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Hi, I’m Theo. I’m 24 years old. I’ve built two companies and sold one. Below is my resume.

companies:

2024-now: Magic Bar

The world’s first psychedelic mycelium bar.

Background: ‘Magic truffles’ are the only legal psychedelic in the Netherlands. But they have 3 major issues:

  1. They produce nausea.
  2. They can produce ‘bad trips’.
  3. They are difficult to dose.

Solution: The Magic Bar solves all 3 issues.

It uses psychedelic mycelium – the ‘roots’ of the mushroom – which is fully legal in the Netherlands.

  1. The mycelium is grown on easy-to-digest pasta flour, resulting in no nausea.
  2. We use a species called P. natalensis, which produces consistently more positive trips than conventional ‘magic mushrooms’.
  3. Each square is 10% of a full dose. The user chooses their desired dose by breaking off squares.

Traction: The Magic Bar has been sold in one of Amsterdam’s top smart shops, When Nature Calls, for the past 6 months.

Early customers have given the Magic Bar very strong feedback:

Distribution deal made with SR Wholesale to sell the product in smart shops across the country.

Experience:

  • Moved to the Netherlands alone and built a high-performing team of 5.
  • Built an R&D lab from scratch. Designed and ran a 9-month product development process using the Lean framework.
  • Worked with a food scientist to improve the flavour from a 2/10 to 6/10, double the shelf-life, and increase the potency by 50%.

2022-2024: Mentis

The UK’s top-rated mushroom grow kit.

Background: At-home mushroom cultivation frequently fails. It requires:

  1. Precise temperature control.
  2. Frequent fanning and misting.
  3. Sterile conditions.

Solution: We developed the first temperature-controlled, set-and-forget mushroom grow kit in the UK.

We also developed a mobile app (PWA using React Native + Vercel) to help customers monitor their grows and troubleshoot any issues.

Traction: 4.8* rating on Trustpilot, and strong feedback:

£140k in annual revenue. Sold to one of our customers in April 2024.

Experience:

  • Built 6 different hardware prototypes, and 2 app prototypes.
  • Led a panel at Web Summit with the CEO of the world’s largest psychedelics company.
  • Raised £200k from a VC and a group of angels including the COO of Citymapper.
  • Achieved a 5.4x average ROAS on Meta and TikTok ads.

other work experience:

2021: Entrepreneur First

Second youngest cohort member in the world’s leading ‘talent investment’ programme. 3% acceptance rate.

I was the first ever cohort member to negotiate a better investment deal than the standard offer.

Also accepted to Antler after the programme ended.

2019-2021: Distill Technologies

Co-founded a medical software startup with 3 other students.

Our software improved the quality of microscope and ultrasound scans using a proprietary algorithm.

Before/after images:

Won the Oxford Student Entrepreneurship Programme. Received a £25k investment grant from Oxford Sciences Innovation.

Other work:

2018: Web developer at a London-based drone startup.

2017: Political assistant for the Mayor of Tirana, Albania.

education:

2018-2021: University of Oxford

First Class BA in Human Sciences. College scholar.

Dissertation: Developed software in Python and R that analysed the growth of contemporary political protests in Belarus and made predictions on whether they would succeed or fail.

Divisional Representative (2nd highest rank) in the Oxford Student Union.

2013-2018: Westminster School

A* in all GCSEs and A-levels.