Ideas Lab
Founding CEO – Neurodiversity Tech Startup
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CEO (Co-Founder Opportunity) – Reframe!
Location: London / Hybrid
Type: Full time
Funding: 6-month funded founder build
Compensation: Living stipend + founder equity
The Role
Reframe is built inside Ideas Lab, a venture studio that builds, tests, and spins out early-stage companies. We do the risky part first: before a founder joins, we've validated demand, built the first product, and committed the capital. Then we hand the keys to a founder and back them properly.
As a founder, you'll join us for a fast-paced, 6-month Launch phase where you will receive a living stipend plus funding to build an MVP into a real product and test it with customers. You'll work with experienced founders, designers, engineers, and investors, culminating with the opportunity to pitch for a larger tranche of funding to spin out your venture.
What is Reframe: Know your mind. Make life fit.
Most neurodivergent adults never get a formal diagnosis. They spend years, sometimes decades, without a clear answer, without support that works, and without anyone in their workplace who knows how to help. Reframe exists to change that.
Reframe uses modern technology to predict and understand neurodivergence by building a living profile of how someone thinks, focuses, and communicates. Our first product, D-Lex, uses short audio activities to screen for dyslexia and interpret how someone reads, remembers, and processes information. More than 4,000 people have already used it. The same profile that helps an individual understand their mind can power tools for every employer that wants to support its people: manager training, workplace adjustment packs, team communication. One asset, two markets: consumers who want answers, and organizations that need them. From dyslexia, the profile expands into ADHD and beyond.
We're not hiring a manager. We're looking for the person who will own this company. You'll choose the right first customer problem, prove people will pay for it, find the route to revenue, and lead Reframe through its seed raise and beyond.
See more at: https://www.reframeapp.uk/
The Build
Reframe is funded internally by Ideas Lab for the full six-month build. You won't spend your first weeks fundraising; you'll spend them with customers.
Across the build you will:
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- Understand the customer and choose the problem. Speak to customers constantly, get deep into how they live with the problem, and pick the first problem worth winning and the go-to-market motion to match.
- Build. Deliver the beta product (likely a mobile app) with the Technical Lead and team, and keep shipping: tests, iterations, and product changes driven by what the customers tell you.
- Prove people come back. Run experiments that create retention and real customer value. Own activation, retention, paid conversion, and CAC.
- Run early revenue experiments. Test pricing and positioning with real behavior and real payments. Win early customers and partners directly.
- Prepare for seed and unlock the next stage. Turn the evidence into a fundable story. A successful review at the end of the build unlocks further funding, full cofounder terms, and the runway to drive Reframe's seed raise.
Who we're looking for
Ideally you've built before or have been deeply involved. Somewhere in your track record is a digital product you personally took from an idea to real users, and outcomes you owned that moved because of you. You don’t need prior founder experience - just relevant skills, insight, and the drive to build a business. If you care deeply about the problem and have the grit to bring it to life, we want to hear from you.
Beyond that, we care about:
- Consumer product instinct: You understand the business model of subscriptions or digital health, and a working command of activation, retention, pricing, and customer economics.
- Evidence over opinion: You run real experiments and change the product because of what you find.
- Commercial nerve: You've sold something before it was easy to sell, you understand how to make something people want and get them to buy it.
- Judgement in ambiguity & Scrappiness: Good decisions when time, money, and evidence are all limited.
- Care for this community: Lived experience of neurodivergence isn't required, but genuine care is. This category demands sound judgement about accessibility and sensitive data.
- Leadership: exceptional at rallying teams to achieve shared goals in an inclusive environment
- Skilled storytelling: effective at communicating with diverse audiences and stakeholders
- AI/Technology Product Proficiency: Ability to build and develop a vision for a technical product without necessarily being an engineer. You can make credible "build vs. buy" decisions and understand the constraints of different technologies.
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Nice to have but not essential:
- Enterprise sales understanding. The immediate focus is consumer but eventually enterprise will also become a sales stream so experience here would be useful.
Roughly four years of relevant experience is a benchmark, not a rule. This is a non-standard role and we actively welcome non-standard backgrounds. If your path here is unusual, tell us why it makes you the right founder for this.
What you get
- A venture with proof, not a blank page. 4,000+ all time users on the MVP, a working product, a validated brand and design system, and partnerships in development.
- A living stipend of ~£4,000 for the six-month build, paid monthly, so you can commit full time from day one.
- A significant founder equity stake, with the details agreed together before you start.
- Committed capital. Ideas Lab funds the build directly, with further investment ready to unlock at the end of a successful build, ahead of your seed raise.
- Hands-on studio support. Product, engineering, growth, legal, and fundraising from the Ideas Lab team, plus the SEIS/EIS-backed spin-out structure we've used across our portfolio.
- The CEO seat. This is your company to run, with the studio alongside you, not above you.
Who is behind Reframe
Ideas Lab is led by Matthew Adam, who previously built We Are Group from a standing start to £10m revenue (Sunday Times Fast Track 100) and has raised over £10m across ventures. We are also backed by a group of exceptional angel investors. You'll build alongside an experienced studio team covering product, tech, growth, and fundraising, with research and sector partnerships already in motion, including with a leading UK university and the dyslexia community.
How to apply
- An up-to-date CV.
- A tailored cover letter inserted as page 1 of your CV explaining why this opportunity excites you and highlighting your most relevant experience.
We want Reframe to be built by people who reflect the community it serves. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and will make reasonable adjustments at every stage of the process.
Any further questions can be sent to team@ideaslab.uk
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