding engineer about the structure of our data-processing pipeline.
Q4. What advice would you give other entrepreneurs and leaders?
If you’re convinced by your idea, keep going. Someone recently told me that the best way to ensure success is to simply keep working – explore all the good ideas, and quickly learn to discard the bad ones. That kind of decision-making isn’t easy, but as a founder, you have to trust your instincts. The entire journey, for the team and myself, has been filled with uncertainty, from product development to fundraising. What keeps us moving is the conviction that we’re on the right track, backed by great external advisors.
That brings me to another point: get advice often and early. It took me some time to get comfortable asking, but there are countless knowledgeable people in our networks and across the industry. Use them. Bounce ideas off them, connect with interesting people, and don’t be afraid to ask what you think is an obvious question.
The other bit: focus on your strengths, and let your team focus on theirs. It’s tempting to think that as a founder you need an opinion on everything, but everyone you’re working with is there for a reason. Half the time, it’s about getting out of the way.
The Highlight
Q5. What achievement are you most proud of? Why?
We recently launched our first tech demo at ab.felixresearch.com, showing off early development progress on what will become FelixOne. Months of work went into the planning and development behind it, and we’re genuinely proud of where we’ve gotten to. It’s easy to lose perspective when you’re staring at pages and pages of roadmap documents, but seeing the site go live and watching people start to use it has been immensely gratifying.
One Piece of Wisdom
Q6. What one piece of advice would you share with your younger self if you were doing it all again?
Do everything faster. Not in the sense of rushing, but especially nowadays, it’s important not to let perfect be the enemy of good. When you’re building your own product, you’ll see every flaw – but there will always be things to improve. Launch earlier, iterate faster, and don’t try to get everything right on the first attempt.
Working with Ignition Law
Q7. What led you to work with Ignition Law?
Ignition Law came recommended through contacts in the London legal community as a firm that genuinely tries to understand its clients’ needs at the earliest stages of a company, without sacrificing the professionalism you’d expect of a much larger firm.
Q8. How did Ignition support you, and what difference did they make?
Ignition lets me sleep at night. Getting all of the legal groundwork in order at an early stage, to the standard I was looking for, felt incredibly daunting – because of everything I knew I didn’t know. The team – Heros, Manpriya, and Nicky – made it as easy as it could be. They were incredibly receptive to my needs and my many (many) questions, and have produced work across the board that I don’t think we could have gotten from any other firm in London.
Q9. What do you value most about working with Team Ignition?
The professionalism and the patience. I never had to feel rushed, or as though our relatively small account wasn’t getting the attention it deserved. The team have always taken their time to produce the highest quality work, from straightforward processes to complex shareholder documentation.
Keeping Motivated Beyond Work
Q10. What keeps your spark alive, inside or outside of work?
The work. Founding and running Felix Research is the best job I’ve ever had, and the team here with me makes it easy to come into the office early and leave very late. Every day brings new ideas and new approaches. There’s no boredom.
Sharing Knowledge
Q11. What book, video, Ted Talk, quote, or single piece of advice can you share with the SME community?
As a contrarian, my advice would be not to worry too much about the many talking heads out there. There are no shortcuts and no simple answers. Real work is exhausting and it takes time – but if you’re willing to put in the effort and to see the bigger picture of why you’re doing what you’re doing, you’ll make it.
That said, there is plenty of great reading out there. Paul Graham’s essays are full of sharp insights from his Y Combinator experience. Founder vs Investor offers some valuable perspectives through conversation. And for the philosophically inclined, Adam Phillips’ On Giving Up is a tour de force exploring the psychology of a concept most entrepreneurs think about more often than they’d like to admit.
