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l2o Ventures ... Steve Procter
Building and supporting the next generation of startups
As a startup entrepreneur with 28 years of founder experience and connections, I have created and grown two multi-million pound businesses from zero and advised other founders on navigating startup life.Through l2o Ventures, I now give back to support other great startups, founders and the investment community. Fundraising introductions and help for non-tech founders to build MVPs are just the start.
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Are you ready to bring your startup idea to life but frustrated by a lack of programming skills or funds to pay developers? The Gipitylogo-tm2 framework + co-pilot will get your MVP started and guide you in using ChatGPT to make it uniquely yours.
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I support the early-stage investment process by seeking out great fundraising startups and founders and supplying the investors in my growing Venture Cardslogo-tm2 network with pre-filtered opportunities, hand-picked to match their criteria.
Steve Procter ... Building tech startups since the start of the web
Steve Procter ...
Building tech startups since the start of the web
A lifetime in tech ... 7 years in education • 10 in industry • 28 years building & running startups
I've been using tech for more than 40 years, creating startups since 1996 and also advising other founders. I get the founder mindset.As a seasoned entrepreneur and technology architect, I am a lateral thinker, spotting opportunities and creating visions for something better but not always obvious. As a startup CEO and CTO, I've created some big firsts and achieved success twice. I've gone from a blank sheet to 7-figure turnovers, and from nothing to 100,000 business clients, 30+ staff and 1 million daily transactions.
I can also be found supporting the startup ecosystem with daily Linkedin posts to 26,000 followers
Before the internet...
1968 BC (Before Computers): Born into an analogue world
1982-1986: Discovered computers! Everything from a Vic 20 and BBC micro to an ICL 2900 mainframe
1986-1989: Computation degree, UMIST (University of Manchester, Institute of Science & Technology)
1989-1999: IT consultant & project manager:Logica, IBM, Reuters, Bankers Trust and Deutsche Bank
1994-1997: started first side hustle as a scuba diving instructor with own dive school in London
Welcome to the web...
1996: published my first website and first ever disk-mounted website on the cover of a UK magazine
1999: developer and project manager at two very early digital agencies in London
The dot-com boom days...
1999: vision, architect & investor. created first UK under-a-tenner domain name business, Easily
1999: built and launched early/successful dot-com, a domain, email and web hosting ISP
1999-2001: as CEO, managed growth from zero to 2,000 daily domain sales and 30+ staff in under 2 years
2000: invented the web-based DNS dashboard for domains
2000: created early no-code solution for one-page websites, 10,000 clients and £100k ARR from a single £300 server
2000: highly commended for "Entrepreneur of the Year", in European E-commerce Association E-business 2000 awards
2001: Easily came 64th in Sunday Times "Top 100 pre-IPO e-businesses in Europe" E-League
2001: ran one of the first successful web affiliate schemes, generating 40% of our revenue
2004: reached 400,000+ domain name registrations and hosted 30,000+ websites and 40,000+ email accounts
2004: sales primarily through 3,500 active commission earning affiliates and word of mouth to 100,000+ loyal customers
2004: negotiated a successful multi-million pound dot-com exit and sale of Easily
And then there was mobile...
2002: vision & investor. launched one of the first-ever B2B mobile text marketing services at SMS Expert
2007-2011: an early digital nomad, running a B2B Saas startup from a beach and the desert
2007-2019: as CEO, successfully ran leading text marketing B2B Saas from zero to multi-million turnover
2007-2019: CTO & architect. developed 850k lines of code & supported 1mil daily transactions & API calls
Supporting other founders...
2020... consultancy, advice and support for early-stage tech startup founders, at steveprocter.com
2022... helping hand-picked founders find the right investors, at l2o.co
Founder: ongoing projects + coming soon...
• 2018... vision, architect, investor & cto on a number of startups and ideas. Watch this space...⇾ Clickacall™: "instant video calls from anywhere with a single click"⇾ Nearevo™: "proximity discovery for the internet of things"⇾ Scan + Click™: "contactless business cards"⇾ Secly™: "personal online security"• 2021... l2o™: supporting the next generation of startups and founders• 2022... Venture Cards™: all startups, in one place • connecting the right founders and investors• 2024... Gipity™: MVP framework + co-pilot for non-techies• 2025... l2o Space™: a community for entrepreneurs, founders, investors, advisors, thought leaders, changemakers and others• 2025... l2o Studio™: getting founders and startup ideas from zero to two ... Lab, Launch, Orbit™
* ™ Trademarked names shown above are trading names of l2o ltd
Testimonials ... Feedback
Don't just take my word for it
A common difference between good and bad startups is the people. Ideas are easy, but people add the magic.Whether as clients, colleagues, co-founders or investors, I've worked with people that helped make a big difference. Between us, we've seen ideas come and go. Some good and some bad. Some brilliant but too early, and some good but too late. And occasionally, ideas that stood out and had a chance,... because of the people.
Ideas are great • But people matter more
Harvey Cuthbert, Saas Startup Founder
" Steve has been an invaluable mentor during our businesses journey. He always thinks ahead and outside of the box. A very supportive and highly experienced mentor that is a great asset for anyone looking to grow "
Adam Evans, Sales Director
" Steve is one of those people who can analyse new requirements and visualise smart new digital ways of doing things way before most others. But not just tech for tech's sake. His solutions are well thought out to benefit all parts of a business, from the customer offering to all operational processes. He knows how to communicate all this new tech to non-techies too! "
Martin P., Founder, ALXI
" I've worked with Steve a number of times over 12 years. He's always extremely diligent, looking to provide the most streamlined technical solution possible, with support that goes above and beyond. He's constantly looking outside the box, thinking about things from all angles and ready to offer clear-headed business analysis & reporting whenever needed "
Mark Birch, Software Developer
" Steve is probably the most tenacious, diligent, hardworking and knowledgeable person I've ever met. He always sees things through to their conclusion, and will make sure that even the smallest details are considered and catered for. Steve excels at managing others and keeps a high-level perspective "
Greg Sellam, Sales Director
" I worked with Steve on the migration of SMS Expert to Qadex. Steve was calm, clear, positive and thorough during the very busy period of documenting the system and training the new Directors, Helpdesk, Business Analysts and Offshore technical teams. Steve has the skills and experience to engage with stakeholders at every level "
Tony Peters, Digital Consultant
" Steve is a dedicated entrepreneur with the drive and ambition to move forward and stay ahead of the pack. I enjoyed working with Steve both when his role was project manager and when he was CEO. His attitude is excellent and if the opportunity arose, I would definitely consider working with him again "
Luke Antins, Software Consultant
" Steve has always been a pleasure to work with. Always on the ball, quick to respond and a very nice chap to discuss solutions with over the phone "
Alex Shepherd, Support Specialist
" Working with Steve in the early days of Easily.uk and automated domain registration, I found him to be an innovator who likes to keep things simple. It seems to me that a lot of technology companies learnt from him "
Kevin Parker, Long-term Client
" Superb service from Steve. He built an easy online portal and had a real 'can do' approach to help develop our business. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Steve and he works in a pro-active manner "
Nathan Hudson, Transformation Specialist
" I worked with Steve for over 5 years. Highly diligent with a no nonsense attitude, whilst being highly personable, Steve is a pleasure to work with "
Cookie and Privacy Policy
Welcome to the privacy policy, cookie policy and marketing & communications policy for l2o ltd, herein also known as l2o.Where this document refers to "we" or "our", these are inter-changeable with "I" and "my". This document is meant to help you understand what data we collect, why we collect it, and what we do with it. When you share information with us, we believe that by using it we can make our services even better for you. For example, we can use it to help us identify the most relevant of our services that you may require, both now and in the future, or to help us develop new services for the future that we believe would be useful to you. As you use our services, we want it to be clear to you how we're using information and the ways in which we look to protect your privacy.l2o is committed to protecting the privacy of all its app and website users and business clients. l2o provides business and consultancy related services and products to individuals and other businesses. In all cases we will attempt to be fair in how we hold, manage and process personal data, whether it is for an individual in their own capacity or as a sole-trader, or a person who is visiting or using our service on behalf of a business. We will refer throughout our policy and other documents and promotions to clients and members, and these terms are inter-changeable.Use of our apps, websites as well as the services and products provided through our sites indicates your consent to the collection and use of information as described in this policy as well as your consent for us to communicate with you as described in this policy. Any changes to the policy will be posted on our website.What information is collected and how is it used?We ask you to supply certain information when you enquire with us as a sales-lead about our services, or when you sign up or register with us as a client or for a free or trial service. This information may include but is not limited to your name, the name of your business, your postal address, email address, landline telephone and mobile numbers, website address, how you heard of us and other business, founder and financial data. We may also make notes in our CRM (customer relationship management system) about your requirements and service needs. This information will be used in the management of our own business and to enable us to contact you about the service you have enquired about, requested or signed up for, and to contact you about similar services that we believe may interest you now or in the future. We may also combine details of more than one sales-lead or client when performing analysis to identify trends, common requirements and other information so that we can continually improve our services and existing and future offerings.We may also combine details of more than one sales-lead, client or l2o profile to create consolidated data, aggregated data and statistics which we may use both internally and externally in public communications with the public, businesses and other organisations. Such consolidated data, aggregated data and statistics will only be made available in such a way that it cannot identify any individuals, businesses or clients unless specific agreement is given by such individuals, businesses or clients.You can find further details below about the methods by which we may contact you and how you can change these contact methods or opt-out from future contact altogether. In addition, when you use our website we store your IP address and may use this information to administer our website and help to diagnose any network or server problems. We may also use it as part of our security if we believe we have identified a credible threat to our systems or our business, or an act of fraud, money laundering or other illegal behaviour or acts that are against current regulations and laws.Sub-Processors and Divulging your data to other partiesl2o will not, without your consent, divulge, sell, lease, rent or provide in any other way personal information about you to a third party, except in the following circumstances...1. If required to do so by law or by any organisation with appropriate authority including but not limited to any formally recognised regulatory body who wish to investigate an alleged breaking or possible breaking of any relevant regulations, codes of practice, legislation, applicable laws or other rules and regulations as laid down from time to time by the police or other regulatory authorities.2. If you have signed up for optional services which require us to pass your personal information to another company. From time to time l2o may offer additional services to our clients or sales-leads that we believe to be relevant or similar to those that you currently use or have enquired about. In some cases these services may require us to pass personal data held by us to a third party. Any such service will be optional and the opt-in process will clearly show that personal data will be shared with another company. Before passing your personal data and other information to a third party we will seek your approval.3. To any financial institution or other payment processing organisation with whom we work for the purpose of processing payments and direct debits from you, verifying credit status and/or validating financial transactions. In the case of a business we would only seek to do these things from the business entity that we are contracting to, rather than you personally. Note that l2o does not gather or hold any credit or debit card information or any bank account details for our clients; this is all managed by the organisation that we currently work with for these purposes, including Revolut Bank and Stripe.4. We may disclose data as part of a corporate transaction such as a merger or sale of assets.5. We may share data with service companies, agents or contractors working for l2o and on our behalf. Such service companies may need access to or be able to view personal data in order to provide those functions and in such cases, these companies must abide by our data privacy and security requirements and will only be given access to data that is strictly required for them to carry out their tasks.6. We may share data with affiliates, sponsors or other similar business partners. This will be limited to the data of clients who signup having followed an affiliate link or used an affiliate coupon code and will only be shared with the specific affiliate partner that referred the client. The affiliate partner agrees to be bound by these terms and by all data protection and related regulations and will only use the data internally for assisting in the management of l2o service or other services that the affiliate partner offers via their own business.7. Our main client services are to make introductions and connect our investor clients with our business owner, Director and founder clients. As such, by submitting your data to us, you accept this may be seen by other clients and they may contact you and we have no control nor accept any liability over such other clients and how they may use your data.Policy on data carried by us as a Platform ProviderClients contract with l2o to provide services. These services may require us to process additional data on their behalf...1. We may provide a web-based platform and mobile apps to help you manage your services and data. l2o respects the privacy of this data2. l2o may offer a consultancy service. In such a case we may give advice about how services may aid your business and the optimum ways to use such services, but we always do so with the strict proviso that the advice does not constitute legal or financial advice and that you are free to seek alternative advice and any actions you take in relation to advice we have given are based on your own final decisionsOur Servers and location of your dataAll your information is stored on and our services run on secure servers either in the UK or managed by sub-processors that fully comply with GDPR requirements. Our services, client dashboards and API's all use relevant up to date secure tehnology throughout which is constantly reviewed and maintained.Advertising and links to other websitesOur websites may contain advertising and links to other websites. However no personal information is passed to other websites if you follow one of these links. l2o is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of linked websites and we would encourage you to read the privacy statements of other websites, since their privacy policy may differ from ours.Right to view, change or delete your dataYou have the right to view, change and delete the information that we store about you. If you wish to do so then please email us at the address shown on our website.Cookie PolicySome cookies are used on our websites which are essential to allow us to manage and secure your account and logins to the l2o service and without these cookies it will be extremely difficult for us to easily or safely manage the service. We may also use some non-essential cookies to anonymously track visitors or enhance your experience of the website. We do not divulge any cookie details or information gained from our use of any cookies to third parties, unless the cookies have been placed by companies that we use to help us manage services within our website (see above). If you're not happy with our cookie policy then please contact us in order to discuss your requirements. To control or disable cookies from us and third parties you can also adjust your browser settings but please note that this may cause our service and website to not function correctly.Communication and Marketing PolicyThere are 2 primary reasons that we may communicate with you...1. We would like from time to time to contact people and businesses with a view to using our current or future business-related services or products and to do so by methods such as phone, video, email, WhatsApp, SMS text message, Twitter or Linkedin messaging. We would only do this with those who have become our clients, those who have shown an interest in our business, services or products, or with those who have communicated or connected with one of our Directors, staff, contractors or agents via a conference, exhibition, networking, phone, email, WhatsApp, sms, or a recognised social media platform such as Linkedin or Twitter. We would like to communicate with such people if we feel we have a relevant service that may be of interest to you or your business, either now or in the future. We would like to also do this in future if we have a new service or product that is similar to one you currently use, have enquired about or used with us in the past. When we first communicate with you we will attempt to find out from you if you wish to receive future communications from us.2. If you or your business are signed up and contracted to use our services or products then we would like the ability to email, WhatsApp, sms, video call or call you with mandatory service communications that are designed to update you about the status of the services or products or that services will soon expire or have expired. These communications are designed to inform you about the service you or your business have contracted for. We hope that you will agree to accept such communications to allow us to run your services or products smoothly. However please contact us if you have any concerns about the communications we have with you.We fully recognise that you have the right to not receive communications or to stop receiving further communications at any time from us and so you may email us at the address shown below or on our website to request that we no longer contact you. You can also reply to any email that we send you or click the relevant 'unsubscribe' link or similar options that will be presented in marketing and newsletter emails.To clarify, please contact us if you have any requests or queries regarding our communications and marketing. We will be happy to remove your account and data (or sales-lead data if you have not yet signed up to be a client) or modify the settings we hold so that we may only contact you by sms, email, WhatsApp, video and/or phone call. You have the right to request we use any, all or none of these communication methods.Contact InformationYou may contact l2o at any time to discuss our services and privacy, cookie and marketing & communications policies by emailing us at [email protected] or other email addresses shown from time to time on the l2o website at https://www.l2o.co.
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