About Y1Founder
Y1Founder is an independent guide for people starting a business in the UK - focused specifically on the seven decisions that matter most in year one.
What this site is
It's the guide I wish existed when I started. Not comprehensive - deliberately focused. Seven decisions, in the order you'll face them, with UK-specific guidance throughout.
Every guide is written for the UK context: UK tax years, HMRC requirements, Making Tax Digital, UK GDPR, GBP pricing. Recommendations that make sense in the US often don't map cleanly to the UK - and most founder guides don't acknowledge this.
What this site isn't
It isn't a comprehensive comparison site. For deep tool-by-tool comparisons - email marketing software, accounting software - we have specialist sites in the network for that. Y1Founder covers the decision-making framework; the specialist sites cover the detail.
It isn't financial or legal advice. The guides are based on experience and research, but every business is different. For decisions involving significant money or legal risk, get professional advice.
The network
Y1Founder is the parent hub of a small network of UK-focused comparison sites:
The full comparison of UK email marketing tools including Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign, Omnisend, and GetResponse - with GBP pricing and UK GDPR analysis for every tool.
The full comparison of MTD-compatible accounting software for UK sole traders and limited companies - with Making Tax Digital guidance throughout.
Affiliate links
Some links on this site are affiliate links. When you sign up through them, we may earn a commission - at no extra cost to you. This never influences our recommendations. We only link to tools we'd genuinely use, and we note when a link is an affiliate link.
See our full affiliate disclosure for details.