When a major client walked away and rated the marketing a six out of ten, James Ker-Reid didn’t make excuses. He opened his phone, wrote down a question, and that question changed everything.
What if you could build a B2B marketing engine that didn’t require a big team or massive budget, but actually worked?
In this episode of Tech Startup Stories, I sit down with James, a solo founder and the creator of Autelo, to talk through what happened after that loss, how he decided to pivot from consultancy to product, and what it’s taken to get his idea off the ground. Spoiler: it starts with listening, not building.
We talk about:
Losing a £250k renewal and what it triggered
Interviewing 100+ marketers before writing a single line of code
Why his paid beta users came from a different audience than expected
Bootstrapping with clarity, not ego
How great mentors helped him rethink everything
What I loved most about this conversation was how unpolished it is—in the best way. James is seven months into this chapter, working with a small group of early users to shape the product week by week. There’s no funding yet, no team, no glossy origin story. Just a founder figuring it out, leaning on his network, and being honest about what’s hard and what’s working.
If you’re a solo founder, a marketer inside a resource-strapped team, or someone who’s wondering what it takes to start again with purpose, you’ll take a lot from this one.
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