Evening update - 8 September 23

#TodayI

Shared my article in Business Brief on disrupting in the funds industry.
Had an impromptu coffee with Barrie Baxter of Brixx Software.
Chatted with Meera Bissoondeeal of Element Ventures.
Had a postponement with a founder.
Spoke with Jamie Beaumont of Playter.
Had a play with Leonardo Ai.
Inflicted my open mic set on Jay Goss of Aston Currency Management.
Worked on my next newsletter, coming very shortly.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Disrupting the funds industry

I wrote an article for Business Brief on disrupting the funds industry.

It has what to look for in any industry that could be disrupted and callouts for Vauban from Carta and Ctrl Alt.

Read it here. Thank you Amanda (Mandy) Eulenkamp for entertaining my writing.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Evening update - 7 September 23

#TodayI

Shared about yesterday's angel and black female founder speed dating event.
Walked to work.
Was pitched by Antonio Ribeiro of Yurtle.
Shared about Focal's demo day.
Had a quick lunch with Graham McCormack of The Fort Group.
Had a sneaky ice cream and got caught by my wife and two youngest.
Worked through my backlog.
Had my Important not Urgent Day.
Made progress on my standup set.

#LaterI

Have my standup meetup.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Focal Demo Day - W23

Focal is a Demo day supported by over 175 VCs including Episode 1 Ventures, Playfair , Eka Ventures , dmg ventures and even little old me at unbundled vc.

It's a great way to get your pitch in front of all 175 VCs in one go.

You can apply here.

Thank you Jack Richardson, Hector Mason, Taos Edmondson, CFA and Issie James for including me again.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Black female founder speed dating

Yesterday, Sarah Wernér and I co-ran a speed dating event for angels and black female founders.

Why?

Black female founders get the tiniest share of venture capital funding. For me, this was a small way to help. It's not the same as investing cash and I've so far failed on that front.

We are now asking everyone who attended for feedback and will figure out our next steps. We may run one again.

If you'd like to attend in future, as a founder or an angel, keep an eye on my or Sarah's LinkedIn and/or put your name in the comments. We'd also love to know what else might help.

Thank you again to everyone who attended.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Evening update - 6 September 23

#TodayI

Shared my three favourite books for entrepreneurs. Some great other suggestions in the comments.
Walked to Pilates with Maria Jose Freeman (Fernandez) of Pilates Core Club.
Attended and co-hosted the angels and black female founders speed dating event I co-ran with Sarah Wernér. Thank you to everyone who attended.
Was pitched by James Dyer of At Last.
Had a great event happen at last.
Had an ice cream to celebrate (pic below).
Listened to an At Last playlist.
Attended a panel meeting.
Was pitched by a founder who wishes to remain anonymous.
Chatted briefly with Jonny Plein of YASO.
Had a good day.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Best books for entrepreneurs

My three most recommended books for entrepreneurs are 🥁 🥁 🥁

Zero to One
The Lean Startup
The Hard Thing About Hard Things

What are yours?

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Evening update - 5 September 23

#TodayI

Shared how I would do cold sales outreach.
Had a site meeting for our house build with Infinity Group and DLM Architects Ltd.
Cycled to work.
Was pitched by Andre Turville of ARX Alliance.
Worked on my backlog. Slow progress.
Had an impromptu coffee with Kit Hobbs.
Finally figured out what my topic is for this month's newsletter - why market size matters and how to think about it.

#NowI

Am walking home.

#LaterI

Am being pitched by Pablo Alcolea of Vegan Food Club.
Have to take the bins out (sorry to group you here Pablo!)

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Cold sales outreach

How I would do cold sales outreach. I've never done sales so this could be bad. What would you do?

"I believe our product might be able to help you in this way. I'd like to spend a small amount of time with you so we can figure out together if it can. If we decide it can't I promise to walk away and not pester you any more. No problem if that doesn't work for you."

From a conversation with Matthew Codd in the comments of a Jamie Beaumont post.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Evening update - 4 September 23

#TodayI

Started back after my break.
Walked to work with my phone switched off, notepad in hand.
Shared why I have committed to invest in Mica Vaipan's RunYourself.
Had a dental hygienist appointment.
Was pitched by Daisy Harvey of Loom.
Was pitched by Baz Iyer of Stealth Startup.
Attended Lunch Break Meditation at Guille-Allès Library.
Had a test call with Sarah Wernér ahead of Wednesday's 9am-11am black female founder speed dating event and found Google Meet doesn't do what we need. Zoom to the rescue.
Worked on my backlog.

#LaterI

Am going for an early dinner with my wife.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Commitment to invest in Mica Vaipan’s RunYourself

I have committed to invest in Mica Vaipan of RunYourself's Pre Seed. Here's why.

I look for:

1. Very strong founders
2. building differentiated products that matter
3. that can scale fast
4. with huge potential markets,
5. a plausible route to market
6. and great unit economics

RunYourself hits all of these hard.

1. Mica is a very strong founder. Super smart, great at explaining what she is doing and why, and a fast learner.

2. RunYourself offers a peer-to-peer coaching program that teaches each participant to be a coach. People hate going on coaching courses and are then left to sink or swim or professional coaches are crazy expensive. RunYourself has evidenced its program works at a price point that means it is affordable.

3. RunYourself will be able to scale fast because it doesn't need to hire coaches to scale. Everything is platform based.

4. There is a huge pent-up demand for coaching that isn't met because of the price point. This solves the problem. How many of your staff would you want to be coached or to learn how to coach their employees if it could be done at £1k per person per year? This will create a market size many orders of magnitude greater than the existing coaching market.

5. Mica is being advised by Amanda Nolen who advises global organisations on how to upskill their staff using tech. She believes this will be easy to sell, organisations are crying out for it, and she knows because it is her job to advise on services like this. Amanda is confident enough that she is taking her adviser fee in equity. I have met Amanda and she is impressive.

6. Because they do not need to hire their own coaches, gross margin is high. Most coaching businesses have low gross margins.

My view on the main risks (there are always more):

1. Human feedback is currently given on each peer-to-peer session. They plan to iteratively reduce the amount of human input required to do this until none is required. They have AI experts working on this now. There is technical risk here.

2. Go to market. While Amanda is confident this will be easy to sell because of the quality of the offering and the price point, this is Pre Seed and until they've started selling you never know.

Raise:

1. Mica is close to closing a £500k ASA from angels and three institutions (including me).

2. She will extend the round for the right investors.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

No warm intro

I have a new investment commitment. It is in a solo female founder. She came to me cold via my standard process.

You don't need a warm intro to raise from me.

Monday, when I'm back from holiday, I will tell you about the commitment and why.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Afternoon update - 25 August 23

#TodayI

Shared why you to make the most of everyone in your team you need to respect their idiosyncrasies. This was the last post in a three-week challenge where you voted on what I should post about. The list of choices came from Hena Husain's The Content Architects. I enjoyed this challenge a lot.
Had a call with Carlotta Zorzi of Shopify who I met on my trip to Brighton a month or so ago.
Was pitched by Cecilia Afutu and Alfred Afutu of Konzoom.
Chatted with Euan Cameron of Willo®.
Had a couple of postponements.

#NowI

Have to go and pack ahead of a week away with my boys starting tomorrow.

#NextWeek

You will hear from me about an investment commitment I made at the start of the week.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Making the most of our differences

Sean Connery was told early in his career to "lose the Scottish accent".

Founders can be strong-willed nonconformists. You need that to want to build something new. Sean had to be one to stand up for himself or we wouldn't have had the actor and movies we all love.

We all have our differences, our idiosyncracies, our strengths and weaknesses.

To build an incredible team or company or band, you have to respect those, bind people together, and make the most of them.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

I just spent three weeks making posts inspired by events taking place on that day. You got to vote on what I posted about. Today's post was inspired by Sean Connery's birthday, Reading Festival, Red Head Day and Be Kind to Humankind Week.

The lists came from Hena Husain's The Content Architects.

Evening update - 22 August 23

#TodayI

Had my hair cut by James Bransford.
Shared that choice and difference make the world a wonderful place.
Asked you to inspire tomorrow's post by choosing between Cheap Flight Day and First Hashtag Day.
Chatted with Mica Vaipan of RunYourself.
Had coffee with Matthew Falla of Parallel.
Was pitched by ⚡️Alex Harris of Adadot.
Was pitched by a founder who wishes to remain anonymous.
Had a quick call with Sonia Andriano of SeedLegals.
Was pitched by Eteri Saneblidze and Lisa Oreshkina of The Breakfast.

#ThisEveningI

Have to email some VCs, read and give feedback on a document, and take the bins out.

#FromTomorrow

I have a couple more days off.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Evening update - 15 August 23

#TodayI

Shared I was taking it easy for National Relaxation Day.
Asked you to vote on my inspiration for tomorrow's post - currently Rollercoaster Day is just leading Tell A Joke Day.
Was pitched by Indiana Gregg and Alexandra Leenen of Wedo.ai.
Was pitched by Lydia Hartley of Don't Shop, Swap.
Was pitched by Vivien Bresson of Scarlett Panda.
Chatted with Jonny Seaman of SeedLegals about their investor offering.
Was pitched by Joseph Undaloc of Loma.
s my one year anniversary of setting up on my own.

#NowI

Am taking the rest of the week off.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Evening update - 14 Aug 23

#TodayI

Shared about my wife's six-foot boa constrictor.
Asked what tomorrow's post should be inspired by.
Had lunch with friends.
Was pitched by Phil Birss of Addie.
Had three founders book in pitches with leads and two didn't meet the criteria. I have updated the wording to make it clearer.
Got my first open mic spot in London next month.
Realised my diary was largely free for the rest of the week and have booked myself the last three days off.

#LaterI

Will be watching Man Utd's first game of the season with my son (on tv).

Evening update - 11 August 23

#TodayI

Asked for advice on how to make my kids more entrepreneurial.
Asked you what Monday's post should be inspired by, National Lizard Day is leading.
Asked for addresses to send dog treats to (see yesterday's post inspired by Spoil a Dog Day).
Chatted with Edwina Johnson about investing.
Was pitched by Mica Vaipan of RunYourself.
Booked a table for lunch on Monday.
Had a call with Anthony Rose of the excellent SeedLegals.
Had a postponement.
Made a follow-on commitment.
Had a no-show.
Chatted with Dan Dudley of Solid Bond.

#ThisWeekend

I hope to persuade at least one of my boys to watch Barbie with me.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Evening update - 10 August 23

#TodayI

Asked for dog pics so I could spoil your dogs. Congrats Fred Warren, Jon Chapman, Max Cotton, Paul Loberman, dog treats are on the way.
Asked you to vote on what I should post about tomorrow. Very close and Enid Blyton's birthday currently leads.
Had coffee with Jay Goss of Aston Currency Management. 100% bringing a service Guernsey needs.
Had my Important not Urgent Day.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Evening update - 9 August 23

#TodayI

Shared about how reading How Minds Change blew my mind and asked you to vote on tomorrow's post. National Spoil a Dog Day is leading.
Was pitched by Tom McGillycuddy of CIRCA5000.
Chatted with Zina Alfa of Antler.
Had coffee with Alexander Rich.
Had a call with an adviser.
Chatted with James Roycroft-Davis of Vulnerable Podcast.

#NowI

Am meeting my son for dinner then playing in a table tennis tournament with him.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic