Scale-up_dos_and_don'ts

From a venture investor’s diary #4: 7 scale-up dos and one don’t-do

To help young companies increase their odds of success, I continue to add to my typology of “scale-ups” mistakes to avoid: too early, wrong direction, lack of focus, and so … Continue Reading

Simplify

From a venture investor’s diary #3: a few scale-up lessons

My mind has recently been preoccupied by a number of founder-CEOs who have been doing too many things, or, more accurately put, having too many people doing too many things … Continue Reading

Leadership_ALT.jpg

From a venture investor’s diary #2: On leaders and leadership

Leadership is something that the pattern recognition machine that is me think a lot about, have a lot to say about, and don’t know when I will ever stop thinking … Continue Reading

Painkiller

Nuts and bolts #4: six more delightful things about product market fit

We are having more delightful thoughts about product market fit once again! We thought to revisit this topic because we really harbour the hope that young founding teams can cut … Continue Reading

Little_data

Thoughts from the trenches: Little data, dark data, “ramps” and related things

“Big data” and its twin, AI, is a big theme, has been so for some time (for us too), and is continuing at an accelerated pace.  But seeing big data … Continue Reading

Move_fast

Dear Founder #8: moving fast, intellectual honesty, and tapping into the “unknown unknowns”

As investors, we enjoy many of our discussions and interactions with founders – probably a good thing – and often gain much happiness (even excitement) when, after “following” founders and … Continue Reading

Going_global

Dear Founder #7: Thinking global from day 1

One of the happy things in my day-to-day life is that we are increasingly seeing founders who are thinking global from day 1.  Substantive thoughts about building a “global” company … Continue Reading

Storm_grey_w_red_fringe

Dear Founder #6: on weather-proofing again (with a note on strategies for the unexpected tornado) ….

  Dear Founder, We feel the need to speak about resilience and being weather-proof again (our part 1 – “building strong and weather-proof companies” – is here).  For those of … Continue Reading

Re-Imagine_NEW.jpg

Re-imagine: products, policies, digital transformation, machines vs humans

As we move into a new decade, it is worth asking broader questions like “what does our world need”? We’ve just sent out an investor newsletter discussing how the world … Continue Reading

Align

Dear Founder #5: Managing growth pains – 8 alignment tools to manage complexity

Anyone who has worked at large organisations will know what organizational inertia feels like.  There was once this much-read corporate tome titled “Can elephants dance?” (written by the then CEO … Continue Reading