In this episode of the FounderTech Decoded podcast, it was a pleasure to talk to Sam Marchant, an early stage founder turned investor with multi-stage asset manager Hambro Perks. A fund relatively distinct in its market positioning in its capability to come in at the initial pre-seed stage but also scale up to a Series C round and beyond. We get into a deep and nuanced conversation around whether the initial runway for early stage is now becoming flatter and longer. In the sense that with less capital a truly talented exceptional domain expert founder can now achieve more with less. Leveraging increasingly Gen AI and no code Foundertech to test, prove and even monetise the minimum viable assumptions behind their startup quicker. We explore whether this involves a recalibration - for those exceptional founders who are often unique in their ability to navigate, identify and unlock new value in deep verticals - of expectations around their ongoing operations, future scale and eventual exit. Finally we ask whether we just at the beginning of how this emerging conversation and how it will now play? Particularly if this change in early stage founder dynamics has a knock on effect in how venture and their LPs start to reconfigure their early stage founder portfolios and value offerings. Connect further > https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-marchant > https://www.hambroperks.com/
In this episode of the podcast it was great to talk to Adam French who is a partner at Houghton Street Ventures, a previous co-founder of Scalable Capital and active angel investor. Houghton Street Ventures is quite unique in that it is a dedicated early stage fund investing across a wide thesis specifically for founders emerging from the 200,000 alumni, students and faculty of LSE. As such Adam is consistently across a diverse and constant range early stage deal flow with founders across multiple sectors. In that way he is very placed to sense, synthesise and suggest what the imminent future horizon looks like for the early stage ecosystem. Building on this we discuss how FounderTech might unlock a whole new wave of untapped latent entrepreneurial potential. How this might lead to the rise of the 1 person million dollar business, driven by agile fractional teams, leveraging and amplifying capital efficiently inside scalable niches, to the point that founder’s first round might also be their last round. Adam notes that the rise of the ChatGPT and more recently specialising GPTs are key to this ecosystem shift. A shift that he is not just exploring theoretically but has personally leveraged himself to design, doe and build “evAIuate”. His own dynamic FounderTech that leverages AI to put a pitch deck in anyone’s pocket. Visit and connect at > https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-french-2192034a > https://www.evaiuate.com/ > https://houghtonstreet.com/ > www.scalable.capital
In this episode we talk to Marcus Exall, an experienced UK based angel investor that takes a distinctly different approach in contrast to the volume, numbers game and tax efficient driven approaches utilised and leveraged by many of his early stage investor contemporaries. We hear how over the course of his 30 angel investments, Marcus does not have a particular thesis or portfolio bias.Instead we hear how he genuinely sees angel investing as a journey. With the first key and non-negotiable step being evaluating the founder for their values, intent, agility, resilience and gaining a deep understanding as to their deep motivation why they are trying to launch their startup in the first place. For him writing a cheque typically in the £25,000 to £35,000 range, also represents his bet on empowering a founder to try to navigate and create a future that he might also want to participate and live in. This is mirrored within the criteria and evaluation Marcus applies to himself, where he will assess whether he is the right investor to provide a safe harbour of honest feedback and value-add support for the founder as and when they invariably need it, as they navigate the increasingly complex and uncertain terrain of their launch. Equally we hear upon making an investment, Marcus wants that money to be deployed and go to work as quickly and efficiently as possible and how to that end how is an angel investor in leading FounderTech like Odin and also MVPR. Finally, we also hear how Marcus has helped productise and scale this approach by launching UP AND TO THE RIGHT to help founders successfully create, build, and scale their start up by offering playbooks, original tools, and helpful courses to further incubate and accelerate their journey. Explore and Connect > > https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusexall > https://www.u2r.co/ > https://www.endvr.biz/
In this, the first episode of Series 6 of the FounderTech Decoded podcast it was a pleasure to talk to Joe Lewin, CEO and Founder of Foundy.com the UK’s leading M&A platform. We hone in on the increasing difference in expectations around planning and framing an exit. Between founders who have bootstrapped and fuelled the growth of their startup with sustainable revenues and ownership versus those who have taken VC money early and are therefore focused on chasing that 20-30x return of the mythical unicorn. Building on this we talk about and explore the key concept of efficient capital. Capital that fully adopts and integrates the potential and reach of FounderTech tools, alongside leveraging increasingly popular operational modalities like fractional teams to now change perceptions around status, legitimacy and investor norms. How this shift in legitimacy will increasingly lead to placing a higher value on smaller teams executing and achieving traction quicker and more agilely with less capital. We explore how at Foundy they are now adopting and amplifying this approach around things like using AI to reduce legal due diligence around a deal from months to minutes. How they are also busy currently closing their next round, so they can continue to incorporate and amplify these new dynamics in order to radically alter and re-engineer timelines and functionality around all aspects of M&A planning and execution. With the ultimate aim and vision of becoming the Rightmove of M&A!
In this episode of the FounderTech Decoded it was fascinating to talk to Tom Lawrence founder of leading FounderTech PR, comms and content platform MVPR. We talk about how his experience working for Edelman - the largest PR agency in the world - informed his sense and perspective that there was a gap in the market for startups who increasingly didn't have the budget in their funding to warrant hiring a boutique agency to handle and manage their comms on an ongoing basis. Alongside this supply side of the comms value chain, Tom increasingly saw opportunities in the demand side. Where journalists who themselves were increasingly being distributed and dispersed to a wider range of niche audience delivery hubs - Substack / Medium etc - alongside more traditional media channels, needed a constant flow of filtered and considered content to write about. He launched MVPR to be the platform that bridged the gap in that double sided marketplace. Additionally, we discuss how once you have a platform like MVPR in the mix, interesting perspectives and opportunities present themselves when it comes to data. Suddenly in both real and residual time you can see a founder and their startups' current and historic comms reach. A ROI insight that can not only be leveraged in planning going forward but also with investors as you start to scale up. Where a sort of new Content Intelligence emerges. A classic case of FounderTech coming in and providing agility, more openness and transparency in an area of the startup ecosystem that was still largely informed by opaque practice and legacy systems crying out to be reinvented. Connect further with Tom: > tom@mvpr.io > https://www.linkedin.com/in/tmlawro > www.mvpr.io
In this episode of the FounderTech Decoded podcast it was really good to talk to Gareth Hawkins, who is Investment Director at the Block Dojo London incubator and Partner at Henley Business Angels. Gareth has also invested in a portfolio of 30 startups - several of which are key FounderTech platforms such as Connectd.co and Pitch.Space - which we’ve previously been lucky enough to talk to and feature previously in this podcast. Given Gareth’s insight into the space, this discussion is a insider tour through the state of play in the contemporary angel landscape as it stands today and where it could potentially arrive in its next iteration. With FounderTech now playing a potentially key role in driving and evolving that new horizon. This is being accompanied by a rise of an emerging generation of investors, who increasingly see angel investing as a new asset class and are demanding new models and platforms that help them access and manage the agility and liquidity of that asset. We talk about how lack of innovation in the systemic structure in the ecosystem is itself possibly a key driver of market failure and contributes to hindering unlocking its untapped ‘idling’ founder potential. This includes angels still primarily acting in silos rather than in groups that are fluently aligned and coordinated around their ongoing portfolio preference and a curated funnel focus. To address this, we discuss how Gareth is currently launching AngelSyndicate.uk in June, as an end-to-end community, syndication and deal-execution platform for business angel networks, that provides a single point of application for founders to reach multiple regional groups of angel investors. Connect with Gareth: > gh@angelsyndicate.uk > https://www.linkedin.com/in/gareth-hawkins/ > https://www.angelsyndicate.uk/
In this episode of the FounderTech Decoded podcast we have a long overdue conversation with Serkan Ferah founder of PitchSpace. Long overdue, because a lot of the original impetus for the original FounderTech conversation came from working with early stage founders across all sectors and consistently experiencing their ongoing frustration with the pitch deck - as a creative tool, strategic framework and also as the go-to driver of nearly all initial investor communications. Pushing this further, you can say the pitch deck has become the key symbol of the lack of innovation and change in the venture ecosystem. Still relying on a legacy tool that clearly doesn't consistently perform well. So it’s no surprise that Serkan has come along with Pitch Space to radically redesign and rethink how it fundamentally functions and operates. We discuss how the clue is in the title and a key to unlocking the potential future of the pitch deck is to understand that it is informed by two components that are present and backed in and one that is too frequently absent. 1> the Pitch which is its narrative 2> the Deck which is its mechanic 3> the Relationship which is its function We explore how with PitchSpace they are trying to bring all 3 dynamics together and ask whether this is melds into a new category of 'Narrative Design'. That automates and innovates the mechanical parts of 1 & 2 above whilst focusing on and elevating the narrative and relationship components, so they're embedded and baked into the process from the start. It feels like the start of a completely new conversation for what the much dreaded Pitch Deck could now evolve into and empower founders and investors going forward. Connect with Serkan: > https://www.linkedin.com/in/serkanferah/ > www.pitch.space
In this episode of the FounderTech Decoded podcast we talk to Hattie Willie, who is deeply involved in the ongoing support and development of founders navigating the early stage ecosystem from a capital, personal narrative and wellbeing point of view. Drawing on that broad experience, we explore how a typical founder has to experience and endure wave after wave of rejection. Which means that psychologically they to have a degree of resilience that is too commonly unacknowledged let alone understood, when charting a course to launch their startup and navigate trying to secure early stage venture. Added to that, we discuss when you enter that investment room and deal conversation say as a woman or from a minority background, those odds are often inherently and substantively stacked against you. Where long held confirmation biases unfortunately still hold much influence and sway on deal flow and decision making. We try to reframe one of the key assumptions that puts strain on founder and an expectation that is baked into most investment conversations. To suggest that we need to understand that the founder that charts a complex path into launching a venture, is very often not the same founder to operationally grow and scale that venture - and more often than not should not be expected to be so. Building on this, we question is it time to redefine a different version of and model for what constitutes and successful founder and if in doing so, could we collectively unlock and tap into the current latent 'idling capacity' of the venture ecosystem as a whole. Connect further with Hattie: > https://www.ifweraise.com/ > https://www.linkedin.com/in/hattie-willis-she-her-2b47b376/ > https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/fundraising-as-a-diverse-founder-with-guests/id1622164990?i=1000584583714
In this episode of the FounderTech Decoded podcast we get the chance to talk to Jonathan Hollis, who is Managing Partner at Mountside Ventures and whose mission is to optimise the fundraising process for European startups and investors. We discuss how asymmetry around network effects continues to influence and inform most of the capital allocation in the early stage space. One perspective as to why is that in the course of their lifetime, even an experienced founder will probably be at most across 2-3 companies, whereas an experienced VC will review 100s of deal flow opportunities - possibly and probably per quarter. This creates an imbalance in market perspectives and network effects that spill into and inflect ongoing deal dynamics. We explore the lack of diversity, regionally and impact currently in venture and ask whether this due to inefficiencies in capital deployment identifying and backing talent early or as a result of the reliance on primary and secondary networks to source and fund deal flow. With warm intros still making a successful investment 13 x more likely! Finally, we talk about the 3 categories of capital allocation that Jonathan thinks might be help drive innovation in the deployment of venture: i) data driven capital ii) alternative / revenue based finance and iii) SPV vehicles. All of which are currently generating a much need optionality and choice for both founders and investors engaging with and evaluating deal flow. Connect further with Jonathan: > https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhjhollis/ > jonathan@mountsideventures.com > https://www.mountsideventures.com/startup-and-vc-events > https://airtable.com/shrqhI5iowDahtunb
In this episode it was a pleasure to talk to Daniel Sawko of ShipShape.vc We start the conversation looking at why the venture ecosystem is still so informed and driven by legacy frameworks, systems and thinking. We examine whether the roots of this stem from the fact that in just over a decade that ecosystem has been radically transformed from being essentially a cottage industry of private networks and insider driven deal flow, to rapidly mutating into a potentially diverse and disparate startup marketplace. Where for example the accompanying status of being and publicly identifying as a founder in the 2000's was still an outlier career choice. Compare this to now with the legitimation of not just role but also of the supporting cast of accelerators, incubators, educators and media outlets that ratify and amplify going down that startup path and journey. The discussion explores and posits whether it is these market shifts that the venture system hasn't adapted to and that FounderTech as an emerging ethos and growing community is fundamentally and openly targeting and addressing. With the hope that if you close the gap between the legacy ecosystem and the new long tail of founders wishing to access the market, find capital and launch their journeys into Scalable Niches, lies a huge amount of untapped potential. Potential that Ship Shape is now trying to unlock and enable as the first ever free investor search engine that empowers founders and investors to align around demonstrable and repeatable market expertise and proven niche domain insight. Allowing calibrated capital to now better flow in theory to where it is most needed and can generate the most value and return for both sides. Explore further: > www.shipshape.vc > https://uk.linkedin.com/in/danielsawko
It was great to kick off Series 5 of the FounderTech Decoded podcast talking to Oli Harris, the UK Managing Director of Funderbeam. We explore and discuss how to stimulate and bring about the envisioned changes and evolution in the venture ecosystem - so that it is more transparent, open and agile for all. We explore how to achieve this, the emergence of pioneering FounderTech platforms and solutions needs to now align and integrate with new capital models. We talk about how Funderbeam in its ability to create regulated and agile private markets around Scalable Niches, is integrated to this alignment and integration now happening. Linked to this is the effect this integration has on capital distribution and allocation. So venture capital starts off and becomes regionally and demographically unbiased. Enabled to travel and flow in the direction exceptional founder talent with deep expertise, to further empower investors looking for genuine market innovation and opportunity. Connect with Oli: > https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliharris > https://www.funderbeam.com/ Pilot Round is the first FounderTech platform to enable pre-product market fit founders to powerfully align with early stage investors. In order to secure the capital they need to initially have a chance to get their startup off the ground over their next 3-6 months of launch. Please visit www.PilotRound.com to now learn more, sign up to use the Beta and Launch The Extraordinary!
In this episode we have a deep dive into the world of deep tech with Xavier Parkhouse-Parker COO and Co-Founder of Cambridge Future Tech. It’s also a chance to listen and gain insight into the framework of a Venture Builder model. A model which elevates and fundamentally supports founders - often with a perspective, track record and insight of deep academic expertise - who are exploring Scaleable Niches into complex market problems that require deep IP and innovation. In this model, support means everything. From multi-faceted advisory boards, mentoring, deep understanding and planning around market research and launch integration, as well as capital raising to create a defensible beachhead to scale and leverage going forward. As we will with all guests on the Series 4, we then walk through, explore, challenge, counteract and gain further insight into The Switch Deck together - www.propelia.com/switchdeck Follow Xavier on: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xavierparkhouseparker https://camfuturetech.com hello@camfuturetech.com https://a16z.com/book/the-hard-thing-about-hard-things/ Are you a forward thinking investor, platform or founder that wants to be kept in the loop with all things FounderTech as the conversation continues to develop, iterate and evolve in 2023? Then simply subscribe to The FounderTech Bulletin and remain up to date with all key developments, including following Propelia’s launch of Pilot Round - as its own powerful Founder Market Fit driven platform - into the early stage venture ecosystem. Subscribe now to The FounderTech Bulletin here: https://foundertech.substack.com/ Sign up to the Pilot Round Beta at www.pilotround.com
In this episode of the FounderTech Decoded podcast we get to listen in to Puja Balachander’s founder story, that saw her go from meeting her co-founder to in the first week of her MBA to then iterating and launching their MVP as a WhatsApp based product that helped them inform and determine product market fit. We hear how she used the Chrome extension Contact Out and Mail Merge as a critical piece of FounderTech to identify and be backed by the right team of early stage investors and aligned forward thinking early stage pre-seed backers like Bethnal Green Ventures and Catch22. Puja’s story is a brilliant example of the hustle and work it out as you go no code / low code approach. An approach that is much celebrated as an ideal founder path but very rarely well and successfully executed on. Perhaps in her case it was because she had the combination of the Founder Market Fit of working in the government and public services first combined with her other expertise in product development and design. Puja’s story also illustrates that not all startup stories have to move towards their scale phase before exiting and how sometimes there is an inflection point where a sell to a partner is sometimes the best calculated and strategic right choice and how useful it is to have good investors and advisors around and on the journey with you if you hit this important inflection point. Finally we use The Switch Deck to explore Puja’s new role working for ClimateTech fund Carbon13 and how her own founder’s journey helps inform her approach when evaluating and talking to early stage founders who often have solutions in search of problems, in startups who are at a similar stage to when she started her founder’s journey. Connect with Puja: > https://www.linkedin.com/in/pujabalachander/ > https://carbonthirteen.com/
In this episode we talk to Chris Wickson about his journey from launching his B2B SaaS startup Akkroo, to it being acquired for $34m by Integrate in 2019 - which after his earn out period leaves him currently with the fresh vista of being an active angel investor. However, instead of taking the obvious path of trying to leverage their point of view and market expertise, he and his co-founder are actively seeking out problems in verticals they have relatively little experience and insight into. The logic being that rather than double down on their pre-existing confirmation biases towards certain industries and sectors, by coming afresh to a sector they may be able to see how they can leverage solutions and fresh thinking into legacy systems and markets. We drill into this further by exploring a term called ‘Scaleable Niches’ that has come up in previous episodes of the podcast. This posits that instead of looking at and evaluating horizontal B2B SaaS based opportunities, the new and untapped value lies in going deeply in verticals where genuine insight, product driven IP and innovation play a lot more prominence. If in this case new models are needed to map and chart where the most promising Scaleable Niches are and also the type of founder you might need to align with and back? A founder who has sufficient exceptional Founder Market Fit that they can propel you into and provide the unfair advantage in terms of deep market insight, networks and expertise that a Scaleable Niche with blue sky potential might provide. As we will with all guests now on the podcast, we then overlap the insight of Chris’ founder’s journey onto different aspects of The Switch Deck - key shifts effecting the future of the early stage venture ecosystem. Connect further with Chris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-wickson Are you a forward thinking investor, platform or founder that wants to be kept in the loop with all things FounderTech as the conversation continues to develop, iterate and evolve in 2023? Then simply subscribe to The FounderTech Bulletin and remain up to date with all key developments, including following Propelia’s launch of BlackBox - as its own powerful Founder Market Fit driven platform - into the early stage venture ecosystem. Subscribe now to The FounderTech Bulletin here: https://foundertech.substack.com/
In this episode it’s been great to talk to founder Luke Loveridge about his experience not only exiting a startup with HomeLINK but then going on to currently launching another one with Propflo - for which he recently won Startup of the year at the Tech South West Awards. Tech South West was conceived of and launched by Dan Pritchard in 2018. A brand expert who moved to the region, he recognised the opportunity to supercharge its potential as a major tech hub. In that time, Dan also launched the Tech South West Awards in 2019, and with the Tech South West team, developed the tech cluster organisation to run virtual accelerator programmes, commission key reports and build its membership to over 3000-strong, all helping to put the South West as a region firmly on the UK’s tech map. Bringing the perspective of the regional investor to the conversation is Ben Cooper, who as well as now being involved in the Awards is an active member of the Bristol Private Equity group - a leading regional angel syndicate. As well as being an active NED and strategic advisor to startup and scale ups. With these 3 perspectives, this episode is a real window for anyone wishing to get an insight into how you begin to nurture, stimulate and interconnect the various nodes of a region to create the conditions for a vibrant regional hub outside of the traditional founder and investor London bias and focus. As with all guests on the Series 4, we then walk and talk and overlay the insights of the above through the framework of The Switch Deck together. Connect further: https://propflo.co.uk/ https://www.techsouthwest.co.uk/awards-2022 and https://program.agency/ https://www.bristolprivateequityclub.com
In this episode of FounderTech Decoded, we are excited to talk to Francesco Perticarari about his experience of leveraging Silicon Roundabout - the largest Deep Tech founder meeetup and community in Europe - into a new sister venture fund Silicon Roundabout Ventures. A fund he is currently in the process of launching, aimed at identifying and investing in early stage tickets in DeepTech European startups. We discuss how in framing and designing the fund FounderTech like Vauban (whilst also evaluating market alternatives like Odin) is enabling him to launch the fund in a rapid and agile way that would have simply not been possible even just a few years ago. Particularly for an outsider entering the venture space for the first time, looking to leverage a community driven perspective, backed by their particular market insight and sector point of view. We also explore how the fund aligns with a potential parallel diminishment of low hanging B2B and B2C SaaS opportunities in the venture space. Where even in relatively recent dynamically backed VC sectors like FinTech, previous startup winners like Monzo and Revolut are now much more quickly replicable and therefore harder to differentiate and distinctly defend going forward. Given this, why Francesco believes the next big market opportunity for early stage venture is in Deep Tech. Backing startup challenges which can only be solved by founders leveraging deep R&D and complex Innovation or by exploiting valuable algorithmic niches. Finally we discuss how FounderTech when leveraged properly, works brilliantly when it replaces low value functions in the ecosystem, in order to then elevate and amplify high value founder insights and investor interactions. Seen in this way FounderTech might essentially represent the new APIs of the venture system, that fluidly enables really advanced startup and funding innovation through a mixture of now better amplifying access to capital, deep founder driven insight and aligned community. Explore further and connect with Francesco: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fperticarari/ https://siliconroundabout.ventures/ https://siliconroundabout.tech/ https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/silicon-roundabout-16832027154 https://blog.francescoperticarari.com/
In this episode we talk to Nick Telson to share his experience and insight from both sides of the table - as a new startup founder in 2010 to life as an exited founder and early stage investor in 2022. We talk about how whilst the traits, values and robustness needed by a founder on a character level essentially remain the same, that FounderTech tools and platforms are increasingly changing the agility around framing and also accessing early stage venture capital. We discuss how it must be remembered that whilst the core act of raising money by an early stage founder is still essentially a very human driven process, it is also underpinned and informed by the metrics and dynamics of an investors deal funnel. We explore how the limitations of the pitch deck as a largely static tool designed around product market fit, doesn’t consistently behave very well when trying to amplify and assess those human driven traits. Could we learn from other industries like recruitment, as to how they reimagined static key legacy tools like the CV, into much more dynamic human driven platforms, that better convey the candidates story in a much more compelling way? Finally, we explore his recent return to being a startup co-founder with his sales cycle platform Trumpet, his own investment in FounderTech platform Landscape and how platforms like AngelList and Odin that enable startups to create their own SPV’s, alongside the rise of founder driven capital and Solo Capitalists might represent key FounderTech market developments that further point to an adapting and iterating new future for early stage venture. Explore further and connect with Nick: https://horseplay.ventures/ https://www.sendtrumpet.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicktelson/ https://anchor.fm/pitch-deck
In this conversation we talk to Anthony Rose who is founder and CEO of SeedLegals. An outsider to the legal and investment community, who ended up building one of the original FounderTech platforms that would go on to ultimately reimagine both of those sectors. We talk about how when you are an outsider, you can sometimes frame and envision possibilities for a problem space in the market completely differently. In Anthony’s case he realised that the main product opportunity for SeedLegals was not - as he initially and reasonably assumed - the faster delivery of a set of legal documents. He came to realise that’s actually almost incidental and a small piece of the puzzle, not the actual puzzle itself. That the real value and opportunity lay in enabling founders to have confidence with how they initially engaged, navigated and progressed through the complexities of the startup venture space. This led to repositioning SeedLegals as ‘the fastest way to do your funding round’ and the development and introduction of their flagship investment products SeedFAST and Instant Investment. Both of which went onto inform and help frame what they define as agile investment. Both have led to more money now being raised via SeedLegals outside of a traditional funding round than within a traditional funding round. We also explore how there are 4 distinct typical investor personas that inform a funding round which are not the same in intent or capacity and how founders need to calibrate their pitch accordingly to align with these personas. We highlight how all an investor can go on in the early pre-product and pre-revenue stages is teasing out the signals founders have agency over. That one of the only true signals and datapoints an investor can evaluate is the content the founder can produce and put out that creates thought leadership in their space and demonstrates authority over their market sector. Ultimately we focus and hone in on how FounderTech, in order to further rewire and reimagine the rules of the founder investor landscape, has to behave like a series of utilities. Utilities that are designed to increase the fluidity and agility of that founder investor dynamic and conversation. Utilities that continue to erode and reduce the inefficient asymmetries of the early stage startup space so it is ultimately more inclusive and open for everyone. Connect with Anthony: Web: www.seedlegals.com Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anrose Widen your perspective with these APIs: https://mikebutcher.me/2015/07/01/the-press-release-is-dead/ https://sifted.eu/articles/interpreting-investor-feedback/ https://www.momtestbook.com/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Western-Philosophy-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415325056
In this Episode we have a very open conversation with Amrit Sami diving into and taking the time to understand and explore the human aspects of the early stage founder investor relationship. Amrit is an Associate at Symvan Capital who is focused on identifying and evaluating pre-seed SEIS investments for the venture fund. We discuss why SEIS itself is a shining example of innovative FounderTech, that we in the UK should be proud of and actually celebrate more than we do. An innovation that’s helped stimulate many pre-seed investments and make this initial difficult phase of the early stage startup journey much easier over the last decade since it’s been introduced. We also look at how SEIS capital is best suited to demonstrate a Founder Market Fit, that enables an early stage founder to navigate and traverse that difficult pre-revenue and pre-product phase. How as a founder, demonstrably showing a market authority and thought leadership driven expertise, accompanied by an ongoing deep curiosity around your sector, is hugely important to initially providing critical further data points. Subsurface cues that can help propel you from the pitch deck into a more nuanced level playing field conversation with an investor. An open dialogue where you can then be evaluated by more human metrics and dynamics and whether you can then take an investor on a compelling journey with you. That this is the aligned richer conversation that smart forward thinking investors might now want to use FounderTech platforms to help better enable, evaluate and engage in. To accelerate and quickly determine if they are right for you as much as you are for them! Connect with Amrit: Web: https://www.symvancapital.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amrit-sami-4a1baaa4/ Widen your perspective with these APIs: https://readnoise.com/ https://davidepstein.com/the-range/
In this conversation we talk to Eamonn Carey, formerly of Techstars and more recently a General Partner of venture funds Tera Ventures and The Fund. In our discussion we focus on why ex-founder’s launching and managing funds could be a very emergent piece of the FoundTech puzzle. We touch on how he arrived at this insight after returning from the US, where the emphasis from this founder driven perspective focuses primarily on the potential of a startup rather than initially framing and assessing problems. We discuss how if you’ve sat in the seat of the founder and experienced first hand the problems you face, trying to launch and fundraise for you early stage startup, this gives you a different perspective on how you not only evaluate that startup but also how you are able to better empathise with the actual stage of the journey the founder is currently on. This stops you from automatically focusing on product driven data points that can’t be demonstrated at this stage and looking instead for other proxies, symptoms and signs that indicate that the founder is currently capable of demonstrating Founder Market Fit. Things like having sophisticated hiring plans in place or also whether the founder has evidently done Due Diligence on the investor to see if they are right for them. Finally, we get into why language around the investor ecosystem for a founder can often be unnecessarily opaque and how with the recent successful publishing and launch of ‘The Startup Lexicon’ with Ken Valledy he is keen on now demystifying this language so it can be widely accessible and understood. How this in itself is an important foundational piece of FounderTech, because if founders and investors can’t start their dialogue fundamentally and clearly understanding each other, how is that relationship going to then align, bloom and prosper going forward? Connect with Eamonn: Web: https://www.tera.vc/ Web: https://thefund.vc/ Linkedin: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ecarey Widen your perspective with these APIs: https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Lexicon-Demystifying-everyday-language-ebook/dp/B09XG34QXS https://www.aprildunford.com/obviously-awesome https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/ https://www.theconsumervc.com/