This Much I Know - The Seedcamp Podcast

In this episode we were joined by Simon Murdoch, Founder of early stage European technology VC, Episode 1. Simon discusses his background and experience that led him to becoming an entrepreneur and later an investor at Episode1, what he brings to the companies he works with, and insights into what he looks for in founders. Simon sold his first company BookPages to Amazon in 1998 after which he reported to Jeff Bezos as VP Europe of Amazon.com. In early 2000, Simon founded and ran Chase Episode 1, an early stage European technology VC fund backed by JP Morgan Chase. The fund made over 3x return after all fees and carry. Chase Episode 1 included investments in BetFair (IPO 2010) and ScanSafe (sold to Cisco 2009). After the fund Simon became a full-time angel investor. His angel portfolio includes/included investments in Shazam, Zoopla (IPO 2014), LoveFilm (sold to Amazon 2011), Shutl (sold to eBay 2013), and Natural Motion (sold to Zynga 2014). In addition, from 2010 to 2012, Simon worked at Octopus Ventures in portfolio development. Simon has a BA in Physics from Cambridge and a PhD in Computer Science and Expert Systems.

In this episode we were joined by Dan Appelquist, Startup ambassador at The Open Data Institute. After discussing his background, Dan talks about Internet of Things, Privacy, and Open Data, giving insights in to how companies should explore data in a new way. Daniel Appelquist works with the Open Data Institute startup program and the Open Data Incubator for Europe to build bridges with the startup and entrepreneurial community across Europe. Dan is a Mobile and Web industry veteran technologist who has been bringing innovative and disruptive services to market for two decades. He was an early Internet and Web pioneer, and has been a dot-com CTO and later a dot-com refugee. He helped to launch Vodafone Live! in the UK and has been instrumental in the development of industry standards initiatives and ventures such as dotMobi, the W3C Mobile Web Initiative, and device APIs such as the W3C Geolocation browser API. He has been a community instigator, founding MobileMonday London, as well as the Mobile 2.0 conference series in San Francisco and the Over the Air hack days in the UK. He worked as Open Web Advocate for Telefónica Digital and with Mozilla to bring FirefoxOS to market and build the ecosystem around HTML5.

In this episode we were joined by Rob Fitzpatrick, Founder of Founder Centric. Rob discusses his background, how he got involved in the startup ecosystem, and gives insights on customer research and product validation. Question not to miss: “Are you solving a big enough problem for which you offer a solution that customers would pay for?" Rob is Founder of Founder Centric. He works with startup accelerators & support programs, designing & delivering educational curriculum for their founders. Prior to all that, Rob run tech startups for about 7 years, raised funding in the US and UK, is a YC alum, and built products used globally by brands like Sony and MTV. He taught at Oxford and UCL and designed startup education programs for a bunch of accelerators, as well as some outliers like the UN. He is author of The Mom Test, a handbook on how to learn from customers when everyone is lying to you.

In this episode we were joined by Gabbi Cahane, Managing Partner at Meanwhile. He discusses his background, his involvement in the creative industry, offering insights to founders on how to create, position and develop their brand starting from “the brief.” Gabbi Cahane is Managing Partner at Meanwhile. He founded his first marketing firm aged 23 after stints as a hod carrier, a fork-lift driver, a club promoter and a creative at Hill & Knowlton. His experience of creating, positioning and developing the brands of individuals and organisations has covered almost every marketing and communications discipline in pretty much every sector and spanned most geographic regions. He is also the founder of Cahane & Associates, a strategy and advisory firm that works with investors, corporates, growth companies and start-ups to identify, build, position, develop, promote, grow, acquire and sell brands.

In this episode we added a twist to our traditional podcast format, as the Seedcamp Partner Carlos Eduardo Espinal is our guest! Neil Murray founder and journalist at Tech.eu hosts our weekly podcast series, and interviews Carlos about his recently released book, the "Fundraising Field Guide”. The book aims to help founders reach out to investors, deal with rejections constructively, prepare materials and financials, understand valuations and deal terms, and manage the legal process. After discussing the motivations and the story that led to this project, Carlos gives an in depth overview on how he structured his book, highlighting the key take aways founders should keep in mind during their fundraising journey. The most highlighted quote from his book? "Analyzing what was said during your meetings and learning how to improve on your mistakes is the most crucial step in finding the right investor more quickly” Carlos Eduardo Espinal is partner at Seedcamp. Prior to Seedcamp, Carlos was an Associate at Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, an early-stage investment firm​ based​ in​ London.​ There​ he​ honed​ his​ understanding​ of​ what ​investors ​look​ for ​when ​considering​ an ​investment. Before his time as an investor, Carlos was an engineer for the Advanced Communications Technologies group of The New York Stock Exchange (SIAC). Carlos​ holds ​an ​MBA ​from​ the ​F.W.​ Olin ​Graduate ​School​ of​ Business​ at​ Babson​ College​ and​ a​ B.S.​ from​ Carnegie​ Mellon​ University. ​He​ was ​awarded ​with ​Wired ​Europe’s​100​ Most ​Influential in Digital, ​British​ Interactive ​Media ​Association’s ​Hot​ 100 ​Digital ​People,​ and ​TechCity​Insider’s ​100 ​List. Recently, Carlos published the “Fundraising Field Guide”, which aims to elucidate the secrets to raising capital from investors for early-stage, high-growth startups and therefore provide those ambitious founders with the right information to take their company to the next level. Get it now at the fundraisingfieldguide.com

In this episode we were joined by Chris Morton, Founder and CEO of Lyst. He discussed his background, the story behind Lyst, how to generate the foundations for a marketplace growth and the importance of protecting the company culture when growing your team. Chris Morton is the CEO and cofounder of Lyst (www.lyst.com), a social curation platform for online fashion. Prior to founding Lyst, Chris was an investor at Balderton Capital and Benchmark Capital, focussing on consumer internet; specifically ecommerce, music and games. Chris was also Business Development Manager of the Energy and Materials division at QinetiQ, one of Europe's leading technology R&D organisations. Chris earned his M.A. in Natural Sciences (Physics and Philosophy) from Cambridge University, 2003, and he is a DERA Scholar.

In this episode we were joined by Joel Gascoigne, Founder and CEO of Buffer. He discussed his background, the story behind Buffer, and the importance of creating a values driven culture from early days and growing the team with a culture fit in mind. Joel Gascoigne is a co-founder and CEO of Buffer, a web-based platform that helps users share social media content. Prior to Buffer, he co-created OnePage where he learned a vast amount about the realities of running a web startup, worked as a web developer at Priority Research and as a web designer and developer at joelg.co.uk. Joel obtained a degree in computer systems from the University of Warwick.

In this episode we were joined by Will Critchlow, Founder and CEO of Distilled. He discussed his background, his experience as a founder, and the fundamentals of search, social and content for a startup company. Will Critchlow founded Distilled in 2005 with Duncan Morris. Distilled provides online marketing services from offices in London, New York and Seattle, hosts the SearchLove conference series in the US and UK and produces the popular online training platform DistilledU. His academic background is mathematics with a degree from the University of Cambridge (St. John’s College) including a graduate thesis on auction theory. Previous jobs included programmer, strategy consultant in the telecoms industry and floor sweeper.

Bill is a managing partner at Connect Ventures. He has 10 years working in venture capital and startups, having worked as an investment manager at Amadeus Capital and in a variety of operational roles at several California based startups. He is on the boards of Citymapper, Knyttan, Marvel, RetentionGrid, Secretsales, and TOTEMS. In this Seedcamp Academy podcast, we talk about Bill’s history and draw on his experience of participating in many board meetings. What are their true purpose? When and how should you be setting up your ideal board? And what are some of the best practices for founders to get the most of them.

In this episode we were joined by Marc Zornes, Founder at Winnow. He discussed his background, his involvement in the food industry, and his latest experience as founder at Winnow. Marc Zornes started his career at a large wholesale grocers, and food and sustainability have been his two passions ever since. Recently he started Winnow because he saw a massive opportunity in solving the problem of food waste and he's a strong believer that technology can help us change the way we make food. Before Winnow he co-authored the Global Institute report “Resource Revolution: Meeting the World’s Energy, Materials, Food, and Water Needs.’ whilst working as a consultant at McKinsey.