AwakenAngels reposted this
Innovation expert advisor | Serial tech entrepreneur & EIR | Angel investor & NED | MC, blogger and speaker | Planting a thousand flowers (Group photo credit: Conor Healy of Picture It)
I love this on “second bounce” & #startups from Irish serial entrepreneur John Stapleton. That phrase “until you’ve exited your startup, you’ve actually achieved very little” is so harsh … but it contains a lot of truth. As a first time #founder there is just a mountain of stuff you don’t know about that’s surely coming down the pipe towards you, faster & faster as you start getting traction & making early progress & attracting a bit of attention from external parties & investors. This is a time heavily populated with peril as mistakes can be made at every turn in the road. Especially when you bring in your first round of investment. Mistakes that at some point in the future might cost you dear in terms of money, standing, reputation & even friendship. 20 years ago I was CFO in a #startup also backed by Apax Ventures. The guys were very vocal about our business & where we should go next, but they talked in riddles & we had no idea what they meant half the time, parachuting into Belfast for a few hours from London or their yachts on the Med or from god only knows where. The challenge is this - just about everyone can see the first bounce of the ball. But to anticipate where the second’s going, you need a really deep understanding of not only the market but also clients and their needs, the latest trends, an appreciation of where your venture is in the cycle - for both your sector and for the economy as a whole, and oh so much more. It’s one of the fundamental reasons why we set up AwakenHub & AwakenAngels - to bring the decades of experience the four of us have to benefit women founders in Ireland who truly have a global mindset from Day 1. Clare McGee Denise McQuaid & Sinead Crowley also each have 20+ years of solid & relevant business experience behind them & we all have networks to die for - so if we’re not sure where that ball might bounce next, you can bet your bottom dollar that we know someone who does. Be careful who you take advice from. You can join our community via this link https://lnkd.in/g3frV6FF #community #angelinvestment #seedstage #womenfounders #advice #experience #RonaldCohen #secondbounce
“It’s the second bounce of the ball that counts”* No, this isn’t about Euro ‘24, rather, it’s about politics… and there are business parallels. Kier Starmer has won a landslide election (the first bounce), but he now has his work cut out (the second bounce): Sue Gray’s Shit List: Thames Water £15.6 Bn in debt/ Urgent public sector pay negotiations/Public services in disarray (prisons/ NHS/ universities); Local Councils bankrupt… There are parallels with early-stage business. Achieving a key milestone is viewed as a breakthrough. And it probably is. But the road ahead is paved with even more critical and difficult key milestones. It might seem a lot different at the time (or even unfair), but until you’ve exited your start-up, you’ve actually achieved very little. *The quote above belongs to Sir Ronald Cohen. For a while he used to attend board meetings at New Covent Garden Soup Co – bizarre at the time! Ronald was then Chairman of Apax, who were a key early VC investor in NCGSC (He wasn’t a Sir back then.) Wise words – even when we probably didn’t really understand what he meant at the time. www.johnstapleton.eu
Start-Up Mentor, Coach and Advisor. Helping you build your product, team and company through The Slowey Start-Up Process Programme while getting you investor ready. Multiple SAAS and Catering Exits.
3moHi female founders and allies, give this post a read by Mary McKenna. Check out Awakenhub. Sometimes it's not about what you know but who you know. What a great network.