The drawing in of Autumn and beginning of a new academic year is always accompanied with a deep sense of nostalgia. Evenings closing in, uni friends reuniting, and the buzz of enthusiasm around new studies and societies creates a palpable feeling. 

Same time, same place, same crowd, different you? The Deja Vu edition explores the phenomenon of repetitive challenges that occur during projects, and how they can be tackled with renewed perspective as they are readdressed with stronger experience. 

After all, repetition isn’t always a reflection of being stuck, rather, it can be the platform to fuel growth. 

It takes 10,000 hours to be a world class master at a skill, a concept popularised by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers. That’s 10,000 hours of making the same mistakes, of repeating the same tedious motions and of dedicating day after day to being fractionally better, often without any tangible evidence that things are changing. 

The process of building eureqa! has been no different. Going through the motions each month of planning, outreach, editing and posting can feel somewhat monotonous. And yet, as we gear up for our sixth month launch party, Founders & Fizz, the value in this repetition has never felt so evident. 

Within this edition, all of our features have expressed their experiences of deja vu in different ways. From the deja vu of founders of the past fueling Alchemica’s launch with nostalgic passion, to Megan’s renewed perspective on launching her second business, this month’s writers perfectly embody the theme to share with us their persistence.   

Here’s to another academic year of showing up and solving problems, deja vu style.

— Lauren Manby (Editor in Chief)

📍University College London (UCL)

Have you ever missed a pop-up?

You find out the next day, see everyone’s posts about it, and think, I would have gone to that if I’d known. A FOMO deja vu, after seeing what you’ve missed? It’s a strange pressure, having nothing to do in a busy city. London’s bursting with things happening, yet finding them can feel like hunting for a needle in a haystack.

I founded BusyBodi as a HPE student at UCL, as a passion project partly because I have far too much energy and am always looking for something to do. I wanted an easier way to find the interesting things happening around me, rather than constantly relying on Instagram or finding out about something after it had already happened.

That’s the problem BusyBodi is trying to solve. The app’s software uses AI to pull together pop-ups from across the internet and put them on one simple map, so you can see what’s actually happening around you instead of stumbling across it a day too late. 

Food, fashion,workshops, random experiences, all of it, all in one place.

I’d always been interested in building things, so I decided to take a coding course at Algonquin University in Canada to learn the basics. It gave me enough confidence to start building BusyBodi myself and figure things out as I went.

Building it has also been a bit of deja vu, honestly. A huge part of the work is having the same conversation over and over. Find a business I love, reach out, talk about how we can promote each other, and connect them with people who actually want to discover something new. Then do it again with the next one. And the next.

There’s something weirdly exciting about that repetition though. Businesses want people showing up and engaging with what they’ve made. People want something exciting and different to do. Neither of those things is actually missing, they just don’t always find each other.

BusyBodi isn’t reinventing anything. We’re just trying to make that connection a bit easier, with a bit of AI doing the legwork behind the scenes. 

I also want to change how people think about pop-up culture, because right now it’s mostly tied to nights out. There’s so much happening during the day too and I’d love BusyBodi to nudge people to get out, try something new, and break out of the same routine they always fall into.

Long term, I want BusyBodi to be more than a map. I want it to be a community, a group of “Busybodis.” People who are curious, want to push themselves a bit, and like having something to look forward to. We’re still working out exactly what that looks like. 

We’ve recently become a part of James Frost’s cohort, a group of creatives in London. Working alongside connections with organisations like Caramel Rock and LevelUp Entrepreneurs, has given me the chance to learn from other people building their own things and think harder about where BusyBodi could actually go. 

I’m also really proud of the female team I’ve built around BusyBodi, who are constantly looking for new places, experiences and stories to discover and share.

Now, heading back to UCL, it feels right to return to where BusyBodi started. Same university. Same city. Same feeling. Just a lot more going on.

— Amber Miller

📍London School of Economics (LSE)

The best and worst thing about founding a brand as a student is that you have no money. Although a small budget raises many barriers, it also teaches you how to be resourceful in ways others may never experience. You learn what things are worth, their price and occasionally get into adventures you’ll be telling people about for years.

This is that story.

Brainstorming names for a brand is hard; you need to find a name you like and one that you can use, I tried many: Aura, The Apothecary, Alchemy. All taken. Finally, I brainstormed the name “Alchemica.” I instantly fell in love, the name had the historical ties to magic and science, which was my brand mission, to bring creativity and a magical aesthetic back to nutrition. But I faced a big barrier.

The website name, www.alchemica.com, was already taken. A website selling a software with the same name.

The reasonable move here would be to change the name. But I’m stubborn. So instead of moving on, I began hunting the owner to plead my case and strike a deal.

The domain hadn’t been touched since 1999, and registry data did not name the owner (you can see the original website on the Wayback Machine). What followed was a few days of internet detective work. I found links to other domains from the original site, but they were as outdated as the first. 

Eventually, I found a name at the bottom of the page. From there I started messaging everyone with the same name on Facebook, I even found his work email and contacted him there. I sent him a message as a random stranger asking about a domain I’d hoped he had no use for anymore.

I had the amazing opportunity to pitch my idea to him and told him about Alchemica, a nutritional gummy brand that fuses a magical aesthetic with patented evidence-based formulas. I had grown tired of pharmacy-format nutrition; it was too boring and clinical, uninspiring. Nutrition should be fun; it should be expressive and look like something you’d want to take. After listening, he told me he was happy to sell me the domain. He saw I was a student with a dream and an empty account, and he told me that he had the same barriers at my age.

Then he told me what the domain was worth…

$4,200…

My heart sank; I was a student and couldn’t afford that, but he knew that.

Before I could reply, he finished his sentence: “BUT—I’ll happily sell you the domain for £1.” That was a deal of a lifetime. He told me he could see his younger self in me, a little like deja vu. He didn’t want to be a barrier to my dreams.

But there was a catch! Which is actually my favourite part of the story: it had to be a £1 note, I didn’t even know they existed.  He always had wanted to frame one, and this way he could meaningfully do it.

So somewhere in New York, a kind American has £1 framed on a wall, the whole thing that started Alchemica.

He never said the word, but I think it was deja vu, seeing a younger version of himself in me, he had been in my exact shoes, and I’ll be forever grateful.

— Ali Shaker

📍Westminster University

Sometimes deja vu isn't just about a moment feeling familiar, it's about looking back and realising that everything you’ve experienced has been for a reason. 

The idea for POLiTOK first popped into my head when I was 16, though I didn't know what to do with it. Then, in 2024, I experienced the exact problem that brought it back to life. 

On my way to work during election season, I remember reflecting on the ongoing debates and thinking, ‘why does keeping up have to be so BORING?’ I knew I wasn't the only one. 

A huge proportion of Gen Z in Britain disengage from traditional politics. It’s not because they don't care, but because the system is outdated, jargon-filled and disconnected from how we consume information, while bias and rage bait win clicks online.

POLiTOK bridges that gap: the accessibility of social media, with the credibility of traditional news. 

In Autumn 2025, University gave me the chance to turn a business idea into reality. I took that old idea and made it tangible: TikTok for politics. POLiTOK was born. 

POLiTOK is a political education platform for Gen Z, turning verified news into short-form video through partnerships with news outlets. Users can check claims with an AI-powered debunker, understand bias through our bias monitor, and register to vote with one click. With our App Store launch in preparation, the mission: make politics easier to understand, harder to manipulate, and get Gen Z voting. 

I started University later than most, and at 23 often wonder if I'm falling behind. Before my business degree, I pursued acting and went to drama school. However, building a career while working in hospitality, alongside constant rejection, took its toll on my mental health. So I changed direction. 

But perhaps I never changed direction as much as I thought. The same skills I learned as an actor keep resurfacing: speaking in Parliament about POLiTOK, pitching to hundreds of people, persuading investors. At the time I thought I was learning to act; now I realise I was learning to communicate, lead and connect with people. 

I felt that same deja vu returning from my exchange semester in Hawaii, with a fresh perspective and a stronger sense of who I am. Clearing out my room, I rebuilt my vision board with photographs of things I'd actually achieved, and found old journals full of forgotten goals. 

I was astonished. For years I had felt directionless, constantly starting over. Yet what I'd written about wanting was remarkably consistent: freedom to travel, building businesses, investing in assets.

Maybe I wasn't directionless after all, just living through the messy middle of becoming who I needed to be. 

Not every goal has happened yet. But the habits are building, the experiences accumulating, the skills connecting, and the life I imagined years ago is piece by piece beginning to look familiar. 

And the funny thing is, I'm not even someone who naturally gravitates towards politics. I built POLiTOK because I needed it myself. 

That is my deja vu. 

- Amelia Mazurek

📍Imperial College London (ICL)

Sarah left university with a degree in one hand and a business idea in the other. She could build a Business Model Canvas, conduct a PESTEL analysis and recite Porter’s Five Forces. £40,000 later, she was supposed to be ready, right? On paper it all lined up.

Yet, months later, the business failed. Miserably. 

Lack of interest, a co-founder relationship that slowly fractured and a product perfected for customers who never came.

Elsewhere, another young founder hesitated before beginning.

Adam had grown up watching his parents build a business of their own. He remembered their excitement, but also the bills left unopened on the small table by the fireplace and the conversations that suddenly stopped when he entered the room. When their business failed, the consequences followed the family home. For him, entrepreneurship was a memory, and a bad one. But he had an idea, one that could change the world.

Sarah knew all the frameworks but could not recognise the mistakes approaching her. Adam saw failure everywhere. One was unprepared for failure; the other was haunted by it. Both were experiencing a form of entrepreneurial “deja vu”: the strange feeling that this journey had already been lived by someone before them.

And, in many ways, it had.

Behind every apparently unique entrepreneurial story lie familiar moments: the idea that took too long to launch, the partnership that fell through at the last minute, the first rejection, the temptation to give up. 

That realisation inspired The Seed Podcast.

My name is Hassan Baraka, and while working in venture building, I realised that I had access to entrepreneurs and investors whose experiences could answer the questions business school often left untouched, and bring a new angle of “deja vu” to those who feel trapped in cycles of failure they believe they are destined to repeat. 

In Season 1, Biel Seuma, then Chief of Staff at Factorial, one of Spain’s leading unicorns, explained how placing yourself in the right environments and openly sharing your ambitions can create unexpected opportunities. Jessica Saade, who created her own role at Kibo Ventures, the fund behind Job&Talent, Sorare and Flywire, showed us how providing enough value can allow you to create your own opportunities.

In Season 2, Ruth Cremer, an advisor to Germany’s Shark Tank who has worked with more than 1,000 startups, explained the conditions attached to investment before raising capital. Aaron Bhugobaun, who worked on productions for Marvel, Disney and Universal, showed us how humans can use AI to transform creative work. Finally, Peter Hart, who went from investing €6,000 earned from waiting tables to acquiring seven businesses, revealed what makes a company genuinely valuable and eventually buyable.

These are only a few of the conversations we have had. Across 24 episodes, The Seed Podcast has explored everything from breaking into venture capital and validating an idea to scaling sales, navigating failure and building with AI.

In December 2026, we are launching Season 3, and this time, we want to think bigger: stronger partnerships, more ambitious stories and a much greater impact.

Entrepreneurship will always contain moments of “deja vu”. The Seed Podcast exists so that when the next generation encounters them, the situation may feel familiar, but their response can be better. 

- Hassan Baraka

As a two-time founder, Megan Scarborough is all too familiar with the phenomenon of deja vu in the world of business. Her second business Art Pulse, though newly set up this year, is taking the London art world by storm with its innovative outlook and inclusive nature. 

eureqa! are very pleased to be collaborating with Art Pulse for our upcoming event Founders & Fizz; we hope you enjoy getting a sense of the business and upcoming event through this feature interview.

Lauren: First of all, tell us a bit about yourself and about Art Pulse. 

Megan: So Art Pulse is something that is growing gradually, there's nothing right now that I can say is exactly set Art Pulse. That’s one of the best things about it, it's always growing and becoming something different, and whatever it is that kind of sticks the most first will be what it becomes.  Essentially, when you boil it down, it's a marketplace, it's an e-commerce sales site, it's a network, it's a community and it's a place to find opportunities. 

A bit about me, I've been working in the art world for about 3 years. I studied art and then realised that it wasn't for me, and then I went into the gallery system and realised that it was extremely stacked against artists and especially against young women. So that's when I decided to grow Art Pulse, under the realisation that if there was going to be no change in the art world that I could see, then I would create something myself that would be changing it.

Lauren: How did you originally get into the art world and were there any specific experiences that really shaped your engagement within it? 

Meg: Yes, so when I was younger I thought that I was going to be an artist, but I realised when I'd been through the modern art academy education that I really had no desire to sell my work. Every artist now has to also be a business person in order to sell, and I genuinely had no interest in joining that.

I really felt like it wasn't a space that I was in any way passionate about. 

Eventually, I entered the gallery space and began working in galleries that really shouldn't have been hiring people. I think when you're sat behind the desk in a gallery space, you really get a firsthand look at the way that people are treated in the art world, especially as a younger person, especially as a woman, especially as someone who is really looking for opportunities and could be classed as desperate. You'll definitely be taken advantage of, and I just was just so frustrated by it. “Art Pulse was really born from that frustration.”

Lauren: What have been the highlights and the most difficult challenges in these really initial stages of building a business? 

Meg: The highlight has definitely been receiving positive feedback from people that aren't friends or family. Knowing that the general public are really recognising the work and message of Art Pulse has been huge.  

It's so hard to define a specific low because I enjoy doing everything, but it's definitely very hard when you are running a business solo to remember everything that you're doing. Recently the workload has increased massively and it's definitely been challenging to keep on top of every single aspect of the to-do list. It’s definitely been something that I've struggled with, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless.

Lauren: On Art Pulse’s upcoming first event, The First Pulse, tell us a bit about what's going to be included and more generally what mission of your first exhibition is going to be. 

Meg: The idea is basically that I don't want a single person to walk into the gallery and not be able to walk away with something from it. I'm looking at starting prices from about £25 and going up to about £10,000 in prices for originals. 

The best thing about Art Pulse is that whether you're looking for investment, for interior decor, for a gift or anything else, you can 100% find that in all of the shows. That's really what The First Pulse is about, and I'm creating and curating as much as I can to make that possible within the show. 

Lauren: Turning to your experience of working with art and business together, the commercialisation of art can be a tricky thing to navigate. How do you balance being in the art world and giving opportunities whilst knowing that you have to sustain a business entity on top of that? 

Meg: I think that if you're not including opportunities that are open to people, you will never meet the right people to bring into the business. If there's anything that I've learned about the job market it's that the most talented people right now are struggling to find work, and so giving people as many opportunities as possible and having that side of Art Pulse is absolutely essential to creating an open and honest business. 

I'm also not in a rush to make a huge profit, because the way that the business is growing and the way that people are responding to it is enough for me currently. My investors also understand that it's a longer process as well. We have to build a foundation of trust in order to create something that is truly changing the art industry. 

Lauren: So drawing on the theme of our September edition, which is deja vu, we're exploring the phenomenon of returning to familiar challenges with renewed perspective and increased knowledge. Given that Art Pulse is your second business, the process must have been full of deja vu moments. What experiences have you been able to face more effectively the second time around, with renewed perspective and greater experience?

Meg: Running a second company has given me much more confidence when speaking with people who are more experienced than I am. When you are starting out and still learning, confidence can make the difference between respect and dismissal. Having this prior experience has made me much more self assured, and I actually enjoy the challenge now.

Lauren: Finally, if our readers are interested in working with you in various capacities, what's the best way to get in contact? 

Meg: When I put up an opportunity, I post it across all of my social media and I make the application process as simple as possible to get involved. I love connecting with people and if anybody ever wants to email me, I'll always read it. I always reply. If anybody's interested in doing anything in particular, they're more than welcome to email me. 

- Interview with Megan Scarborough by Lauren Manby

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