How to find paying pilots.
Moonlabs is the operator-led AI Academy in Derby. We run three live companies — Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk — and we teach twelve students per cohort to ship a real AI product, sell it to a real customer, and raise on it. Three pillars: Coding, Commercials, Investment. Twelve weeks. £6,000.
Moonlabs is what we are. Two operators — James Freestone and Louis O’Connell-Bristow — who have signed dozens of pilots across Homemove, home.co.uk and homedata.co.uk. We have done the “quote higher than feels comfortable” conversation many times; we have lost the pilots we should have, and won the ones that built businesses. The playbook on this page is the one we use.
The Academy is what we do. A twelve-week, in-person, twelve-student cohort in Derby. You build a real AI product. You sign a paid pilot on it. You write a deck and a financial model. You leave with a deployed system, a paying customer reference and a live investor pipeline. Coding, Commercials, Investment — the three pillars taught in equal weight every week. This page is the deepest end of the Commercials pillar.
Why this page exists. A paid pilot is the single most over-priced piece of validation in the AI startup market — over-priced in the sense that it produces more useful signal than any other thing you could spend the same money on. Investors care about a paid pilot more than a polished deck. Hiring teams care more than they care about a CV. You leave the Academy with a paid pilot signed — or with an honest understanding of why not, in time to reshape the wedge before another quarter goes by.
Coding · the wedge worth piloting
A shipped AI product narrow enough that a buyer can say yes inside a six-week trial. Wedge selection in week one, the smallest defensible version by week three, in the buyer’s hands by week four. The shipping discipline that makes the pilot a credible offer, not a science project.
Commercials · the discovery call, repriced, paid
Five real discovery calls by week three, run with us in the room. Quote higher than feels comfortable. A one-page pilot agreement — scope, duration, price, success criteria, termination, IP — nothing else. Money up front, even at £500, because the act of paying is the act of committing. A paid pilot by week six — or the honest reason why not.
Investment · the pilot as the slide that closes
Investors do not back ideas; they back the founders who got someone to pay for one. The single £500 invoice is the slide that makes the rest of the deck readable. Plural, Local Globe, Concrete VC, Pi Labs, EF, Notion Capital, Backed VC, Forward Partners, Hoxton — the UK funds who pay attention to AI pre-seed read pilot evidence before anything else. A live investor pipeline by demo day.
Common questions.
What is a fair pilot price for an early AI product?
Wider than you think. Pilots in the £500-£15,000 range cover most B2B SaaS wedges; some enterprise pilots in the regulated industries go to six figures. The pricing page covers the conversation honestly.
What goes in a pilot agreement?
Scope. Duration. Price. Success criteria. Termination clause. IP ownership of any output. That is the whole one-pager. Anything longer slows the signature and adds nothing the buyer actually reads.
How long should the pilot be?
Six weeks is the default we recommend — long enough for the buyer to feel real value, short enough that both sides commit. Twelve-week pilots sound impressive and usually drift into autopilot. Two-week pilots feel safe and rarely produce useful signal.
Do I need to be incorporated before the pilot?
For invoicing seriously, yes — incorporation page. For a personal-name pilot at £500-£2,000 with a small business, no — many of our students have invoiced personally for the very first pilot and incorporated afterwards.
What if no buyer will pay?
Then you have learned something vital before you spent another quarter building. We will help you reshape the wedge or, honestly, kill the idea. The Academy is built to make both outcomes valid.
More Academy entry points.
The Academy is one course with many doors. Each of these pages is a different entry point into the same twelve weeks.
How To Pitch An AI Startup
How To Raise For An AI Startup
How To Incorporate An AI Startup UK
How To Hire Your First AI Engineer
How To Build An AI Startup
How To Launch An AI Product
Build it. Sell it. Raise on it. In twelve weeks.
Tell us what you would pilot and who would pay for it. James and Louis read every application personally and reply inside the week.
© 2026 Moonlabs Incubator. All rights reserved.