George Proud is the CEO and co-founder of Gendo, a startup that has created a platform for architects to turn text prompts and sketches into realistic visualisations.
Founded in 2022 by Proud and Will Jones, Gendo’s technology has been used by the likes of Zaha Hadid Architects, Benoy, KPF, David Chipperfield Architects.
The London-based startup, which employs five people, says it uses generative AI to turn 2D drawings or text prompts into editable visualisations. Architects can then adjust details such as lighting and colour.
Earlier this month, Gendo raised £855,000 in a pre-seed funding round that attracted capital from Concept Ventures and Ascension Ventures.
In this week’s Founder in Five Q&A, the Gendo CEO explains why you should be prepared for tough feedback when pitching to investors, how having a co-founder is a productivity hack, and why he’s a “big believer” in augmented and virtual reality for construction.
1. What advice would you give to a first-time founder?
George Proud: Even if you’ve got an amazing idea and a great product, you need to be prepared to receive tough feedback and for a lot of people to say ‘no’. This is especially true if you’re going down the VC route for funding (which isn’t the right choice for every business, anyway).
To give yourself the very best shot with VCs, make sure you’re not just operating on blind faith. Come armed with sound logic and good evidence that your idea is worth it.
Even when you do this, people won’t always agree with you. What’s important is that you can listen to feedback, adjust accordingly and keep moving forward.
2. What’s a common mistake that you see founders make?
GP: Lots of founders seem to under-appreciate the value of presenting and organising their work in a useful and professional way. This could be the designer in me: but we’ve had so many positive comments from potential investors for having a polished deck and a well-structured data room.
You’re selling yourself and your product, and these are the primary assets you do that with, so founders should take real care over how they are presented. It’s important to make a good first impression and to show that you pay attention to detail. The bar seems to be very low!
3. Do you have a productivity hack?
GP: Saying things out loud to my co-founder, Will, is my best hack. It’s so easy to get blinkered and just power through when you’re busy.
But I find it super clarifying to chat something through for five minutes. It makes prioritising much more obvious and it’s reassuring to have two minds on big problems, rather than just one. Compared to when I previously ran a company on my own, having two founders is magnitudes more effective.
4. Excluding your sector, which nascent technology holds the most promise?
GP: I’m a big believer in AR and VR, especially in construction; but also the realisation of the metaverse. Well before the metaverse existed my academic architecture work focussed on the intersection of AR/VR and the built world. I think there’s a true AR/VR use case there with tons of potential.
Once the hardware is cheaper and internet speeds are faster, the metaverse will be realisable in some form or another.
5. Which hyped-up technology do you think is doomed to fail?
GP: I’ve always struggled with crypto and web3. I can see the ledger functionality being useful in a bunch of ways, but the reliance on pure compute is so wasteful, and it seems to have only found traction in some meme crypto coins, rather than a true effective use case. Let’s not even start on NFTs!
Founder in Five – a UKTN Q&A series with the entrepreneurs behind the UK’s innovative tech startups, scaleups and unicorns – is published every Friday.
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