The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

20VC: The Three Fundamental Forces in Society with Ciaran O'Leary, Partner @ BlueYard

5 snips

Mar 16, 2016

Ciaran O'Leary, General Partner at BlueYard, opens up about his fascinating transition from aspiring airline pilot to venture capitalist. He discusses his fund's focus on decentralization, democratization, and data liberation. Ciaran reveals how startups can differentiate genuine early-stage VCs and advises founders to look beyond surface successes. The conversation also highlights Europe's shifting entrepreneurial landscape and the importance of hiring the right talent for scaling businesses. Expect playful insights on productivity and economic efficiency!

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ANECDOTE

Ciaran's Nonlinear VC Journey

Ciaran originally wanted to be an airline pilot but shifted paths multiple times before entering VC.
He joined Early Bird convinced of changing VC landscape, eventually opening their Berlin office.

INSIGHT

Blue Yard's Thesis-Driven Focus

Blue Yard is a small, thesis-driven firm focused on decentralization, democratization, and data liberation.
It aims to stay agile, partner-driven, and aligned closely with entrepreneurs.

INSIGHT

Europe's Tech Evolution

Europe's entrepreneurial ecosystem is maturing with more technically-driven founders.
New companies tend toward enterprise, engineering depth, and global ambitions versus consumer apps of earlier waves.

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Ciaran O'Leary is the General Partner at one of Europe's newest funds, BlueYard. A $120m fund located at the early stage, centring around 3 key areas: The decentralisation of markets, the democratisation of capabilities, and the liberation of data. Prior to BlueYard, Ciaran was a Partner at Earlybird with investments in the likes of Peak Games (emerging markets social gaming), 6Wunderkinder (productivity apps), Moped (private messaging), B2X Care Solutions (outsourcing platform), madvertise (mobile targeting network) and simfy (digital music distribution company). Before Earlybird, Ciarán co-founded a startup and gathered operational experience at others.

We would like to say a special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data used in the show today and you can check out Mattermark Search here!

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Ciaran made his way into startups and the investing industry?

2.) What is the thesis with BlueYard? What is the preferred cheque size, sector and geography?

3.) With the mass of VCs emerging, how can startups at the early stage determine whether a VC really is early stage? Are there any defining characteristics?

4.) For startup founders out there who always hear from fellow founders that everything is going gangbusters, how should they react to that? How can you determine whether a startup really is doing well?

5.) Say the startup really is going well and they are looking to scale and hire, we always hear we need a world beating, world class X? How can they communicate that hire better to their current team and their board? What should the CEO or Head of Talent be focusing on when viewing talent? Is there anything they should look out for in particular?

6.) Now when a startup really scales, board meetings become a big part of a CEO’s life. So how can CEO’s turn useless board meetings into very useful value added meetings? How can they optimize that time? What should they look for? What should they ask for?

Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:

Ciaran's Fave Book: The Road

Ciaran's Fave Blog: The Economist Espresso

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Ciaran on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!