👋🏾 Hi friends!

I’ve just come out of a few days of intense meetings and whilst the work was interesting, I couldn’t believe I was in a place in 2024 that had the following restrictions:

Collared shirts.
Tie preffered.
Jacket preffered.
No trainers.
No denim.
Socks above ankle.

I literally had to dumpster dive my wardrobe to comply!

The plus side was I got to wake up every morning and enoy this view!

Oh, and on top of everything else, I’ve also been published in a pretty well recognised paper – check out the story below.

I’m knee deep in 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 a few chapters in and exploring all 100 of the lessons I posted that got 1m views, thousands of likes and hundreds of comments and shares online – and that was just a list!

Now let’s get down to business…

In this weeks Off Balance, I’ll be chatting about:

🎙️ Nader Sabbaghian on Nothing Ventured
🗞️ Aarish on the Evening Standard

What do you do when enterprise deals are just taking too long to convert? Invent a new business model 🤯

I sat down with Nader Sabbaghian, Partner at 360 Capital a fund with 500m under management investing across Europe.

Nader took us through his journey into VC from founding and operating in the noughties where, in one of his ventures, they had to invent SaaS essentially as a survival strategy hosting product on off prem servers and charging clients monthly so as to sit in budget and avoid the daisy chain of procurement that goes hand in hand with enterprise customers.

In the episode we talked about:

➡ How mad you have to be to leave McKinsey & Company and join a startup in the early 2000s.

➡ Why as a VC, it’s better to hunt in your own backyard.

➡ Why it’s the right time to start a business and the right time to invest because there is a lot less nonsense out there.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Also, 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!

Now let’s get into it.

Off Balance

Growing up in London, I would often head to my dad’s office in Warren Street. I always recall (other than writing stories on the office telex – if you’re old enough to remember what one of those was!) coming home on the tube and my dad picking up a copy of the Evening Standard as we walked into the station to read on his way home.

Now whilst print media is certainly in decline, there are a few names that are very much part of an area’s identity and, in London, I think the Standard is very much one of those.

As someone that loves writing, it’s always been a dream of mine to get published in an ‘actual’ paper, and a week or so ago, that dream came true 🤯 

Times are tough for startups. CFOs must adapt to survive

There is no doubt that times are tough out there fore startups, markets are turbulent, VCs have pulled back on investing, the wider economy is still facing some headwinds and, for CFOs working with startups, it’s not a simple period to be navigating.

I identified 5 areas where CFOs need to help move the needle:

Do more with less.

Revenue is the cheapest source of finance.

Get the deal done.

Communication is key.

Throw out the playbook.

In doing more than less, CFOs need to be managing the finances tightly and advising founders on where they may need to tighten spend, reduce headcount and do the tough job of rationalising the business. It is time to tighten belts and ensure businesses are as capital efficient as possible.

Revenue is obviously the best way to finance your business – and the cheapest. Startups need to prioritise finding and growing their revenue base as reliance on investors to fund their business has become less viable.

CFOs also need to be advising founders on their options when it does come to fundraising, you can’t expect every deal to be on the best terms and, sadly, you may have to accept less than ideal ones to move forward. CFOs need to walk the balance between ensuring those terms aren’t going to kill the business and making sure the business can move forward.

As anyone that has followed me for a while, you’ll know that I believe that Narrative > Numbers. In periods like this, it is critical that CFOs and founders are communicating regularly with investors and potential investors to make sure that there are no surprises so that when there is a need to call on the support of current investors they’re already dialled in.

Finally, what may have worked over the last several years may not work anymore. So it’s time to throw out the play book and work creatively to ensure the business survives and thrives – don’t get me wrong, by creative, I don’t mean in the Enron sense of the word, CFOs are, afterall fiduciaries of the business – but they may need to advise on switching up business models, pricing, hiring and finding alternative avenues to raise capital as they continue to build.

You can check out the full article here and I would love to hear your thoughts!

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 #27 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