Evening update - 29 September 23
Today I…
#TodayI
Shared how you need to operate to hire and keep the best people.
Took the kids to school.
Had a call with Georgi Katanov.
Caught up with Sam Ettelaie.
Spoke with Premal Parekh.
Was pitched by Jean-Michel Chalayer of Jena.
Was pitched by Jaz Singh of Maison.app.
NowIAm
Collecting the kids from school and taking them for an early dinner.
Have a good weekend everyone.
#founder #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic
The best people have choices
Charlie Munger's three rules for a career are:
Charlie Munger's three rules for a career are:
1) Don't sell anything you wouldn't buy yourself.
2) Don't work for anyone you don't respect and admire.
3) Work only with people you enjoy.
If you are running a business, you need to make all these true for your employees and potential employees.
The best people have choices.
#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic
Evening update - 28 September 23
Today I…
#TodayI
Shared how to handle setting the bar for when you should invest.
Took the kids to school.
Spoke with Richard Hadler of Odin.
Had an impromptu chat with Nick Davis of Alto.Ski about building in public.
Attended a prep meeting for next Tuesday's Relocate to Guernsey Show with Jo Stoddart, Brenda Ainsworth, Edward Bowen, Lynne Coleman, Lily Prus and Emma Shell.
Caught up with Rachael Crook of Lifted.
Spoke with Julia Staszczak of Market One Capital.
Tried and failed to have my Important Not Urgent Day.
#NowIHaveTo
Collect the kids from school.
Feed them.
Head to standup practice.
#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic
Know your bar
When my bar is high and I am seeing more great opportunities than ever before, how do I choose?
When my bar is high and I am seeing more great opportunities than ever before, how do I choose?
Know whether I am ahead or behind my allocation schedule.
See how they compare with the recent businesses I have invested in.
If I'm ahead of schedule set the bar higher.
If I'm behind schedule set the bar lower.
The amount higher or lower depends on how far ahead or behind I am.
That's it. No rocket science required.
Important prerequisites:
Know your allocation schedule, how many investments you plan to make in a particular time period.
Know your criteria for comparing.
#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic
Evening update - 27 September 23
Today I…
#TodayI
Shared that 2021 exit valuations should not be used as benchmarks.
Took the kids to school.
Spoke with the marvellous Aisling Gray of ASG Group.
Had a call with Joe Perkins of Landscape about his Compass product.
Chatted with Anshul Gupta about how we each invest.
Talked to Sam Dhesi, MD of Popp AI.
Had a call with Tom Savage of Ventures Together.
#NowIHaveTo
Collect two kids from after school club, one from football, take that one to more football, feed them, and collect from second football.
I am sleeping well this week.
#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic
2021 valuations are not comparable
Founders, if you share comparable exit valuations in your pitch deck, I always check the date.
Founders, if you share comparable exit valuations in your pitch deck, I always check the date.
If they're 2021, I pretty much ignore them. They are misleading at best.
Evening update - 26 September 23
Today I…
#TodayI
Shared why it's hard for investors and harder for founders.
Took the kids to school.
Caught up with Hannah Leach of Houghton Street Ventures.
Had an impromptu coffee with Barrie Baxter of Brixx Software.
Was pitched by Harry Edmeades of Goodnick.
Had a call with Rohit Mathur of Digital Horizon VC.
Was filmed for Locate Guernsey ahead of next week's Relocate Show where I will be part of the fireside chat. Thank you PCD GROUP's David Bell, Olivia Gallichan, Karen Brazier and in particular Christopher Mathison who went out of his way to make me feel comfortable by wearing the identical clothes to me.
#NowIHaveTo
Collect the kids.
Feed them.
Pack for a school trip.
Harder for founders
My job is hard. I see so many great founders. It's hard to choose.
My job is hard. I see so many great founders. It's hard to choose.
Not as hard as it is for you. I know I'm turning down people with great businesses. You don't know why I'm turning down what you have to offer.
Every investor can only invest in so many things. It's not "Is your business going to win", it's "How do you stack up against the competition".
You don't know the competition so don't beat yourself up. You can only control how good you are. The rest is out of your hands.
#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic
Evening update - 25 September 23
Today I…
#TodayI
Emailed my angel list about one of my companies that is raising.
Asked for advice on how to make it frictionless for people to join that list.
Took the kids to school (my wife is away).
Was pitched by Sam Dhesi, MD of Popp AI.
Had coffee with a friend and asked for advice.
Chatted with Paul Wicks of Wicks Digital Health about investing.
Caught up with Euan Cameron of Willo®.
Attended lunch break meditation Guille-Allès Library.
Had coffee with Martin Scott of Core Fund Services.
Rescheduled a call.
Collected my two youngest from school.
Took them to their bi-weekly injections.
#NowIHaveTo
Collect another son (so many sons) from football training and take him to table tennis.
Get one son ready for his Italian lesson.
Collect son from table tennis.
Feed them.
Catch up on my daily backlog.
It's gonna be a fun week.
#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic
Streamlining my angel investor list
Advice, please.
Advice, please.
I just emailed a list of angels I maintain manually to let them know that one of my companies is raising and happy to take investments from angels.
I want to make the list frictionless to join, like a newsletter. I already have a monthly newsletter on Substack. I want to maintain separate lists.
What's the best and easiest way to do this, please?
#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic
Evening update - 22 September 23
Today I…
#TodayI
Walked to work with my phone off.
Shared the winners of last night's Guernsey Venture Challenge.
Started working my way through the Focal longlist.
Spoke with Thaleia Misailidou about our investment in Mica Vaipan's RunYourself.
Was pitched by Anu Obe of To All My Black Girls LTD.
Caught up with Jamie Beaumont of Playter.
Chatted with Edward Inns of Cambridge Innovation Capital.
Had a postponement.
#NowI
Am heading to one of my sons' schools to find out about The Duke of Edinburgh's Award.
#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic
Guernsey Venture Challenge winners
Yesterday evening eight businesses pitched at the Guernsey Venture Challenge for £70,000 of prize money, kindly donated by Blenheim Chalcot.
Yesterday evening eight businesses pitched at the Guernsey Venture Challenge for £70,000 of prize money, kindly donated by Blenheim Chalcot.
I was fortunate to be on the panel alongside Charles Mindenhall of Blenheim Chalcot, Fiona Bateson and Paul Wilkes of Osney Capital.
Much more importantly, the winners were...
1st= Midwife Vic's c-sectionuk with £30,0000
1st= Joanna Woodnutt's Petlearnia with £30,000
3rd Ben Wratten & Dave Wratten's Stage Portal with £10,000
Congratulations to everyone who took part, Andre Duquemin, Louis Jooste, Henry Freeman, Matthias Plunser, James Le Gallez and everyone at Digital Greenhouse Guernsey who helped organise the event.
Late update - 21 September 23
Today I…
#TodayI
Asked how people manage backlogs after a trip.
Cleared most of my backlog.
Had a meeting to figure out some things for our new house.
Saw my Business Brief article on Disrupting The Funds Industry was in The Guernsey Press (picture below).
Had my Important Not Urgent Day.
#NowI
Am on the panel for the Guernsey Venture Challenge at the Digital Greenhouse Guernsey.
Post trip backlogs
I've just spent seven days in the UK. I always have a huge backlog when I get home.
I've just spent seven days in the UK. I always have a huge backlog when I get home.
Who else has this after a trip? How do you manage it?
#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic
Evening update - 20 September 23
Today I…
#TodayI
Shared why target ownership percentages make no sense.
Was pitched by Lindsey Depledge and Simon Tucker of Beanbag Health including a mid-pitch fire alarm and a tennis ball improv session.
Attended ZINC's Portfolio Pitch Event and saw a great set of founders pitch. Thank you Ella Goldner (Levy), 😃 David Fogel and Francesca Marsden for inviting me.
Noticed I was still wearing my "Marc Cohen, Investor" sticker on the tube. Embarrassing.
Had coffee with Kevin MONSERRAT of TokenSphere.
#NowI
'm heading to the airport to fly home after nearly a week away. It will be good to see my family again.
#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic
Target ownership makes no sense
I never target percentage ownership. It makes no sense.
I never target percentage ownership. It makes no sense.
Yes, you have to own a certain percentage of a company to return a fund given a certain fund size and target valuation.
But...
If you then doubled your fund size you wouldn't invest twice as much in each company, you'd just have twice the number of investments that would each have the same likelihood of reaching that target valuation.
Or with the same fund size, if you had twice the number of investments with half the ownership you'd on average have twice as many investments that hit that target valuation (and less variance in your outcomes).
The only time target ownership makes sense is if you want a board seat and to be able to maintain that board seat even if you get diluted.
You always have a distribution of outcomes spread across multiple investments. You need that distribution of outcomes to be as good as possible. Target ownership is irrelevant.
#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic
Evening update - 19 September 23
Today I…
#TodayI
Shared why I believe Jonny Boufarhat of Hopin's secondaries were best for everyone.
Caught up with Matt Jonns of Founder and Lightning.
Was pitched in person by Aled Maclean-Jones of Ashore.
Had coffee with Samuel Cohen of Thom Sweeney and unbundled vc's founder support scheme.
Was pitched in person by Dr Wareed Alenaini of Twinn Health who provided cookies! (pic below)
Met with Sacha Vauclin of Carta to find out about all their products.
#NowI
Am heading to see friends.
Jonny Bourfarhat of Hopin’s secondary was fine
Hopin failed. Lots of people are criticising the founder, Johnny Boufarhat, for taking money from a secondary.
Hopin failed. Lots of people are criticising the founder, Johnny Boufarhat, for taking money from a secondary.
People say it was obvious the business wouldn't make it so it was disgusting that he took the money.
First, what he sold looks like about 5%, maybe 10%, of what he owned at the time.
Secondly, the company raised money months after the secondary at its highest valuation. One of the leads had $22bn under management in 2022 and has been around since 2008. It's easy to say it's obvious something wouldn't make it in hindsight.
Thirdly, and most importantly, if you had a net worth of somewhere in the low billions all tied up in founder equity and your investors wanted you to keep going for it, wouldn't you want to take 5-10% out? You might even have had the chance of an exit for all the money and your investors wanted you to keep shooting for the stars.
It's easy to criticise. It's easy to say something is obvious in hindsight. It's rarely obvious at the time. And if you want your founders to go for it when they are already paper billionaires, it's actually pretty sensible for them to take 5-10% out and reasonable for the investors to allow or even encourage it.
End rant.
Evening update - 18 September 23
Today I…
#TodayI
Shared I was quoted in the FT courtesy of Jo Stoddart and Locate Guernsey.
Spoke with Amanda Nolen of NilesNolen.
Had a founder postponement.
Had lunch with Andy Shannon.
Saw that two of my investments, YASO and Duel Tech, are collaborating to host the Beauty Growth Summit. This is an invite-only event so see the link in the comments for details.
Cleared some of my backlog (this seems to be a common item).
#LaterI
Am doing my first ever open mic spot.
Living in Guernsey
I'm fortunate to live in Guernsey. When the sun is it looks like this. It's possibly the safest place to live in Europe. It's been super helpful in building my business and my wife's. And it's easy to get on the plane to the UK and meet founders, investors and, this weekend, old friends.
I'm fortunate to live in Guernsey. When the sun is it looks like this. It's possibly the safest place to live in Europe. It's been super helpful in building my business and my wife's. And it's easy to get on the plane to the UK and meet founders, investors and, this weekend, old friends.
So I am very happy to be quoted in this FT article for Locate Guernsey written by Jo Stoddart and to be taking part in their Relocate to Guernsey Show on 3rd October where I will be on the panel for the fireside chat.
