Riding Unicorns: Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Technology

Irina Scarlat is the Chief Growth Officer at centralized crypto exchange Bitpanda. With over 12 years experience in tech marketing, which have included stints at Uber & Revolut, Irina is slowly carving out a reputation as one of the best project managers in her field. Irina sat down with James and Hector to discuss her time at both Uber and Revolut, her personal definition of growth and opinions on the current hustle culture trend. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

Mark Smukler is the founder & CEO of Flow, a location-based app that makes it easy to discover the best coworking spaces, gyms, spas and experiences around you. Flow is now available in 50 locations across London with the target being to have 300 locations signed up by the end of the year.The now exited founder of tenant & resident management platform, Bixby sat down to shed some light on the decision making process behind enrolling in a computer science course, his rather unconventional approach to raising investment during his time at Bixby and the learnings he is taking into the launch of his second business venture.Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

A year ago today, we released S1E1 of Riding Unicorns with Sir Martin Sorrell. In this first edition of Riding Unicorns bitesize, we pick out the best bits from that episode and dissect some of the advice given by Sir Martin. 

Jos White is a General Partner at VC firm Notion Capital. In 2000 Jos alongside his brother launched MessageLabs, the first company in the world to introduce anti-virus as a service, which incidentally at the time also made it the first SaaS business ever. Seven years later MessageLabs was acquired by Symantec in 2008 for $700m.The self confessed entrepreneur obsessive sat down with Riding Unicorns for what turned out to be a riveting conversation, which touched on topics such as how Jos overcame his shyness in the early years, his tips on spreading the risk of investing and his feelings behind being an exit founder. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments. 

Jonny Plein is the now exited co-founder of the coupon browser extension, Pouch. Jonny spent his postgraduate years working for EY before leaving in 2017 to work on Pouch full time. During his time Jonny and his team were able to win the MassChallenge startup accelerator award. Jonny is now the Director Of Business Development at the Global Savings Group. James and Hector sat down with Jonny to discuss the challenges in achieving product market fit, his Dragon’s Den experience and the lesson learnt from dealing with media companies. The conversation also goes on to cover Jonny’s life post Dragons Den, Pouches struggles when raising capital and what advice he has to give to fellow founders now that he has gone through the experience of exiting a company. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments. 

Hector and James discuss mega rounds, valuations, and the effect of public markets on private markets. 

George Robson is a Partner at the renowned Venture Capital firm, Sequoia. Preceding his time at Sequoia George worked first with Morgan Stanley and then with Revolut as the Senior Product Owner. During the time we had with George we were able to cover the lessons he learnt from his time at the financial technology company, what it was like working alongside its renowned founder, Nikolay Storonsky and his personal thesis when looking to invest in start-ups. George also addresses the topic of age and whether it may in fact provide him a competitive advantage. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

Darren Tenkorang is the founder and CEO of Trim-IT, one of the first app-powered mobile Barber Shops in the UK. The idea for the business came to Darren whilst he was still at University. He entered his business plan into a competition and much to his surprise he won. The subsequent £10,000 award ended up forming the base to launch the business that we see today. The South London native sat down with Riding Unicorns to discuss how his dyslexia diagnosis fuelled his desire to become an entrepreneur, the pros and cons to operating a franchise model and why you should never work with your close friends. Darren closes by opening up on his future plans for the business and what he perceives to be the challenges towards achieving continued growth. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

Jeremy King is the CEO and founder of one of the leading consumer research platforms in the world, Attest. Jeremy graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA, which led him to secure several prestigious interning positions. In 2005 Jeremy began working at McKinsey as an Engagement Manager. After ten years with the consultancy firm Jeremy had decided that he was ready to go out on his own. He created Attest with the goal of simplifying consumer data. The company now services over 110 million consumers across 45 countries. In this episode Jeremy explains how his love of science led him to pursue a career in consumer data, his unique strategy to fundraising and why data continues to be mis-used by organisations. Jeremy also helped us unpack What questions founders should ask themselves at the start of their journey, how to navigate the complexity of a product and how you evolve that product so that you start generating revenue. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

James and Hector review August's episodes, discuss the future of VC, AgriTech, Sustainability and Robotics. The guys also finally announce their dinner party guests.