Using 25 Years’ XP To Turn Entrepreneurs' Ideas Into Reality
Startups: Want to grow fast but don't want to be reckless?
Accelerate confidently.
We accelerate your startup towards profitability by refining your messaging for investors, structuring deals, and taking priority actions fast.
If you've gone further as an established business, we can take you on a journey to free up your time to focus on what you are most passionate about.
Startups: Want to grow fast but don't want to be reckless?
Accelerate confidently.
We accelerate your startup towards profitability by refining your messaging for investors, structuring deals, and taking priority actions fast.
If you've gone further as an established business, we can free up your time to focus on what you are most passionate about.
As featured in
Accelerate Your Business
Set up your business, structure your products and services, and market and profit from them
Realize Your Future Faster
Work less, profit more, and invest in realizing your dreams
Our Principal Advisor's Story
Raihan Islam's journey from humble beginnings to a celebrated business advisor epitomizes the power of determination and ingenuity. Born in the United States to Bangladeshi parents, Raihan, a self-taught coder by 18, had already launched a widely used online chat application. At 19, while at Carnegie Mellon University, he developed a marketing automation tool that amassed a rock band millions of song plays and a substantial fanbase.
His adventurous spirit led him to King's College London and later into the offices of Amazon’s legal team while training as a lawyer at Fieldfisher. However, it was his consulting venture launched in Bangladesh while managed from the United Kingdom that truly marked the start of his business journey, taking his adventure further into Ukraine in 2016.
The geopolitical threats to Ukraine in 2022 prompted Raihan and his family to move to London, and the February 24 invasion of home country strengthened his commitment to impactful work. After leaving his corporate role at EPAM Systems amid significant life events—including his brother Rajeeb’s death and the birth of his second son—Raihan faced challenges in growing his business. Nevertheless, he persevered, investing 6 figures into business growth and client acquisition, and transformed his early struggles into a thriving business that supports impactful causes including first responder mental health and international security. His wife Mariana is a videographer who supports High-Velocity Startups and they are raising two charming young boys.
Today, Raihan is a multi-award winning business advisor and speaker, sharing stages with top entrepreneurs and featured across various media outlets. His story transcends personal success, inspiring entrepreneurs worldwide to pursue their dreams.
Read the story on Business Mole.
I’ve been working with Raihan since 2016, he has been instrumental really in helping structure and set up different business units around the world for different things we have tried.
Whenever I have any issue within my business or any of my friends have a legal question or anything like that, he is always the first person to come to mind and the first person I reach out to.
I don’t think that my life would look anything like it does without his guidance over almost the past decade, and I would say that if you are looking for guidance or support in any area from structuring a business, setting up a business unit, to any other type of advisory, I couldn’t recommend anyone higher.
Devin Hunter
CEO and Founder of Creative Concrete, Korbis, and Cyberplex
…in a world where sometimes the legal professionals I am working with day to day, a phone call can be billed by the minute, and with Raihan, I always get the impression that he will be fair and generous with his time, and isn’t so concerned about billing by the minute but rather for the impact of the work he is doing, so in short, if you are looking for someone to help, I’d highly recommend him.
Chad O'Carroll
CEO and Founder of Korea Risk Group
How We Do It
Multifunctional Expertise Executed Through the STRIVE™ Method
Assess Velocity
Strategize & Advise
Decide & Execute
Accelerate & Actualize
What would a winning funding strategy mean for your business?
What if you could discuss ways to accelerate your funding journey regardless of where your business is today?
Pitch your business idea
Develop a high-level approach to attract funding
Listen to What They're Saying
Trusted by Entrepreneurs, Freelancers, and Employees
D365 ERP Consulting
Optimizing delivery while growing the business
Coaching Legal Review
Structuring questionnaire and action planning
Portfolio Freelancing
Advising on freelance consultancy strategy
Manager Coaching
Coaching of business analyst and product/project manager
How We Work With You
Whether you are pre-revenue or at 5, 6, or 7 figures of revenue, your business has its challenges and opportunities. We can go on a journey to tackle them with you.
L1: Business Accelerator
Take your idea and turn it into an operating business with products and services the market wants to get the profit you need.
Start Your Business
Sole trader or limited company setup with partnership + shareholder + other agreements.
Structure Your Offer
Structuring of your products, services, and operations for optimal profit, effort, and customer satisfaction.
Communicate Your Offer
Creation of business plans, sales and investor presentations, websites, and social media to win over your market.
Profit From Your Offer
Developing and launching advertising, marketing, and sales campaigns that drive consistent conversions, adjusting course as needed to meet market challenges.
L2: Fractional Operator
Take out all of the stops and take your business and yourself to the next level, positioning yourself to get what you really want.
Manage Your Team => Delegate
Taking on and restructuring relevant teams, leading and managing teams of up to 50 to run at high velocity.
Manage Your Processes => Automate
Combining business analysis + project and operations management expertise to boost workflow output.
Help You To Decide => Plan Transition
Simplifying decision-making as a right-hand advisor with insights in management, technology, law, product, and more.
Resolve Your Conflicts => Succession / Exit
Clearing the path for a smooth transition by mediating disputes towards strategic alignment and win-wins across different people and systems.
L3: Trusted Advisor
Get advice tailored to your specific business circumstances leveraging our Principal Advisor's multiple specialisms.
Advisory Board of One
Providing high-value advice combining elements of management, technology, product, law, and more.
Advisory Board Setup by a Certified Chair™
Setting up and chairing an advisory board with best practice frameworks to address top priorities.
Significant Business Impact
Our results speak for themselves, but our clients have a few words to say as well.
Creative Concrete, Korbis, Cyberplex
Organization in need of strategy and legal advice
Action
Engaged as Trusted Advisor and Virtual/Fractional CxO for multiple businesses
Negotiated deals and mediated disputes
Set up the operation of new businesses
Conducted strategic business and product planning
Recruited and managed team members
Results
Ali Walsh, Gluten-free Coach, Life on a Rice Cake
Organization in need of legal advice
Action
Engaged as Legal Advisor
Reviewed Terms & Conditions pertaining to coaching program and book media
Clarified recommendations to be actionable
Results
Gradfunding
Organization in need of SaaS solution design and delivery
Action
Engaged as Technology Advisor, providing deep technology leadership from a product, software architectural, and software delivery and maintenance perspective
Further accounted for Privacy, Security, User Experience, and Analytics into the solution
Results
Sky News once featured us, and Raihan, discussing SEO and IT security. Through High-Velocity Startups, Raihan acted as overseer and architect for our website’s overhaul, integrating payments, SEO, GDPR compliance, and cybersecurity seamlessly. We moved from a niche startup to the dominant player in our market as a direct result.
Raihan's comprehensive, holistic, and strategic vision has been indispensable to our business's success. He achieves this through exceptional technical knowledge - in web development, cybersecurity, and legal compliance - paired with a pragmatic savvy understanding of real world business and management. Raihan is a unique talent, and we look forward to continued collaboration.”
Luke Blaxill & Shuzhi Zhou
Co-Directors of Gradfunding
Giving Back
Taking businesses from A to B to C with high velocity while giving back through supporting impactful causes. Giving back means volunteering for important causes. The High-Velocity Startups team consists of people dedicated not only to their clients but also to the causes closest to them.
Everything Will Be Ukraine
Everything Will Be Ukraine is a volunteering initiative partnering with academic, professional, and charitable organizations to support Ukraine and those impacted by the war in Ukraine by doing the following:
Sharing stories of those impacted by aggression,
Publishing analysis on impactful organizations,
Making it easier for supporters to donate.
The organization's activities have been featured in the King's College London official student newspaper, Roar. High Velocity Startups' Principal Advisor who is also Co-Organizer of Everything Will Be Ukraine, spoke both at King's College London and provided his perspective on being hope in times of challenge for an interfaith breakfast at Carnegie Mellon University.
Next-Generation Support Network for First Responders
In the exploratory phase, High-Velocity Startups is investing in the development of a framework to provide first responders (police, fire, emergency medical services, dispatch) with the support they need from day one of entering their public service.
Our Principal Advisor is engaging in rounds of preliminary discussions with first responders, mental health professionals, and current or former government officials to finalize a high-level framework before launching a pilot program.
Podcasts & Press
The High-Velocity Startups Podcast and the press and podcasts we have been featured in showcase our commitment to entrepreneurship and achieving dreams.
In the Press
The UK's most respected technology media brand, ComputerWeekly.com, provides Raihan a platform to write multiple articles on startups and security.
Sky News interviewed Raihan to discuss cybersecurity challenges that can arise when startups engage in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
Kim Komando, America’s Digital Goddess®, had him on her show to discuss AI, law, and ethics.
High-Velocity Startups Podcast
What makes a business high-velocity in its actions?
Our Principal Advisor, Raihan Islam, hosts the High-Velocity Startups podcast, interviewing startup founders, thought leaders, authors, and successful businesses ranging from 6 to 8 figures in annual turnover.
What makes your business high-velocity? Contact Raihan directly to express your interest in joining as a guest.
Want to join a community of like-minded entrepreneurs looking to make high-velocity moves? Learn more about our network.
Advisory Board Centre recognition
Raihan was also interviewed by the Founder of the Advisory Board Centre, which runs the Certified Chair™ Executive Program to bring advisory board best practice to startups, projects, and businesses
Frequently Asked Questions
How we create value to drive your business forward
What is a multifunctional consultant?
Where in business a specialist typically holds one function, such as a marketing specialist, technology specialist, HR specialist, and the list goes on, a multifunctional consultant has proven reputation in delivering results in more than one specialty.
Do you offer training?
Our Principal Advisor provides mentoring to business owners on how to tackle operational management challenges, and additionally trains key members on business modeling, risk management, and agile project management practices. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP)®.
What about the saying, "jack of all trades..."?
The saying goes, "jack of all trades, master of none", implying that if you do too many different things, you can't do any of it all too well. One variant of this saying, however, includes, "but oftentimes better than master of one".
Do you provide legal advice?
Our Principal Advisor is a solicitor qualified to practice in the laws of England & Wales, and has advised dozens of businesses worldwide as a legal advisor. Most of his clients are based in the U.S., UK, Canada, and Australia.
Shouldn't I trust a specialist and not a generalist?
Trust a multi-specialist. The Principal Advisor of High-Velocity Startups has a proven track record in desktop/web application architecture, leading large teams to execute on projects in multiple disciplines ranging from software to marketing to research, acting as the key lawyer for multiple successful organizations, and has as well acted as COO for multiple organizations. In this case, it is the multiple trades that sets the Principal Advisor apart, enabling him to deliver results by connecting the dots between multiple disciplines to deliver integrated value that manages numerous risks.
Do you offer startup acceleration services?
Our Principal Advisor has been a technology entrepreneur, and in this role he has worn all of the hats. Through challenges faced at a self-funded and corporate sponsorship level, he has dealt with people, process, and technology challenges, and he has also dealt with the key challenges startups face in validating their product, market, and funding route. Having acted as advisory board member to multiple startups, and having the direct skills required to implement, he and his team can accelerate startups from idea to scaleup stage, boosting their confidence to hit their next milestones.
Do you offer Fractional COO services?
The Principal Advisor acts as a fractional operations leader for multiple businesses with high annual turnover, working closely with the CEO or Managing Director to tackle key operational challenges and positioning the CEO / MD to go to the next level. This service is a continuous multifunctional consulting engagement, typically spanning months with flexible service levels.
Do you offer advisory board services?
Our Principal Advisor is a Certified Chair™ of the Advisory Board Centre, and he regularly speaks on advisory board topics, helping numerous organizations plan out their vision for setting up and running advisory boards. Working with company directors and startup founders, he aims to apply best practice in the utilization of advisory boards for startups and established businesses alike.
Do you offer any way to trial your services?
Yes.
Do you offer any free services?
We offer a Velocity Assessment and Strategy Sessions.
