👋🏾 Hi friends!

As summer comes to a close, I’ve been battling the heat in Italy and, dare I say it, am now looking forward to getting a bit of cool weather back in London 😅

In the final episode of Nothing Ventured for the season, I had the incredible pleasure to interview Piers Linney – ex Dragon from the BBC’s show, Dragons’ Den. All I can say is that it was an absolute pleasure getting the chance to explore how Piers got to where he has gotten to and his thoughts on everything from exiting his first business (a newspaper round!), to appearing on the Den and his thoughts on AI and why we need to do more than pay lip service to DEI – you don’t want to miss out on this episode 💪🏾

I’m going to be taking a break for a couple of weeks so this is the last you’re going to hear from me for the rest of the month, hope you have an incredible end to the summer and I’ll catch you on the other side!

Ciao for now 😃 

I’m well underway writing about all the things I’ve learned from the last couple of decades as founder, CFO and CEO, so sign up for early access to Off Balance – The Book and feel free to share with anyone else you think might enjoy it 😄.

Now let’s get down to business…

In this weeks Off Balance:

🎙️ Ex Dragons Den Dragon Piers Linney on Nothing Ventured 🤯
📈 How to move from growth at all costs to the new holy grail of Efficient Growth

𝗬𝗼𝘂’𝗹𝗹 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗴𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗗𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗼𝗻’𝘀 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀… 🐉

As this season of Nothing Ventured wraps, I couldn’t be more excited to introduce our final guest for Season 5, someone that really needs no introduction at all…

I spoke to Piers Linney, best known as an investor on the BBC show The Dragons’ Den in which budding entrepreneurs get three minutes to pitch their business ideas to five investors, he has also featured on Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire.

But beyond the media, Piers has had 25 years across a variety of sectors, be it law, entrepreneurship, Venture Capital, investment banking, innovation or technology.

He has been a NED at the British Business Bank and is currently Adviser to Sky on their Diversity Advisory Council, Chair of Atherton Bikes whose bikes took both first and second place in the 2023 World Championships and is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Implement AI.

My top takeaways from this wide ranging conversation:

1️⃣ 𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗱: Piers talked about the importance of recognising that ambition knows no boundaries. Regardless of background or circumstances, ambition is a universal trait that can drive success in entrepreneurship and beyond.

2️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗠𝗘𝘀: Piers delves into the significance of integrating AI into small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). He emphasizes the need for businesses to adapt and embrace AI technology to enhance productivity and efficiency in the evolving digital landscape.

3️⃣ 𝗔𝘂𝗴𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗜: Piers discusses the concept of augmenting human capabilities with AI technology. By leveraging AI agents for repetitive and mundane tasks, businesses can empower their workforce to focus on more meaningful and strategic work, ultimately driving innovation and growth.

We also talked about:

🗞️Exiting his first business – a paper round!
🧮 How there weren’t many business role models in the Lancashire mill town he grew up in, so he was told to be an accountant.
🔮 From hustling businesses, delivering newspapers, going into law then banking and into tech.
💃🏽 Why DEI is about both about being asked to the party but more importantly invited to dance.
📊 How ambition is evenly distributed.
🤑 How he got a 45x exit from on his Dragon portfolio.
🌎 How and why nation states are obsessed with AI and why we should be too.
⚖️ Equality of access to opportunity.

Listen on YouTube, Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts!

If you have any feedback on the podcast or the newsletter, just reply to this mail or ping me online!

If you like what I’m putting out, do give me a follow on LinkedIn and Twitter.

(If you are trying to connect with me on LinkedIn, maybe read this post I wrote and make sure to start your request with “Off Balance” and, importantly, tell me why you’d like to connect 💪🏾)

Now let’s get into it.

Off Balance

There’s been a fair amount of ink spilt on the shift in the VC landscape (not least by me), and the new mantra of efficient growth has taken hold as a catchphrase of how you need to build a VC backed business in 2024 and beyond.

But this doesn’t necessarily give founders the tools to understand how to move from pure growth to efficient growth so here are some ideas from me on how that can be achieved.

On efficient growth.

I speak to ALOT of VCs and founders and our CFOs are in the thick of things every single day.

Over the last couple of years there has been a major inflection in the whole VC industry that hasn’t gone unnoticed.

The first phase was a slowing of both the velocity and volume of deals – fewer companies getting funded and over more time.

The second was a reversion to, anecdotally at least, more R&D heavy companies – lots of life sciences, hardware and – of course – AI startups.

The third phase has been the one that has a lot of founders and frankly CFOs scrabbling to figure out how to proceed:

Efficient growth.

What the heck does that even mean?

VCs tended to look at businesses that could scale quickly.

A template growth pattern would be 33322 meaning a tripling of revenue for a couple of years followed by several years of doubling.

If $1m was the starting point it would go:

1m ➡️ 3m ➡️ 9m ➡️ 27m ➡️ 54m ➡️ 108m

Reaching the $100m mark on a 10x revenue multiple would lead to the hallowed unicorn status of a $1bn valuation.

The ‘traditional’ way of getting this growth was to pour VC dollars into acquisition and product sprinkled with the odd M&A to juice the numbers up.

But that worked when money was “cheap”. You could burn capital and simply go out to raise more.

But Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore…

As money became more expensive and investors retreated they still wanted large outcomes from the businesses they backed but want them to do it with less capital, fewer rounds and a more thoughtful approach to burn and runway.

Enter efficiency.

CFOs around the ecosystem have been working out how to make each dollar work harder for longer without impacting scale.

This is not a simple circle to square for most young businesses as they are starting from a low base, marketing was the tool that got them further, faster.

So how can CFOs help drive efficiency without impacting scale? A few pointers:

Trim and manage headcount – the impetus to hire when you land new funding is strong. You have to resist and make the case for each new hire. No ‘fat’ in the system.

Move from acquisition to retention – it’s cheaper and more valuable in the longer term to retain customers rather than trying to bring ever harder to land new ones.

Focus on reducing churn – coupled with that is understanding why customers churn and reducing leakage – as Ivan Hoo recently posted, don’t keep trying to fill a leaky bucket.

Stop cash leaking through poor working capital management – chase debts, negotiate terms with creditors, manage inventory tightly.

Add debt to the mix – debt makes businesses more efficient immediately as repayments force ventures to treat their cash as a more precious resource.

Forecast, forecast, forecast – if you aren’t planning you’re planning to fail. Know numbers intimately.

Double down on unit economics – Ensure every part of your business model adds up. CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), LTV (Lifetime Value), and gross margins need to align to ensure long-term profitability. CFOs will use these metrics to allocate resources in the most efficient manner, driving sustainable growth.

Optimise operational efficiency – Streamline your internal processes. Evaluate your tech stack, automate repetitive tasks, and eliminate bottlenecks. Every operational improvement frees up resources and allows teams to focus on activities that directly contribute to growth.

Partner strategically – Explore strategic partnerships that can extend your reach without heavy investment. Partnerships can unlock new customer segments, distribution channels, or technology capabilities that fuel growth while sharing the cost burden.

Prioritise profitable growth – Shift the mindset from growth at all costs to growth with profit in mind. Focusing on profitability as you scale creates a healthier financial foundation and makes your business more attractive to investors in this capital-constrained environment.

Whilst this is not an exhaustive list, it gives you a foundation to work from. Review your business from the bottom up and understand exactly what levers you have to shift how the business operates to a more efficiency driven profile.

Ultimately, in this market and environment, it’s going to be critical to figure out how you can drive efficiency throughout every aspect of the business, from automation to maniacal obsession over metrics and unit economics, this will allow you to survive longer and make sure you’re not just burning cash in pursuit of the holy grail of growth.

As always, my office hours are open, if you’d like to chat about this or anything else, just grab some time 😊.

I hope you found Off Balance #49 useful. As always, I’d love to get your feedback and understand the sort of topics you would love to hear about.

Just hit reply to this mail or drop me a line at [email protected] and let me know 😊

🚀And that’s a wrap for this edition of Off Balance – I’d appreciate your feedback so just reply to this email if you’ve got something you’d like to say.

📨 And if you think someone else might love this, please forward it on to them,

🎧 Finally, if you’re a fan of the Nothing Ventured podcast, please don’t forget to like, rate and subscribe wherever you get your pods – it really helps us spread the word.

That’s it from me so until next time…

Stay liquid 🙂

Aarish

👋🏾 Hi friends!

It’s just a smidge hot out here so my brain doesn’t seem to be working at full spec right now! Apologies for the late send on today’s newsletter, I just got back from a few days of full on down time and forgot it was a Tuesday 😬 

As you know, I’m well underway writing about all the things I’ve learned from the last couple of decades as founder, CFO and CEO, so sign up for early access to Off Balance – The Book and feel free to share with anyone else you think might enjoy it 😄. I’m setting myself the target of getting through a large portion of it whilst I’m away in Italy during August – wish me luck!

Now let’s get down to business…

𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲, 𝗽𝘂𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻

On today’s episode of Nothing Ventured, I spoke to Cintia Mano, the Chief Executive Officer of COREangels a global brand of hands-on angels, investing in early-stage startups through local portfolio funds.

Cintia has a rich background in computer science, corporate strategy, and early-stage investing. Her passion for mentoring and supporting early-stage companies led her to join a group of angel investors, eventually investing in 27 startups. Recognizing patterns and opportunities, she decided to create her own network and was soon invited to lead COREangels, one of the most active angel networks in Europe where under her leadership, it has grown to encompass 11 angel funds, with plans to launch five more this year across various countries including Portugal, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Egypt, the US, and Chile.

The network focuses on pre-seed and seed investments and includes vertical funds, such as the Climate Tech fund in Italy. Cintia’s efforts are directed towards formalising angel funds, fostering best practices, and providing valuable learning experiences for angel investors.

On this episode, we talked about:

😇 Building angel funds to bring capital and investors together.
😓 Why sometimes it’s hard for an angel to make a decision on their own.
🌎 How COREAngels is investing across geographies and verticals to facilitate expansion and cross pollination amongst both angels and startups.
🤦‍♀️ Why we shouldn’t need more female angels to invest in more female founders.
🚫 Female founders does not equal only femtech.
💸 Angel investing is a game of patience.
🧘‍♀️ Cintia’s contrarian opinion is that we are always alone, and we need to build ourselves before we rely on anyone else.

Check it out on YouTube!

Else listen on Spotify or Apple

If you have any feedback, or if there’s something you’re desperate to see me include, just reply to this mail or ping me online – I’m very open to conversations.

If you like what I’m putting out, do give me a follow on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

(If you are trying to connect with me on LinkedIn, maybe read this post I wrote and make sure to start your request with “Off Balance” and, more importantly, tell me why you’d like to connect 💪🏾)

Don’t forget to like, rate and subscribe to Nothing Ventured on Apple, Spotify or YouTube, it really helps more people see what we’re doing – you can find links to these (and more including my Office Hours) right here!

As always, my office hours are open, if you’d like to chat about anything finance, tech or venture releated, just grab some time 😊.

I hope you found Off Balance #48 valuable. As always, I’d love to get your feedback and understand the sort of topics you would love to hear about.

Just hit reply to this mail or drop me a line at [email protected] and let me know 😊

🚀And that’s a wrap for this edition of Off Balance – I’d appreciate your feedback so just reply to this email if you’ve got something you’d like to say.

📨 If you think someone else might love this, please forward it on to them,

🎧 Finally, if you’re a fan of the Nothing Ventured podcast, please don’t forget to like, rate and subscribe wherever you get your pods – it really helps us spread the word.

That’s it from me so until next time…

Stay liquid 🙂

Aarish

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👋🏾 Hi friends!

I’ve been out in Italy melting in the intense heat and humidity that has every space feel like an oven.

But whilst I’ve been here, I’ve been paying attention to what’s been happening in the UK and, whilst I shouldn’t have to say this, what’s going on is reprihensible. Whichever side of the political spectrum and whatever the reasons, hatred, violence and destruction are simply not the solution – especially in 2024 Britain.

Here’s what I wrote on LinkedIn

With further protests planned for London and elsewhere, I hope that if you and your families are in any of these areas, whatever your creed or colour, that you keep safe and let’s hope this devestation to communities across the UK comes to an end – and quickly.

I’m well underway writing about all the things I’ve learned from the last couple of decades as founder, CFO and CEO, so sign up for early access to Off Balance – The Book and feel free to share with anyone else you think might enjoy it 😄.

Now let’s get down to business…

In this weeks Off Balance:

🎙️ Fred Hoch, co-founder of TechNexus Venture Collective on Nothing Ventured
🚫 What not to do when you’re hiring in startup finance

𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲

On our most recent episode of Nothing Ventured, I talked to Fred Hoch, co-founder and general partner at TechNexus Venture Collaborative, a Chicago-based venture collaborative that bridges the gap between startups and Fortune 100/500 corporations.

Fred’s career has taken him across the globe and back and with over 30 years of experience, he’s been at the forefront of the tech industry, from the early days of the internet to the rise of SaaS.

At TechNexus, Fred has orchestrated 270 investments for major corporations, with an impressive 85% survival rate. As well as his work at TechNexus, he currently sits on the boards of numerous startups and the UIC School of Engineering, ChicagoNEXT, and SmartBet Charities.

Top Takeaways:

➡️ 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸: Fred emphasised the importance of corporations viewing startups as strategic investments rather than just financial ones. By building relationships and collaboration with startups, corporations can drive innovation and future growth in products and services.

➡️ 𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝘅𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗥&𝗗: Fred highlighted the need for corporations to engage in external venturing to stay ahead in the rapidly changing market. By partnering with startups and investing in a diverse range of ventures, corporations can tap into new technologies and ideas that can drive their future success.

➡️ 𝗢𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀: Fred shared a compelling example of how a recreational boatmaker shifted their perspective on electrification from a threat to an opportunity. By investing in innovative electric motors, the company transformed its product portfolio and embraced the future of boating technology.

They also talked about:

🏘️ Building communities and driving the evolution of Software as a Service.
🎭 Moving from the theatre of corporate innovation to investing beyond the cheque.
💸 Breaking out of the corporation to bring in entrepreneurial spirit.
🧮 Corporations that focus too much on ROI of corporate venturing are missing a trick.
🧾 How CFOs are the wrong people to champion innovation within a corporation.
🤑 VC has been broken for 40 years, is it heading back on track?
🔮 Ventures are opportunities, not threats for large corporations.
🤗 How to get corporations to understand the technology, see the future and embrace the technology.
？Can you actually be contrarian in todays world?

Listen on YouTube, Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts!

If you have any feedback on the podcast or the newsletter, just reply to this mail or ping me online!

If you like what I’m putting out, do give me a follow on LinkedIn and Twitter.

(If you are trying to connect with me on LinkedIn, maybe read this post I wrote and make sure to start your request with “Off Balance” and, importantly, tell me why you’d like to connect 💪🏾)

Now let’s get into it.

Off Balance

Not to be <that guy> again, but can we take a moment to talk about how f*cked up finance “hiring” is in early stage venture?

Obviously I talk to ALOT of VC backed startups and naturally this is going to sound a bit self serving, after all EmergeOne provides fractional CFO support to VC backed startups from seed to series B.

What not to do when making your first finance hires in a startup

1. Hiring a full time CFO too early – unless you have sufficient capital to manage, this is a waste of resource.

2. Hiring a CFO (fractional or full time) too late – there is an inflection point, after you’ve raised a tonne of capital or have strong revenues where it’s critical.

3. Hiring too junior and calling them a CFO – you don’t become a CFO through qualifications, you do through experience. Junior finance heads may plug some gaps, but don’t expect strategic insight.

4. Doing it yourself – Yes, Xero exists and, yes it’s easy to use. It’s also easy to use incorrectly and your books of account are only a small part of your finance stack.

5. Only going operational – indexing towards only hiring in someone to fix the operational stack (invoice flows, revenue accounting, spend management etc) doesn’t work for long, it’s as important – at the right stage – to have the strategic insight a CFO can provide.

6. Hiring in a big 4 or corporate background ‘heavy hitter’ – most of these folk will not have worked in a cash strapped, resource constrained environment, they are used to having machines behind them and more often than not will flounder.

7. Hiring someone who has never worked with VC backed companies – there are lots of folk out there who are great working with ‘trad’ businesses, but who don’t know the complexities that arise working with an institutionally funded early stage business.

8. Searching for unicorns – I can categorically say that no CFO is going to do your bookkeeping (at least for any length of time), trying to find someone who will ‘do it all’ is a false economy and you will end up with either your finance ops or your strategic finance suffering.

9. Not bringing in anyone operational at all – strategic finance can only add value when the basic hygiene of your finances is in place. You can’t do strategy if the downstream information is broken.

10. Assuming there is only one way to do finance – there is no rinse and repeat playbook for building a finance team, what worked in company x won’t necessarily work in company y. What works in a fintech doesn’t necessarily translate to what works in a marketplace.

What ! see working well once a company has raised enough capital or is printing enough revenue to warrant it is to bring in a fractional CFO who can help figure out how to structure your strategic and operational finance stack the right way, first time.

As always, my office hours are open, if you’d like to chat about this or anything else, just grab some time 😊.

I hope you found Off Balance #47 useful. As always, I’d love to get your feedback and understand the sort of topics you would love to hear about.

Just hit reply to this mail or drop me a line at [email protected] and let me know 😊

🚀And that’s a wrap for this edition of Off Balance – I’d appreciate your feedback so just reply to this email if you’ve got something you’d like to say.

📨 And if you think someone else might love this, please forward it on to them,

🎧 Finally, if you’re a fan of the Nothing Ventured podcast, please don’t forget to like, rate and subscribe wherever you get your pods – it really helps us spread the word.

That’s it from me so until next time…

Stay liquid 🙂

Aarish