69 Why venture building will become more important, controlled experiments and fixing EIS with Andy Davidson of Nova

Venture builders has only one representative amongst SEIS and EIS fund managers, but Andy Davidson of Nova strongly believes it will become more important in the future. We get him to explain how venture building works and why he's so bullish.

We start off digging into venture building, using Nova's business as an example. We talk about finding founders, founder/venture builder fit and how ideas can be developed. We discuss how doing small experiments can build evidence over time to support companies and justify further funding.

Andy also talks about how the model works at a practical level, including how services are provided, how that changes as companies grow and the challenge of when companies should fly the nest. He also highlights the benefits of the model in challenging times and how it can be used to give entrepreneurs more time to develop their product, market or business.

In our favourite questions, Andy talks about the challenges of the EIS industry and how he thinks it could be many times bigger.

Links

Contact Andy Davidson at andy@wearenova.co.uk

We Are Nova (for founders and investors) - https://www.wearenova.co.uk/

Nova Growth Capital (for investors) - https://invest.novagrowthcapital.co.uk/

Subscribe to the EIS Navigator podcast on most services here: https://the-eis-navigator.captivate.fm/listen

Suggested books:

Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Lean Startup Eric Ries

Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank

Business Model Generation by Alex Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur

Bio

Andy Davidson

CEO, Nova

Andy is a serial tech entrepreneur having co-founded more than 100 tech businesses either directly or through Nova throughout his career. Andy started as a software engineer before his entrepreneurial career where he has spent the past 12 years creating and managing growth-focused EIS & SEIS investment portfolios.