Originally brought up in India, Vinita Rathi later moved to London and began working at Goldman Sachs. For five years – with initially, no financial knowledge – she worked her way up in the fast paced environment, eventually becoming VP of the interest rate product teams. When her time with Goldman Sachs came to an end, she then started her own company Systango, an end-to-end IT service provider called Systango, which now has 300+ employees and works with names such as Grindr, Dialpad, ResearchNow, Deloitte, Oracle and Porsche. 

Not only does Rathi have 5.5 years in a tier 1 investment bank specializing in trading technology and 14+ years as a CEO of Systango, she is also the founder of Studio Fintech, a company that specializes in dealing with Fintech and blockchain ventures with a focus on blockchain-centric projects. Studio Fintech is arm of Systango focussing specifically on Fintech and blockchain. 

Additionally, Rathi is the founder of WomenHackForNonProfits currently made up of 1200 women in tech who are building open source projects for non-profits and individuals with a cause. She is also the founding director of Women Who Code (London Chapter), aimed to inspire women to excel in technology careers. To top it all off she is a Google Women Techmakers Lead, focusing on helping bolster the cause of feminism in Tech.

All of the above when put together indicate she has been playing this game for a long time.

“You start looking for analytics when you are solving a specific user behaviour problem. Thinking about it as part of product build enables you to solve the initial teething problems faster, quicker and efficiently.” - @VinitaKRathi
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During the early years, Rathi’s experiences at Goldman Sachs and now, working with a wide range of entrepreneurs under Systango and more, have given her some valuable insights about the role data science plays in building product strategy and how startups and scaleups can leverage it not only for increasing the efficiency of their businesses but also deciding the future course. Here are just a few of the takeaways Vinita will be speaking about.

• Planning your Data Strategy
• Data Mining
• Data Visualization
• Leveraging Visualization Techniques
• Other aspects of Data Engineering
  

“Often data during product build is an after thought. You start looking for analytics when you are solving a specific user behaviour problem. Thinking about it as part of product build enables you to solve the initial teething problems faster, quicker and efficiently.” Rathi says.

“Having right data strategy and appropriate tools in place early on enables you to learn more about your product and its usage than you can imagine.” - @VinitaKRathi
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This can be integrated into building your team early. Systango approaches its client’s problems with a human-centered and data-focussed methodology. They believe that there are no silver bullets in their space, and that the best solutions come from involving the right people in every step of the process, establishing KPIs for your teams and then tracking them with data you collect. 

Vinita says “When you are a CEO, you need to be able to see Sales, marketing, logistics, product analytics all in one place and be able to connect the dots.” Different departments/teams end up using their own tools, they end up collecting huge set of data but miss out on the holistic view. This has an impact on ability to see trends and spot patterns. You have to make sure that not only you define and collect but also aggregate and analyse the data points to optimise the effort/ROI across each channel. 

“When you are a CEO, you need to be able to see Sales, marketing, logistics, product analytics all in one place and be able to connect the dots.” - @VinitaKRathi
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Data science is slowly becoming essential for a lot of businesses, startups and enterprises alike. It helps organizations with crucial decision-making and helps companies gain a competitive edge in the market by leveraging any insight to increase efficiency and productivity by making the right decisions. It is important to ensure that you have an infrastructure in place that will allow you to monitor and analyze the data you collect.

To learn more about leveraging product strategy, see if you qualify for membership and check out the webinar from August 9.

The first thing to do is to define the data collection of which is going to be helpful to the business. Then collect and aggregate this data in one place.  Data mining (the practice of analyzing large databases in order to generate new information) aids you in learning how to improve your product or service and how to create a better marketing and sales strategy, while predictive models help to monitor customer behavior. In order to keep up with the competition and trends, you must know the activity of the customers. Setting up data strategy right from start allows you to monitor your business KPIs and build on them. 

“Only when you have KPI for your business and teams, you will be able to measure them.” - @VinitaKRathi
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Data visualization gives you the ability to interpret, convert, and eventually summarize data to a comprehensive language that you can also present to stakeholders. 

To learn more about leveraging product strategy, see if you qualify for membership and check out the webinar from August 9.

Below are some highlights of what you’ll learn from the panelists.

• Ataer Arguder, co-founder at Aura, will be the moderator of the panel.
• Tom Geary, founder and creative director of School of Thought, will talk about marketing and communication fails.
• Jen Portland, founder and “spreadsheeter” at Excel Rain Man, will give tips on scrappy sales techniques.
• Jefferson Nunn, managing director of Code Warriors, will cover how to start and maintain a successful SaaS company.

Geary sees many founders’ communication fails originate from “being inside the bubble.” If you’re inside your own company and invested in its success, of course you’re interested in it. But you aren’t the target audience for your pitch. Assuming your audience cares as much as you do creates many communication fails. From a marketing standpoint, it’s deadly.

The solution to this problem is overlooked by 90% of companies: Nothing matters in business if you don’t first get your audience’s attention. The new latency rate: doesn’t matter. The position in the Magic Quadrant: doesn’t matter. The series D funding: doesn’t matter. Get your target’s attention first or you are wasting your energy and opportunity.

Portland offers a couple savvy marketing tips: keep in touch with prospects in a genuine and simple way, and respond to correspondence quickly. Let people know that you are noticing their accomplishments with a genuine note, not a ‘like’ or canned ‘Congrats on your Work Anniversary.” You don’t even need to mention your business; the recipient will likely check out your profile anyways.

Responding to correspondence quickly, even just to let people know you will be back to them soon, shows professionalism. Portland customers have told her that her company’s speedy responsiveness make them easier to communicate with than their own employees. Be responsive not only to clients, but to everyone.

Nunn cautions that SaaS founders can run into many problems when starting a new software business. Contract mistakes with software developers cost time and money. Cloud hardware issues destroy consumer confidence. Lack of insight into consumer preferences can stop your business before it even starts. There are a lot of things that can happen, which is why it’s important to do things correctly from the outset.

Register now to learn more about these insights and others at the upcoming growth panel on August 10 at 9:30am PST. Join us at Founders Network or request an invite to see if you qualify for membership.

More about our speakers:

Ataer Arguder

Ata Arguder is a serial entrepreneur and consultant, based in London, UK. After working for 15 years in the entertainment sector in various companies including Sennheiser, he started a digital ticketing company in Istanbul where he generated 7x growth over two years and . After selling that company, he moved to London in 2017 and started Aura – Museum Genius with investment from credible investors, building a global platform for museums and their visitors. He is currently a co-founder in two London-based tech startups (Aura – Museum Genius and Breath Hub) and he is also representing Founders Network in the UK as their Regional Manager for the UK.

Tom Geary

Tom is a writer, creative director and the founder of School of Thought. Tom has worked at some of the world’s top agencies, including Goodby, Ogilvy NY, Butler Shine & Stern and AKQA, on more than 100 brands. Geary was the lead creative behind MsDewey.com, arguably Microsoft’s most successful viral project ever, with over 50 million organic hits. For three months, site traffic outpacedGoogle.com.  He has created highly-lauded campaigns for divisions of Microsoft, HP, Cisco and Adobe. His work has been featured in Communication Arts, Adweek, Creativity, and won dozens of awards. He’s also lectured at conferences and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.  Lest you think he’s beyond missteps, he turned down a job offer to be the CCO at some company named Salesforce.

Jen Portland

Jen Portland is the Founder and CEO of Excel Rain Man, a spreadsheet and data analysis firm with a focus on automation via Visual Basic.  They serve a range of clients from rising start-ups to the Fortune 500, including major retailers, financial institutions, hotels, hospitality groups, real estate portfolios, contractors and others. Most recently, they are winning government contracts as Jen pounds the (now virtual) pavement in New York City and New York State showing demos of their work, including Diversity Dashboards of how NYC interacts with MWBE vendors (Excel Rain Man is a WBE-certified business).  Since starting the company in 2008 as a 1-woman side project, Jen has grown Excel Rain Man into a thriving business with a staff of 12, comprised of top experts from around the globe with backgrounds in engineering, computer programming, mathematics, and finance. Jen’s perseverance and hard work grew Excel Rain Man while fully employed for the first six years.  This involved not only recruiting talent and growing a customer base, but also educating others that this type of spreadsheet help and outsourcing exists… thereby allowing others to focus on the more important aspects of their work and not to get bogged down in a spreadsheet. Jen graduated from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program in conjunction with the Tory Burch Foundation in 2013. Jen graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Sciences with a B.S. in Systems Engineering and a minor in mathematics.

Jefferson Nunn

Jefferson Nunn is a Chief Editor of Liquid Health News, also the Director of Biotoxin Foundation. Since 1999, he has been a consultant to high-net-worth individuals. Always an innovator, his ideas have generated millions for clients including Ronco and GoWireless. Jefferson has been involved in the cryptocurrency industry since mining my first Bitcoin in 2010, now he is Podcaster for BTC Manager. Since then, he’s met with many of the early pioneers in the cryptocurrency space including the founders of Ethereum and the founders of Crypto Capital in Panama, SALT, EasyBit and more.

After 13 years as CEO and Founder of Brandwatch, Giles Palmer reflects on what he would have done differently to grow his company. These reflections come on the heels of the company’s $450 Million acquisition by Cision.

Founder Giles Palmer has spent the last 13 years as the CEO of Brandwatch. His brand sentiment and social media listening startup was recently acquired by Cision for $450 Million.  In this piece, he offers advice to other founders about what he would have done differently to grow his company based on what he knows now.

Register for Giles Palmer’s global keynote with the Founders Network for more reflections on his founder’s journey, such as:

• Differentiating your startup in an up-and-coming niche
• Assessing risk and how it informs your decision-making as a founder
• Successful team-building as you scale

Register as a guest to find out if you qualify for full membership.

He Wouldn’t Focus on Fast Growth

Early-stage startups are typically losing money, and if they’ve fundraised there’s a pressure to grow quickly. As a result, founders are often forced into the trap of thinking short-term and believing that growth metrics are the only thing that matters. 

Brandwatch was no exception to this. And what Giles has since learned is that this focus on fast growth isn’t always optimal:

“A lot of smart companies balance growth with other important factors,” he explained. “Second and third-time founders who maybe have more knowledge or financial security may take a bit longer in the earlier stages to get to a point where they know who they’re going to sell to, what their pricing should look like and what a successful implementation looks like.”

When you’re a young company and not yet breaking even, Giles explained that it’s easy to become influenced by the customers that are saying yes in the moment: 

“The runway that you’re dealing with is pretty short term; therefore you’re vulnerable. You will take pretty much any deal or will work with a customer that is not really where you want to go. Even if they’re not blowing you off course, they might not be the right fit for you — they might be thinking of the relationship as short term whereas you’re looking to build it over time.”Being less selective about your customers often leads to a higher churn rate which leads to opportunity costs and poor metrics.  “One day you may realise that your customer base is half as big as another company that took more time to be deliberate in the early days. It’s also hard to undo those bad habits.”

“Try to ignore all of the external folks telling you that growth is everything. And try to think about whether this is the right fit. And if it's not the right fit, and if you've got a choice, don't take the customer.” - @joodoo9
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Giles explained that being more selective is a very conscious choice that a company has to make, and many companies will try to retrofit this choice later on with less success.

“Try to ignore all of the external folks telling you that growth is everything. And try to think about whether this is the right fit. And if it’s not the right fit, and if you’ve got a choice, don’t take the customer.”

So what does this look like on a practical level? 

Consider a zero commission sales model.

“I’d love to have a zero commission sales model where sales people are not paid to bring in customers, they are paid to actually find companies that are going to benefit from being customers of ours.”

This would mean starting with a bigger base by calculating their on-target earnings (OTE) and paying a higher percentage of it. 

“I just want you to bring in the right customers rather than bringing in everybody that you possibly can because you get paid more for it. So there’s a very interesting tension between sales person’s compensation and what’s right for the company.”

“Increasingly SaaS is a journey you go on together because they're choosing to subscribe every month or every year, so it's a constant commitment.” - @joodoo9
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Hire a User Experience Designer Early On

“There are product design choices you make at the beginning that show up for years and years as the product evolves. They’re really, really important,” Giles explained. 

Looking back, he wishes he would have hired a product designer that focused on the user experience within the first four or five hires. This is someone that can build a discipline around user research and product metrics to learn what features his customers are or are not using and can investigate why. 

To make sure you’re focusing on the right customers, you need to prioritize their input regarding features and integrations and other user experience decisions they’d like to see.

To learn more about reflections on a startup journey, see if you qualify for membership and check out the webinar from June 3.

Look for customers that are ready to build a two-way commitment with the company.

“Increasingly SaaS is a journey you go on together because they’re choosing to subscribe every month or every year, so it’s a constant commitment,” Giles said.

Spend more time onboarding customers you know you want to keep and working out a two-way commitment. “Making sure that they live up to their bit of the bargain,” he explained. “For them to be successful, they also have to follow the program. It’s not just on the supplier — it’s a contract between two of you.”

“Entrepreneurs, most people actually, are pretty poor at evaluating their own ability. So I use enjoyment as a proxy for: are you any good at this?” - @joodoo9
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He Would Pay Closer Attention to What He Was Enjoying

As your company grows, as a founder, you have to make hard choices around which responsibilities to hand over to someone else. For instance, do you hand over much of the day-to-day decisions to a COO or do you maintain a high level of control as a hands-on CEO? 

To make these choices, Giles has learned to focus on what he enjoys. “Entrepreneurs, most people actually, are pretty poor at evaluating their own ability. So I use enjoyment as a proxy for: are you any good at this?”

For instance, if Giles had paid closer attention to what he was and wasn’t enjoying, he would’ve focused on team building at a much earlier stage.

Giles loves building teams, but about seven years ago, he realised that he was no longer enjoying the senior team meetings. So he took a look at his senior team and realized that there were no women or people of color on the team and most people came from similar backgrounds and had similar traits. He knew things needed to change, so his company significantly increased the size of the team and worked at making it more diverse.

Giles also spent time and energy on team development: utilizing team coaches, honing in the purpose of team meetings, and socializing outside of meetings. 

“We built up that working cadence over 18 months through an enormous amount of effort,” he explained. “And that team now runs the business incredibly well. It’s resilient, and people love being part of it; whereas nobody enjoyed being part of the team six or seven years ago.”

For Giles, the decision to become more knowledgeable about team building was one he consciously made about how he wanted his personal growth journey to match the company’s. 

“Have you graduated to the next level so that you’re able to do your job without it causing you many more degrees of stress and anxiety? If you haven’t, and the company is growing quicker than you are as a CEO, then that’s an interesting observation. And you have a choice: either you have to work incredibly hard to upgrade yourself so that you are able to carry on with the journey or you bring in somebody else alongside you.”

To learn more about reflections on a startup journey, see if you qualify for membership and check out the webinar from June 3.

For early-stage founders, getting into the venture capital funnel is both an art and a science and it requires a few elements to come together:

• understanding an investor’s motivations
• crafting the right pitch
• and getting on a VC’s radar to secure a meeting 

Venture Capitalist Sanchit Dhote has seen many such requests. His firm, Outward VC, specializes in early-stage startups, which is unique stage of fundraising that comes with its own set of challenges, quirks and pitfalls. At a Founders Network seminar, Sanchit pulls back the curtain on VC fundraising for early-stage founders. 

Register to Sanchit’s full webinar and see if you qualify for membership to Founders Network and get tips and tactics on:

• Getting into the VC Funnel
• Understanding Expectations
• Setting Targets and Timelines
• Positioning for Scale
• Closing the Deal 

“For starters, not every startup can and should raise venture capital — and it’s not a referendum on how good your business is,” Sanchit explains. Venture capital funds are simply set up with a certain set of growth expectations related to their duties to limited partners. And founders need to carefully consider whether any such expectations are aligned with their own goals. 

“A lot of businesses can do very well without raising any external capital. But when you take on VC funding, there are  expectations from the investor side,” he says. “The way VCs deploy capital, and the way we govern those investments, is quite rigorous. So we’re looking for a very specific return based on specific types of companies that we’re looking to back.” 

Early-stage VC models are geared up to expect that most of their portfolio companies will not produce a return — and that affects not just how they deploy capital, but how they nurture those investments as well. 

“A VC’s strategy is grounded in the reality that only two or three companies from a portfolio of 20+ are going to actually return your fund,” Sanchit adds. 

“A VC’s mentality is that you're going to have two or three companies from a portfolio of 20+, that are going to actually return your fund.” - @OutwardVC
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Then there’s the issue of actually getting in front of VCs who, in many cases, are fielding inquiries and pitches on a constant basis. There are a number of ways to reach out, and to break through the noise and get your business considered — cold emails, warm referrals, networking. 

If you’re cold pitching, there are a few tactics that can lead to a greater rate of success: “There are definitely stories out there of companies reaching out through LinkedIn, and actually going through the whole deal process,” he says. 

Ultimately, venture capital firms fall back on their own methodologies for evaluating potential opportunities. But in grabbing a VC’s attention, perhaps the most important thing to remember is that investing is a relationship, and talking with an investor should be a two-way conversation. It’s always best to thoroughly research who you’re talking to, and allow for a natural exchange of ideas. 

“If we see founders actually doing a bit of work on us as well, asking questions and doing a temperature check on how we could work together, I think the best founders that we come across always do that,” he says. 

“Instead of raising money simply for the sake of raising from VCs, have a very clear plan of how it will be deployed and where the company will be in 18 months time.” - @OutwardVC
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In understanding that VCs are looking for growth, founders should be prepared to fundraise with scale in mind. Rather than coming up with a fundraising target first, think about where you’d like your business to be in 18 months and think backwards, identifying the resources you need and the ideal partners in that journey. 

“Instead of raising money simply for the sake of raising from VCs, have a very clear plan of how it will be deployed and where the company will be in 18 months time,” Sanchit says. “This is something we often see: companies that have an arbitrary figure in their head, instead of thinking about where they need to go and how to get there.” 

As for the risks in early-stage fundraising, founders need to consider how much equity they’re willing to fork over, because deals made at this stage can carry long-term ramifications down the road.

“At the seed stage, you need to be very cognizant of how much equity you're giving up without being too precious on valuation.” - @OutwardVC
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“Generally at a seed stage, you need to be very cognizant about how much equity you’re giving up and what the valuation of the company is without being too precious on things like valuation,” Sanchit adds. “If one million pounds today is really going to elevate the startup to a 50 million pound business in 18 months time, haggling over a valuation of $5 million or $7 million is not worth it. That’s often overlooked by founders.” 

For early-stage founders, the term sheet is among the most consequential documents you’ll develop. Your term sheet — basically a written agreement dictating the terms and conditions of a deal — serves a critical role in the fundraising process, and can carry implications for your startup’s ownership structure in the long term. But managing term sheets doesn’t need to be a scary process. 

“For somebody going through the fundraising process for the first time, there can be a lot of jargon and unfamiliar terms in those term sheets,” says Joe Collingwood, associate in Dentons’ corporate practice. Along with Ataer Arguder, Founder of Aura and head of Founders Network London chapter, Collingwood breaks down the fundamentals of term sheets and ways to think strategically about crafting yours.

If you’re an early stage founder, register for the full Term Sheets 101 seminar and check if you qualify for membership to Founders Network and learn term sheet essentials, including: 

• Understanding VCs
• Setting a Valuation
• Liquidation Preferences
• Founder Vesting 
• Anti-Dilution Clauses + More

“A term sheet is basically a letter of intent: summary of mutual understanding of what’s going to happen when,” says Arguder. “Founders don’t really know how this works from the VC’s side, what the fund needs to do to make money — the dynamics, the math. Once a founder understands how this works, I think it’s easy to reverse-engineer the process and become VC ready.” 

Founders, particularly, first-time founders, are likely to encounter a bunch of terminology that they may not fully comprehend: Liquidation preferences, founder vesting, anti-dilution clauses, straight line vesting, preemption rights, just to name a few. 

“Both sides need to be very careful, because this round’s term sheet is the next round’s starting point. Valuation is critical.” - @ataerarguder
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“Both sides need to be very careful, because this round’s term sheet is the next round starting point,” adds Arguder. “In 18 to 24 months, you’re required to perhaps triple your business. So valuation is critical.”

Founders shouldn’t fall into the trap of seeking a higher valuation because it sounds more prestigious, or has the potential to attract more media attention, according to Arguder.

“It’s a great burden on the founder as well,”  he says. “The term sheet is sent by the VC, by the way. And if you’re not an experienced founder, you may not think like three or four steps ahead.”

“It’s essential for founders to get legal counsel in evaluating term sheets, and to square that advice with their own goals with the business. That can start with knowing how to spot what’s standard — and what isn’t — in basic terms such as liquidation preferences,” adds Collingwood. 

“It’s fairly standard to see a one times liquidation preference, which means if a company goes, bust the investor gets an amount equal to their investment back in priority to everybody else. 

“But if you’ve never seen that before, you’d have no idea of knowing whether or not that’s normal or not,” says Collingwood. The higher the number floats above one, the more favorable it tends to be towards the investor. 

“If a founder understands why a VC is asking for something, it can make negotiations a bit smoother.” - @Dentons
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Another challenge is understanding where to pick your battles and that starts with understanding the investors’ rationale in asking for specific terms — liquidation or otherwise. 

“If a founder understands why a VC is asking for something, it makes negotiations a bit smoother,” Collingwood says. ”Frankly, there are places where VC funds just won’t budge; they will expect a liquidation preference 95% of the time. So it’s not really worth fighting that battle.”

“A deeper understanding of your investors’ motivations, and how they’re aiming to make money off the investment will likely yield a stronger term sheet for both parties,” says Arguder. 

“As well as building a small business; you're building a growth machine. Term sheets need to be realistic because a VC wants to make an exit in the future.” - @ataerarguder
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“You’re not building a small business; you’re building a growth machine — that’s the idea at least,” he says. “Term sheets need to be realistic, because a VC wants to make an exit at some point in the future. There are going to be other rounds, and maybe they’ll want to go to a bigger VC and sell their shares. The expectations of a founder need to be managed.”

Pandemics may not last forever, but they present a critical opportunity to plan for the long-term health of your startup.

Businesses of all sizes are adjusting to a new reality of remote work, different financial realities, and other effects of COVID-19. And startups in particular must prepare for a host of secondary impacts to their teams, workplaces, and overall outlook — and be ready to seize opportunities presented by the crisis, as well.

Managing a remote workforce has its own host of challenges, from adjusting to video calls in lieu of meetings to shoring up the technical side of remote operations. Many startups may also need to reduce headcount during this period, given the necessity of extending cash runways in an uncertain environment for fundraising. But the COVID-19 environment also gives rise to opportunities, namely to invest in key talent that may be harder to nail down under normal circumstances. 

That’s according to panelist Maddy Cross, Talent Director at UK-based venture capital firm Notion VC. 

“If you're not too badly affected, then you might be able to hire that new CTO who you previously would have struggled to secure.” - @NotionVC
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“If you’re not too badly affected — maybe because you’re well-funded or you’re not relying on a revenue stream just yet — then you might be able to hire that new CTO who you previously would have struggled to secure, because they’re now available,” she says.

In the full panel, Cross speaks to a range of other potential issues founders need to be aware of in bringing people back to the office. Those include how to overcome challenges presented by a confined environment; options for supporting employees’ wellbeing, including annual leave and other options for easing a return to work; and communicating to staff the steps you’re taking to ensure a safe return to on-site work. 

Michelle Lamb, partner at Dentons who advises companies on employment law issues, adds a range of tips on how to transition staff back into the office, and what practical tools to have at your disposal that help startups adapt to changing business needs — whether they be safely reopening an office or planning for a strategic restructuring triggered by the health crisis. 

“If there are longer-term changes needed, you need to think about what options are in your toolkit if you need to make a change. Startup founders should get ahead of these issues now.” - @Dentons
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“If there are longer-term changes needed, you need to think about what options are in your toolkit if you need to make a change,” says Lamb. “If you need to reduce people costs, and if you’re not experienced in doing these things every day, how is that going to pan out? Startup founders should get ahead of these issues now.”

Founders are finding that COVID-19 opens up a can of worms across many areas of business. However,  employee and workplace challenges are manageable if you’re equipped with the right tools and resources. Seeking advice through peer networks is also instrumental in navigating the post-COVID landscape, with founders often sharing resources on how to manage returning talent and to safely reopen for business. 

Most importantly, founders and top-level executives need to be actively engaged at every level in these decisions. 

The COVID-19 crisis itself may be temporary, but for many startups — even those whose revenue streams are not necessarily impacted by the pandemic — it will necessitate some longer-term strategic changes that founders need to put into motion now. 

In the current environment, don’t delegate office and workforce management issues to lower-tier staff, adds Joseph Altendorff, partner in the corporate practice at Dentons who advises high-growth startups in all sectors.

“These issues aren't for middle management; they're for top level management. This is a potential total restructuring of your business culture, and how it will identify as a business going forward.” - @Dentons
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“These issues aren’t for middle management; they’re for top level management,” he says. “This is a potential total restructuring of your business culture, and how it will identify as a business going forward. If you’re a founder or a top level management manager and you delegate this down to a middle ranker, you’re going to end up with a middle ranking solution at the top of the agenda line for how your business is going to be managed going forward.” 

Request an invite to learn more about managing employees from the Dentons Team and 600+ fellow tech founders through interactive webinars and forum conversations featuring over 9 years of archived knowledge.

There may be no magic formula for launching the next Google, Facebook or Apple. But according to Adam Cheyer, there are a few steps founders can take to size up ideas and help to drive them towards success.  

Cheyer has a track record to back it up: As co-founder of Siri, he helped to transform the iPhone experience after Siri was acquired by Apple in 2010. He was also on the founding team at Change.org, the largest petition site in the world, and later created Viv Labs, a personal assistant software acquired by Samsung. 

Lesson #1: Playing The Long Game

Commercial success doesn’t necessarily arise from a lightbulb moment. It often takes time to cultivate, in some cases years. 

“Siri seemed to many like such an overnight success,” Cheyer says. “But the reality behind that was that it took two years of commercial hard work to get there. Before that, there was a five year research phase, during which I led technology development for the largest AI project in U.S. history researching intelligent assistants. And before that, I worked on the problem for over a decade, in both research and commercial settings.  Basically, it was something like 17 years of work from the lightbulb moment to get to the point where Steve Jobs called.” 

Lesson #2: Timing It Right

“Not every successful startup idea will take 17 years to develop — but it might take longer than founders think,” Cheyer says. One question often asked is: How do you know when is the right time to try an idea as a startup?  

It’s an important question, because if you launch too early, the world might not be ready to fully appreciate your idea — but if you launch too late, you will miss the opportunity and not catch the rising tide at the right moment.  

Cheyer uses two tools to answer this question: trends and triggers. First, he studies technology topics that are emerging at the time, and develops views about where the world is going, and what has substance versus what’s just a fad.  Once he feels he has a perspective, Cheyer waits for a “trigger” moment that confirms his prediction and gives him unique insight into what is going to happen over the next few years.  

An example? In 2004, Cheyer predicted that an interface paradigm would emerge to enable access to all the world’s content and services in a new way. When the iPhone came to market, despite many pundits predicting failure, Cheyer felt this was exactly what he had been waiting for. Looking forward two years, he posited that every handset manufacturer and telecom would be desperate for a new technology to compete with the iPhone, and he felt that Siri could be just what they needed. So he and two co-founders started a company to build it.

Lesson #3: Doing Something Big

Step three is to evaluate the size of the opportunity before deciding to invest years in developing, pitching and scaling your startup idea. A good number to keep in mind: 250. 

“It’s going to take the same amount of time to do something small as something large. So make sure you’re aiming for a market size of at least 250 million users — big companies like eBay, YouTube and Instagram are user-based. You can aim for $250 million in revenue, or you can have a differentiated technology with an application and a business model,” he adds. Why target the 250 threshold? There’s a better risk-reward profile once you get to that point, Cheyer says, with more promising prospects if your startup were to eventually get acquired. 

Lesson #4: Following the Data 

Keep your eye on the data.

“If you're not instrumenting everything you do, you're not doing it right. And if you have an advisory board, if they're not demanding to see metrics at every single board meeting, they're not doing their job.” - @acheyer
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“If you’re not instrumenting everything you do, you’re not doing it right. And if you have an advisory board, if they’re not demanding to see metrics at every single board meeting, they’re not doing their job,” he says.  

That was evident in the growth of Change.org, which wasn’t originally conceived as the world’s largest hub for petitions. As they tried many new functions on the site, the founding team followed the data of their users’ behavior to evolve what eventually became an influential platform with hundreds of millions of users. 

After Change.org launched, the site’s user counts increased initially at a relatively modest rate. That changed once the team observed high engagement with the petition feature, which was then a minor feature. Change.org was reorganized to make petitions more central, at which point the site’s users accelerated dramatically. 

“Letting the data lead you where you want to go is really important,” Cheyer says.

“Letting the data lead you where you want to go is really important.” - @acheyer
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Lesson #5: Visualizing Success

Finally, a more personal tip for entrepreneurs: Always remember to concretely visualize what success looks like — embrace it, and the ultimate outcome may wind up surprising you. 

“When we were just starting out at Siri, I walked into an Apple store and summoned up every bit of gumption I had, and thought: Someday Siri is going to be right up there on an Apple Store wall, alongside the Google, Skype and Pandora icons they were displaying,” he recalls.  It seemed outrageously ambitious to posit that his little team would create something as important as these giants of technology.

Fast forward, and on the day Siri launched, he returned to an Apple store and — to his surprise — Siri was not merely displayed as one icon among many. Next to the front door of the Apple Store, there was a sign saying “Introducing Siri”, and there was a plasma display showing Siri use cases running on a loop. This juxtaposition of the earlier image of success that Cheyer had visualized years earlier, against the even better reality presented this day, created a striking moment.

“Life often finds a way to surpass your biggest dream with a reality you couldn’t even imagine. That moment makes all the hard work completely worthwhile and satisfying.” - @acheyer
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“I just got chills,” he says. “Don’t just dream abstractly, but concretely visualize what success would look like. When you do this, life often finds a way to surpass your biggest dream with a reality you couldn’t even imagine.  And that moment makes all the hard work completely worthwhile and satisfying.” 

Register at Founders Network for Adam’s full insights on: 

• Playing the Long Game
• Timing It Right 
• Doing Something Big
• Following the Data
• Visualizing Success

According to Founders Network CEO Kevin Holmes, the London Chapter was begun in order to further facilitate the acquisition of top-tier talent. Currently, the London Chapter brings together 30 full-time tech founders that work together to help each other in these regards. With impressive leadership including Marco Scotti, Founder of Figaroo, Ben Iceton, Founder of Heed and Ataer Arguder, Founder of Aura, and supported by the London Branch of  Dentons Law Firm, it is a select team of founders and partners dedicated to peer mentorship.

A Truly Privileged Position

The London chapter’s Regional Director is Marco Scotti, a third-time entrepreneur who honed his startup skills in both New York and Silicon Valley, moving back to London in 2018 to found Figaroo, an invite-only app that allows members to share luxury experiences from around the world. 

With his great passion for building and expanding the start-up ecosystem, Scotti was a natural fit. Scotti notes that startups are fragile entities, yet vital for every country’s economy. All startup founders have a deep-rooted need to stay close to each other, alongside people who understand and value their choices, goals and motivations. The need to plant and grow deep roots that allow us to support and nourish each other’s businesses operationally and emotionally cannot be overstated.

So what inspired him to take up the mantle of Regional Director? According to Scotti, “being together here in London, under a big brand as Founders Network is, means creating a powerful and recognized community of ambitious people with similar needs, which greatly helps in attracting resources, connections with industry professionals and investors, government representatives; to ease the reach of those very same needs.” 

He continues, “Founders Network offers to its Members to be in a truly privileged position, being the only ‘invite-only’ community in London; by creating a selected environment, only with quality people that have proven their value and direction, external stakeholders see us as a great opportunity for them, and can’t wait to interact with us on a deeper level.”

Marco Scotti
Founder, Figaroo

“Being together here in London, under a big brand like Founders Network, means creating a powerful and recognized community of ambitious people with similar needs.”

A Foundation for Growth

Scotti is helped by Ataer Arguder, our London Chapter’s Growth Chairman who is best known for building Aura, an innovative storytelling platform that connects storytellers with cultural institutions and their visitors from around the world. Prior to founding Aura, he built a highly successful and innovative ticketing company from the ground up, with a particular focus on the Turkish and Middle Eastern market. 

The company grew by 300% on average in its first two years and worked alongside well-known global brands like Cirque du Soleil, Merlin Entertainments/Madame Tussauds, Sea Life, Legoland and Euroleague Basketball among many others. All together, Arguder has founded six startups, with two of them being in the tech industry.

When asked why he decided to take up the role of Growth Chairman at Founder’s Network, he answered, “Connecting people is in my design and I enjoy creating meaningful connections. I have already been connecting people all my life. Now that I will be able to do this using the power of a global network, [it just] sounded like the right idea at this stage of my life.” 

He also believes that there is a deep-seated need for peer mentorship within the London tech ecosystem, going on to say that the market is “quite crowded, and it may even be a difficult ecosystem, especially for first-time entrepreneurs and/or entrepreneurs coming from other countries. Without the help of a mentor, he continues, entrepreneurs would be risking their most important asset: time. With Founders Network, he believes that this position will afford him the opportunity to support entrepreneurs at all stages, whether it’s their first startup or they’re already experienced in this regard. 

Ataer Arguder
Founder, Aura

“With Founders Network, this position will afford me the opportunity to support entrepreneurs at all stages, whether it’s their first startup or they’re already experienced.“

Fostering Peer to Peer Mentorship

Of course, a new networking chapter cannot grow without someone to foster the existing community, which is where Heed founder Ben Iceton comes in. Since 2018, Founder’s Network has enabled Iceton to grow his business with like-minded individuals, gaining exposure to a global community of entrepreneurs at different stages. Iceton explains, “I am privileged to accept the position of Membership Chair – a role that will allow me to introduce new members, fostering key mentorship from the outset. The wealth and depth of experience found in the Founders Network sets it apart from similar groups in London.”

There is perhaps no better testimonial for an organization than to have one of its own members responsible for driving its growth in the same fashion as the organization did for him. In this way, we work to continuously reinforce and amplify the core philosophies that bring us together. It is due to the ingenuity, reciprocity, mutual respect and collaborative nature that Founder’s Network has reached its eighth year, spanning over 600 members in 9 global chapters, and showing no signs of slowing down.

Ben Iceton
Founder, Heed

“I am privileged to accept the position of Membership Chair – a role that will allow me to introduce new members, fostering key mentorship from the outset.”

Expansion on a Global Scale

To ensure that the London Chapter is properly supported, we have expanded our partnership with Denton’s law firm beyond Los Angeles and New York City. The global team at Dentons have been excellent partners over the past year, and we’re thrilled to add London to the list. As for Dentons in London, they “are excited to partner with Founders Network as it launches in London. Dentons has been advising start ups and high growth businesses in London for decades, and we’ve long believed that advice for founders of, and investors in, these companies needs a strong cultural understanding of how these businesses are run and the environment in which they operate. We were attracted by Founders Network’s ethos and the collaborative, peer-to-peer ecosystem Kevin and his team have built. The alignment of Dentons’ and Founders Network’s ethos’s made a partnership between us a natural choice as Founders Network looks to expand its own global network, in the same way that many of our clients have expanded their businesses on a global scale.”

See Your Future With Us

“If you’re involved in the tech industry and working on your own startup, it pays to have a network of mentors, supporters and innovators by your side that can help you further strengthen and solidify your market position as well as help to provide you with funding, talent and acquisition strategies. With this in mind, we would love to have you be a part of our growth together.” says Kevin Holmes, Founder and CEO of Founders Network.

“Our London chapter committee has just allocated an additional 20 spots open for full-time tech founders that exemplify Founder’s Network’s core values, including authenticity, reciprocity, humility and inclusivity. If you’re a full-time tech founder in London and you understand the crucial value of networks in helping you to cultivate your own startup success, please request an invite directly from our site or ask any of our members to invite you directly.”

Request an Invite to Join our London Chapter

We are going to bring you an amazing line up for a speed mentoring session which includes:

i) 1 Angel Investor

John Foenander, Founder & Digital Elder at FoeNetics AI

John is a seasoned entrepreneur in the marketing services space having co-founded multiple advertising and sales activation agencies, and taken these through growth cycles and trade sales.

He has worked with clients spanning start-ups, scale-ups and global enterprises across multiple sectors with a particular emphasis on media, communications and entertainment.

John currently provides advisory and virtual agency services (communications and CX) through his new vehicle, FoeNetics AI, which with its focus on Customer & Growth, fuels transformation and performance improvement through the fusion of data, tech and content. 

ii) 1 VC

iii) 2 Seriously Amazing Entrepreneurs

Anthony Rose, Founder & CEO at SeedLegals

Anthony Rose is a technology entrepreneur whose career has spanned across; 3D graphics, P2P music, internet video, social TV and online communities.

Rose is known for his work managing the launch of the BBC’s iPlayer, for which Wired UK named him “the man who saved the BBC”. He has founded/co-founded multiple companies including; Beamly, 6Tribes, Hey Blab, and QJAM.. Anthony is current CEO for his most recently co-founded company, SeedLegals, the world’s first legal automation platform for startup funding.

Rose currently holds 14 patents and has won numerous awards for his contributions to the digital product industry.

Chieu Cao, Co-founder & CMO at Perkbox

Chieu Cao is a co-founder & CMO of UK’s fastest-growing employee engagement platform, Perkbox (Series C, Raised $14.3M).

Prior to founding PerkBox, Chieu established himself as a tech marketing force to be reckoned with, leading initiatives for brands including Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo. A consultant turned CMO, Chieu’s repertoire spans both B2C and B2B, from SEO to social strategy. He looks forward to sharing his experience with our members.

Founders Network Members are welcome as well as guest. If you have never been you are welcome to attend as a non-member as long as an invitation has been received or approved by a current member.

AGENDA

• 6:30 – 7:00pm || Arrive and socialise
• 7:00 – 7:10pm || Introduction of speakers
• 7:10 – 7:50pm || Presentation by speakers (10min each)
• 7:50 – 7:55pm || Introduction of speed mentoring
• 7:55 – 8:30pm || Round robin speed mentoring
• 8:30 – 8:35pm || Closing announcements
• 8:35 – 9:30pm || Attendees are welcome to stay and continue conversing

Our events are for tech startup founders only. Please only RSVP if this applies to you. Registrants will be checked.

If you are interested in learning more about Founders Network, please request an invitation to join. And if you are not a current member, or have not been nominated for a membership, please join the event to meet your potential nominator. 

There are many sources of advice available to entrepreneurs and sometimes the volume seems overwhelming. Dipping into the wide-ranging trough of Medium articles, blogs and podcasts can be quite a time sink, and whilst entertaining, spreading your reading too thinly limits your ability to really progress on a few key topics.

So I try and be specific and focus only on the articles that are relevant to what I want to achieve, and resonate for me.

I believe you can make the same analogy with running a startup. I’ve been involved in two startups, and the experience I’m hopefully carrying into my third is all about specificity— to be as specific as possible in key areas of the business; target market, value proposition and message. This I find makes it easier to create momentum and hit targets.

Be as specific as possible in key areas of the business; target market, value proposition and message. @christobarley

Narrow in On Your Market

It’s all too common to aim for a big market in the belief that, as it’s a large pool of customers, your ideal customer will be out there somewhere and you will just miraculously find them – I’m certainly guilty of this! But of course aiming for a big market doesn’t make it easier to hit. This is common sense if you think about it – large markets have wide ranging and complex requirements which make it almost impossible to find that perfect customer and score a bullseye.

Build a Customer Persona

Defining your ideal customer in the early stages is hard, especially when you have little feedback or market data. Building a customer persona really helped me here – it forces you to define your buyer as a human, and to deeply understand what makes them tick. And once you have an identikit, you have something to aim for.

You may well get it wrong, but being specific should enable you to set goals and measure results quickly, and change tack without wasting too much time and money.

That’s not to say that you can’t start off with a grand vision and end up dominating a multi $bn market. But it’s very hard to do it the other way round. A start up has only very finite resources – which is mostly your (the founder’s) time. You have to be hyper focus on a defined niche otherwise you just spread yourself too thin.

A start up has only very finite resources – which is mostly the founder’s time. @christobarley

Define Your Proposition

Being specific also results in the discipline of really digging into your target market’s problems, so the solution is tailored just for them. This will almost certainly result in a small addressable market but as we all know, a few wildly happy customers are worth more than many mildly indifferent ones.

If you can’t be specific about defining your customers’ requirements, then the likelihood is that you’re making a guess at what they are. And that could result in your shot ending way off target.

With a market and proposition defined, I find its then a lot simpler to put together a persuasive and precise message that hits a nerve with the customer. A defined customer persona also really helps here to determine the optimum route to market.

Of course, this all requires hard, diligent work. But it can also save a lot of effort in the long run. Being specific means that you can test upfront your own assumptions about why your service might be successful. If you are going to build a taxi hailing app, it’s difficult to definitively say whether it will work or not. But if you say you are going to build an app for weekend limo booking in downtown San Francisco for time poor, wealthy tech entrepreneurs, then you can test each precise assumption, sometimes without even building an MVP.

With a market and proposition defined, I find its a lot simpler to put together a persuasive and precise message that hits a nerve with the customer.  @christobarley

Create a Mental Framework

And the rub comes from the fact that, in today’s internet and social media world, being razor focused is now an optimum strategy because it’s now much easier to reach your ideal customers in niche markets with a small budget. After you’ve achieved your beachhead, the internet means you can scale into a multi $bn market quicker and more cost effectively than ever before.

Specificity is an attitude and a mindset. I’ve found it can provide a helpful mental framework to making decisions about what to do next in your early stage business. Without it, a startup can be a long, hard, winding road, making success more difficult to achieve.