FounderTech Decoded

Francesco Perticarari @ Co-Founder of Silicon Roundabout and Managing Partner of Silicon Roundabout Ventures | Leveraging FounderTech To Now Launch A Community Driven Fund

In this episode of FounderTech Decoded, we are excited to talk to Francesco Perticarari about his experience of leveraging Silicon Roundabout -  the largest Deep Tech founder meeetup and community in Europe - into a new sister venture fund Silicon Roundabout Ventures. A fund he is currently in the process of launching, aimed at identifying and investing in early stage tickets in DeepTech European startups.
We discuss how in framing and designing the fund FounderTech like Vauban (whilst also evaluating market alternatives like Odin) is enabling him to launch the fund in a rapid and agile way that would have simply not been possible even just a few years ago. Particularly for an outsider entering the venture space for the first time, looking to leverage a community driven perspective, backed by their particular market insight and sector point of view.
We also explore how the fund aligns with a potential parallel diminishment of low hanging B2B and B2C SaaS opportunities in the venture space. Where even in relatively recent dynamically backed VC sectors like FinTech, previous startup winners like Monzo and Revolut are now much more quickly replicable and therefore harder to differentiate and distinctly defend going forward. Given this, why Francesco believes the next big market opportunity for early stage venture is in Deep Tech. Backing startup challenges which can only be solved by founders leveraging deep R&D and complex Innovation or by exploiting valuable algorithmic niches.
Finally we discuss how FounderTech when leveraged properly, works brilliantly when it replaces low value functions in the ecosystem, in order to then elevate and amplify high value founder insights and investor interactions. Seen in this way FounderTech might essentially represent the new APIs of the venture system, that fluidly enables really advanced startup and funding innovation through a mixture of now better amplifying access to capital, deep founder driven insight and aligned community.
 
Explore further and connect with Francesco: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fperticarari/ 
https://siliconroundabout.ventures/
https://siliconroundabout.tech/ 
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/silicon-roundabout-16832027154 
https://blog.francescoperticarari.com/ 

Nick Telson @ Exited Founder of Design My Night, Co-Founder of Horseplay Ventures and Trumpet | Moving Beyond Static Legacy Tools Whilst Still Retaining The Human Side Of Venture Capital

In this episode we talk to Nick Telson to share his experience and insight from both sides of the table - as a new startup founder in 2010 to life as an exited founder and early stage investor in 2022. We talk about how whilst the traits, values and robustness needed by a founder on a character level essentially remain the same, that FounderTech tools and platforms are increasingly changing the agility around framing and also accessing early stage venture capital.
We discuss how it must be remembered that whilst the core act of raising money by an early stage founder is still essentially a very human driven process, it is also underpinned and informed by the metrics and dynamics of an investors deal funnel. 
We explore how the limitations of the pitch deck as a largely static tool designed around product market fit, doesn’t consistently behave very well when trying to amplify and assess those human driven traits. Could we learn from other industries like recruitment, as to how they reimagined static key legacy tools like the CV, into much more dynamic human driven platforms, that better convey the candidates story in a much more compelling way?
Finally, we explore his recent return to being a startup co-founder with his sales cycle platform Trumpet, his own investment in FounderTech platform Landscape and how platforms like AngelList and Odin that enable startups to create their own SPV’s, alongside the rise of founder driven capital and Solo Capitalists might represent key FounderTech market developments that further point to an adapting and iterating new future for early stage venture.
 
Explore further and connect with Nick: 
https://horseplay.ventures/ 
https://www.sendtrumpet.com/ 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicktelson/
https://anchor.fm/pitch-deck

Series ＜＞ 3 Henry Marsden @ Founder of Creatr | Mercurius Saad @ Founder of Tutorbloc | Claire Trant @ Founder of Untap | Why A Fast No Is Often Better Than A Slow Yes From An Investor

After talking to the innovative FounderTech platforms in Series 1 of the FounderTech Decoded podcast and pioneering FounderTech investors in Series 2, we are excited in Series 3 to get to a remote round table where we’re talking to exceptional pre-seed founders!
 
A rare chance to hear and drop in on an honest conversation how these types of founders currently experience and navigate the current pre-seed venture ecosystem but also how they would like to reimagine and reframe their early stage startup journey through the lens of FounderTech.
In this Episode we cover:
> Why exceptional founders solving complex problems that they intimately know how to navigate want to be evaluated via the lens of Founder Market Fit
> The opportunity for investors to differentiate themselves by understanding and critically analysing the deep tech requirement of founders
> The persistent and commonplace frustrations with Pitch Decks as the main founder investor instrument and comms device. Particularly when recent research reveals that it is only viewed on average for 2-3 minutes 
> The merits of investors micro-slicing the phases of founder onboarding
> Why it’s wise for founders to reach out to other portfolio companies that investors have already invested in
> Finally, why an honest and clear ‘Fast No’ from an investor is often much more appreciated than a Slow Yes that is ambiguous and sucks up unnecessary time and energy
 
Many thanks to our Series partners www.preseednow.com and https://www.linkedin.com/company/pitchclublive/
Connect With The Founders:
www.creatrclub.com | https://www.linkedin.com/in/henry-marsden-9bb58519/ 
www.tutorbloc.com | https://www.linkedin.com/in/mercurius-saad/ 
https://www.untapwater.com/ | https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-trant/ 
Widen your perspective with these APIs:
https://try.docsend.com/fundraising-report 
The investor rejections for Airbnb - https://medium.com/@bchesky/7-rejections-7d894cbaa084
FounderTech tools discussed: https://pitch.com | https://www.loom.com/ | www.landscape.vc

Roei Samuel @ Founder of Connectd | Using FounderTech to Empower Diverse Founders To Demonstrate More Traction With Less Capital

In this Episode, we talk to Roei Samuel founder of Connectd about how you can use and leverage FounderTech to now further level the playing field in the venture capital sector. How if everyone in the space is initially more aligned, it will release a lot of liquidity into the early stage space, that will enable more founders to hone in on, navigate and solve valuable market problems. 
 
We explore how the dynamics of this space have often been skewed via the lens of venture firms whose principal decision makers have traditionally often come from the world of finance rather than first experiencing the early stage startup trajectory as founders themselves. This naturally biases them towards more product market fit and metric driven evaluative frameworks, that ultimately exclude pursuing any further meaningful conversation or engagement with more diverse pre-revenue founders in their funnel.
 
Building on this, we also touch on the dangers of attracting ‘devil’ investors. The shadow side of angel investing where right from the get go there is little understanding and alignment between the founder and investor, which invariably leads to problems down the line. We talk about how the rise of founder driven capital and solo capitalists could help bridge that gap and enable these informed types of investors to better evaluate early stage founders. Founders who are elevated and celebrated for using the least amount of capital in order to generate the most market authority and traction over their problem space.
 
We also discuss how when there is so much transactional complexity in the early stage space, we need FounderTech to provide the ‘utilities’ that help translate that complexity into meaningful and fluid engagement and traction. Where both founder and investor are able to better identify, evaluate and engage with each other and how Connectd as a platform is now set up and positioned to achieve and accelerate this realignment and bring more visibility to this underserved and undervalued asset class. 
Connect with Roei: 
Web: www.connectd.co 
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roei-samuel 
Widen your perspective with these APIs:
https://twitter.com/gregisenberg
https://latecheckout.substack.com/

Anthony Rose @ Founder and CEO of SeedLegals | When FounderTech Behaves Like A Utility The Rules Can Then Be Reimagined

In this conversation we talk to Anthony Rose who is founder and CEO of SeedLegals. An outsider to the legal and investment community, who ended up building one of the original FounderTech platforms that would go on to ultimately reimagine both of those sectors.
 
We talk about how when you are an outsider, you can sometimes frame and envision possibilities for a problem space in the market completely differently. In Anthony’s case he realised that the main product opportunity for SeedLegals was not - as he initially and reasonably assumed - the faster delivery of a set of legal documents. He came to realise that’s actually almost incidental and a small piece of the puzzle, not the actual puzzle itself. That the real value and opportunity lay in enabling founders to have confidence with how they initially engaged, navigated and progressed through the complexities of the startup venture space. 
 
This led to repositioning SeedLegals as ‘the fastest way to do your funding round’ and the development and introduction of their flagship investment products SeedFAST and Instant Investment. Both of which went onto inform and help frame what they define as agile investment. Both have led to more money now being raised via SeedLegals outside of a traditional funding round than within a traditional funding round.
 
We also explore how there are 4 distinct typical investor personas that inform a funding round which are not the same in intent or capacity and how founders need to calibrate their pitch accordingly to align with these personas. We highlight how all an investor can go on in the early pre-product and pre-revenue stages is teasing out the signals founders have agency over. That one of the only true signals and datapoints an investor can evaluate is the content the founder can produce and put out that creates thought leadership in their space and demonstrates authority over their market sector.
 
Ultimately we focus and hone in on how FounderTech, in order to further rewire and reimagine the rules of the founder investor landscape, has to behave like a series of utilities. Utilities that are designed to increase the fluidity and agility of that founder investor dynamic and conversation. Utilities that continue to erode and reduce the inefficient asymmetries of the early stage startup space so it is ultimately more inclusive and open for everyone.
Connect with Anthony:
Web: www.seedlegals.com 
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anrose 
Widen your perspective with these APIs:
https://mikebutcher.me/2015/07/01/the-press-release-is-dead/ 
https://sifted.eu/articles/interpreting-investor-feedback/
https://www.momtestbook.com/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Western-Philosophy-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415325056

Amrit Sami @ Associate at Symvan Capital | Why SEIS May Be A Key Foundational Piece of FounderTech

In this Episode we have a very open conversation with Amrit Sami diving into and taking the time to understand and explore the human aspects of the early stage founder investor relationship. Amrit is an Associate at Symvan Capital who is focused on identifying and evaluating pre-seed SEIS investments for the venture fund. 
We discuss why SEIS itself is a shining example of innovative FounderTech, that we in the UK should be proud of and actually celebrate more than we do. An innovation that’s helped stimulate many pre-seed investments and make this initial difficult phase of the early stage startup journey much easier over the last decade since it’s been introduced.
We also look at how SEIS capital is best suited to demonstrate a Founder Market Fit, that enables an early stage founder to navigate and traverse that difficult pre-revenue and pre-product phase. How as a founder, demonstrably showing a market authority and thought leadership driven expertise, accompanied by an ongoing deep curiosity around your sector, is hugely important to initially providing critical further data points. Subsurface cues that can help propel you from the pitch deck into a more nuanced level playing field conversation with an investor. 
An open dialogue where you can then be evaluated by more human metrics and dynamics and whether you can then take an investor on a compelling journey with you. That this is the aligned richer conversation that smart forward thinking investors might now want to use FounderTech platforms to help better enable, evaluate and engage in. To accelerate and quickly determine if they are right for you as much as you are for them! 
Connect with Amrit:
Web:  https://www.symvancapital.com/ 
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amrit-sami-4a1baaa4/ 
Widen your perspective with these APIs:
https://readnoise.com/
https://davidepstein.com/the-range/

Jake Stanley @ Investment Manager E2E Capital Ventures | Why Building A Dynamic Investor Network Up Front Is An Early Form Of FounderTech

In this conversation we talk to Jake Stanley who is Investment Manager at E2E Capital Ventures, where they focus on enabling early stage founders to target, develop and grow their own investor network before they embark on raising their pre-seed and seed round. We discuss how if seen through that light, your investor network is a crucial tool that represents a building block of FounderTech.
We discuss how raising early stage investment aligns with and might be seen as a marketing campaign - replete with strategic comms aimed at engaging aligned demographics in a targeted and methodical fashion. That taking the logic to its conclusion issuing your eventual shareholder’s certificate with the right valuable investor can be seen at and represents an optimal targeted ‘sell’. That founders who are the most backable can demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of these sales qualities up front. 
We touch on why when it’s so crucial to the ongoing growth and development of their startup so few engage someone permanently in the role of a ‘Chief Investment Officer’. Whose role and focus it is to primarily and continually refine, define and develop this investor network. How most founders don’t think like this because they fundamentally underestimate how hard it is to raise early stage funds. 
More than this, smart angel investors want to see that you have this ability to attract other investors and have an active investor network because in essence this piece of FounderTech potentially then de-risks their future investment. We talk about some very simple but open and accessible tips for identifying your 'Bronze, Silver and Gold' investors within your network including accessing and referencing publicly available cap tables of similar startups to yours, that investors have invested in to determine and pre-qualify the size, frequency and focus of that investor. 
Finally we talk about how at E2E they have built a master investor database and their own  FounderTech to help founders be able to target and craft structured campaigns over an initial 3 month period, in order to now build the most valuable investor network for them and their startup going forward.
Connect with Jake:
Web: https://www.e2ecapital.ventures 
Linkedin: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/jhstanley 
Widen your perspective with these APIs:
https://www.amazon.com/Yes-Destination-How-You-There/dp/0966398130
https://stevenbartlett.com/the-diary-of-a-ceo-podcast/

Eamonn Carey @ General Partner of Tera Ventures and The Fund | How The Rise of Founder Backed Venture Might Be Pivotal To The FounderTech Conversation

In this conversation we talk to Eamonn Carey, formerly of Techstars and more recently a General Partner of venture funds Tera Ventures and The Fund. In our discussion we focus on why ex-founder’s launching and managing funds could be a very emergent piece of the FoundTech puzzle. We touch on how he arrived at this insight after returning from the US, where the emphasis from this founder driven perspective focuses primarily on the potential of a startup rather than initially framing and assessing problems.
 
We discuss how if you’ve sat in the seat of the founder and experienced first hand the problems you face, trying to launch and fundraise for you early stage startup, this gives you a different perspective on how you not only evaluate that startup but also how you are able to better empathise with the actual stage of the journey the founder is currently on.
This stops you from automatically focusing on product driven data points that can’t be demonstrated at this stage and looking instead for other proxies, symptoms and signs that indicate that the founder is currently capable of demonstrating Founder Market Fit. Things like having sophisticated hiring plans in place or also whether the founder has evidently done Due Diligence on the investor to see if they are right for them.
Finally, we get into why language around the investor ecosystem for a founder can often be unnecessarily opaque and how with the recent successful publishing and launch of ‘The Startup Lexicon’ with Ken Valledy he is keen on now demystifying this language so it can be widely accessible and understood. How this in itself is an important foundational piece of FounderTech, because if founders and investors can’t start their dialogue fundamentally and clearly understanding each other, how is that relationship going to then align, bloom and prosper going forward?
Connect with Eamonn:
Web: https://www.tera.vc/
Web: https://thefund.vc/ 
Linkedin: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ecarey 
Widen your perspective with these APIs:
https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Lexicon-Demystifying-everyday-language-ebook/dp/B09XG34QXS 
https://www.aprildunford.com/obviously-awesome 
https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/
https://www.theconsumervc.com/ 

Gian Seehra @ Early Stage Investor and Advisor | The True Purpose For Product Market Fit In A Seed Round

In this Episode we have a really great open conversation with Gian Seehra, about his experience post his role at Octopus Ventures, advising and supporting early stage founders. Gian has been a part of over $300m in venture funding in his career and has now helped founders raise raise $80m from pre-seed to Series A since starting advising founders!
We talk about how you square the circle of pre-revenue investment by encouraging VCs not to be weighed down by legacy models and encouraging them to start to use tools that enhance the ability of the founder to be able to demonstrate their validity and worth, outside of and before the metrics of revenue kick in.
We explore how it is not expressed enough in the venture space, that the true purpose and driver of Product Market Fit within a seed round is not to prove and underscore those revenue metrics but instead demonstrate that with this capital injection into a startup, there is a path and a reasonable expectation that the founder can then get to Product Market Fit within the next 2-3 years. A small inflection and nuance but critical point of difference.
We discuss the rise of solo capitalists and how their deep expertise and sector value add could make them increasingly important to recalibrating this conversation. We also touch on how both for an investor and founder building a personal brand is going to become more and more important in order to elevate and differentiate yourself within the emerging FounderTech landscape.
Finally we talk about how Gian’s experience both as a VC and now as an independent advisor has given rise to his unique Fundraising Founder Framework. A framework that he is currently using to evaluate and advise the founders that he now talks to and engages with.
Connect with Gian
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/gianseehra
The Fundraising Founder Framework: https://www.gianseehra.me/the-fundraising-founder-framework 
Twitter: @gianseehra
Widen your perspective with these APIs:
https://www.shortform.com/summary/what-you-do-is-who-you-are-summary-ben-horowitz
https://www.ted.com/speakers/andrea_berchowitz

Neil Dillon @ Head of Equity at Swoop Funding | Why Accessing Alternative Early Stage Capital Can Seem Like Magic

In this Episode we talk to Neil Dillon, Head of Equity at Swoop Funding.
 
We discuss that when almost all founders have all heard of venture capital, how it is that very few early stage startups get access to and a chance to secure traditional venture backing? How, when even with all the mainstream coverage of the startup scene, there isn’t much information or stats on different types of pre-seed capital available to early stage founders?
One reason for this might be the perception that because most of these startups are deemed and expected to ‘fail’, that there is no value in analysing and also empowering them with diverse and agile alternatives to early stage funding.
Building on this, we talk about how proving traction to investors can take on different forms and that demonstrating a track record doesn’t have mean already having a great exit under your belt. It’s increasingly more about showing your resourcefulness in accessing and deploying the most efficient amount and valuable use of capital in the shortest amount of time. 
Finally building on this, how rapidly assessing, accessing and leveraging alternative capital instruments like Asset Finance, Invoice Finance and Startups loans via an early stage investor platform like Swoop, can seem like magic and enable you to get started, determined and informed much more by your startup’s own trajectory and timeline without giving large chunks of your time and equity away up front.
Connect with Neil and Explore Swoop Funding:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-dillon-6a2a0554 
Web: www.swoopfunding.com 
Twitter: @SwoopFunding
Widen your perspective with these APIs:
https://sifted.eu/
https://fullratchet.net/