for the FOUNDERS: The FOUNDERS Playground
Email marketing comms, partner & sponsor features for South West's flagship founder festival.
The client
for the FOUNDERS is a fast-growing membership community founded by award-winning Bristol entrepreneur Samantha Hamlin. Built for entrepreneurs, changemakers and dreamers to connect and grow through live events, it has become a home for over 500 members united by ambition, creativity and a desire to push ideas forward.
The FOUNDERS Playground was the community's most ambitious undertaking yet: a one-day festival held on 14th May 2026 at Bristol & Bath Science Park, the South West's hub of innovation. Designed to make the region a destination for innovation and creativity, the event brought founders, creatives, entrepreneurs and entire communities together in one playful, high-energy space; running 9am to 9pm with 1,000 attendees across two main stages, a community tent, hands-on workshops and a string of unexpected experiences. It was backed by some of the UK's most recognisable entrepreneurial names, including Simon Squibb, Roger Saul and Willian Chase, and built on a deep roster of partners and sponsors from across the ecosystem.
An event of this scale heavily relies on its communications. With a packed line-up of speakers, partners and sponsors to coordinate, and a regional audience to fill the tickets, for the FOUNDERS needed a steady pair of hands on the comms.
The brief
Tell 'em Mo was brought in to support the festival's run-up on two connected fronts:
Email marketing communications: owning the build and delivery of the comms that kept the community informed, engaged and converting in the months and weeks before the event. That meant turning a constant stream of announcements, line-up reveals and ticketing pushes into clear, on-brand messaging that landed.
Interviewing and featuring key partners and sponsors: capturing and showcasing the organisations backing The Playground in a way that gave them genuine visibility and told the story of the ecosystem coming together behind the event.
The goal across both: bring clarity and structure to a high-volume, fast-moving campaign so the team could stay focused on delivering the event itself.
The challenges
A high volume of moving parts. A festival with multiple stages, a long line-up of speakers, and a roster of partners and sponsors generates a relentless flow of content. Each announcement needed to be accurate, well-timed and consistent, with no detail dropped.
Many voices, one brand. Featuring partners and sponsors meant working with a wide range of people, each with their own messaging, preferences and sensitivities. Getting names, pronouns, imagery and details right for every individual was essential, both to respect the people involved and to protect the credibility of The FOUNDERS Playground brand.
A bold, distinctive tone. The Playground was never meant to feel like "another conference." The comms had to carry that same playful, ambitious, genuinely different energy while still being clear and doing their job, informing readers and driving ticket sales.
Tight turnarounds. With a live event date fixed in the calendar, everything operated to a deadline. Features and emails needed to be produced quickly and cleanly, often with minimal back-and-forth, so momentum never stalled.
The solutions
Owning the newsletter end-to-end: Tell 'em Mo took the email comms off the founder's plate entirely, pulling together announcements, line-up news and ticketing messaging into a polished newsletter that looked the part and read clearly. This included on-site and travel information, agenda schedule and sponsored features, giving the community ongoing value and giving featured founders a moment in the spotlight.
A careful, people-first approach to features: For every partner and sponsor featured, the small things were checked and double-checked such as correct spelling of names, the right pronouns, and imagery each person felt genuinely comfortable with. Involvement was turned around quickly and with minimal fuss, and communications stayed friendly and professional throughout, so contributors felt looked after rather than processed.
Calm delivery, minimal input needed: Working as a true extension of the team, Tell 'em Mo ran with the work independently, adapting quickly across a wide range of tasks, picking things up with little direction and simply getting them done. That freed up the team to concentrate on the on-the-ground delivery of the festival.
Structure behind the scenes: Behind the bold front-facing tone sat clear processes and steady coordination: tracking what needed to go out and when, keeping the right people aligned, and ensuring every piece of comms shipped on time and on brand.
The results
The FOUNDERS Playground arrived on 14 May 2026 as a genuine flagship moment for the South West founder community, bringing the region's entrepreneurial ecosystem together at Bristol & Bath Science Park backed by national names Simon Squibb, Roger Saul, William Chase, and a full roster of partners and sponsors such as HelpBnk, Square Works, The Founders Sales Club, Hiscox and more.
Throughout the run-up, the email comms gave the community a consistent, on-brand voice that kept the audience informed and engaged and supported ticket sales. The partner and sponsor features delivered real visibility for the organisations backing the event, handled with a care that left contributors feeling comfortable and well represented. And by taking ownership of the comms, Tell 'em Mo gave The Playground team back time and headspace to focus on what only they could do: delivering the event itself.
