Post by Dr. Nihir Vedd

You’ve probably seen me posting videos on LinkedIn for the last week or so. But I've never properly introduced myself. I'm Nihir, a 31 year old founder from London. Here's my story so far: - 2012–2014: Failed my A-levels. Worked as an apprentice for £3/hour. Finally realized I needed to pull my shit together. 2017–2018: Graduated with a First and an MSc Distinction from a top-10 uni. Won an international IT comp with Will Wilkes and Rohan L.. Landed a role (thanks Paul Riga!) learning how big-scale dev actually works. 2019: Started a PhD at Imperial. Joined Ai Core as employee #1. We built an NLP course that took people from zero to hired. 2021: Founded feather -- an AI model marketplace. We were Replicate before Replicate existed. Great tech, but I learned the hard way: "Build it and they will come" is a lie. Build the audience first. 2023: Joined Entrepreneur First (EF). Met some legends like Phoebe Gormley, Armins Stepanjans and Claddagh N.. Nothing clicked, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat. 2024: Built Glimpses with David Hilman. LOVED working with him. Technically, we were a powerhouse. Commercially, we couldn't find the right growth partner (sorry Raj S.... it was a mistake not working with you!). We called it a day. 2024–mid 2025: Got snaked by some "finance founders." Went interim-CTO for a bit with Andrey Lebedev. That didn't work out, but then I realised startups were desperate for founding engineers -- and I knew exactly where to find them. Mid 2025–Now: Started placing those devs. Realized traditional recruiters can’t vet engineers to save their lives. I found my niche: providing an informed, technical second opinion. Where I am today: I help early-stage founders find their first engineers. No fluff—just technical competence and cultural alignment. The result? Well, let's just say that December was a £30k month. Now, we’re helping dozens of founders scale. And shoutout to Paritosh Devbhandari. I wouldn't be where I am without you. Your early trust in me gave me a wedge and helped me reach this path. Anyway, if you’re hiring and need founding engineers who are actually vetted by an AI PhD and senior full-stack dev, reach out.