Building better debt collection — I really didn’t want to invest in this company. Yes, you read that right. Probably not the opener you’d expect but (sadly) it’s true. I was introduced to Ophelos by two separate people — both of whom I trust and both had strong endorsements of the founding team — and…

Why I invested and why I need to tell you… — Today, Emma announced their $2.5m seed round led by Connect Ventures. Emma, the personal finance tracker, scores $2.5M seed led by Connect Ventures Emma, the personal finance management app that bills itself as your best "financial friend," has raised $2.5 million in…techcrunch.com I’m super pumped to be working with Edoardo and Antonio — two of the most focused, obsessed and resilient founders I’ve been lucky enough to know.

I love getting great book recommendations and I often swap reading lists with the people I meet and work with. Here’s my attempt to keep track and make sharing easier… 2019 August: World After Capital (Albert Wenger) + The Intelligent Investor (Benjamin Graham) July: Rich Dad Poor Dad (Robert Kiyosaki) +…

To add, or not to add, new investors into your round — I was helping some founders recently whilst they deliberated about which investors to bring into their funding round. They’d already decided the lead investor and were oversubscribed for the balance. No doubt this is a luxury problem but it’s not always straightforward and requires careful consideration — just like any…

Answering my interview questions — I was recently interviewed by two founders to be an investor in their company. I wrote about the experience (and benefits) of this approach here… Interviewing to be your investor I recently agreed to invest in two co-founders.medium.com The questions started by asking about relevant companies I’d invested in and the lessons I’d learned from those companies. Every startup journey is so different…

VCs are pretty tough to fire once you’ve hired them! I recently offered to invest in two co-founders. Before agreeing a deal they rightly wanted to put me through my paces. They’re both first time founders but instinctively knew the relationship we were building was going to be important. Maybe…

The most useful thing I do each week — Time and attention is our most valuable resource. The first thing I do every Monday morning is write an email to my team with a summary of what I did in the previous week. I use a set template and it takes no more than 15 mins to write. The…

Saying NO, so you can say YES! (I promise there is a valuable company building lesson at the end of this post — forgive me whilst I first outline the essentials 😉) What you DON’T do in life is more important than what you DO do. This is controversial logic…

This simple message from Stoic philosophy applies as much to Startups as it does to life in general. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… this was the book I enjoyed the most in 2018. …