In this short episode we look back at 4 of the startups that featured in Series 1, to see:

- Did they raise their round?

- Did Horseplay Ventures invest in their round?

- How has the company been progressing?

- Is there anything the Pitch Deck community can do to help them?

The startups featured in this episode are:

👶 Mamamade - D2C baby food brand

🧠 Heights - D2C brain supplement brand

🛴 Zwings - B2B/B2G turnkey e-mobility solution

💳 Mintago - B2B financial well-being platform

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Guest Angel Henry Allan, UK GM of mega D2C brand, Hims, joins me to listen to and question Meenesh Mistry's pitch, Wholey Moly. Surprised at the lack of choice of a naughty but healthy snack, Meenesh and his wife hit the kitchen and set about creating the first-ever healthy cookie. Over 50 iterations later they launched Wholey Moly with interest already from Whole Foods and Selfridges, Meenesh is looking to raise cash to take the brand onto the next level in retail and launch their D2C letterbox cookies proposition.  With the expertise of Henry, this is a great deep-dive into D2C branding, retail margins and the importance of team.  

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - www.horseplay.ventures  

Wholey Moley - https://www.wholeymoly.co.uk/ 

Hims - https://www.forhims.com/

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Guest Angel Dan Rosenberg, COO and first employee of acquired, transatlantic apparel brand, Represent, joins me to listen to and question Chieu Cao's pitch, Mintago. Chieu, the founder of huge B2B perk company, Perkbox, has now turned his SME selling sights onto financial well-being. He is on a mission to bring happiness to employees and this starts with an understanding of how they can reach their goals with active financial planning: Physical and mental well-being are greatly affected by a person's financial state so should HR departments focus on this as a starting point? Chieu clearly has incredible experience in this market having been there and nailed it already, but can he convince companies that financial well-being really is the holistic solution where well-being should begin? Great insights into selling into SMEs and how to build a company ripe for B2B scale as well as how to shape your message to sell successfully into companies.  

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - www.horseplay.ventures

Mintago - https://www.mintago.com/

Represent - https://represent.com/

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I'm joined by Pietro Invernizzi, first cheque investor at Stride.VC, who recently closed their second $138m seed fund and have recently officially launched the First Check Programme, where they are looking to back up to 20 teams straight out the gate as their first supporter, regardless of how early they are.

Pietro started his career as an investment banking analyst in London before moving into the startup world where he joined The Family, the "coolest" place if you want to build a startup in France. Whilst there, he spent a ton of time working really closely with founders, helping them with all the 100s of questions they ask themselves when building a company, particularly around fundraising. In this context, he started 'angel investing'  into the founders he was most excited by. He quickly realised that investing was his passion and so decided to join the now notorious Stride VC in June 2020, focusing on their early-stage investment.

We listened to the pitch from Tiernan Mines, founder of Hello Lamp Post - looking to reimagine how local governments and councils engage with their community for feedback and ideas. By turning inanimate objects like bus stops, lamp posts and park benches into an engaging SMS conversation, the council can ask for, gather and analyse feedback from locals. The same can go for real estate developers, museums, stadia etc...any public space that wants to engage with its customers or locals.

We dug down on the "why", the importance of their own tech, their true moat as a business and defining a true market opportunity. 

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - https://horseplay.ventures/
Hello Lamp Post - https://www.hlp.city/
Stride.VC - https://stride.vc/

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Guest Angel Simon Squibb has started 17 companies, invested in over 60+ startups and has mentored hundreds of founders. Having sold his award-winning branding and digital agency, Fluid, to PwC, Simon now focuses on inspiring, motivating and guiding both budding and experienced entrepreneurs by sharing his personal experiences, insights, ideas and tips. His aim is to get 1 million people to start a company. Simon joins me to listen to and question Mariams pitch, Oja. Mariam knows the pain point on wanting to get access to world foods not available in the supermarkets and realised, it's just not that easy. For immigrant families or those that just love world cooking at home, why not get easy access to all the ingredients your heart desires, delivered to your door? That is the Oja mission. We dive into growing a B2C market, the difficulty of implementing technology into old school businesses and flipping the model to a B2B opportunity too. The problem makes sense, the solution makes sense, but is that enough?

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - https://horseplay.ventures/
Oja - https://my-oja.com/
Simon Squibb - https://simonsquibb.com/

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Dan will need no introduction to most. Dan is an avid mental health advocate, community and brand expert having started, scaled, (failed) & succeeded with various companies over the last 10 years. His newest startup, Heights, exists to make braincare as normal as skincare and haircare. This includes Smart Supplements, mental well-being, and bitesize neuroscience—all combined to create proven pillars to make braincare simple. Dan is also the creator and host of rocketship podcast Secret Leaders, the number 1 UK business Podcast delivering the stories behind some of the most impressive leaders of our generation. Dan also now angel invests and advises startups and is often quoted as the most connected entrepreneur in Europe.

Episode Links:

Sponsored by trumpet

Heights

Secret Leaders Podcast

Dan's Twitter and Linkedin

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Guest Angel Tom Savage, award-winning entrepreneur, travel company founder, Ted talker, angel investor and founder of new forward-thinking venture fund, joins me to listen to and question Jamal Whorms-MonDésir's pitch, Wayfare. Wayfare is looking to re-imagine the travel experience for Gen Z. Jamal wants to start with helping them fund their holidays and then digitise the whole experience from discovery, booking, organisation and payment.  Can Wayfare become the Klarna of travel? There is some real digging on the idea and business in this episode. Tom doesn't hold back. Some great insight into vision vs execution and the importance of your team. Can Jamal hold up to the intense scrutiny?

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - www.horseplay.ventures

Wayfare - http://letswayfare.com/

Tom's Travel Company - https://www.brilliant-uganda.com/ & https://brilliant-ethiopia.com/

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Nick has taken a far too long hiatus but is back for Series 5! Here he reveals a new format for Series 5 which will give listeners a tonne of bite-sized, useful takeaways from leading angel investors and early-stage VCs. The plan for this series is to pump out a lot more content but in smaller chunks; 15-20 minutes per episode.

Series 5 sponsored by trumpet - https://www.sendtrumpet.com/

Horseplay Ventures - https://horseplay.ventures/

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I was joined by Gemma Bloemen; Gemma was the Chief Operating Officer at Elder Technologies, a Series B health tech startup for the past 3.5 years, where she helped the company scale from 20 to 120 people and raise a series B in 2019. She has been an angel investor for the past two years and is very interested in Healthtech, Marketplaces, Agetech, Silver economy and Sustainability. 80% of her investments have been in female founders. Previously, Gemma was a senior manager at Uber in the UK where she co-chaired Women of Uber in 2017, and before that she was a consultant at McKinsey. Gemma left Elder this summer and has joined Creandum as an investment principal. Creandum is a pan European early-stage VC fund, having invested in companies like Spotify, Trade Republic and Depop. Gemma covers the London market and is focused on both B2C and B2B technology businesses.

Pitching to us was Charlotte Melia, founder of Vesta Kids, a B2B2C subscription web platform and app providing educational, safe & active content for working parents and their wider families. Looking to sell the platform as a "perk" to companies to be able to provide their employees with kids with a video library and live, high-production content that they can get active with, learn and have fun. There is also a large emphasis on producing content that allows neuro-diverse children and neuro-typical children to play and learn together rather than being segregated. The founding team already have a successful events business that puts on bespoke events for the super-rich, so they come with a lot of expertise in production.

We dug down on competing with big boys such as Netflix and Disney, being able to keep production values high, will online learning remain the norm post covid and the B2B2C vs B2C model. 

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Millen spent nine years at Citigroup working her way up to become Vice President of Corporate Derivatives before setting up her own business, "no+mi" in 2016 -    an online destination with perfectly curated gift sets for expecting and new mothers. In 2020 she joined the consumer team at Octopus Ventures and is particularly interested in category-defining innovations around the way we live, work, travel, play and recuperate! Octopus runs one of Europe's largest venture funds with £1.2 billion under management and they have been fortunate enough to have worked with the founding teams of some fantastic companies including Zoopla, Graze.com and Depop.

Episode Links:

Sponsored by trumpet

Millen's Linkedin

Octopus Ventures

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I'm joined by legendary investor and Forbes acclaimed, "Queen of UK VC", Eileen Burbidge. Eileen is a Partner at Passion Capital, the legendary early-stage tech venture fund with the likes of Monzo, Tide, Nested, Butternut Box & Marshmallow under their belts and is actually a Board Director with Monzo as well as being super involved with a lot of the other portfolio companies too.

Eileen started her career in Silicon Valley, working for the likes of Apple, Yahoo!, and Sun Microsystems. In 2004 she moved to London to become one of Skype’s earliest employees. In 2011, Eileen became founding partner of Passion.

She is also a member of the board of Dixons Carphone, and awarded an MBE in 2015 for services to Business.

We listened to the pitch from Amber Perng, founder of Salmo - looking to digitise, speed up and make cheaper the visa application process, of which there are 1.5m a year in the UK. Based on her own experience having to get a visa after studying in the UK, Amber realised lawyers were charging £4K to fill out forms on your behalf and not much else...it could be better. 

We really dug on the tech importance of a business such as this, the genuine TAM, reaching that target market, the potential to sell more products to the visa customers and whether they are the team to execute. It also brought up an interesting parallel between Eileen (VC) and my (Angel) take on the investment prospects.

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - https://horseplay.ventures/
Salmo - https://www.salmo.uk/
Playfair Capital - https://www.passioncapital.com/

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Angel guest is Pietro Invernizzi, 1st cheque investor at Stride VC and actively looking for seed deals. Stride has become one of the most respected VCs in a very short time due to the line up of Pietro, Harry Stebbings and Fred Destin. They have a £100m fund to deploy across a small number of exciting companies and founders. Pietro joins me to listen to and question Kemal's pitch, Send Music. Kemal has been top of his game as a music producer for decades, currently producing for Radio 1 and Radio 1 Xtra's Diplo and friends. His lived experience revealed a pain point of new artists sending tracks to producers and other high profile artists/DJs. Currently, it's all done with traditional file transfer sites but what if there was one just for the music industry that also acted as a marketplace for new artists/producers to get their tracks in front of the ideal people; as well as track the listens, downloads and hopefully get picked up? Enter, Send Music. A very interesting dive into disrupting an old school industry, is a supremely qualified founder enough to back and a look at different business models.

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - www.horseplay.ventures
Send Music - https://sendmusic.com/
Stride VC - https://stride.vc/

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This episode we speak to Matt Smith, a professional footballer for the last 11 years for clubs such as Leeds, Fulham, QPR and Millwall, scoring over 100 goals. Matt, who has a business degree is also very interested in the angel investing world, investing in over 10 startups to date, including the likes of Velocity Black and Honest Mobile.  

Episode Links:

Supported by trumpet

Matt's Twitter

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In Episode 2 we are joined by Nikhil Shah. Nikhil is a creative, technology and social impact entrepreneur, passionate about supporting mission-driven founders on their entrepreneurial journeys. He is the founder of Mixcloud, the world's leading streaming platform for the DJ & radio community, with over 20 million listeners and 4 hours of content uploaded every minute. He now has a portfolio of startup advisory roles, social impact and creative projects. He is an angel investor with a portfolio of 30 startups spanning consumer, wellbeing, psychedelics and the creative sectors. Nikhil received a BA and MA in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge. He is a DJ and a trained yoga instructor.

Episode Links:

Sponsored by trumpet

Nikhil's Linkedin Profile

Mixcloud

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I am joined by Veronika Kapustina, an early-stage investor and advisor, who started her journey working on capital raising for late-stage technology corporates such as Uber, Airbnb and Netflix in London and later in California. After moving to the West Coast she started mentoring seed-stage founders and quickly realised that her passion lay in angel investing. After building a high-performing portfolio, Veronika has now become a founder herself, currently setting up a Venture Fund focused on investing in seed-stage founders who come from a social science background.

We listened to the pitch from Marie Farmer, founder of Mini Mealtimes app, looking to revolutionise how children's nutrition is both tracked and improved. The app provides personalised nutrition reports, easy to use food diary, expert nutrition advice and dietician-approved recipes. This was a problem for Marie as a mother which led her to set up the idea; a very assured and confident pitch. We dug deep on the business model and subscription model, getting scale for a B2C app, advertising within an app and building a team and a moat.

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - https://horseplay.ventures/
Mini Mealtimes - https://www.minimealtimes.com/
Veronika Kapustina - https://www.linkedin.com/in/veronika-kapustina-8a590914/

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Amory started life out in investment banking before moving into the energy sector and VC moving to Shell Ventures as Venture Principal. Shell Ventures an arm of the oil company,  invests in early-stage companies that have reached proof-of-concept focused on fintech/insurtech/mobility and clean tech. He is now founder of his own $20m fund, D2 and looking to do 10 deals this year and a further 10 next year, focused on lean startups that don't need further funding to get to Series A and then the founder can decide whether they want to go down the VC route or grow from profitability - and has been an angel investor in the past

D2 is a different type of venture fund. They provide early stage start-ups with equity capital and also offer debt as they scale. Their objective is to bring the right type of capital at the right time to help you own more of your business at exit.

Episode Links

D2 fund

trumpet - Create buyer journeys that drive more revenue

Amory on Linkedin

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Eamonn Carey is a partner at Tera Ventures, where he focuses on pre-seed and seed-stage investments across multiple sectors. He's previously been a founder, an MD at Techstars in London and New York, and a partner at The Fund. He's invested in almost 100 companies across Europe, the US, Africa and Asia. There is nothing that Eamonn doesn't know in this space.

Episode Links:

Sponsored by trumpet

Eamonn's Linkedin and Twitter

Tera Ventures

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Summary

Kirsten Connell, an investor at Octopus Ventures, shares insights on pre-seed investing and what investors look for in startups. She discusses the importance of traction and metrics at the seed stage, but notes that pre-seed investments are less impacted by this shift. She emphasizes the need for exceptional founders who have identified a real need, can build an MVP, and have a clear plan to take their product or service to market. Kirsten also discusses the challenges and opportunities in B2C startups, the importance of founder-market fit, and the impact of competition on investment decisions.

Keywords

pre-seed investing, traction, metrics, exceptional founders, MVP, go-to-market, B2C startups, founder-market fit, competition

Takeaways

• Investors are more focused on traction and metrics at the seed stage, but pre-seed investments are less impacted by this shift.
• Exceptional founders who have identified a real need, can build an MVP, and have a clear plan to take their product or service to market are highly sought after.
• In B2C startups, it's important to have a strong value proposition and a clear understanding of the market and route to market.
• Founder-market fit is crucial, whether the founder has first-hand experience in the industry or is passionate about solving a problem.
• Competition is a factor to consider, but it's not the sole reason to bow out of investing. Other factors such as market size, product roadmap, and business model should also be taken into account.
• When reaching out to investors, a warm introduction from another founder can be more effective than a cold outreach. Concise and visually appealing pitch decks that highlight the founder's standout qualities and the size of the opportunity are more likely to capture investors' attention.

Titles

The Importance of Founder-Market Fit

The Shift in Expectations for Seed Rounds

Sound Bites

"You're still looking for an exceptional founder who's identified a real need, can build an MVP, and has got line of sight of how they're going to take that product or service to market."

"Founders who truly understand their route to market and have a deep understanding of their early adopters are more likely to succeed."

"In B2C startups, building a strong brand and ensuring product retention are key challenges."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Kirsten Connell

03:24 What Investors Look for in Pre-Seed Startups

08:52 Challenges and Opportunities in B2C Startups

12:38 The Importance of Founder-Market Fit

23:37 Tips for Reaching Out to Investors and Creating Pitch Decks

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Summary

In discussion with Nick Telson-Sillett, founder of trumpet, with Fred Soneya, an operator turned VC, discusses his approach to pre-seed investing and what he looks for in early-stage companies. He focuses on investing in businesses that have identified a pain in the present and are starting to identify a buyer who is willing to pay for a solution. Fred emphasizes the importance of understanding the market, defining the ideal customer profile, and having a revenue-driven mindset. He also discusses the value of vertical SaaS companies and the need for innovation and go-to-market strategies. When evaluating founders, Fred looks for grit, determination, and a deep understanding of their business. He advises founders to approach relevant funds with personalized outreach and to create pitch decks that are short, aesthetically pleasing, and designed to generate intrigue.

Takeaways

Invest in businesses that have identified a pain in the present and are starting to identify a buyer who is willing to pay for a solution.

Understand the market, define the ideal customer profile, and have a revenue-driven mindset.

Vertical SaaS companies offer value by going deep into a specific industry and becoming the fundamental platform for that vertical.

Grit, determination, and a deep understanding of the business are key qualities to look for in founders.

Approach relevant funds with personalized outreach and create pitch decks that are short, aesthetically pleasing, and designed to generate intrigue.

Sound Bites

"Investing in businesses that have identified a pain in the present."

"Vertical SaaS is about going deep into a domain and building an end-to-end SaaS product for that market."

"Gritty founders who understand their business end to end."

Proudly supported by Google Cloud, Seven Legal, Fuelled and Carta

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In this episode of Pitch Deck, Nick Telson-Sillett, founder of trumpet, interviews Peter Nixey, an operator, investor, and AI expert. Peter shares his interest in businesses with clear value propositions and emphasizes the importance of solving real problems that people are willing to pay for. He also discusses his venture builder, Inaugural, which focuses on creating AI companies. Peter explains the different layers of AI and the potential for builders to create applications on top of AI models. He highlights the value of AI in specific verticals and provides insights into the key elements of a pitch deck, including clarity of message and specific storytelling.

Takeaways

Focus on businesses with clear value propositions and solve real problems that people are willing to pay for.

Consider the different layers of AI, including base models, builders creating applications on top of models, and traditional machine learning.

Explore AI use cases in specific verticals, particularly in unattractive jobs that are repetitive and can't be easily automated.

When creating a pitch deck, prioritize clarity of message, take investors on a journey, and tell specific stories about what you're building.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

01:03 Interest in Businesses with Clear Value Propositions

06:26 Inaugural: A Venture Builder for AI Companies

10:36 Different Layers of AI

13:45 Builders on Top of AI Models

20:41 Key Elements of a Pitch Deck

24:17 Anecdote from Paul Graham

Proudly supported by Google Cloud, Seven Legal, Fuelled and Carta

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Annelie Ajami, founder of Anamcara Ventures, shares insights on what she looks for in pre-seed startups and how founders can impress investors. She emphasizes the importance of the founding team, including their domain expertise, unique insights, narrative, technical capabilities, and clarity of thought. She also discusses the significance of a founder's motivation and determination. Annelie highlights the value of warm introductions and resourcefulness in getting in touch with investors. When it comes to pitch decks, she suggests focusing on the problem, solution, market, team, business model, and round being raised, and keeping the deck short and concise.

Keywords

pre-seed, venture capital, founding team, domain expertise, unique insights, narrative, technical capabilities, warm introductions, pitch deck

Takeaways

• The founding team is crucial in pre-seed investments, with factors such as domain expertise, unique insights, narrative, technical capabilities, and clarity of thought being important considerations.
• A founder's motivation and determination are key indicators of their potential success.
• Warm introductions and resourcefulness can greatly increase the chances of getting in touch with investors.
• Pitch decks should focus on the problem, solution, market, team, business model, and round being raised, and should be kept short and concise.

Titles

• The Value of Warm Introductions and Resourcefulness
• Motivation and Determination: Key Indicators of Success

Sound Bites

"I love founders that have something to prove."

"Yes, it's definitely happened more than once that when I speak to founders, my heart starts beating faster."

"There's this bias against that type of setup."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Annelie Ajami and Anamcara Ventures

01:16 The Importance of the Founding Team in Pre-Seed Investments

10:42 The Value of Warm Introductions and Resourcefulness

14:10 Pitch Deck Essentials: Problem, Solution, Market, Team, Business Model, and Round

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David Pakman, Managing Partner at CoinFund, discusses his experience at Apple and the impact of the company on the music industry. He also shares insights into the future of crypto beyond coins and the exciting businesses in the crypto space. Additionally, he provides advice on what makes a compelling pitch deck.

Takeaways

• Apple's ability to attract top talent and its focus on user experience were key factors in its success.
• Spotify has revolutionized the music industry by pioneering the streaming model and offering personalized experiences.
• Crypto has the potential to transform various industries, including finance, gaming, and cross-border payments.
• Specialist VCs in the crypto space have an advantage over generalist funds due to their deep domain knowledge.
• A compelling pitch deck should highlight the team's expertise, market understanding, and the unique qualities of the product.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

01:19 Apple's Special Qualities

03:01 Fostering Creativity at Apple

05:08 Apple Post-Steve Jobs

07:02 Impact of Spotify on the Music Industry

13:37 The Future Opportunity of Crypto

16:36 Crypto Use Cases Beyond Coins

24:15 Exciting Businesses in the Crypto Space

26:24 Generalist Funds in the Crypto Market

28:28 What Makes a Compelling Pitch Deck

30:21 Where to Find David Pakman and CoinFund

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Andrea Pacini, a renowned presentation coach and Head of Ideas on Stage UK, shares tips on how to improve your pitching skills. He discusses the differences between in-person and online presentations, emphasizing the importance of technology setup, audience interaction, and delivery. Pacini highlights the significance of familiarity and preparation in building confidence, as well as the structured process of developing a compelling message. He introduces the POST-IT framework for pitching to investors, which includes problem, opportunity, solution, timeline, investment, and team. Pacini also provides guidance on ending a presentation effectively by focusing on the key message, explaining its relevance to the audience, and discussing next steps.

Keywords

presentation skills, pitching, online presentations, technology setup, audience interaction, delivery, confidence, message development, POST-IT framework, problem, opportunity, solution, timeline, investment, team, ending a presentation

Takeaways

• Technology setup is crucial for online presentations, including microphone, webcam, and lighting.
• Maintaining high audience attention is more challenging in online presentations, requiring frequent interaction.
• Confidence in presenting comes from familiarity, preparation, and following a structured process.
• The POST-IT framework (problem, opportunity, solution, timeline, investment, team) is effective for pitching to investors.
• Ending a presentation should focus on the key message, its relevance to the audience, and discussing next steps.

Titles

• Mastering the Art of Presenting: Tips from a Presentation Coach
• The POST-IT Framework: A Simple Structure for Pitching to Investors

Sound Bites

• "You need to create a designed conversation."
• "Always subtract at least 30% of the allotted time for preparation."
• "80% of your confidence comes from your ability to develop a compelling message."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction of Andrea Pacini

04:56 Tips for Technology Setup and Audience Interaction

11:36 Building Confidence in Presenting

22:08 Presentation Frameworks and Structures

26:17 The POST-IT Framework for Pitching to Investors

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Sarah Drinkwater, an influential pre-seed angel investor and founder of Common Magic, discusses the importance of community in technology companies. She defines community as a combination of utility and belonging, and emphasizes the role of community in connecting audiences to products and enabling long-term resilience. Sarah believes that community-building is not suitable for every company and depends on the specific audience and problem being solved. She also highlights the traits she looks for in founders, including resilience, persuasiveness, self-knowledge, and comfort with chaos. In terms of pitch decks, Sarah values clarity, a clear reason for the timing of the product, and a compelling reason why the founders are the right fit for the problem.

Keywords

community, technology companies, utility, belonging, audience, product, resilience, founders, pitch deck

Takeaways

• Community is a combination of utility and belonging in technology companies.
• Community-building is not suitable for every company and depends on the specific audience and problem being solved.
• Founders should possess traits such as resilience, persuasiveness, self-knowledge, and comfort with chaos.
• Pitch decks should focus on clarity, the timing of the product, and a compelling reason why the founders are the right fit for the problem.

Titles

• Traits of Successful Founders
• Key Elements of an Effective Pitch Deck

Sound Bites

• "Community is kind of utility plus belonging."
• "Technology is no longer the moat, go-to-market is the new moat."
• "Resilience is queen."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:20 The Role of Community in Technology Companies

02:09 The New Moat: Go-to-Market

03:36 Traits of Successful Founders

09:14 Key Elements of an Effective Pitch Deck

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Dan, co-founder and partner at SuperSeed, shares insights on early-stage investments and what founders can do to differentiate their businesses. He emphasizes the importance of having a clear vision and position in the market, rather than relying on technical moats. Dan also discusses the role of competition and the need for founders to have a long-term strategy. He advises founders to focus on their ideal customer profile (ICP) and consider expanding into new territories or customer segments. Dan also shares his thoughts on expanding to the US market and the challenges of transitioning from founder to CEO.

Keywords

early-stage investments, differentiation, vision, market position, competition, ideal customer profile, expanding to the US, founder to CEO

Takeaways

• Having a clear vision and position in the market is more important than relying on technical moats.
• Founders should focus on their ideal customer profile (ICP) and consider expanding into new territories or customer segments.
• Expanding to the US market can be beneficial, but founders should carefully consider the timing and the need for boots on the ground.
• Transitioning from founder to CEO can be challenging, and founders should be self-aware and open to bringing in additional leadership.
• Thoughtfulness, relevance, and conciseness are key when reaching out to investors and creating a pitch deck.

Titles

• Expanding to the US Market: Timing and Considerations
• Navigating Competition and Expanding into New Territories

Sound Bites

• "I don't believe in moats and I think your bang on, I think technical moats died a while ago."
• "There are some incredible founders that I meet that are building lovely businesses that I want to invest in. I just can't, I need it to be no gorillas, venture scale, which means global fund returner."
• "You need some kind of strategy that's gonna horizontally play across some form of smaller business, mid-tier avenue, or it's gonna go up into the enterprise."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Dan and SuperSeed

01:23 Differentiating Your Business: Vision and Position in the Market

03:24 Navigating Competition and Expanding into New Territories

05:57 Expanding to the US Market: Timing and Considerations

08:58 Transitioning from Founder to CEO: Challenges and Strategies

11:12 Crafting an Effective Pitch Deck: Thoughtfulness, Relevance, and Conciseness

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Mike Soutar, a media entrepreneur and angel investor, discusses his approach to angel investing and what he looks for in founders and startups. He emphasizes the importance of learning new things and being attracted to ideas that make sense. Soutar is comfortable investing in sectors he may not know well, as long as he can understand the problem the startup is solving and the market opportunity. He values founder market fit and looks for founders who have an unconventional viewpoint and can think insurgently. Soutar prefers to invest in the pre-seed stage and enjoys being involved right from the start, working closely with founders to help them raise money and grow their businesses. He believes that investors back people first and ideas second. Soutar looks for founders who can clearly articulate why their solution is different and better, and who can demonstrate customer demand and willingness to pay. He also values clarity, consistency, and discipline in founders, and believes that founders should have a clear understanding of their competitors and be able to recognize and respect them. Soutar advises founders to be cautious about expanding operations abroad and to consider testing new ideas or adjacencies in their existing market before going international. He also shares insights on failures and the importance of raising enough capital and building in contingency. Soutar discusses the changing landscape of media businesses and the challenges and opportunities presented by social media and user-generated content. He believes that while there may still be a space for curated content, consumers now prefer to control their own journey and decide what they want to consume. Soutar sees opportunities in using high-quality original content to engage audiences, but believes that monetization models need to evolve beyond traditional advertising or paid content.

Keywords

angel investing, startup, founder market fit, pre-seed, customer demand, willingness to pay, competitors, expansion, media business, social media, user-generated content, go-to-market strategy

Takeaways

• Investors should be open to learning new things and be attracted to ideas that make sense.
• Founder market fit is important, and founders should have an unconventional viewpoint and the ability to think insurgently.
• Investing in the pre-seed stage allows for greater risk but also greater upside.
• Founders should be able to clearly articulate why their solution is different and better, and demonstrate customer demand and willingness to pay.
• Understanding competitors and having a go-to-market strategy are crucial for success.
• Expanding operations abroad should be carefully considered, and testing adjacencies in the existing market may be beneficial before going international.
• The media landscape is changing, and monetization models need to evolve beyond traditional advertising or paid content.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

00:40 Investment Approach and Agnosticism

01:52 Comfort with Unknown Sectors and Technologies

03:45 Founder Market Fit and Insider Perspective

04:46 Investing in the Pre-Seed Stage

06:20 Finding and Assessing Founders

08:52 Understanding Competitors and Being Respectful

09:49 Investing in Early Stage and Willingness to Pay

11:53 Traits of Successful Founders

15:10 Being Cautious about Expansion

16:40 Lessons from Failures and Importance of Capital

17:09 Expanding Operations Abroad

19:24 Common Threads in Failures

21:00 Traction Takes Longer and Importance of Raising Enough Capital

23:12 The Changing Landscape of Media Businesses

26:29 Opportunities in the Era of Social Media

29:11 Key Elements of a Perfect Deck

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Paul Lehair, Partner, at Albion VC, discusses the key factors they look for when investing in startups, including product-market fit, revenue potential, and differentiation from competitors. He emphasizes the importance of clear storytelling, traction, and customer satisfaction. Lehair also shares insights on investing in AI companies, the challenges of competitive markets, and the value of scenario planning to avoid failure. He concludes by highlighting the significance of personalization and uniqueness in pitch decks to grab investors' attention.

Keywords

startup investment, product-market fit, revenue potential, differentiation, AI companies, competitive markets, scenario planning, failure, pitch decks

Takeaways

• Investors look for startups with clear product-market fit, demonstrated through customer satisfaction and repeat business.
• Revenue potential and scalability are important factors in determining investment readiness.
• Differentiation from competitors is crucial, whether through unique technology, proprietary data sets, or deep industry knowledge.
• Investing in AI companies requires careful evaluation of long-term value and differentiation beyond hype.
• Startups in competitive markets can succeed by providing superior value and positioning themselves as second-wave disruptors.
• Founders should engage in scenario planning and maintain optionality to avoid running out of funds.
• The number of founders is less important than their passion, vision, and ability to execute.
• Pitch decks should tell a clear and unique story, demonstrate traction, and personalize the message to grab investors' attention.

Titles

• Finding Product-Market Fit and Revenue Potential
• Avoiding Failure: Scenario Planning and Optionality

Sound Bites

• "Investors look for startups with clear product-market fit"
• "Investing in AI companies requires careful evaluation of long-term value"
• "Startups in competitive markets can succeed by providing superior value"

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Paul Lahair and Albion VC

03:00 Finding Product-Market Fit and Revenue Potential

08:21 Investing in AI Companies: Differentiation and Long-Term Value

12:49 Navigating Competitive Markets: Disruption and Positioning

25:41 Avoiding Failure: Scenario Planning and Optionality

28:57 The Role of Founders: Passion, Vision, and Execution

34:28 Crafting Compelling Pitch Decks: Clear Storytelling and Personalization

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Tom Bradley, a partner at Salica Investments, discusses the importance of nurturing startups and specializing in specific sectors. He emphasizes the need for venture capitalists to provide assistance and expertise to help companies develop and scale. Tom also highlights the significance of building durable businesses with defensibility and solving big problems. He shares insights on team evolution, hiring, and the importance of being flexible and open to feedback. Tom also discusses internationalization and the attributes of a great pitch deck.

Keywords

startups, venture capital, nurturing, specialization, scaling, defensibility, team evolution, hiring, flexibility, feedback, internationalization, pitch deck

Takeaways

• Nurturing startups is crucial for venture capitalists, who provide capital and expertise to help founders develop and scale their companies.
• Specializing in specific sectors allows venture capitalists to better influence the success of the companies they invest in.
• Building durable businesses with defensibility and solving big problems is key to long-term value.
• Team evolution involves a combination of commercial and technical leadership, value alignment, and the ability to delegate and make necessary changes.
• Being flexible, open to feedback, and constantly thinking about what's next are important for success.
• Internationalization should be approached strategically, with a focus on proving success in the home market before expanding.
• A great pitch deck should highlight the problem, unique solution, team capabilities, and provide unique insights that make the reader learn something new.

Titles

• Strategic Internationalization
• Attributes of a Great Pitch Deck

Sound Bites

"We believe that those companies can benefit from assistance along the way."

"Our level of specialism is able to better influence the outcome for the companies that we invest in."

"We like there to be a combination of commercial and technical leadership in the business."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

06:33 Building Durable Businesses with Defensibility

08:53 Team Evolution and Hiring Strategies

13:22 Flexibility, Feedback, and What's Next

17:16 Strategic Internationalization

19:49 Attributes of a Great Pitch Deck

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In this conversation, Jason Kirby, co-founder and CEO of Thunder VC, shares his insights on the venture capital landscape, the importance of understanding what it means to be a venture-backable business, and the various funding options available to startups. He emphasizes the need for founders to assess their goals, the market potential, and the implications of pursuing venture capital. Jason also discusses the significance of profitability and offers practical advice on crafting an effective pitch deck for angel investors.

Keywords

venture capital, startup funding, angel investing, business growth, capital efficiency, pitch deck, entrepreneurship, startup ecosystem, Thunder VC, Jason Kirby

Takeaways

• Not every startup needs to pursue venture capital.
• Founders often chase venture funding without understanding its implications.
• Assessing whether a business is venture-backable is crucial for founders.
• Capital efficiency is important, but VCs often prefer aggressive growth strategies.
• There are alternative funding options beyond traditional venture capital.
• Grants can be a valuable source of funding for startups.
• Profitability can provide more options for funding and growth.
• A compelling pitch deck should highlight the founder's credibility and story.
• Understanding the VC landscape can help founders find the right fit for funding.
• The path to profitability can lead to better funding opportunities.

Titles

• The Realities of Startup Funding
• Navigating the Venture Capital Landscape

Sound Bites

"Not every startup needs to get VC."

"Chasing venture can lead to failure."

"What's your real North Star as a founder?"

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Jason Kirby and Thunder VC

02:55 Understanding Venture Capital and Its Implications

06:04 Assessing Venture-Backable Businesses

08:50 The Reality of Capital Efficiency in Venture

11:46 Navigating the VC Landscape: Finding the Right Fit

15:01 Exploring Alternative Funding Options

20:57 The Path to Profitability and Its Importance

26:53 Crafting a Killer Pitch Deck for Angels

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In this conversation, Nick Telson-Sillett interviews Marcus Lang, a partner at Speedinvest, who shares insights from his unique journey as an operator-turned-investor in the SaaS space. Marcus discusses the importance of understanding the founder's journey, the role of gut feel in assessing potential investments, and the ideal composition of founder teams. He emphasizes the opportunities presented by AI in traditional industries and the evolving importance of go-to-market strategies. Finally, Marcus provides valuable advice on what makes an effective pitch deck for early-stage investors.

Keywords

SaaS, venture capital, startup, founder journey, AI, go-to-market strategy, pitch deck, investment, early-stage funding, team dynamics

Takeaways

• Marcus Lang's journey from operator to investor provides unique insights.
• Understanding the founder's emotional journey is crucial for investors.
• Gut feel in assessing founders is developed through experience.
• Two to three founders often create the best team dynamics.
• AI presents significant opportunities for traditional industries.
• Go-to-market strategies are becoming a critical competitive advantage.
• The pitch deck serves as a proxy for a founder's capabilities.
• Investors look for clarity and design in pitch decks.
• Founders should showcase their product in their pitch.
• Building a scalable go-to-market strategy is essential for fundraising.

Titles

• The Operator's Edge in Venture Capital
• The Role of Gut Feel in Investment Decisions

Sound Bites

"You only understand the roller coaster if you lived it."

"It's about grit and energy, not just numbers."

"Gut feel is created through experience."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Marcus Lang and His Journey

04:34 Assessing Founders: The Role of Gut Feel

09:01 The Ideal Founder Team Composition

10:25 AI's Impact on SaaS: Opportunities and Challenges

15:07 Go-to-Market Strategies as a New Moat

24:11 The Importance of the Pitch Deck

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In this episode, Sriram Gollapalli, a seasoned entrepreneur and angel investor, shares insights into the world of angel investing. He emphasizes the importance of the founder's qualities over the business model itself, discusses the challenges and opportunities in B2B and B2C investments, and provides valuable advice for underrepresented founders. Sriram also highlights the significance of storytelling in pitches, the traits that make a successful founder, and the essentials of a compelling pitch deck.

Keywords

angel investing, startup funding, founder qualities, B2B, B2C, pitch deck, underrepresented founders, investment strategies, entrepreneurship, startup advice

Takeaways

• Betting on the founder is crucial in angel investing.
• B2C investments can be riskier but also more exciting.
• Understanding the problem space is key for founders.
• Storytelling is essential for engaging investors.
• Energy and adaptability are vital traits for founders.
• Customer validation is necessary before seeking investment.
• Cold outreach to angels should be personalized and relevant.
• Authenticity and transparency are critical in pitches.
• Founders should aim for realistic financial projections.
• Investors appreciate a clear relationship to the problem being solved.

Titles

• The Art of Angel Investing with Sriram Gollapalli
• Navigating the Startup Landscape: Insights from an Angel Investor
• Understanding the Role of Founders in Angel Investments

Sound Bites

"I really bet on the founder."

"B2C is certainly riskier."

"Energy is key for founders."

"Never pay to pitch."

"Be authentic and transparent."

"You are here to get advice."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Angel Investing and Sriram's Background

02:56 The Importance of Founders in Investment Decisions

05:58 Evaluating B2B vs B2C Investments

09:00 Understanding the Angel Investment Perspective

11:54 The Balance of Storytelling and Realism in Pitches

14:57 Key Traits Founders Should Exhibit

18:07 Advice for Underrepresented Founders

21:05 Cold Outreach Strategies for Founders

24:07 What Makes a Compelling Pitch Deck

32:54 Conclusion and Key Takeaways

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In this conversation, Hector Mason, a partner at Episode 1 Ventures, shares valuable insights into early-stage fundraising, misconceptions founders have, and what excites investors about startups. He discusses the importance of understanding customer problems, the significance of hiring standards, and the evolving landscape of venture capital. Hector emphasizes the need for founders to stay close to their customers and the impact of execution pace on investment decisions. The discussion also touches on behavioral roadblocks, red flags in pitches, and the dynamics of remote versus in-office work for startups.

Keywords

venture capital, early stage funding, startup advice, founder insights, investor relations, fundraising misconceptions, startup validation, hiring strategies, scaling startups, competitive landscape

Takeaways

• The perceived power dynamic between VCs and founders can hinder productive conversations.
• A compelling product demo can significantly influence investor interest.
• Founders must focus on solving real customer problems to succeed.
• Hiring standards are crucial for building a successful startup team.
• Staying close to customers is essential for understanding their needs.
• Behavioral roadblocks can prevent the adoption of new solutions.
• Red flags in pitches include overconfidence and lack of clarity.
• Validation from potential customers is key for pre-revenue startups.
• The early-stage funding landscape has become more efficient and selective.
• Pace of execution is a critical factor in attracting investment.

Titles

• Navigating Early Stage Fundraising with Hector Mason
• Insights from a Venture Capitalist: Hector Mason
• The Dynamics of Startup Funding and Founder Relationships

Sound Bites

"A great product demo is really compelling."

"Gamification is often ineffective."

"Hiring standards are crucial for success."

"You should go speak to those companies."

"Staying close to customers is so important."

"The pace of execution impresses me so much."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Hector Mason and Episode One Ventures

02:00 Misconceptions in Early Stage Fundraising

04:30 What Excites Investors About Founders

06:55 Standout Points for Pre-Seed Startups

09:13 Understanding Behavioral Roadblocks

11:37 Red Flags in Decks and First Calls

14:13 Navigating the Competitive Landscape

14:56 Validation for Pre-Revenue Startups

17:57 Changes in the Early Stage Funding Landscape

19:41 Key Lessons for Scaling Startups

21:50 Hiring Strategies for Early Stage Founders

24:19 Common Advice for Early Stage Founders

26:04 Reasons Startups Fail Before Series A

27:12 Office vs. Remote Work for Startups

28:51 Engaging Founders in Two-Way Conversations

30:21 The Importance of Pace of Execution

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In this conversation, Shane Neman, a seasoned entrepreneur and venture capitalist, shares his insights on unique investment opportunities across various asset classes, including real estate and technology. He discusses the importance of understanding market dynamics, the significance of social signaling in venture capital, and the key traits he looks for in early-stage founders. Shane emphasizes the value of hard work and ingenuity in building successful businesses, while also providing practical advice for founders on networking and validating their ideas before seeking investment.

Keywords

investment, venture capital, entrepreneurship, real estate, tech startups, founder advice, unique opportunities, portfolio management, early-stage investment, networking

Takeaways

• Investing across various asset classes can yield unique opportunities.
• Understanding market dynamics is crucial for making informed investment decisions.
• Social signaling plays a significant role in venture capital.
• Founders should focus on concise communication to capture investor interest.
• Building a strong network is essential for founders without existing connections.
• Demonstrating traction through early tests can validate business ideas.
• Bootstrapping can be a viable path to success for many founders.
• Investors prefer companies that do not necessarily need their money.
• Hard work and ingenuity are key traits for successful entrepreneurship.
• Being accessible and open about investments can foster better relationships with founders.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Shane Neman

08:00 Investment Strategies and Portfolio Allocation

15:15 Key Signals in Early-Stage Founders

22:10 Understanding Traction and Validation

29:06 Bootstrapping and Going from Zero to One

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I'm joined by Timothy Armoo, who is the CEO/Founder of Fanbytes and recently named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for his achievements in Media and Marketing; making the front cover no less! Timo has also been voted the Huffington Post Entrepreneur of the Year and most “Influential person in advertising” from the Evening Standard. Fanbytes is recognised as the leading GenZ marketing agency with over 60 employees and working with the likes of the Government, on some corona campaigns, Deliveroo, McDonalds and Nike. Huffington Post saying that he is creating the WPP of GenZ. Timo has also used his influence to build the Fanbytes fund which invests and funds influencer campaigns for black businesses, which aims to shine a light on, and act on, a lack of support and funding for black-owned businesses.

We listened to the pitch from Camilla Chesham, co-founder of Fugo, who are looking to disrupt the content management solutions for digital screens. Think of all the digital screens you come across in your daily life...in restaurants, shop windows, hotel receptions, public attractions...the list goes on. Fugo is looking to replace the archaic way of managing these, which in a lot of cases is still a USB stick. Fugo content management system allows central head office to create and push relevant content to the relevant screens at the right times; all managed centrally.

We really dug on go to market strategies, focus as founders, focus when selling and future opportunities

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Please Note: The brand name has changed since recording from Captain Compare to GoCaptain

I'm joined by Chris Smith, Managing Partner at Playfair Capital. He focuses his investing activities on seed (and pre-seed) deals in the UK and Israel. Chris is particularly interested in autonomous transportation, business and industrial automation, HealthTech and B2B SaaS. He loves finding companies operating in unloved/overlooked sectors that are ripe for disruption.

Prior to joining Playfair, Chris held senior roles at plan.com including Sales Director, Head of Tech/BI and Head of Product Development. Revenues 

Playfair was founded in 2013 and has made 78 investments with 4 exits to date. Since Chris joined in November 2018, he has led 9 new investments, 3 of which have gone on to raise subsequent rounds so far, and we actually have one investment together into Heka a B2B employee well-being saas product and marketplace.

We listened to the pitch from Abraham Sillah, co-founder of GoCaptain, which is looking to help GenZ pay for driving lessons and get them to pass the test quicker: Get driving lesson finance without affecting the applicants credit score enabling them to learn to drive much quicker than the average learner, by booking an intensive driving course with an instructor and learn to drive under 7/14 days.

We really dug deep on the go-to-market strategy, proving the real need for the business, early startup team structures and understanding your numbers.

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - https://horseplay.ventures/
GoCaptain - https://www.gocaptain.co.uk/
Playfair Capital - https://playfaircapital.com/

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I'm joined by Chris Smith, Managing Partner at Playfair Capital who focus on pre-seed and seed investments in UK and Israel. Chris is specifically interested in autonomous transportation, business automation, health tech and B2B SaaS. Chris is also an angel investor with 14 deals and 4 exits to date, previously an operator at plan.com and a corporate lawyer. 

We listened to the pitch from Elliott Herrod - Taylor, founder of The Bunch - looking to reimagine how tenants manage the process of shared accommodation. Elliott had a professional rugby contract with Bath but got bitten by a spider and got sepsis so 3 weeks later decided to go to Uni. He started The Bunch in his 2nd year of uni and took his 3rd year off to get the startup off the ground. The bunch is now in 30 cities, serviced 7000 customers and generates £4m gross revenue. Elliott has a vision to stay with a customer from 18 at university all the way through to renting a property as a young professional, with The Bunch sorting out bills, liability, finding a property and more. 

We dug down on managing and preventing churn, expanding out your customer base to improve stickiness, standing out against competitors and going up against some big boys within your industry. We also discuss the different angle taken by an Angel vs a VC.

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - https://horseplay.ventures/
The Bunch - https://the-bunch.co.uk/
Playfair Capital - https://playfaircapital.com/

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Maya is a multi-cultural & multi-lingual Google and American Express marketing, product & partnerships professional with 15+ years of experience in tech & D2C industries. Currently, as the Founder of a strategic growth consultancy - MarketingCube.co - her clients include portfolio companies of Balderton, Notion, Creandum, LocalGlobe amongst others. 

Maya has also joined advisory boards and is an active Angel investor.  As a ‘full stack’ CMO Maya is able to support with: Identifying & understanding your customers; creating a stand-out brand & revitalised messaging that encourages loyalty; sustainable & profitable growth plans; org design & talent management.

Most recently, in an in-house full-time role, Maya was digitising the UK healthcare industry at Pharmacy2U by bringing repeat prescription management online. Under her CMO leadership, Pharmacy2U grew 5 fold in revenue and secured a brand awareness of 1 in 4. This growth was recognised by the Amazon growing business of the year award and making it into the Sunday Times TechTrack 100.

Episode Links:

Supported by trumpet

Maya's Linkedin

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Novo was co-founder of Syft that was acquired by Indeed.com in a multi-million pound deal and is now known as Indeed Flex, the online marketplace for temporary staffing in the UK and US supplying workers to the hospitality, retail and logistics sectors. Since exiting Syft. Novo has also angel invested and has around 15+ companies in his portfolio including BYP (Black Young Professionals), Tinto (mothers community app) and Ufurnish (marketplace for buying furniture across  retailers)

Show Links:

Sponsored by trumpet

Novo's Linkedin

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Guest Angel Kelvin Au, Head of Venture at Founders Factory, one of the UKs leading accelerators and incubators, joins me to listen to and question Joe Lewin's pitch, Zwings. Zwings is a B2B and B2G e-mobility brand; think Lime and Uber Jump but rather than dumping them in cities for anyone to use, Zwings sells a turnkey solution to universities, real estate, local councils and companies; this includes the scooters/bikes, docking stations, white-label software, insurance and maintenance, all for a monthly fee.  Can Zwings take advantage of the new gold-rush in this space due to social distancing? Are Lime and Bird still a threat? Does Joe have what it takes to grow Zwings to venture scale, or does he even want to? The very interesting difference between how a venture firm and an angel investor look at investments, and their potential exit, are highlighted and discussed. 

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - www.horseplay.ventures

Zwings - https://www.zwings.co.uk/

Founders Factory - https://foundersfactory.com/

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Founding Partner of the multi award-winning Concept Ventures, largest dedicated pre-seed fund in the UK ($60m).

Reece has invested in 80+ start-ups from idea to unicorns (6 in total) and been ranked as one of the Top Asian Tech Investors on numerous occasions by Diversity UK.

Prior to founding Concept, Reece built and sold several start-ups in the software space, 1 of which was successfully exited, 1 a complete disaster and 1 is still going today.

Passionate about giving back, Reece has created the Concept Venture Pledge where a percentage of Concept's exit profits are donated to a social cause of the founder’s choice. He has also been selected by the FT as one of the top 100 BAME leaders in tech for his consistent work in helping promote diversity in the UK tech sector.

Episode Links:

Sponsored by trumpet - Create buyer journeys that drive more revenue

Reece's Linkedin

Concept Ventures

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I was thrilled to be joined by guest investor, Alex Dunsdon. Alex was previously head of central strategy and business development director for M&C Saatchi. He was also co-founder of thebakery.com from Dec 2012 to Jan 2020, which enables corporates to drive meaningful innovation, as well as creating partnerships with startups. Alex moved on to be chief of staff at Redbrain, one of Europe's fastest-growing companies, helping them transform from startup to scaleup. Currently, Alex set up, and is partner at, Saatchi invest and is LP for Potential Climate Ventures who want to have a global scale impact on the climate - currently invested in and advising over 130 companies. Alex also set up Potential, which is set up to help the 7bn people in the world who have talent but no opportunity. Their mission is to find, foster and fund crazy, unusual, and innovative startups. Alex was also a seed cheque investor into Citymapper, Farewill and Ometria, as well as circa 20 other companies.

Alex is also very keen on cryptocurrency so we bent his year at the start of the episode on all things Bitcoin and beyond.

We listened to the pitch from Aisling Byrne, founder of Nuw, who are looking to help their users reduce the environmental impact of fashion, and gain unlimited access to the community’s shared wardrobe. While there are other fashion swapping/2nd hand fashion sites out there, Nuw have used a unique token system to ensure users trade the same quality of clothes, while taking money out of the whole equation. They have some very positive early traction including high repeat usage rates and are raising funds to help scale the product and market with the aim of having 12m active users over the next 3-5 years. 

We dug deep on scaling a marketplace, the revenue model, subscriptions, competition and feasibility of scaling the userbase so quickly.

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - https://horseplay.ventures/
Nuw - https://www.thenuwardrobe.com/
Alex Dunsdon - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexdunsdon/

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In episode 1 we are joined by Deepali Nangia; Deepali is a seasoned, high profile, angel investor with over a decade of experience in private equity, investment banking and corporate operational roles. She is now a Partner at one of the world's most prestigious VCs, Speedinvest. Deepali also co-founded Alma Angels in 2019, an angel community on a mission to level the playing field for female entrepreneurs seeking early-stage startup funding.

Episode Links:

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Deepali's Linkedin Profile

Alma Angels

Speedinvest

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This episode we chat with Pietro Invernizzi. Pietro is an investor at Stride, a London-based VC firm investing first checks at the pre-seed and seed stage alongside investing superstars such as Fred Destin, Cleo Sham and Gabbi Cahane. Before joining Stride, Pietro entered the investment world 5 years ago at The Family, a world-famous accelerator, where he spent most of his time helping founders raise money from top angel investors and VCs. He has also made over 20 personal angel investments too. 

Episode Links:

Supported by trumpet and Planes Studio

Stride VC

Pietro's Linkedin and Twitter

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Guest Angel is Saloni Bhojwani who has moved from operator to investor. Saloni was a management consultant at Deloitte for 3 years followed by doing an MBA at London Business School to then being a strategy lead at startup Zebra Fuel. She has since moved into the world of angel investing independently as well as at Founders Factory. Saloni is also recently the founder of Sie; a capital platform that supports the most promising female founders on their fundraising journey. Their ultimate goal is to close the gender funding gap by providing female founders with better access to capital, network, and support.

We listened to the pitch by Giles from Chatable Apps; previously an app that, via Bluetooth to your headphones, helped those with hearing loss or hearing difficulties especially in busy environments, that has now pivoted to help those with learning/concentration difficulties including autism and ADD including an actual wearable to be offered via national health services. 

This episode is a super interesting deep dive into understanding/judging a pitch where the Angels don't have much knowledge, wearable hardware vs app subscription, the risk/reward of relying on health services as your go-to market strategy and different pricing models. A really interesting vertical, a well-informed founder and some brilliant Angel questions. 

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - https://horseplay.ventures/
Chatable - https://chatableapps.com/
Sie - https://www.sie.ventures/

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I was joined by the inspirational Andrew Wilkinson, founder of Tiny; he started product and branding agency Meta Lab in 2006 and was responsible for some of our most-loved and used companies such as Slack, UberEats, Coinbase, Pinterest and Headspace, to name a few. He then used MetaLab's profits to purchase other companies that have solid revenues, are designed well, have a great culture, and are profitable, which he knew he could rocket ship. Tiny now owns circa 30 companies, the likes of designer platform dribbble and the largest remote work community in the world, WeWork Remotely. Tiny has never relied on outside funding until recently where it launched a $150m fund to buy more businesses and for their own company WeCommerce, which has raised $60m, which is now on the Canadian stock exchange with a market cap of circa $1bn - WeCommerce buys and builds businesses that sit solely on the Shopify ecosystem.

We listened to the pitch from Will, founder of Circl, which is looking to bring the concept of social betting to the masses. The concept being a group of friends form a Circl, put money in the pot then dependent on what happens in a sports match, the pot moves around the Circl...eg. A throw in, the pot moves clockwise two steps, a red card the pot moves anti-clockwise 4 steps etc...whoever has the pot at the end of the match takes it all. Circl is looking to bring the fun back into betting and make it a social activity, rather than something that's done in isolation and in excess. 

Andrew and I dug down on go-to-market strategy, where the concept could go beyond sport, the complications of the betting market and the team around Will. 

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - https://horseplay.ventures/
Circl - https://www.playcircl.com/
Tiny - https://www.tinycapital.com/

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Chris founded Divido in 2014, now the world’s largest white-label platform for Buy Now Pay Later. As founder/CEO Chris took the company to 10 countries and onboarded over 100 clients including Mastercard, HSBC and BMW. They have raised over $50m are recognised as the 83rd fastest-growing company in Europe by the Financial Times '21 and achieved 1250% revenue growth over three years until 2020. Chris is also an investor with Seedcamp, who have backed over 350 startups including the likes of Revolut and Transferwise, Entrepreneur in Residence at HSBC and Fellow at Primary Venture Partners - Early-stage investor in startups based in New York.

Episode Links:

Dividio

Primary Venture Partners

trumpet

Chris on Linkedin

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Guest Angel Eamonn Carey, MD of Techstars London and Director of The Fund, joins me to listen to and question Dan Murray-Serter's pitch, Heights. Heights is a mental well-being and brain health brand, starting with a smart supplement to feed your brain every morning. Having spent no money on marketing Dan already has endorsements from the likes of Stephen Fry and an impressive £30K MRR. Dan is looking for funding to now fuel "proper growth", as he calls it. An interesting deep-dive into D2C brands, the importance of community and product/market expertise. 

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - www.horseplay.ventures

Heights - www.yourheights.com

The Fund - www.thefund.vc

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Guest Angel Chet Parker, started out in Architecture, then went into the world of tech, finding his feet at cyber security company, RSA, out of Boston. Whilst there he started flipping houses, builidng up a contact book in California and then went into Angel Investing. 23 investments later, Chet invests in positive impact companies and is now also co-founding his own company, currently in Stealth Mode. Chet joins me to listen to and question Andy's pitch, Honest Mobile. Bulb changed the landscape for the energy industry, Monzo the banking industry and now Honest Mobile want to to the same to the telco industry; improving customer experience and building a B Corp standing. A lofty ambiition indeed, but when an industry is ripe for disruption, then why not give it a go? A great focus on disrupting the big boys, doing things differently and the importance of brand/customer loyalty. 

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - www.horseplay.ventures
Honest Mobile - https://honestmobile.co.uk/
Chet Parker - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chetparker/

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Guest Angel Samira Ann Qassim founded Pink Salt Ventures to back purpose-led female founders. She invests early stage and is sector agnostic. Prior to investing, Samira gained experience as a successful tech founder and global brand strategist. Samira joins me to listen to and question Alex and Yang's pitch, Just Wears. Fresh from their appearance on TV's Dragon's Den, husband and wife team, Alex & Yang looked at disruptive brands such as Away and Harry's, who disrupted old school industries, and thought men's underwear has remained unchanged and unchallenged since the dawn of time! Can their ballsy and tongue in cheek marketing and very impressive early revenue, convince us that this is an industry ready to turn away from Justin Bieber and his Calvin Kleins? A great focus on D2C, social media marketing pillars and whether the stand out feature of being environmentally conscious is an important purchase trigger for all industries. 

*The sound on my mic isn't perfect in this episode. I hope it doesn't affect your enjoyment of the podcast.

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - www.horseplay.ventures
Just Wears - https://just-wears.com/
Pink Salt Ventures - https://pinksaltventures.com/

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Delighted to be joined by Hannah Seal, early check investor from one of the largest global VCs, Index Ventures. Before joining the behemoth VC, Index, Hannah set up the General Merchandise business for Ocado before spending 3 years at Ebay UK, managing their consumer marketplace business. Hannah is fascinated by the future of work and has been an early and consistent champion of Europe’s B2B software sector. She is particularly energized by founders who have an unfair advantage in tackling daunting problems in technical or challenging markets. Hannah currently sits on the board of Remote, Fanoa, Seed Legals and others. 

Episode Links:

Sponsored by trumpet

Index Ventures

Hannah's Linkedin and Twitter

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Guest Angel, Dan Rosenberg, founding partner of acquired apparel brand Represent, and now an angel investor in UK and West Coast US, joins me to listen to, and question, Alma Ramirez Acosta's pitch, Vibio. Vibio is looking to bring 21st century connectivity and sensuality into the world of sex toys. They launched their first female vibrator on Kickstarter with an accompanying app, allowing women and couples to control the wearable via the app as well as having educational content to improve people's sex lives. Alma is looking for funding to promote the new sex toy as well as expand the range. Sextech is a booming space but did we think Alma and her team were the ones to breakthrough? Was there differential enough with their offering? And was there a real need for the gadgetry? 

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - www.horseplay.ventures

Vibio - https://www.instagram.com/vibiotoys

Represent - https://represent.com/

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Hi there! Host of Pitch Deck, Nick Telson, here. I just wanted to give you a very quick introduction as to why I started this podcast and what you can expect. We have some amazing, insightful Angel Investors lined up as well as some brilliant startups and startup founders across; D2C brands, B2B Enterprise software, E-mobility tech, sex tech and language learning. 

Check out my own personal Startup Playground - https://horseplay.ventures/

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Henry de Zoete is an alumnus of Y Combinator and in 2014 co-founded The Big Deal which uses tech to facilitate collective bargaining for consumers. In 2018, he went on to establish Look After My Bills, a tech start-up that became the largest auto-switching service in the UK, saving families money on their gas and electricity. After raising global investment and securing the best deal in the history of BBC’s Dragons’ Den, Look After My Bills was acquired by Go Compare in July 2019. 

He is also a non-exec director for Hornby and the UK Cabinet Office and has been angel investing since 2019, and is now in over 50 companies.

Episode Links:

Hyper-personalise your sales cycle from cold outreach to onboarding, with trumpet. More demos, more revenue, quicker.

Henry's Linkedin

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Guest Angel Beta Lucca, Founder of bafta award-winning, million-dollar games company, Bossa Studios, joins me to listen to and question Paul Custance's pitch, Lirica. Once ex-FD of Sony, Paul saw the science between learning languages and how we remember lyrics of our favourite pop songs. Now financially, and artist, backed by his ex-employer, Sony, Paul wants to disrupt the billion-dollar, booming, language learning space. He definitely has the contacts in the music space but does he have the know-how and team to compete with the likes of Duolingo and Busuu? Paul is looking for funding to now fuel growth globally, launch gamification into the app and add new languages beyond Spanish and English. 

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - www.horseplay.ventures

Lirica - https://www.lirica.io/

Beta Lucca - https://betalucca.com/

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I was thrilled to have a powerhouse early stage check investor from a powerhouse VC join me. In Summer 2021 Gemma joined Creandum as an investment principal. Creandum is a pan European early-stage VC fund, having invested in companies like Spotify, Trade Republic and Depop. 

Gemma covers the London market and is focused on both B2C and B2B technology businesses.  Gemma was the Chief Operating Officer at Elder Technologies, a Series B health tech startup for the past 3 and a half years, where she helped the company scale from 20 to 120 people and raise a series B in 2019. Previously, Gemma was a Senior Manager at Uber in the UK (2014-2018) where she co-chaired 'Women of Uber' in 2017, and before that, was a consultant at McKinsey. She has a BA from Yale and an MBA (14J) from INSEAD.

Gemma has been an angel investor for the past two years and is very interested in Healthtech, Marketplaces, Agetech, Silver Economy and Sustainability. 80+% of her investments have been in female founders. 

Episode Links:

Sponsored by trumpet

Gemma's Linkedin

Creandum

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Jay is a serial entrepreneur and has founded 3 successful businesses worth over $500m: Yieldify, Reachdesk & Screenloop

He now spends his time in 3 areas: (1) Building tech companies through his startup studio Blissgrowth (2) Co-hosting the podcast Happy Millionaire - which is in the top 10 in Apple and Spotify: It's 2 friends having fun and talking about startups, success and happiness stories  (3) Angel investing - he has done 40 deals so far.

His passion is to bring more joy to work and loves talking about entrepreneurship, happiness whilst having fun.

Episode Links:

Sponsored by trumpet - turning better buyer journeys into more revenue

Blissgrowth

Reachdesk

Screenloop

Jay's Linkedin

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Alex is co-founder of Velocity Black which is concierge, reimagined for the digital age. Backed by more than $30m in venture capital, they are the 3rd fastest growing company headquartered in the UK according to Forbes, and was named in Deloitte’s Fast 50 2020 list of the UK’s fastest-growing tech companies based on revenue growth over the last 4 years. 

Alex has also become a prolific angel investor and keen commentator on the space both on substack and twitter where he regularly posts content for founders who are looking to raise money at any level, and for people who want to get started as angel investors. He’s also in the process of starting an exciting new startup called sequel, which is in the investment/professional athlete space.

Episode Links:

Sponsored by trumpet

Alex's Twitter and Linkedin and Substack

sequel

Velocity Black

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Guest Angel Melissa Lester, investment partner at Dig Ventures, launched Dig alongside Ross Mason who sold his company, Mulesoft, to Salesforce for over £6bn. Dig is a VC with an angel investment outlook, working with early-stage startups and founders helping them grow into huge successes. Melissa joins me to listen to, and question, Julian Bourne's pitch, Sellar. Sellar is looking to modernise the way craft drinks brands and breweries sell into restaurants, bars and off-licenses; trying to convince them to move away from emails and paper/pen ordering and fulfilment to fully online ordering, payment and stock management. Julian pivoted from his original idea with his early-stage investors' cash to this totally new opportunity; could we see it as an opportunity worth taking and has Julian really grasped and understood the market he is going after? Some great insight into pivoting, running with an MVP and the importance of team.  

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - www.horseplay.ventures

Sellar - https://sellar.io/

Dig Ventures - https://www.dig.ventures/

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Guest Angel is Anthony Rose, currently the founder of Seed Legals. Anthony is a serial tech entrepreneur whose career has spanned across many sectors including the advent of 3D graphics, P2P music, video streaming, social TV, social platforms, and most recently, legal technology. Anthony is best known for his work managing the launch of BBC iPlayer for which Wired named him "the man who saved the BBC. Anthony lead the team as CTO from 2007 until 2010. Since leaving the BBC Anthony has founded 5 companies with two exits and his new venture Seed Legals is the number 1 closer of funding rounds, closing deals worth over £400m. 

Pitching to us was Conor, from Kieka. Kieka's mission is to help its users beat the crowds and get from A to B as quickly as possible. Currently starting on the London Underground there is a bigger vision to help beat the crowds in all scenarios from transport to stadiums. It is centred around an AI brain, which is all proprietary tech. 

This was an extremely interesting episode as Anthony had his founder and investor hat on, both asking investor questions and offering advice to Conor and startups as a whole. We dug deep on B2B data play vs B2C app play, achieving network effects, listening to investor advice and overall business focus/strategy. 

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - https://horseplay.ventures/
Kieka - https://kieka.co.uk/
Seed Legals - https://seedlegals.com/

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Guest Angel, Alex Macdonald is founder of Velocity Black, the leading global digital concierge service. Velocity Black is now on Series C, operates in 70+ countries and has been one of the fastest-growing companies in the UK over the last few years. Alex made his first angel investment 5 years ago that exited last year for a 26x return and now reinvests the gains in early-stage, seed and pre-seed tech investments, with a particular interest in marketplaces. 

Alex joins me to listen to, and question, Benjamin's pitch, Othership; previously called WeCoffee. Set up well before the Corona pandemic, Othership aimed to help freelancers find workspaces wherever they may be; in unused spaces such as hotels, pubs, restaurants, event spaces etc...for a small monthly fee they could get access to this large vetted marketplace across the UK. Corona and the boom of working from home has come at a good time for Othership as they accelerate growth, redefine their business model, take advantage of multiple new opportunities and build a strong community. With other competitors out there, both indirect and direct, are Othership the ones to steal this space? We really drill down on the marketplace model, how tricky it can be to master, and different business model directions. With Alex's wealth of experience in this field and myself building and selling a marketplace startup, this episode is a must for you marketplace founders (and beyond).

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - https://horseplay.ventures/
Othership - https://othership.com/
Velocity Black - https://velocity.black/

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I'm joined by legendary west coast angel investor, Zach Coelius. Zach is a 4-time entrepreneur and his last company, Triggit was acquired by Gravity4 in 2015. From then on, Zach has become one of the most revered angel investors in the US with circa 50 investments to his name and 80 invested in total. He currently invests $200K-$1m cheques into early-stage companies and $2-$5m cheques into later-stage ones. Zach uses 3 vehicles for investing; a $45m fund with Industry Ventures as the sole LP; a friends and family Rolling Fund that invests alongside the main fund; and his own syndicate on Angel List that has over 3000 members and was actually the first syndicate on Angel List to get a billion-dollar exit when General Motors bought Cruise Automation in 2016. The syndicate has had 6 exits in total including Hello Sign who were acquired by Dropbox in 2019 for $230m.

We listened to the pitch from Daniel Botcherby, co-founder of Kalda; the world's first mental well-being app specifically for the LGBT+ community. In Beta stage, Kalda is looking to bring together members of the LGBT+ community who are struggling with their mental health and provide group therapy sessions, daily check-ins, peer support as well as fixed courses people can go on. 1 in 2 people in the LGBT+ community have suffered some form of anxiety/depression in the last year, 3x the general population. Due to NHS wait times, high prices for individual therapy and stigma that LGBT+ people feel from a therapist not from their community, Kalda is looking to bring people together and at the same time democratise mental health services, making it affordable, easy to access, instant and being surrounded by peers and therapists from the same community. 

Zach prefers to engage in a more general conversation, rather than a grilling, so we had a chat more broadly about the market in general, expansion plans, future product roadmap and aspirations, competitors and the merits/risks of going after a niche. Some super insightful things highlighted by Zach as well as a very competent founder in Daniel. 

Brought to you by my Startup Playground, Horseplay Ventures - https://horseplay.ventures/
Kalda - https://kalda.co/
Zach Twitter - https://twitter.com/zachcoelius

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Saasha is the daughter of Iowa hippy entrepreneurs who was raised with a deep appreciation for the planet and its scarce resources. After completing her MBA at Stanford School of Business, where she met her OLIO co-founder Tessa Cook. 

Saasha spent 13 years in various strategy and business development roles - at the likes McKinsey and Vice President of International Partnerships, American Express. When on maternity leave in 2012 she opened her first business in London, which she outfitted entirely from FreeCycle. The seeds for OLIO were planted. 

OLIO is a sharing app connecting neighbours to stop good food and household items from going to waste, which she founded with Tessa in 2015. OLIO now has over 5 million users, over 42 millions of portions shared and 5 billion litres of water saved, and is the number 1 free sharing app.

Episode Links:

Sponsored by trumpet

Saasha's Linkedin

OLIO

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Pitch Deck is coming back! Some news from Nick about what is round the corner for the re-booted Pitch Deck.

Pitch Deck is sponsored by trumpet

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Delighted to announce that Series 2 is about to launch. A quick intro about what to expect from Series 2 of Pitch Deck and the release date.

Brought to you by my startup playground Horseplay Ventures. 

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