Fashion 4.0
Zero to Launch

Fashion 4.0 connects founders, investors and industry partners building the UK's fashion-tech ecosystem, with a national competition to exhibit at London Fashion Week. Founder Nicholas Betts had the vision and the network. I built the marketing from zero.

Getting the first members

Problem

No site, no members, no launch plan.

Insight

Fashion-tech founders ignore generic networking. They join for two things: the right introduction and access to investors.

Move

Positioned the platform around curated introductions. Built the site solo, from UX to launch. Drove traffic with LinkedIn content to an application form, then a review and a welcome flow.

Result

21 members admitted.

Making founders open it

Problem

Founders have no time for industry news.

Insight

They want to know what to do, not what happened.

Move

Fashion-Tech Monthly: four stories, one minute. Each ends with a trend and one action. Every fact is checked against the original report.

Result

78% open rate on a 500+ subscriber list.

Filling the room

Problem

Event emails get skimmed and ignored.

Insight

People decide on date, time and place. Everything else is noise.

Move

Ticket-style emails where the event name, date and time are the biggest text. A sequence of invite, reminder, 7-day countdown and follow-up. Event with law firm Potter Clarkson.

Result

27 registrations.

One brand system, built to be short

Fashion-Tech Monthly

IP Academy invite

IP Social follow-up

Newsletter teaser

Membership welcome

Avantex quiz result

Borrowing credibility

Problem

A new brand has no track record.

Move

Co-developed partnerships with UKFT, Avantex, Slush and NF&TA, and with Potter Clarkson for a members-only event.

Result

Speaking slots and stands at 4 B2B events.

Turning a trade show into introductions

Problem

At trade shows people collect cards and never follow up.

Insight

People talk when they have a reason to.

Move

Built a quiz for Avantex. Three questions about who you are and what you want. It emails three matched exhibitors with LinkedIn, website and booking links. Runs on Supabase, Airtable and EmailOctopus.

Status

Built and tested. The team has not used it yet.

Funding the London Fashion Week entry

Problem

The initiative needs investors and had no way to reach them.

Move

Built an investor database of 123 funds, with filters by stage, region and type, and an outreach funnel. Co-built the pitch deck with the founder. Turned the data into LinkedIn posts.

Result

123 funds mapped, 75 of them outside the UK.

One person publishing like a team

Problem

A founder community needs regular content and I am the only person producing it.

Insight

Finding and drafting is the slow part. Judgement has to stay human.

Move

Built an agent that reads fashion-tech news, ranks it, writes a research note and a LinkedIn draft, and sends it to me in Telegram to approve, rewrite or skip.

Status

Running in test, with publishing to LinkedIn as the next step.

Airtable, Supabase, EmailOctopus, Luma, GitHub Actions, Claude, HTML/CSS/JS.