Rikke Rosenlund - Building a Pawfect Marketplace!

Rikke and I decided not to go anywhere for our interview but instead stay in her astroturfed dog friendly office with Lady (see below)! Rikke is the Founder and CEO of BorrowMyDoggy and is three years in to her entrepreneurial whirlwind journey. BorrowMyDoggy is a peer to peer marketplace for dog owners and 'borrowers' - hooking up the dog deprived with owners who need a break from the pawprints for walkies, playdays, sleepovers and happy holidays! A doggy lover who could never own one as a child because of her mother's allergy, Rikke came up with idea when she was looking after a friend's Labrador. In the interview we talk about the inspiration and evolution of the company to date, raising finance and the struggles building a marketplace. 

Meet Rikke

Current Job CEO and Founder of BorrowMyDoggy

Education Double bachelor in Business and Economics from The American University of Paris. MBA, INSEAD.

Go to meeting spot There’s a little Italian Cafe around the corner from here that I love, so I spent a lot of time having meetings there.

Favourite book/podcast There is a great Ted Talk by Simon Sinek about how great leaders inspire and it was the foundation for BorrowMyDoggy.

Necessary extravagance Chai lattes

Favourite productivity tool/app Evernote

How do you switch off Spending time with friends, family or going for a long walk. 

Female inspiration in business Reshma Sohoni

Hottest UK tech company (apart from BorrowMyDoggy!) Property Partner

The Journey

Tell us about BorrowMyDoggy - can you briefly explain the concept and the motivation behind founding it? 

BorrowMyDoggy is an online platform connecting dog owners to local dog lovers (borrowers) to help them take care of their pooch! It allows the borrowers to help take care of the dogs when the owners are busy, this can be for a walk, a weekend or a whole holiday. Our members are everyone from the retired, families with kids, students etc...we have all demographics in our database! 

Our mission is to leave ‘Pawprints of Happiness’ on the lives of dogs and humans 

I borrowed a very cute brown Labrador called Aston over three and a half years ago and I spent all day in the parks with her and I remember thinking why are people spending so much money on dog walkers or kennels or leaving their dogs alone when I would love to take care of the dog for free - everyone could benefit. This was the inspiration for BorrowMyDoggy - I shared the idea with my friend who said it was a good concept and that I should pitch it at the Lean Startup Machine. 

What is Lean Startup Machine and can you share your experience being part of it? 

Lean Startup Machine is an intensive three-day workshop which teaches entrepreneurs and innovators how to build disruptive products. The workshop kicks off with a series of product pitches that help attendees organise into teams. I pitched BorrowMyDoggy and it received the most votes from the 60 attendees! So I had a lot of people wanting to be on my team for the duration of the weekend. I ended up putting together a team bursting with different skills. Each team then develops its problem hypothesis, solution hypothesis and a series of assumptions which are core to the success of the business. We set about creating a minimum viable product with the goal of going to speak with real customers to obtain validation for the idea. The process promotes a problem-centric approach to business ideation. By continuously validating and invalidating assumptions, teams are forced to pivot their solution (and even problem) toward a true customer pain; rather than creating a solution and after-the-fact seeking customers with a problem.

We built a basic landing page and we also put up posters in various different places in London. Within three days 85 people had signed up! One of the questions we asked these potential customers was their reason for signing up and the responses were overwhelming - some people literally wrote paragraphs! There was an old man in Cornwall who had just had an operation and said how lovely it would be if he could make some new friends with people who could come take his dog for walks, there were families wanting to test a dog with their kids and even an Australian student who missed their dog from home. After hearing these we realised that there was a genuine demand here and not just from professionals in London - they gave me the impetus to continue with BorrowMyDoggy after Lean Startup Machine ended. 

What is the best piece of business advice you have been given? 

Create something that solves a problem, not just for you personally, go out and validate that a lot of other people face the same problem. 

BorrowMyDoggy

What has been the evolution to date of BorrowMyDoggy and what is the most exciting thing you are currently working on? 

It all seems to have gone by extraordinarily fast! Right after we set up the landing page a friend tweeted about us and it led to a small article in Emerald Street...within 24 hours we had a 1000 sign ups and it kind of snowballed from there! We did our first round of funding which allowed us to build the initial automated matching system instead of me manually filtering through everyone trying to figure out who lived in what postcode - it took about 55 emails to get one match! We have also launched our mobile app and have been growing our community, working with partners and expanding the team. 

What were the largest obstacles you faced when launching BorrowMyDoggy and what is the biggest challenge today? 

To begin with our biggest challenge was manual matching. We didn't have an automated system and relied on me going through and matching the owners and borrowers (not very scalable!). Other challenges have been raising capital partially because what we are doing is very different to the existing solutions. We also faced obstacles educating our two-sided marketplace about dog safety. Today, our biggest challenge is hiring quality tech talent to help us scale faster. 

What are the future ambitions for the Company? 

Do more of the same in more places. There are somewhere between 9-10 million dogs in the UK and Ireland so we are really just touching such a small % of that right now. We will also continue to evolve and improve our product - one of the exciting things we are currently working on is making our messaging platform a lot more seamless and better to use. 

What advice do you have for others building a two sided marketplace? 

I recently read a Forbes article talking about the difficulty of building two sided marketplaces and the chicken-and-egg problem of supply and demand. For example, it took Wattpad, a community for readers and writers, three years to get to 300,000 uploads; then it only took another three years to reach 10 million! 

It is about getting that local liquidity in the various different areas. I think it takes a lot of focus and perseverance because marketplaces do just take longer. My advice is to speak to other entrepreneurs steeped in marketplaces and solicit their input. 

Women in Tech

What advice do you have for women looking to start their own business and raise capital? 

Find something that you are genuinely incredibly passionate about and know that there is a problem for you to solve. The reason this is so important is that when the going gets really tough it will keep you going! It will also help when you fundraise. I was on a panel recently and a women said that she had had 98 rejections so far from investors...Also make sure that you are really ready to speak with investors before going out and spending a lot of time fundraising.

What business support networks do you value? 

1. ICE - I hugely respect and appreciate all of their advice and help along the way 
2. Seedcamp family - they are amazing with regards to mentoring, opening up investor networks and just so many learnings! 

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Vanessa Gstettenbauer - Investing in our Future Founders!

Over an early breakfast at The Wolseley I was dazzled by the energy, passion and vision of Vanessa! We met at an investor networking drinks where we were able to discuss a little about women in VC and the future of investment but I was excited to hear her full account! Vanessa is a senior investment manager at Founders Factory (more on that later) and has been trailblazing the investment eco-system ever since leaving her graduate investment banking job. She is passionate about education and health and the opportunity for technology to have an impact in these arenas. Enjoy her honest and fascinating reflections! 

Meet Vanessa

Current Job Senior Investment Manager at Founders Factory 

First Job Research analyst at Simon-Kucher & Partners (strategy consulting) throughout my three years at University. I worked with them c10-15 hours/week doing everything from excel jobs to pricing models. 

Go to meeting spot It was Campus London but now my office is West so I have been frequenting the Blanche Eatery

Favourite book Hooked by Nir Eyal 

Necessary extravagance Barrecore classes! 

Favourite productivity tool WorkFlowy 

Favourite place in London Archer Street - I grew up doing lots of Musical Theatre, especially at University, and absolutely love the atmosphere in there. Best place to have a few drinks and get into a great mood!

Female inspiration in business Martha Lane Fox 

Top networking tip It's not about 'working the room' and artificially instigating as many conversations as possible. It is to start conversations until you find someone you genuinely click with and actually enjoy talking to. That will form a much deeper bond and the chance of you staying in touch is infinitely higher.

Most interesting tech startup in London right now The Skills Academy 

The Journey

How and why did you enter the investment paradigm? 

I studied chemistry and grew up in DaimlerChrysler city in Germany so I imagined going into business meets tech/engineering. But upon moving to the UK I was hit hard by the bank propaganda, and was led to believe that I would learn the most starting my career in banking. After only 6 months I realised I was unstimulated and bored.

I wasn't targeting to get into VC but I happened to come across a job spec and everything it said I wanted to do! There were so many synergies between my passions/background and Holtzbrinck Digital as they focus on edtech and science software, I think this is ultimately why I got the job over the third year analysts they were initially seeking. They were very patient and so I finished a year at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and I joined them in summer 2014. I was an analyst for 6 months before being promoted to investment manager of the education fund - an incredible baptism of fire. I then made the leap to Founders Factory upon the deal between Holtzbrinck and FF.  

What is your motivation? 

My ethos is that tech can do so much good for the world, I feel we have only begun to scratch the surface of tech's potential to revolutionise. Currently there is still a bit of a money race chasing after valuations and not enough money and focus is being directed at the big problems facing society (Magic Leap is valued at $4.5bn with no product! If there is this much attention and investment into a VR game imagine the advances we could make if more was aimed at addressing health/refugees/education). I love the Founders Pledge for this reason - it allows entrepreneurs to make a difference and commit to donate 2% of their personal proceeds to a social cause of their choice following an exit. 

What is the most exciting thing you are working on right now? 

At Founders Factory we also build our own startups in the incubation side of the business. The concept is to launch a new company every 6 months in each of the identified sectors. There will be 6 sectors and we will work alongside a relevant corporate for each to help us figure out the trends and pain points. FF have partnered with Holtzbrinck for education and The Guardian for media and we will announce the partners for fintech/beauty/telecoms and retail imminently! 

So it was very exciting for me to chair the latest edtech ideation workshop with Holtzbrinck! We had 5 of the most knowledgeable edtech sector experts in the room resulting in a huge outpouring of ideas. We prioritised and begun doing more research into market sizes and where we might have the best advantage in the Factory to build upon. 

What has been your biggest challenge? 

Being a woman you are naturally quite emotional and I do find it hard to work with people who are seemingly incredibly confident all the time. I am a very secure person too but also prone to doubt and question if I have done the right thing. This is particularly challenging in VC where no one is checking your work. However, after a year and a half I have more perspective and I am more forgiving on myself if I do make mistakes - we are just human after all! 

What are your future ambitions? 

I want to start my own company eventually, likely in edtech or healthtech! I have numerous unfinished ideas: reskilling individuals whose jobs won't exist in the future or addressing fair salaries for women. In the long term however, I am passionate about being a smart money investor as I love the variety it offers. 

Founders Factory

Tell us about Founders Factory and your role there

We're a new model in business creation with extraordinary ambition and breadth. Together with our blue chip corporate partners, we build and scale early stage technology companies across multiple sectors.  We invest capital and resources in building the next generation of breakout technology businesses at an unprecedented scale. We will build and scale 200 early stage technology companies across multiple sectors in the next five years. We are born out of the Founders Forum; the top network of entrepreneurs and business leaders, giving us unparalleled access to corporate partners, audiences, and access to capital. 

I reside in the corporate development team as well as doing business development - so I am involved in both the acceleration and incubation parts of Founders Factory - it is a wonderfully varied role! I am heavily engaged operationally with our companies - I help them set goals, track performance, help with their pitches, business plans and partnerships right through to the fundraising. I also develop close relationships with the VC eco-system to ascertain the best mutual fit for our startups. We try to be very bespoke in this regard and perfect the matching of startups and VCs always aiming for more intimate connections rather than large-scale reach outs. 

Do you have an investment thesis? 

Because of our world class team of experienced operators and global network, we have the ability to attract the best ideas and talent. It’s more of a mutual attraction. We’re looking for ideas that will change industries using technology and entrepreneurs behind those ideas that are attracted to our unique proposition. We are getting involved with very early stage companies, hence there aren't always huge number sets to base decisions on - that actually makes it more interesting I believe. It's about the team, their ambition and in the end the trust you have in them delivering on their promises.

What technology trends excite you right now?

Definitely virtual reality! For example, Viorama a Berlin based VR startup recently launched Splash - A VR video sharing platform that aims to make capturing and publishing 360 videos easy - all from your smartphone without any VR hardware. Such innovation taking place! 

Women in Tech

What advice do you have for women looking to start their own business or enter the investing landscape? 

If you have an idea there are some incredible incubators and accelerators to help you get it off the ground. Founders Factory are also in the process of launching a different kind of program called Founders of the Future. Selected members of the Founders of the Future community will enjoy quarterly events, access to a group of exceptional peers and Founders Forum members, funding and career advice, and key guidance towards the challenge to work on making a positive impact on the world. Lastly there is a great emphasis on women in tech so leverage that. Go to lots of meetings and convince as many people as possible of your vision - you never know what could come out of it. 

We are increasingly moving to a new working order yet so many of the brightest graduates continue to go and work for a big bank or consultancy. What would you say to them to cut through that rhetoric and consider joining a startup? 

You almost get manipulated into thinking that banking and consultancy are the only routes to learning a skill set - but it is a complete farce! I have learnt infinitely more after a year in VC and 6 months in the Factory with more responsibility than my equivalents in the banks. In banking you are close to your associate who is close to their VP etc etc - everybody checks your work so you have no accountability. Counter to this, when you are creating what is going to drive the deal that will make you learn anything. Furthermore, the sleep deprivation makes you more dumbed down - I was slower and not excited about anything. Yes startups fail and yes the banks and consultancies pay more initially, but the difference in earning potential 10 years later is huge and it is a lot more enjoyable to be intellectually stimulated on a daily basis, working with future technologies and incredibly passionate entrepreneurs. 

What business support networks do you value?

I like to be friends with my team and get to know them beyond colleagues - it makes me want to do my job every day! I have also kept a lot of my previous bosses as mentors. I also co-founded the London VC Circle which organises networking events based primarily around activities. We have done a polo and a golf day and have an upcoming clay pigeon shooting event. These kind of events really facilitate a bond and help you build a network in the industry - you need that emotional connection. 

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Elena Sinel - Ed Tech Social Entrepreneur!

Over coffee and cake at Iris and June Elena helps you realise that making a difference is perhaps the most important thing we can do, and she lives by this ethos. She is the founder and CEO of Acorn Aspirations - a social entrepreneur making a huge contribution to young people. Through her hackathons she is able to inspire, engage and introduce technology to 11-18 years olds, facilitating relationships with experienced industry mentors. To mark International Women's Day Acorn Aspirations is organising a TEDx-style event at Google Campus on 8th March, where female founders, entrepreneurs and software engineers will be sharing their journeys and stories with the mission to inspire the next generation of female tech entrepreneurs. This will be followed by a 2-day hackathon on 12-13th March, where girls will be creating their own digital businesses. Hope to see you there! 

Meet Elena

Current Job Founder/CEO, Acorn Aspirations.

First Job Aged 18, Interpreter, British Council, Aral Sea – my introduction to poverty and systemic human rights abuse.

Education MA Conflict, Security and Development, King’s College London.

Languages spoken Russian (native), English, French, Macedonia, Arabic (just because I didn’t think it made sense to learn Amharic in Ethiopia!)

Favourite book The Gadfly by Ethel Voynich had a profound effect on me as I was growing up and nurtured that revolutionary and constantly-challenging-the-status-quo spirit in me.

Necessary Extravagance Tango! I am obsessed with Tango music and dancing – my secret indulgence! 

Favourite productivity tool Gruffalo calendar, of course – just waiting for an app version!

Female inspiration in business My daughter says Megan Smith is "cool". For me it has to be the trio: Megan Smith, Sherry Coutu (because she is doing an amazing job at inspiring children into the world of entrepreneurship with founders4schools) and Martha Lane Fox. 

Top networking tip As a single mum with 2 kids I am very selective about events I go to. I research well and attend events of strategic importance only, then connect and follow up with people immediately.   

 

The Journey 

Can you tell us about your background prior to founding Acorn Aspirations?

Prior to founding Acorn Aspirations I spent about 10 years travelling, volunteering, living and working in some of the most deprived and corrupt places in the world: Uzbekistan (where I originally come from), the Balkans, Ethiopia and Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, hoping I would make a difference in the lives of ordinary people, until I had a wake up call and realised the international system was deliberately created and structured in ways that perpetuated conflict, deprivation and underdevelopment. I witnessed corruption at the levels of the UN, World Bank and International Politics, foreign aid being thrown at dictatorships due to vested geopolitical interest, innocent people abused just because they dared to question the status quo and people suffering at the hands of their own governments.  

What were your biggest takeaways from those experiences? 

My biggest takeaway was the realisation that "development" has to come from people themselves and not us, consultants trying to impose our own solutions to the problems we do not fully comprehend. I would like to think I have helped some people find their way out of poverty: when their lives no longer mattered to the governments (like disadvantaged women in the Aral Sea), or when I co-founded a Business Without Borders network in the Balkans and watched young people across 8 countries communicate through trade and entrepreneurship, whilst their respective governments were having political “disagreements”, or helped inspire and empower local craftsmen in Ethiopia and Bangladesh.

At the same time, my experiences have informed my current work and the social mission I am furthering: provide teenagers and those at risk of becoming NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) with opportunities to embrace technology and consider entrepreneurship as a viable career choice. I am placing teenagers themselves at the very core of their own development by offering them the tools that could accelerate their growth as individuals and professionally and an opportunity to transform their own lives – there is nothing as rewarding as knowing that you have made a real difference in people’s lives.

Tell us about the inspiration behind Acorn Aspirations

Acorn Aspirations was born at a time when I realised I could no longer "save the world", something I idealistically dreamed about from a very early age (dosed up on a lot of Russian classical literature, I suppose), and that I should instead focus on something more tangible and something that will make a real difference to people's lives in the long-term. I came to settle in the UK, broke away from an abusive relationship and decided to it was time to build my very own something, something I would be very proud of and something that will make my children proud as they grow up.

Education was a perfect challenge: it has not changed in more than 60 years, it no longer reflects the current job market and it simply is not equipping school leavers with skills that really matter in this ever so digital and technology oriented world we live in. At the same time, entrepreneurship was something I have been passionate about since age 18 working in the Aral Sea when I witnessed a real transformation in women who lost everything, but who were empowered to create change for themselves and their families through entrepreneurship. 

Fusing technology, entrepreneurship and education was just an obvious choice when I was deciding about what to do next and this is where Acorn Aspirations was born. 

What is the mission of Acorn Aspirations? 

Acorn Aspirations is pioneering a new approach that puts teenagers aged 16-18 in a position where they are empowered to build their own future. We do this through hackathon/start-up weekends where teenagers collaborate with software engineers, designers and entrepreneurs to build digital businesses of their own based on the problems they want to solve or passions they have. By the end of the weekend they will have learned how to code, have some basic understanding of branding, digital marketing, user experience, and business models, as well as learnt soft skills such as teamwork and communications skills.

Following the hackathon, teenagers will continuously be mentored by software engineers and business mentors, attend free workshops and events in coding, IP law, marketing, branding and network with entrepreneurs and peers embarking on the same journey. At the same time, we are building a digital platform that will encourage teenagers from across London, as well as outside of London to showcase projects they work on, seek expert support online and fundraise to take their businesses to the next level. Powering this with online courses and offering work experience incentives would make this one-stop shop for teenagers that are looking for something other than a traditional route to university or employment.

What is the single best piece of business advice that helped shape who you are as an entrepreneur today?

It would not be business advice, but a book (How the Steel was Tempered) I read in that highly impressionable age of 13 that somehow left an imprint in my mind and defined what I do in life and in business: 

Man's dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world…

To me, this cause is very simple: make a difference in people’s lives.

Acorn Aspirations

Tell us everything about your upcoming event #ACORNHACKGIRLS !! 

#ACORNHACKGIRLS is very much a passion project, but could well open a very special chapter in the core business of Acorn Aspirations, although I have never intended to have a specific gender-focused business agenda. A number of things have happened that made me want to do something in this space: In January in a conversation with my daughter's teacher with regard advice on GCSE subject selection, she mentioned the usual core subjects. I asked about Computer Science, which she simply brushed off with,  "It is not what the government considers as important or necessary, besides, she is a girl".

A few weeks later, I was invited to a private viewing of "Debugging the Gender Gap" which highlighted the shockingly low numbers of women in tech jobs, the gender pay gap and the stereotypes about what girls should or should not study. I will never forget my daughter's reaction after the film: "Mum, I remember this woman from the film, we met her in Parliament [Megan Smith, CTO of USA] you never told me she was THAT cool!" I wondered: "If a 40 min film had such an impact on Victoria, what would happen if ..." And this is how #acornhackgirls was born: a 2 part event where girls first hear inspiring stories from 20 powerful female founders, CTOs and software engineers, followed by a hackathon/start-up style weekend where the same girls get a chance to transform their lives and potentially, lives of many people around them.

What were the highlights of your previous hackathon event - #MakeItHappen? 

#MakeItHappen was an incredibly proud moment of my life: I did not imagine I would be able to bring together entrepreneurs, designers and developers with the sole purpose: to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs. It was amazing to watch the transformation of our young participants and watch them grow within just 2 days, embracing the challenge and confidently pitching ideas they truly believed in in front of some very accomplished entrepreneurs and CEOs: Mike Butcher (Editor-in-Large, TechCrunch), Neeta Patel (CEO, New Entrepreneurs Foundation), Stewart Niblock (CEO, Autotorq), Will King (CEO, King of Shaves), Nancy Fechnay (Flight.vc; Interim Director, Techstars) and Amali de Alwis (CEO CodeFirst:Girls). I wanted to create something big and for people to notice how incredibly important entrepreneurship was and how, if injected from an early age, it could transform lives.

What is the vision for Acorn Aspirations? 

The vision is very much global - Acorn Aspirations has big plans and our vision is to connect young people from across the world to opportunities that would accelerate young people’s potential and turn them into change-makers and confident leaders.

Women in Tech

Which business networks do you value? 

I am incredibly proud of being part of women-in-tech networks such as Ada’s List, Girls In Tech and Women Who Code and a very active pioneer of women’s and young girls’ right to be part of global technological revolution, not only as consumers but as active creators. 

How do you handle being a working mum - any advice for others? 

Embrace it! Children transform us in ways we never expect them to – life is never the same again, and yet life is unimaginable without them. It is a challenge, but a challenge I enjoy: I had my daughter Victoria when I was very young, she travelled since birth and has always been part of everything I have ever created. I try to involve her in my work, I discuss projects with her and make her and her friends part of all events and hackathons I organise. My son is only 2.5 and an absolute joy of a little boy – he has been coming with me into lecture halls since only a few weeks old! 

How can we do better to attract and retain women in technology? 

Immersing girls into the word of technology and entrepreneurship needs to start when girls are still in primary schools. Coding should be embraced and become compulsory, just as English or Maths is, because girls should understand how technology transforms the world around them and become creators rather than consumers – there is no reason why such entrepreneurial spirit cannot be injected from an early age as children by nature are incredibly creative. 

What you cannot see you cannot be - so make female software engineers and female CEOs visible, precisely what we will be doing during our AcornHack:Girls events; nurture intra-generational mentoring relationships, create and reinforce role models and make work flexible, particularly when family becomes an important consideration.  

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Debbie Wosskow - Our Sharing Economy Queen!

I was introduced to Debbie by Izzy Fox and we met over breakfast at Little House in Mayfair. I am simply in awe of her: she is the founder and CEO of Love Home Swap, author of the independent report for the UK government on the Sharing Economy, founding Chair of Sharing Economy UK, one of the Evening Standard's 1000 most influential people of 2015, an angel investor with a passion to invest in and help women, trustee and chair of Hampstead Theatre AND she also managed to go to the gym before our breakfast! Settle in as we talk through her journey, her ambitions and what the future of the sharing economy might look like for the UK.

The sharing economy involves using internet technologies to connect distributed groups of people and organisations to make better use of goods, skills, services, capital and spaces, sharing access and so reducing the need for ownership.

Meet Debbie

Current Job CEO of Love Home Swap; Chair of Sharing Economy UK (the newly formed trade association for sharing economy businesses); angel investor and I also sit on Sajid Javid's productivity task force.  

Education Philosophy and Theology at New College, Oxford University.

Go to meeting spot Little House Mayfair. I pretty much split my time between Soho House establishments and Firmdale Hotels.

Favourite book/blog/podcast I walk quite a lot so I listen to a lot of TED. As an arts graduate I am a big literature fan and I try to work my way through the Booker list each year. 

Necessary extravagance Expensive gym kit and shoes. 

Favourite productivity tool/app myfitnesspal 

How do you switch off Reading and theatre (I try to go to the latter once a week - going to see Rabbit Hole tonight). I also like to sweat every day; I enjoy a class or a trainer so I have one hour of my day where someone else tells me what to do!

Female inspiration in business I am from a very entrepreneurial family where none of us have a 'normal job', everyone runs a business, so the notion of going into an office was implausible. Seeing my mum and grandma do this and be mothers meant I never had a sense of women not being able to do things. Aside from family, Anita Roddick and Debbie Moore. 

Top networking tip Turn up. Be confident. Smile. 

80% of success is showing up - Woody Allen 

Hottest UK tech company (apart from Love Home Swap!) VINAYA

The Journey

Tell us about Love Home Swap, its evolution to date and the most exciting thing you are currently working on! 

The idea is 5 years old and has quite a personal origin. I was travelling back from a terrible holiday with my two small children (where we stayed in a cramped hotel room) and I watched The Holiday (inspiration can come in many forms)! I wondered does this even exist and if it does that is exactly what I wish I'd had. I don't let things drop so the idea was born and I founded Love Home Swap. I dissuaded my brother from doing an MBA and he joined me at the beginning of the journey.

We raised our first round from MMC Ventures in 2011. Now we have raised capital in the UK and US and taken strategic investment a year ago from Wyndham Worldwide. When I was raising 5 years ago the sharing economy notion was in its infancy and I got told repeatedly that no one will stay in someone else's home! Fast forward to the present and my mum stayed in an Airbnb last summer and Beyonce posts an Instagram of the one she stayed for the Super Bowl! We are benefiting from that after glow effect. 

For us what is super interesting is that we are a totally different audience - older, families etc. and the crux is about the swap. Airbnb is about the yield whereas Love Home Swap is an emotional decision. You put yourself in someone else's skin and them in yours. 

How does the business model differ to Airbnb? 

The average homeswapper is 14 years older than those using Airbnb. It is about the families, empty nesters and second home owners. For example, I am doing a homeswap this weekend to the Cotswolds - they have two kids, we have two kids. With Love Home Swap you are a member of the club and using points means you don't have to pay - you are still renting an Airbnb at the end of the day. 

What are your future ambitions? 

When we first launched we had 250 homes...now we have over 150,000! People swap for two reasons: flirting with where to go or, they need to go Sienna for a wedding. We need to be able to service both types of demand meaning bigger is better! We have ambitious plans to scale up the business and seed more homes in places around the world where people want to go. 

Can you share some of your other ventures to date, and the skills from those tenures you appreciate most since founding and scaling Love Home Swap? 

I have worked for myself since I was 25 and you learn so much about running a business from just running one (which dovetails into a bigger point around how we educate entrepreneurs and people in general); I didn't know how to read a P&L, but I learnt quickly! I have come to learn enormous amounts about people too. If you're the boss when you are very young you have to work out how to motivate, incentivise and manage individuals a lot older than you. But if I am good at anything it is really knowing what needs to get done that will drive value, and focusing and executing on that. 

What makes successful co-founding teams? 

Pick someone different to you with complementary skills. It is also more binding than a marriage - talking from a perspective of someone with both business partners and ex husbands. Companies are not quick, Mantra, my first business, took 8 years from start to exit and Love Home Swap is in year 5. These are huge commitments and I am skeptical when I meet teams that say they met at a networking event two months ago. Anyone can be good together in the good stuff, it is the endurance and grit together in the bad times that is important. 

The Sharing Economy & Investment

You authored the independent report for the UK government on the Sharing Economy in 2014 (Unlocking the sharing economy) - can you share some of the key highlights? 

It is about making the UK the home of the sharing economy. We have the opportunity to be really good - we have a benign regulatory environment and a government that wants to keep it that way. The report was about seising this moment and making the UK even better and truly startup friendly to sharing economy businesses. I have two main focuses afterwards: 

1. Productivity - In a global league table the UK lags significantly. This is one of Sajid Javid's key focus - solving the productivity problem. My argument is that the current measure, GDP, does not capture sharing economy activity. 
2. Status of workers on platforms - We have an opportunity to do things differently here. We are not the US where there is no welfare state and it is the role of the employer to provide those benefits; nor are we France where the employees rule. We need to get clear on this and carve out a different role for platforms. 

We have now formed the trade association and have catapulted from 19 to 50 members! 

You are the founding Chair of Sharing Economy UK (SEUK) - what are the goals of this relatively nascent trade body? 

Sharing Economy UK champions the UK’s sharing economy industry. We are a nationwide trade body representing the country’s most influential sharing economy businesses, along with game-changing start-ups, across a spectrum of sectors. We represent their interests, raise the profile of the sharing economy in the press and we are a resource for our members. If you are a small sharing economy startup and you are part of the same organisation as Airbnb, TaskRabbit and BlaBlaCar you benefit from those connections. We host events and provide mentoring and I just returned from a trip with 16 entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley visiting Uber, Instacart etc! Finally we are better together for conversations such as insurance policies and have better group buying power. 

Have you made any personal investments? What are you excited by as an angel investor? 

It is always about people and I try to back women (not exclusively) however, the last three investments I made were. It is something that I believe in - paying it forward - and given capital begets more capital and the statistics for women raising finance is still so terrible, if you have the means and expertise to help you should send the elevator back down, we have a responsibility! So I assess the people, I ask can I help with the idea technically, can I unlock my network in a way that would make a huge difference or is it just something that blows me away.

Women in Tech

What advice do you have for women looking to start their own business? 

1. Get up early 
2. Sweat every day 
3. Have grit 
4. Develop a thicker skin 

What business support networks do you value? 

I have an incredible network of strong female founders who are my friends: Sarah Wood, Alex Depledge, Tamara Lohan, Emma Sinclair and Nancy Cruickshank! Most of us have children and I have regular sessions with them as they provide me with invaluable support. 

What is your opinion on the women in tech conversation? How can we do better to attract and retain more women? 

1. There are some structural solves on this one: you are most likely to start a business in your 30s and you are most likely to have kids in your 30s. You will pay to go to work as the cost of childcare will almost certainly outweigh your earnings as an entrepreneur. It therefore takes a certain situation for that to even be tenable. We need better childcare facilities in Tech City! 
2. I would also like to see a crowdfunding site by women for women to further propagate the pay it forward culture. 
3.  Finally it starts early...I don't want to STEM the death out of people but you have to be able to talk to girls about business. When I look at my own children they are different simply because of being exposed to mummy's website - we need to question how we educate young people. 

www.debbiewosskow.com

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Sarah Wood - The Adtech Sensation!

Sarah Wood is something of a legend in the female/tech/founder venn diagram! Her name is espoused constantly and she is consistently nominated as an inspiration - so that is why I didn't mind in the slightest getting rescheduled a handful or so times to get 30 minutes with her! Sarah is one of three co-founders and current co-CEO of Unruly - the video ad tech company that was acquired by News Corp in September 2015. At the helm she ensures that her team delivers the most awesome social video campaigns on the planet, getting those videos watched, tracked and shared across the web! Read on to learn how to make your content go viral, what Sarah thinks about the future of advertising and her advice for those coming up behind her...

Meet Sarah

Current Job Co-Founder and Co-CEO Unruly

First Job Egg packer - aged 12

Education University of Cambridge for my BA and Masters; UCL for my PHD and I now teach the course "Creation, Consumption, Revolution: Online Video Culture" at Cambridge. The learning never stops! 

Topics covered include theories of remediation, meme culture, transmedia storytelling, participatory culture, online identity politics, Internet celebrity, authorship and ownership. And cats. How could I forget the cats.

Favourite book As a teenager - The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists; at Uni -  Bleak House; currently - Harvard Business Review and Your First 100 Days 

Favourite productivity tool Uber for life and Trello for work 

Favourite video

Go to meeting spot Unruly kitchen or Second Home 

Female inspiration in business

1. Divinia Knowles - COO at Pact Coffee and past CFO/President of Mind Candy. A long term peer who I have learnt so much from. She is so calm, thoughtful and considerate and her leadership style is impressive.
2. Joanna Shields - She has remained true to herself and has been so helpful to Unruly over the years. She is also constantly thinking about the next generation of startups. 

Hottest tech startup in London right now (aside from Unruly!) For me the hottest startups are in the video space, where there is so much exciting innovation occurring! These include:

1. Seenit
2. Reframed
3. The Smalls 
4. Vidsy 

The Journey

Unruly does not get involved with the creative process of making videos - can you elaborate on Unruly's proposition to help spread videos across social media? 

We don't create the videos, we make the videos famous!

Unruly is a technology company, and using our unique data set, which we have built up over the last decade, we can tell brands in advance how shareable their video content is going to be, and more importantly why people are sharing it. We have found that 'intensity of emotional response' is the biggest indicator of success. This led us to build our own emotional targeting capabilities, allowing us to help brands distribute content across paid media. We use non-interruptive, non-invasive, user empowered formats; when brands create great content and use our units across paid media, we ensure their videos are getting seen by the audience that is most likely to enjoy that content and share it with their friends. 

You have mentioned that you took investment in order to scale quicker. What were some of the challenges you faced whilst achieving that ambition? 

The first challenge with fundraising is knowing when to fundraise. We had looked at raising a series A in 2009/2010, but it wasn't the right moment for us; we were still articulating the proposition. By 2011 we had a really clear vision and clients were vocally asking us to be in more markets, but we didn't have the capital resources to be able to do that. So in 2012 we raised a $25m series A to enable us to do two things:

1. Increase our geographical footprint at speed (extend into America/Germany/Asia Pacific)

2. Build out our development team to be devoted to analytics and mining this unique data set which we hadn't been able to 'productise' yet. This data became ShareRank 

The second challenge is knowing who to take investment from. We were looking for chemistry. It is unrealistic to expect investors to add lots of value around product and commercial direction because they are generalists by their very nature and will never have the same depth of knowledge that you do. So we wanted chemistry, shared goals and a long term partners who were excited to see us scale internationally. We got really lucky with our investors: Amadeus, BGF, Endiet, all of which were well-respected, highly collaborative investors, and we enjoyed working with them right up until the very end. 

What is the most exciting thing you are working on right now? 

Following our acquisition by News Corp, it has given us unique access to global media. The big focus right now is having our placements integrated into these high quality/highly trusted media sites, enabling us to extend our premium reach globally.

Unruly

What will it be like going from being an independent startup to working with News Corp - the titan of the media industry? 

Same Unruly - bigger opportunity! 

We are independent from NewsCorp and we continue to run autonomously with our own P&L, so the Unruly culture remains in tact. The mission to transform video digital advertising for the better remains in tact, but we are better able to execute on that vision with speed and scale like never before. We have access to premium media titles and more capital resources, and have never been better positioned to make Unruly a $bn business with the weight of News behind us. 

Checklist for elusive virality? 

Unruly's share algorithm has over 100 variables...but if I was to boil it down to two factors:

1. Intensity of emotional response - Make the viewer feel something very strongly, whether it's laughing out loud, hair standing on the back of your neck - that is the level of response required to drive advocacy of sharing;

2. Diversity of social motivations - Once you have made someone have that emotional connection you need to give them a reason to share it. Some of the reasons that people go on to share content include: wanting to look good, help people, be useful to people, wanting to feel part of a specific tribe!

What values do you hold and what kind of company do you want to build? 

Deliver wow

Our mission is to deliver the most awesome social video campaigns on the planet. That is what brings us in every morning and when we do that we are so delighted. We hold ourselves to high standards and have an incredibly passionate team who care very deeply about our clients. 

Share the love

Sharing the love is integral to who we are. We share recognition - credit is given very generously and we share knowledge - there is never any knowledge hoarding. 

Inspire change

Inspire change is a recent evolution, up until a few months ago it was to embrace change. We felt that not only do we embrace change by being agile and looking ahead, but we can inspire change in others.

It is healthy to be in a culture where values evolve organically, and as you scale and increase your impact you want to be more ambitious with your values! Scaling culture is one of the hardest challenges. We have scaled into 15 offices and different markets - it was something we thought about very early on! 

What do you think the future of advertising looks like and how does online social video marketing feature?  

There is a seismic shift in the ad economy right now. More and more users are installing ad blockers, publishers are seeking alternative revenue models and brands are caring more deeply about the quality of their advertising and the ad units that deliver that content. I see a very bright future for social not anti-social video advertising. We have long worked with brands that make sure they are delivering content that people actually want to watch and share in a way that engages, not enrages viewers. This is more important than ever before. The other development is the continuing shift to mobile. I expect to see more vertical video as a result of the mobile revolution as it is how consumers make/watch video and we will begin to see brands adopt that consumer behaviour when creating and distributing their own content. 

Women in Tech

Which personal qualities to you attribute most to your success? 

My drive and energy.

What key tips do you have for how women can manage their work-life integration successfully? 

The UK is a great place to be a female tech entrepreneur! There is a really supportive ecosystem and many female tech entrepreneurs who are fantastic role models. 

What advice can you offer women who are looking to start their own business?

I would say make sure that you love what you do because you will need to make difficult choices and sacrifices that may weigh heavier on your mind than they do on your partner’s! Aim high, for sure, but always appreciate what you have right now and do the job that you’re in with grace and passion. Stay positive and bring that positivity to your whole team - every individual can have a massive impact on a company culture.

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Charlotte Pearce - Bringing the Human Touch to Tech!

I was fortunate enough to steal an hour or two of Charlotte's time over breakfast at The Hospital Club. Given I am in contention with a plethora of other journalists, mentees, entrepreneurs and even Buckingham Palace, I am overjoyed to have had the opportunity to learn more about her inspirational journey to date. Charlotte is the founder and CEO of Inkpact which aims to bring handwriting back into today's digital world by helping businesses communicate with their clients in a meaningful way through personalised handwritten letters and notecards. Technology makes it all too easy to be lazy - Inkpact hopes to make it easier to get noticed again and reinvigorate our communication mediums. I hope to have captured her mesmeric qualities in the interview below - but I have never met someone so ambitious, kind and amazingly charismatic in equal measure. 

 

Meet Charlotte

Current Job CEO and founder of Inkpact

Education Management with Entrepreneurship at University of Southampton. I can't say it helped like it sounds like it would. Significantly more influential was running an organisation called Enactus whilst I was supposed to be doing my degree.  

Favourite productivity tool Old fashioned pen and paper to do lists every morning and evening. 

Favourite book A great book I read recently was The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor. It's about how typically we put happiness after success and why we should reverse that formula. 

Go to meeting spot The Hospital Club 

How do you switch off Mindfulness colouring books! 

Guilty pleasure Grey's Anatomy & designer bargain hunting

Female inspiration in business

1. Tamara Lohan - Cofounder of Mr and Mrs Smith and also one of Inkpact's investors! I hugely respect the way she has built her business, her family life and how she is successful but also still so down to earth, kind and will go above and beyond to help. 
2. Sophia Amoruso - I really resonate with her as someone that is a bit of a rebel. Loved her book too!
3. Emma Sinclair - The women has so much such drive and ambition and simply gets Sh*t done, I have learnt so much from her and still so much to learn! 

Top networking tip Be interested and interesting. So often networking can feel clinical and formulaic, simply treat people like people!

Inkpact

Tell us more about Inkpact - where did the idea come from and your successes to date? 

The beginnings of Inkpact were serendipitous and initially unplanned! At a personal development conference, I met a business coach who shared that he found handwritten letters an excellent communication tool to market to existing and prospective clients. Given this was not where his expertise resided I offered to write the correspondence on his behalf for payment. Shortly after he told me that these letters were receiving 100% read rates – an incredible conversion compared to his conventional 15% email open rate. He began to spread the word within his network and I rapidly acquired 5 clients and took on 5 letter writers. We wrote on white A4 paper and used blue envelopes to make it different! This was Inkpact 1.0!

Upon graduation I married my Company with my other passion – Enactus a social enterprise society– and realised that I could extend employment to a group of individuals who could not necessarily land a typical 9-5 job. I raised a little bit of funding and branded the Company Inkpact – making an impact to our clients and to people’s lives. I was able to prove the operating model from inception - customers wanted handwritten marketing communication and we were profitable from the first client. Around 7 months ago we looked to technology to help us scale. We built an online platform that enabled us to integrate with CRM systems and this contributed to our growth to 100 writers and 6 people in HQ. The core of Inkpact remains the people but it is very exciting that we can leverage technology to scale the social impact and stickiness for clients. 

You have been part of New Entrepreneurs Foundation 2015 cohort and now Wayra - how important have these been in helping you establish and grow Inkpact? 

I didn't appreciate how mentally difficult starting a business was. I was making money but it was still just me and my laptop before NEF. Being on the program gave me the impetus to build a team of amazing people, raise investment and be more ambitious. The most motivating factor about NEF is the support network of individuals who are going through what you are going through, and can ride the highest highs and lowest lows alongside. After NEF we spoke to pretty much every accelerator, as well as debating the merits of being on one, but we decided that Wayra could really advance Inkpact. Wayra understood B2B, SaaS, as well as the pain points of big corporates which could tangibly help us on our journey. Wayra is also 12 months facilitating longer B2B client relationships. 

NEF provided me with the mental stimulus to go bigger and Wayra has enabled the scaling/growth and execution! 

How did you raise finance and navigate the investment paradigm? 

When I first started Inkpact if you had asked me if I was going to raise capital I would have said absolutely not, and propounded organic growth. Having that 'client pays for your next client' mentality was great and was pivotal in us learning from customers, however, I quickly realised that if I wanted to scale the Company I needed to raise investment. I thought too small initially. I was going to raise a small round with a few investors, but they ended up helping me think bigger and facilitating a much larger raise to fund ambitions to scale across the UK and Europe. 

My advice: 

1. Surround yourself with good people to give you great advice - I had never raised before so I had no idea how much to raise at what valuation! Talking to people who has been through it for a sounding board is crucial. 
2. Raise more money than you need - Just because of the sheer time and effort involved - give yourself more headroom. 
3. Smart money - Take the time out of your Company to invest in the fundraise to ensure you identify value add investors. 

The Journey

What are some of your other ventures that you are involved with alongside running Inkpact? 

When I first started the business I was making money but I wanted to earn additional income from something which would challenge me and also benefit Inkpact. I started doing consultancy work for big corporates and realised I had stumbled upon an insatiable demand from them wanting to know how entrepreneurs think and how to be innovative! However, consultancy is not scalable, and with the take-off of Inkpact I decided to marry my network of young entrepreneurs with my corporate clients and take a small cut - this company is called OR. Now I just joined the dots! 

What is your motivation?

I have a personal goal to be financially free by the age of 28. It is a big passion of mine to help young people become more financially literate; my aim is to be able to fund this social ambition whilst proving that age is not a limit to success. I aspire to be the Young relatable role model I never had when I was also young- all I saw at the age of 16 were 50 year old men running companies - it is hardly relatable. I also consistently endorse making money whilst helping people. Everything I am building shows that you can do both and this is something that drives me every day. 

What has been your biggest challenge? 

My biggest challenge at the beginning was not thinking big enough - I was my own limitation despite being quite a positive person! I thought starting a business was ambitious let alone building a team, going global and selling it for millions. Now the biggest challenge is to scale properly rather than just scale. I want to ensure I don't pursue growth and compromise quality; I want to keep the integrity of people at our core. 

What are your future ambitions?

We want Inkpact to be the go to destination that enables companies to go above and beyond for their customers. In the age of digital, switching costs for consumers have never been lower, therefore customer engagement is key! We envisage Inkpact right along the client life-cycle, be it lead generation, engagement with VIPs or churn minimisation. From a social perspective we will also continue to provide employment for people across geographies and backgrounds who couldn't otherwise obtain typical jobs. 

Are we doing enough in the UK to encourage start-ups, particularly with young people? 

Not everyone should and can start a business, but I think more people should be aware that it as a fantastic option! We need to teach innovative thinking, problem solving and financial literacy at a young age, we need to break the misconception that to start a business you need to have a revolutionary idea, I didn't invent handwriting or entrepreneurs, yet I have started Companies from both by joining the dots and executing something better or in a different way from our competitors. Teaching that type of thinking is key - how do you make something commercially viable, how can you solve that problem and generate finance whilst doing it - it is a different mind-set to box ticking like we are taught as school. 

Women in Technology

What is your opinion on the focus of the women in technology debate? 

There are lots of amazing women in technology and in business but it is still not enough! However, rather than focusing on the negative narrative and statistics, I believe we need to see a shift to knowledge sharing, showcasing and celebrating these female role models. Getting more women to invest in women, be it financially or otherwise. Inkpact currently has four female investors which is great!

What business support networks do you value and how did you curate them?

When I first moved to London I said yes to everything without knowing the outcome. I didn't understand the eco-system so this was the most effective way of navigating and eventually curating my network. Appreciating that you are the average of the 5 people you spend most time with, I was determined to surround myself with inspirational kick ass people. 

I also very quickly realised the benefits of coaching. So much so that I decided to get myself a coach in every aspect of my life. I have a coach for nutrition, fitness, life, public speaking and mental/wellbeing! If you look at the best in class athletes and the most successful people in business they all have the best coaches. Once I got over the erroneous stereotype that you only require a coach if you are doing badly, I reaped the benefits of immersing myself with experts in their field. I would encourage anyone to figure out what they want to improve on and then seek out help. 

What advice can you offer women who are looking to start their own business?

1. Win win goals - I advocate that businesses can do a lot of good as well as make money. I would encourage everyone to remain cognisant of this from the embryonic stages of their venture. 
2. Be a hustler - People don't ask enough. Individuals tell me how lucky I am that I met this person or got something for free but it's just as simple as offering a win win solution and asking. 
3. Being likeable - I think that being likeable is massively undervalued. Being interested in others, being a nice person, doing the right thing and treating people well is critically important. People do business with people they like and trust and that is too often forgotten. If you want to persuade individuals to give you their time and invest in you, them liking and trusting you is half the battle. 

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Itxaso del Palacio - Investor and Health Guru!

I met Itxaso after she delivered a fantastic workshop for The New Entrepreneurs Foundation on entrepreneurial finance and raising investment. As a fellow breakfast enthusiast we met again for the interview at Granger & Co (amazing!). Itxaso must have the most envy inducing network after her PHD in Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital transported her to the start-up hubs across Europe and America. She founded her own startup Founders Fit and subsequently traversed into venture capital whilst keeping her foot in academia as a teaching fellow at UCL. She is currently investing in high growth media and consumer companies at Lepe Partners. Read on to find out how to literally do it all! 

Meet Itxaso

Current Job Investment Director at Lepe Partners

Education Chemical Engineer and PhD in Entrepreneurship.

First Job I worked at DaimlerChrysler in Berlin as an engineer just after uni. It was boring!

Go to meeting spot Breakfast is always best! Lantana for an informal meeting and The Wolseley for a more formal breakfast.

Favourite podcast/blog A16Z podcasts and CB Insights.

Necessary extravagance Comfortable heels! Cole Haan are great.

How do you switch off Working out. Anything from running, spinning, yoga.

Favourite place in London Barry’s Bootcamp at 6am! 

Female inspiration in business Ana Patricia Botin, Executive Chairman of Santander.

Top networking tip Following up with people and mention something that they might be interested in.

Academic Journey

After a brief stint at Chrysler you returned to academia, embarking on a PHD in entrepreneurship and venture capital, involving research stints at Berkeley, ESADE and Harvard. What was the premise of your PHD and what were some high level take-aways? 

I studied entrepreneurial ecosystems and how the stakeholders within those ecosystem interact with each other and the elasticity of networks traversing from local to global.  Specifically I analysed how the VC industry affects and determines how this ecosystem works and how government interaction affects the different cycles of technology. 

At a high level non-entrepreneurial ecosystems have higher government involvement than in the more entrepreneurial ones and government actions have a much higher impact when they reduce barriers and create incentives instead of taking the place of private entities by investing directly. 

Following your PHD you became a visiting scholar at Berkeley - researching global networks of clusters of innovation. Can you elaborate on the significance of these innovation patterns and what more could the UK do to accelerate innovation? 

The UK has done really well in supporting innovation and accelerating and helping start-ups. They have not taken direct action but facilitated it. For example, SEIS has done a phenomenal job of increasing the quantum invested in early stage startups. Furthermore the UK made a significant effort in marketing across Europe generating hype and awareness, particularly for London, as a destination for startups and technology. This subsequently has attracted fantastic talent here. Innovation could further be accelerated by continuing to address talent and welcoming individuals from across the globe with well thought out visas. I also think there is an investment gap post seed/series A - and if the government could undertake action to facilitate investment at this round that would be great. 

Despite traversing into venture capital you still have a foot in academia - as a teaching fellow in entrepreneurship finance at UCL. What is your top financial tip for current and aspiring entrepreneurs? 

My tip for entrepreneurs is to seek investment from the right investors. There is a lot of money out there but very few right investors for each business. Entrepreneurs, particularly first time & early stage, require a lot of support and will benefit immensely from investors with the right mindset, connections and industry knowledge. I encourage my students to have the confidence to reject money if the offer doesn't substantiate the aforementioned. 

Startups and Venture Capital

You launched your own startup, Founders Fit, after curating what must be one of the most envy inducing global networks during your time at university entrepreneurship hubs. What was the premise behind it and the biggest challenge you faced?

When I was working at Imperial College they mixed students from the Royal College of Arts, the research labs and business departments to work on new start-ups together. These predetermined teams never worked and the individuals had very different mindsets. I learnt the importance of alignment of goals and strategy in a team in order to build something meaningful. 

I quit Imperial after two years and subsequently founded Founders Fit. Founders Fit aimed to help entrepreneurs find co-founders. Entrepreneurs would be matched online based on their skills and personality, and potential co-founders would get to know each other in the off-line Founders Meetups and Founders Workit. There was voracious demand however, I found it hard to monetise! 

In 2013 you were selected to join the elite, highly sought  Kauffman Fellowship. Tell us more about the program and what you gained from it? 

The Kauffman Fellowship is a highly sought-after two-year program dedicated exclusively to the world of innovation investing. The program connects you with the best investors in Silicon Valley and around the world, with the aim of building the next generation of investors and giving them the tools both in content and network. The Fellowship selects around 30 individuals and over the two years the Fellows receive professional training in Palo Alto, including talks from the likes of Greylock/Benchmark, whilst working full time in an investment organisation. The Program was amazing and it gave me a different attitude in the VC space. Since graduating I have co-invested with Fellows in San Francisco, connect my portfolio companies to investors in China and Singapore and regularly meet up with Fellows as they pass through London! 

You are now at Lepe Partners. Can you tell us more about Lepe and your investment thesis? 

Lepe Capital is an only ever co-investment fund focused on the media, internet and consumer sectors. We invest in growth stage businesses and are looking to back founders with companies in industries that we can add value through our network. This year (2015) we invested in CreativeLive (an online education platform for creative skills), Paddle8 (online auction house) and Masabi (mobile ticketing for transport). We have co-invested with fantastic partners including MMC, Greylock, Google Ventures, Atomico and Mastercard. 

What tech trends excite you right now? 

1. Health - There is a lot happening in health right now with particular momentum in consumer health and awareness. This has resulted in a lot of companies that are tracking data and using it to prevent deceases and in general to help people manage their health.
2. Fintech - Blockchain is attracting a lot of attention, on a broad sense as a way to optimise transactions. Banks are also getting active as investors as they recognise the need to innovate and provide better services to consumers. 
3. Media - There is a lot happening on video, content marketing, messaging, and online solutions targeting millennials. Big players in media and publishing houses are actively engaging with innovation. The google fund focused on media is a good example of that. 

What investment opportunity did you turn down that you regret? 

I don’t have the feeling of having missed an opportunity… I am confident about the companies that I turned down. I did not have the chance to see some good investment opportunities, but this is probably not the same as turning down a good deal. Now at Lepe I am about to invest in a Series B of a company that I passed on the Series A (while I was at EC1 Capital), which I am very excited about. 

What are your future ambitions?

At Lepe I would like to raise a bigger fund as we have great deal flow so I would like to be able to monetise these opportunities. Personally, I am passionate about health and I would like to get involved in more health-tech companies that will help people to be healthier and happier. 

Women in Tech

What is your opinion on impact investing? Would more female investors result in more of it? 

I am a great believer that technology and information can change the world and improve the lives of many people. There are ways to do that by creating attractive, financially sustainable business models. I think impact investing attracts both male and female investors who are equally seeking impact and financial return. I think impact investing will attract more money if entrepreneurs are able to design suitable business models. 

What is your opinion on the women in technology debate? 

I am very positive about it! The number of women in tech is growing all the time. I think technology is one of the spheres where men welcome women in management roles. Women are the decision makers at home when it comes to kids and grandparents health, shopping, activities...who better to design and manage consumer tech companies than women, given we know our target market! 

What advice do you have for women looking to start their own business or enter the investing landscape? 

I will probably say the same to a man who wants to start a company...

1. Start a company in an industry you know well 
2. Be focused
3. Hire the best talent 
4. Get the best investors on board 
5. And just make it happen

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Louise Deason - Demystifying Coding!

I am so delighted I got to sit down with Louise. She was introduced to me by Christian Hernandez (co-founder of White Star Capital, ex-Facebook) on Twitter because of her very interesting and unusual story - and it is every bit as inspirational too! Louise has worked for some of the biggest most disruptive names in tech - Facebook, Digital Shadows and DueDil, and has gone from PA to infrastructure engineer. She manages to balance a full time degree and a full time job and dispels all the myths propagated about coding! Learn about her journey and ambitions, hackathon tips and how to get started in tech!     

 

Meet Louise

Current job Infrastructure engineer at DueDil (doing cool stuff with companies house data) 

First Job Extra on Harry Potter 1-3

Favourite book/blog Lucas by Kevin Brooks

Favourite productivity tool Sunrise Calendar

Favourite place in London Lantana Cafe, Fitzrovia

Necessary extravagance Cashmere jumpers

Female inspiration in business Eileen Burbidge

Favourite coding language Python

Hottest tech start-up in London right now (apart from DueDil!) Tough one! Automata

The Journey

Your CV is peppered with some of the most exciting tech companies! Facebook, Digital Shadows and DueDil.  Tell us about your diverse experiences

Facebook came out of the blue! I had left my old job as a PA which resulted in me procrastinating on Facebook as you do! I ended up on their careers page and discovered they were looking for a PA for two directors in the London office. After 6 hours of interviews they introduced me to the MD of EMEA and head of the office! A week later they offered me an executive assistant position to Joanna (Shields). I worked at Facebook for 8 months and towards the end I begun a part time Computer Science course in the evening, which converted to full time in 2013. I was involved in company-wide hackathons and was very fortunate to have the amazing engineers at Facebook to inspire my journey.

After Facebook I joined DueDil for the first time. It was small and scrappy (only 17 people) and I loved that! I did everything: office manager/HR/PA. I was there for 9 months before starting my degree full time. Prior to returning to DueDil I worked at Digital Shadows bridging the engineers and analysts. But I continued to bug my friend Aaron at DueDil, asking whether there was an engineering job for me yet! He went out of his way to pitch for me internally and I officially started about a month ago as an infrastructure engineer! 

What have you learnt so far in your career? 

Culture is so important! It makes or breaks a company. The culture at Facebook was fantastic and the engineers were so welcoming. But as Facebook grew it was hard to hold on to it. 

You are now an infrastructure engineer at DueDil! What does that entail? 

At the moment I am just figuring out the tech stack! I also have individual projects which are internal that will help our team work quicker. It is a very iterative process and there is no right or wrong way of solving problems. For example, I have functioning code but now it is about going through a review process, optimising it, making sure the code is logical. 

At DueDil a lot of our tech is containerised using Docker, which means that every part of the site is essentially in a bucket. Tech wise we try to deploy code as quickly as possible; we are very agile, we want to be able to write code and get it live in response to customer demands. In time I will provision servers and if I see problems I can solve I will have the freedom to go in and do it. 

What has been your biggest challenge? 

Juggling full time uni and full time work, whilst still finding the time to have fun. It's not easy and there were times when I almost quit. I am now in the final year of my degree though, so I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! 

What are your future ambitions? 

I love space, so maybe a masters in space engineering. I'd be an astronaut if they'd let me, although i'm not sure i'd make it off the vomit comet in one piece!

What is your definition of success? 

I think if you can wake up in the morning and love going to work, that's a pretty good indicator of success to me. It's never been about the money. Find something that will make you happy.

Demystifying Coding

What are three myths about coding that you would like to dispel?

1.  Everywhere is sexist and full of bros - 110% not true. Women might not be a majority, but they are respected and welcomed in all the companies I've worked at.
2. Coding is really hard and only super smart people can do it - I scraped GCSEs and did acting at college. If you want to do it, you can make it happen.
3. Coding is for geeks - coding is for EVERYONE, and it's COOL.

What choices did you consider when researching Computer Science? What are the different merits of coding courses v degree?  

A lot of the engineers at DueDil are hackers and have just been coding since their early teens! But I decided to do a degree to have that foundation as I needed more of a kickstarter. There are so many free resources online, I would recommend having a go with some of these courses first and check it's what you want to do before paying up - you have to love it and be committed otherwise you won't have fun! 

In terms of what kind of route to take I suggest thinking about your end destination. The likes of Google, Facebook and Tesla are really focused on education and care about the algorithms and big O notation which necessitates a degree. Whereas startups care more about experience - they want you to be able to come in and smash a coding test. Coding courses like Makers Academy get you up and running in as little as 10 weeks and set you up well for the latter. 

What are some of trends happening in coding right now? 

Everything is about the cloud and big data! Docker and Mesos are also becoming very popular! We are also moving away from old school programming languages to more natural languages like python and Google's language Go. 

You have an impressive hackathon CV! Share your highlights and any tips...

The first hackathon I did was with DueDil and I had no coding knowledge. It was a whole weekend - two days with no sleep! We got through about 30 cans of red bull between a team of 6. We built an app called Seekr - a map based event discovery app, using server side clustering and matching to detect and classify events based on a realtime feed of social media from various sources. The map was populated from data gathered from Twitter, Instagram and Flickr, as well as a photo capture interface in the app. It was such an energising environment to be in! We came second and someone even offered us £10k to take it further. 

My second one was with #floodhack at Google Campus, which was arranged to help victims of the severe flooding in the UK last year. My team made fludBUD, which connected flood victims to people that could help. We came third. Most recently I took part in an all female hackathon at Facebook. The key is to go for it and be scrappy! 

Girls in Tech

You are part of the Girls in Tech UK team! Talk us through your motivations behind being involved and some of the initiatives that you run.

I started at Girls in Tech when I begun at DueDil - they had tweeted saying they needed people to help with the London chapter, that was three years ago and now I sit on the board! It was about finding a group of like minded women who I could chat to and share advice with given I was the only girl in my team at the time. 

Girls in Tech run fantastic events each month and welcome both girls and guys! We even hosted one at Downing Street! We are also just nearing the end of our pilot mentoring program. The program is a 6-month exclusive scheme for women working in tech and digital roles in London. It consists of 6 evening speed-mentoring sessions with high profile mentors! We will probably run another next Spring - so watch this space! 

Any advice for young girls who may be considering a career in technology but don’t know where to start?

Send me a tweet, I'd love to follow your progress/help out! Find a local coding club (there are quite a few out there), have a look at programming with scratch, move up to codecademy, come to a girls in tech event! You can also find programming jobs on Unicorn Hunt, Work in Startups and Stack Overflow.

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Pip Jamieson - Championing Creativity!

Get ready for watershed moments after reading about the inspirational Pip Jamieson - founder of The Dots. Fortuitously you can hop over to the site if you want to discover a more creative and fulfilling career! The Dots is a career network for creative talent. Her background first as an Economist in the Civil Service then working for The Brits and MTV prefaced her entrepreneurial leap! With the proliferation of technology traversing every industry, Pip advocates the importance of creativity and puts it at the heart of commerce. Learn about her motivation, raising finance, her journey so far and her brilliantly stark realisation at the end! 

Meet Pip

Current Job Founder & CEO of The Dots.

Education 1st Class Masters in Economics, Edinburgh University.

First Job Fast Stream Economist, Government Economic Service.

Favourite book/blog/podcast Offscreen Magazine, Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders, Monocle 24: The Entrepreneurs, Desert Island Discs, Lean in, Zero to One, Delivering Happiness, Lovemarks 

Go to meeting spot Shoreditch House.

Favourite place in London Horace our Houseboat 

Necessary Extravagance We recently bought a Thames Skiff (a rowing skiff) called 'Little Horace'. Starting and running a business can be very hard, so whenever it all gets too much, I simply jump in 'Little Horace' and go for a row… and all too soon that big issue suddenly doesn’t seem so insurmountable!

Favourite productivity tool Xero. It makes accounting fun! 

Female inspiration in business I think it would have to be Emma Watson for putting ‘He for She’ at the forefront of the addressing the gender imbalances. 

Top networking tip Wear a smile. 

 

The Journey

Tell us about The Dots and the motivation behind it? 

We started the platform because while I was Head of Marketing at MTV, I was finding it really hard to connect with amazing creative talent. At the same time my then colleague Matt Fayle, who was Digital Director for Viacom, was constantly being asked by creatives for advice on getting up and running online. What we realised was that all these people and companies wanted their online presence to lead to something. If you were an individual, you’d be trying to build your personal brand, find collaborators, find a client or a job. If you were a business, you’d be trying to build your brand, promote your projects, connect with clients or hire talent. So our vision was not only to create a platform that was easy for everyone involved in the creative process to promote their portfolio of work online – but most importantly to connect that work to some form of commercial outcome – a client, collaborator or job…essentially helping fuel commercial outcomes for the industry as whole. 

Selection of Companies on The Dots

You can only connect 'the dots' looking backwards...can you tell us more about your background prior to founding The Dots and what you have learnt from your journey so far? 

It was my role at MTV that first inspired The Dots, but on reflection, my whole life seems to have led me to this point. I was blessed to have an incredible father who was a leading figure in the music industry. My earliest memories were hanging out in his office, making coffee and chatting to his team. It ignited in me a love of business and the creative industries. While my father always wanted me to go into the creative industries, my (slightly odd) rebellious nature led me to do an Economics degree at Edinburgh University and much to the surprise of my parents I walked out with a First and joined the fast stream civil service as an Economist. My creative calling came on a dawning realisation that being a civil servant wasn’t really my thing, so I jumped ship and started working on the Brit Awards, then in various roles for MTV around the world. For years at MTV I regretted my Economics degree (as it had absolutely no relevance to what I did then day to day) but now that I run a technology business I’m so grateful that I have a social science background.  In 2009, I co-founded Australian networking platform The Loop, which we developed and grew into the leading professional networking site for creatives in the region, with over 67% of Australian creative professionals registered on the site, of which 71% returned each day. I love this industry and I’ve always had global aspirations for the platform – so in 2014 I decided to exit the business I started in Australia, to acquire the international rights to the technology – and The Dots was born.

What hypotheses about the creative industry and business model did you prove with The Loop that you subsequently built upon with The Dots? 

LinkedIn has nailed corporate networking but it has some real shortcomings for people that work in the creative industries. On a basic level LinkedIn is built around an individual’s resume, but a creative’s calling card is their portfolio of creative projects they work on – which is what The Dots puts to the forefront. On a more fundamental level, creatives have different networking preferences to corporates. LinkedIn has been designed so you tend to meet people in the real world first and then manage those relationships online i.e. it’s built around first and second degree connections. What this means is that LinkedIn is a closed network where you can only view people’s profiles if they’ve either accepted your request to connect, or you pay LinkedIn. Conversely, our amazing community is more discovery led – they want to find amazing people to connect with, irrespective of any prior connection. It doesn’t matter if that person is in Berlin, Birmingham or Brooklyn. Once they’ve met on The Dots, they can then make creative magic offline. As such, unlike LinkedIn, The Dots is an open network where our community can view other people’s work without having to be connected first. The advantage of this is that users can search and browse creative projects, which isn’t possible on LinkedIn.  We proved this hypothesis in Australia (& now in the UK) by helping creatives to connect and commercialise in a credible way that makes sense to them. 

Selection of Profiles on The Dots

What has been your biggest challenge? 

Exiting my first venture The Loop was one of the toughest decisions and hardest negotiations of my life. I can’t begin to tell you how difficult it is to leave a successful business that you put your heart, body and soul into, but it was the best decision I’ve ever made.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? And what personal qualities do you attribute most to your success? 

I remember the first time that someone landed a job on the platform - it was the most amazing feeling that not only was it up and running, but it was working.  In Australia we connected our community to 190,000 + commercial opportunities, so the scaling prospects for the platform (and the positive impact we can have on the creative process) is really exciting. In terms of my personal attributes that have lead to this success, I guess it's a genuine desire to champion and support creativity. 

The Dots

What was your approach to raising investment and what would you do differently if you raise again? 

We recently raised £1.5 million supported by advertising legend Sir John Hegarty, and funded by a powerful consortium of angel investors from Hambro Perks, Angel Academe and Coral Reef.

Pip Jamieson and Sir John Hegarty

Our approach was pretty traditional - we created an investor deck and I pitched this to a number High Net Worth investors and investment syndicates. We had a lot of interest early on, but my biggest challenge was that until we had our lead investor, Hambro Perks, negotiating terms with multiple investors was a bit like herding cats. I can't stress the importance and value of having a lead investor enough.  I'm very happy with what we raised and the investors we raised from - so if I had my time again I'm not sure that I'd do that much differently, other than possibly having a wingman/woman for pitches. At times it was pretty gruelling doing the pitches solo.... but hey what doesn't kill you makes you stronger :-) 

What’s the single best piece of business advice that helped shape who you are as an entrepreneur today?

A happy team is a productive team

What are your future ambitions/what would you like to be remembered for? 

I would like to be remembered as someone who put creativity at the heart of commerce. Looking to the future with the rising march of automation, creativity is our secret weapon. Soon machines will drive, serve customers, code, clean, manufacture, do our accounts and legals, what are humans still good for? Creativity! So if we want our children and grandchildren to have jobs, we need to stop thinking of creativity as fluffy. As Ken Robinson said 'Creativity is as important as literacy' – I couldn’t agree more!

Find Inspiration on The Dots

Women in Tech

What tips would you share with female founders looking to raise finance? 

There is no point in sugarcoating it -  raising investment is tough - very tough.  I tend to agree with Martha Lane Fox’s comment that there is an ‘unconscious bias’ against women in the technology sector. Recent research at Startup DNA found that male entrepreneurs are 86% more likely to successfully raise VC funds and 59% more likely to secure angel investment, than their female counterparts. If I have one tip for female founders it would be to make sure that you put Angel Academe on your hit list – a female-led syndicate that invest in start-ups with at least one female founder. We were lucky enough to raise part of our investment through Angel Academe and they’re an amazing bunch of women. 

Who do you surround yourself with? 

Starting a business has been the most insane roller coaster ride of highs and lows. I found that the trick to weathering the hard times has been to surround myself with happy positive people that naturally focus on solutions not problems.  It’s an inherent characteristic that I don’t think you can teach and leads to very productive working environment. 

What advice can you offer women who are looking to start their own business? 

I’ve seen so many businesses fail over the years not because they didn’t have a great idea, an amazing team or the funding but because they didn’t have the right support at home. I’m blessed to have the most incredible husband. He genuinely loves what I do and enjoys nothing more than chatting about my day and helping me talk through problems. He’s my emotional rock, through thick and thin. If you're in a relationship, then getting your partner fully behind your vision is as important as getting your team behind the vision. This goes both ways, for female founders, as much as male.

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Poppy Tucker - Bringing Visions to Life!

Meet Poppy Tucker - an incredible fire ball of energy, ambition, intelligence and laughter! We first met at Pinksheet (more on that later on) but for the interview resided in the secret garden at South Place Hotel with a glass of wine (not quite breakfast!). Poppy is the Chief Instigator at CRUXY & CO, a very different consultancy. They help restless business people deliver growth that they didn't imagine possible. It is their energy, momentum and charm that differentiates them. You can find Poppy at all the tech events, watching pitches and continually challenging how things are being done. Take notes! 

Meet Poppy

Current Job Chief Instigator, CRUXY & CO!

Education Economics & Politics, University of Exeter.

Hometown It will always be my parent’s farm in Hertfordshire, but I am torn between there & Bondi, Sydney where I lived for 3 years.

Favourite productivity tool When done right there is nothing better than a properly organised list - if you know something will not get done that day, move it to your full week’s list. Make sure everything in your day list gets done – or else! 

Favourite book Start with WHY, Simon Sinek. I also love The Chimp Paradox. Mindset is everything.

Go to meeting spot South Place Hotel – they have a secret garden on the first floor. Even in winter when it is covered, it can be a quiet sanctuary.

How do you switch off I am lucky enough that I still have horses at my parent’s farm. I try to get out there most weekends. I take my horse out into the woods – there is no phone signal and it is uncomfortable to be truly out of contact, but a necessity for switching off.

Guilty pleasure I very rarely watch TV, but I cannot get enough of suits. Jessica Pearson – what a boss! Her attitude, her intelligence, her wardrobe. I am in awe!

Top networking tip

1. Go it alone – If you want to network, don’t go in a group. You stay in a group.
2. Be everywhere – There is no excuse for not networking in tech in London. If you want to you can be at 10 events a week.
3. Overcome the fear of approaching people - Some people don’t find this difficult but I did, now I love it. I have met the most inspiring people through making sure I found a way to talk to them at an event.

The Journey

How did you get to where you are today? 

I had been living in Australia for three years when I decided I was ready to come back home and serendipitously join CRUXY at the beginning of its journey - a provocative consultancy which sharpens brands and repositions businesses. CRUXY feels that the way most people perceive marketing is flawed. It is easy to think that by raising awareness you are moving forward, but CRUXY questions: Who needs to care and what do you really want to be known for to this audience? What does raising the bar look like? Don’t do what you have always done or copy what everyone else is doing. In order to really make a mark you need to do things differently.

What has been your biggest challenge?

Deciding that we knew there was an opportunity for us to make a difference in technology. Tech companies and particularly those founded by technologists are obsessed with the ‘what’. The product they have built is their baby – they want to tell you each and every detail of how it works. But what really matters is their vision. We identified this opportunity to help founders articulate their ‘Why’ and paint the picture of their vision, which is so pertinent for both their customers and potential investors. We help people tell their story in a way that inspires.

What is the key factor in your success to date? 

I have had the support of a number of amazing mentors throughout my career, all of whom have been women. Each time they have inspired me to see a different way of doing things. The most inspiring people I have met have been really clear on their vision. Having that clarity and executing against it is in itself success to me. Factors can come into play that mean you have to take a different route, but ‘successful’ people I know are ones that see this, adapt and still stay true to their vision.

What would you like to be remembered for?

 Bringing to life the vision of the most pioneering tech entrepreneurs in the world.

CRUXY & CO

What is Cruxy and Co’s vision and differentiator? 

CRUXY was started to inspire people to focus on what matters.  It is very easy to view marketing as a budget line, as the ‘stuff’– the PR, the website, the logo. Too often it is an afterthought, companies erroneously think SEO or PR will solve it and too many people think awareness is a deliverable. We don’t believe any of that matters until you have answered the big questions: why do you exist; who are you for; why should anyone care? True strategic marketing should service the business plan and it is about making choices. Why do a white paper if you haven’t yet worked out if your audience reads them? We find a lot of businesses ‘spin’ into action without thinking about these key questions. We work by challenging the company and digging to answer the difficult questions, injecting momentum to deliver what needs to happen to meet the big objectives seamlessly. 

Why did you decide to work with tech start-ups? 

It is old news that tech is driving every business - why would we not want to be part of that journey! The pace of change has shifted, even in the last 3-6 months. The attitude to blockchain for example – being something that provided the infrastructure for bitcoin to run on and there has been a lingering question over it’s credibility. In a short space of time it has begun to be viewed as something which WILL (there now being no question about it) transform the way the finance industry operates globally. Being able to work with those who are making this happen is something which I feel very lucky to be a part of.  

You talk about ethos led business in your narrative - where do you think your clients and potential clients fall down most? 

Many of our clients are owner founded and run businesses. They have created something incredible; they have seen an opportunity to transform and have acted. But in the process of creating, they focus so much on WHAT their product does. The functionality – how fast, how much, time to integrate, price… the details. They have had to obsess over the details, but in doing so think these are what make a difference. In every case, these businesses were started with an amazing vision.

At CRUXY we love Simon Sinek’s 'Start with Why'. We show our clients this video & instantly you see something change. They say – that is what I started out to achieve. I have a WHY! I just don’t know how to say it!

We just help people articulate what that is and then help them translate what that means for the way they behave. It should be like a stick of rock – wherever you cut it, the business should look the same. Everything you do should come from your WHY.

Women in Tech

Why do you think there is such a gender imbalance within technology specifically?

This is a really interesting topic and I personally, from speaking to the women I know in tech, think there is a disparity between perception and reality. I think there are amazing people making a difference – Jennifer Arcuri, Russ Shaw, the guys at FIN4FEM. But it crops up on generalist agendas as a vanity exercise. We will see real change take place when there is a genuine call to action coming out of each meet up. It is simply not enough to talk it anymore. I see Jennifer doing this really well.  She is so relentless & passionate, I don’t think she even sees any barriers. She works in a way that transcends them. 

What advice can you offer women who are looking to start their own business?

1. Know that you won’t always get it right. As women we can be so hard on ourselves, but this can be what drives us. Balancing that relentless quality with an understanding that failure is not always bad, I think is a huge quality that the most successful women I know uphold.
2. Get stuck in. Don't hold back and don't approach any situation as an outsider. Be brave. 
3. Be the master of your own destiny. Entrepreneurs don't question they just do - so more of the same! 

What business support networks do you value?

Without a doubt, Pink Sheet Database is the best for women in tech. Completely unpretentious, open and inspirational. Anyone who wants to make a dent in tech should be there. I also make a point of getting to every New Finance event, less for support but more that I see the most interesting fintech companies coming through there at sometime or another. Eddie George does a great job of finding the ‘ones to watch’ and he is always on the front foot. Finally I think everyone running their own business should have a coach. I work one on an ongoing basis. I have found that having a completely fresh perspective has added colour to the big decisions I have had to make.

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Izzy Fox - Spearheading our Tech Future!

Izzy and I caught up over tea at The Lanesborough and I suggest you get a cup yourself as she has achieved so much in her career it was hard to squeeze it all in this blog! Izzy has lived in San Francisco, New York and London and has been in tech her whole career. She founded two tech PR firms, co-founded two software startups, was an active angel investor before traversing into institutional investing. Currently she is head of venture capital at White Cloud Capital investing in early stage tech companies in the education and health verticals. She is also a mentor for BBC Labs, Entrepreneur First and is on the London advisory board for Astia - a community of experts committed to accelerating the funding and growth of high potential, high-growth, women-led startups. She radiates poise, charm and aplomb and her curiosity and gusto is infectious - have a scroll! 

Meet Izzy

Current Job Head of Venture Capital at White Cloud Capital

First Job Graduate at Teather & Greenwood

Go to meeting spot The Wolseley or The Grazing Goat

Favourite book Jim Collins – Good to Great

Necessary extravagance Weekend breaks and lots of travel

Favourite place in London Old Spitalfields Market and Borough Market

Favourite animal on your farm Brown Ryeland Sheep

Female inspiration in business Angelina Jolie

Top networking tip Go out and meet as many people as possible and stay true to your values

The Journey

Serendipitous or fantastic foresight - you have been in tech all your career! Tell us a little bit about your beginnings in tech? 

Total luck! After initially starting my career in banking I moved into financial PR; it was 1999 and we were just doing loads of tech IPOs - so it all happened by chance. It was a really exciting time and I loved the buzz of financial transactions - we were involved with many of the great initial IPOs – before the market crashed in 2000. 

You founded two corporate/tech PR firms - what were some highlights and takeaways from these experiences? 

When I first started my PR agency tech was in its infancy in the UK. Although there were multiple agencies doing tech PR they were focused on tech trade press. My business partner and I identified a big opportunity to deliver strategic corporate PR for the tech world - bring in the team’s experience of banking, investor relations, M&A and financial PR knowledge to tech start-ups. Working with some of the most innovative companies and entrepreneurs in the world was energising and inspiring and living between NYC, London and San Francisco seeing all three markets develop was exhilarating. 

As Steve Jobs famously said you can only connect the dots looking backwards and it amazes me how much the tech scene and PR has changed over the past decade and particularly in the last five years. PR has totally changed. Agile digital marketing approaches and companies like Hubspot/Marketo have totally transformed marketing – it’s all about campaigns, content, growth hacking, lead generation, digital and nurture. The days of siloed PR have gone.

Does PR have any role to play in the marketing remit for your portfolio companies? 

Yes, of course but in a different way to in the past. It’s not my key focus for any portfolio company these days. I focus my portfolio companies on three key objectives:

1. Build a billion dollar brand
2. Build platforms for growth (e.g. your Salesforce/Marketo/Hubspot) to understand your data and metrics easily)
3. Sales and marketing alignment. 

Digitalisation of marketing means companies can optimise their sales funnel using Hubspot and Marketo, qualify lead generation and measure ROI for every marketing channel. This is vastly more attractive to cash conscious startups. I still believe in PR but only as part of a whole marketing campaign mix to achieve that elusive elixir.

You were part of the founding team of two software startups - what was the catalyst to co-found each and what did you take with you into your subsequent investing career?

Both came out of seeing a gap in the marketplace - my co-founders were part of my network and we pulled together teams that could execute on an idea. One we developed very quickly and sold in 8 months with great inbound marketing. US competitors were receiving a lot more funding and the reality was that we were going to get left behind. Faced with a short runway we accepted a great offer to sell quickly and get out.

Both have been a fantastic learning ground and give me the invaluable experience of the ups and downs of building technology and being part of a startup. As an investor I am empathetic to the emotional journey that goes with being an entrepreneur, particularly from a female perspective as we take things very personally if things don't go right!

Why did you enter the investment paradigm? 

I’ve always angel invested and got lucky living in San Francisco with access to great companies. After that I was keen to move into institutional investing. After selling my second business I joined GGM, a venture fund based out of Luxembourg. GGM were early stage investors in European tech. After GGM I joined White Cloud Capital to head up their global venture team. They are a family of family offices in the growth stage and they are looking to do more on the early stage side in Europe and Asia. The opportunity to work across all our key regions – Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea and Europe - was of great appeal. I’ve never worked in Asia before so I welcomed the chance to learn and experience something new.

Angel Investing

Tell us about your angel investments

My first angel investment was Jumio, a leading identity management and credentials company backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Citi Ventures and Facebook Co-Founder, Eduardo Saverin. It was totally impulsive! When I was living in San Francisco I got very lucky and met a lot of the super angels (not that I knew who they were at the time) and through that circle I found the deal. I didn't see a demo or even meet the team - I just trusted my network that it was hot and put my money in - fortunately Andreessen came in not soon after! A lot of my investments in San Francisco came through trusting that group and their contact base. GetAround was very similar - a fantastic female entrepreneur Jessica Scorpio who is simply brilliant.

Once back in London, I started to invest here more. A lot of it is simply gut and backing great people who you trust to deliver like, Gareth Davies, CEO of Adbrain. Thankfully many of my portfolio are doing great but you have to detach yourself from the money as it’s still very risky. For example, we had one company IPO in the US two years ago, great first day of trading and then its share price nose dived and after being tied in for 6 months my shares are probably not even worth what I put in! That’s just the reality of investing.

What are your motivations as an angel investor? 

Backing fantastic people with super ideas that provide clear benefit. A lot of my motivation is going on the journey - meeting these entrepreneurs with so much passion - and experiencing the ride alongside them. There is also a huge desire to see great ideas materialise - it is a lovely position to be in.

What investment opportunity did you turn down that you regret? 

There have been plenty, especially some of the now very well known San Francisco unicorns where we could have invested in the very early stages! But you can never look back and regret decisions!

What has been your biggest challenge? 

There have been so many! A challenge pertinent across my portfolio companies is how to scale. It has been inspiring watching Airbnb and Uber demonstrate new ways of going global and dominating in no time at all. A persistent challenge but also opportunity for me is continuous learning. Luckily I am a voracious reader so am able to just about keep abreast of tech, investing trends and new marketing approaches but I can feel out of date within a day! Looking back it is evident that my whole understanding of marketing changed tremendously in the space of just 4 years - there has never been a point in my career where things are moving as quickly as they are right now.

VC Investing

What tech trends excite you right now? 

Education and health! There is a massive market opportunity for both to disrupt the status quo and change the world. Investing in edtech and digital health also has real meaning behind it which is incredibly exciting. As Mary Meeker alluded to in her KPCB Internet Trends 2015 report both sectors are very much next up in terms of being revolutionised, so I think it is the perfect time to be investing in the space and thankfully it is our heritage at White Cloud Capital where we have the experience, team and network. 

Digital health is also a personal passion of mine - I studied for a year in New York to become a wellness coach and I see a huge opportunity in measuring our health and having personalised insights, pre-warnings and interventions. So much of our health issues are self inflicted and the next generation is predicted to be the first in history that will not live as long as the one before. However, the biggest challenge I envisage is how to change behaviours - tech is only an enabler - there is much to be done on behavioural incentives.

Do you have an investment thesis? 

Less so on my personal investments but clear investment thesis on the institutional side. White Cloud Capital are early series A/institutional seed investors. We invest in companies that have tested market opportunity, product in the market, some revenues and looking to accelerate growth. We focus on the education and health verticals given our heritage, our existing portfolio companies and our network of advisors. We are agnostic on region.

Top deal flow sources? 

Friends and network. It is also always great to meet companies through the accelerators and various organisations supporting early stage tech often the companies are a little too early stage for us however, sometimes you meet someone outstanding and just want to get into a deal early!

What is your opinion on impact investing? 

As an investor I am always trying to consider social impact alongside a financial return. You want to be investing in companies that are providing a true benefit and a potential investment return - I think you can achieve both! It helps that the domains of education and health lend themselves to impact investing too.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

I think my greatest achievement is still to come! I would love to back companies that go on to change the face of education and health, see them grow and observe the difference they make to people's lives.

Two Cliche Questions

Fancy weighing in on the bubble debate? 

Every market has a cycle so of course we will have a correction, however, trying to time markets exactly is difficult and being a permanently bullish active investor is dangerous. Fred Wilson's blog - Negative Gross Margins - summed up the problem perfectly and as echoed in The Age of the Cockroach - there are plenty of unicorns which have great stories but with little underlying business. 

You have experienced the SF, NY and London startup ecosystems - what do you think London's should look like in 2020?

London is doing great at building out its tech scene in its own style. This is the most exciting time in my career to be in Europe and investing in tech. It really is Europe’s time and the next 10 years will see us reach a truly new level of innovation and entrepreneurialism as we have more exits and seasoned entrepreneurs in the eco-system.

Women in Tech

What is your opinion on the women in technology debate? 

Women have so much opportunity in technology and many of the markets ripe for disruption will benefit from the female perspective. There’s never been a better time for women in tech and it's wonderful to see so many female entrepreneurs now in the scene. I also found it fascinating to learn recently about the growing number of women entrepreneurs in emerging markets, where over a quarter of founders will be women and that number is accelerating! I don't buy into the glass ceiling but I do think women need more confidence to push those doors open - Sharon Vosmek (CEO of Astia, a global community dedicated to the success of women-led, high growth ventures) does this so well and empowers so many women into tech. 

What advice do you have for women looking to start their own business or enter the investing landscape? 

There’s nothing to stop anyone looking to be an entrepreneur now. The ecosystem has so much support from accelerators to incubators to organisations supporting specific sectors. Go for it!

Sarah Turner - Changing the Face of Investment

Surrounded by the portraits of movie stars at BAFTA members club I was delighted to sit opposite Sarah Turner - poised to become a legacy herself. Her passion for rebalancing the investor eco-system and getting more women enjoying the benefits of angel investing is energising! Sarah has spent 20 years in digital technology. Three years ago she founded Angel Academe, a pro-women but not only women angel investment group who back outstanding women-led businesses. Have a read to see if you want to be her next angel! 

Meet Sarah

Current Job Founder and CEO of Angel Academe - an angel network primarily but not only for women.

Education A degree in History and Politics and a masters in Information Systems, where I learnt some now-ancient programming languages!  

Favourite blogs The Equity Kicker by Nic Brisbourne and One Size Fits One by Anjali Ramachandran

Favourite productivity tool Google calendar/Eventbrite /Dropbox and anything else that helps me share.

Go to meeting spot BAFTA 195 Piccadilly 

Necessary extravagance Really good coffee! 

Female inspiration in business Dame Stephanie 'Steve' Shirley (The challenges British women in tech face today are nothing compared to what she had to deal with)

New technology that most excites you Driverless cars - terrifying!

The Journey

Can you tell us a bit about your beginnings in tech and in digital media?

My career in digital media began during my masters. I was fascinated by the intersection of technology and media, which led to my first job at a multimedia company in Brighton. The dizzying progression in technology was my reality - I developed and sold interactive training to large corporates first on floppy disks and then CD rom and eventually moved to the early web. I subsequently joined Wired Sussex and, among other things, I begun to help companies raise investment, talking to angels and VCs. This early heritage in tech eventually led me to set up my own consulting business - Turner Hopkins. I have since worked with clients including BBC, Ofcom, Barbican, the UK Government and UKTI as part of their Global Entrepreneur Programme.

Tell us about Angel Academe and the motivation behind it? 

A large part of my job for 20 years was helping companies fundraise in one guise or another - yet I never entertained the notion that I could be an angel investor myself - I always thought you had to be very wealthy and have some special experience. But after a company I knew raised money from its customers, of which I was one, I realised that angel investing was more accessible than I thought, especially if you invest as part of a group where individual contributions can be relatively small. I begun to learn about what investors really look for, the various aspects of due diligence, the tax breaks to manage the downside and of course discovered that it was huge fun meeting passionate people, learning about their business and going on that journey with them. I began to set aside income to invest, joined various angel groups and attended their events. Yet I was always surprised by how few women there were, both investing and pitching. 

This led me to the decision to create a network that specifically appealed to women, both as investors and founders. This has never been about excluding men (we welcome men in our group), but encouraging more women to get involved. Angel Academe was born.

What is the most exciting thing you are working on right now? 

Angel Academe is at an inflection point - we have done some great deals, we have amazing investors in the group, good processes, a profile and we now have an opportunity to scale what we are doing. I feel we are clearly differentiated in the market with our emphasis on increasing the number of women angels and backing female founders. Scaling Angel Academe means capitalising on our position, encouraging more women to make more investments, helping more men to become champions for women and supporting more female entrepreneurs!

Angel Academe

I know you feel strongly about increasing female participation - why is this? 

Women control half the UK's net wealth, but we only make up 5% of angel investors. In addition, despite the huge surge in female entrepreneurs Startup DNA found that male entrepreneurs are 86% more likely to successfully raise VC funds and 59% more likely to secure angel investment than their female counterparts. The link between a lack of women on the investor-side and this comparative lack of success by women in raising funding seems obvious to me.

Why are we so dramatically under-represented in this exciting asset class and why does this matter?! 

To be honest, I don't know exactly why women are so under-represented. I think there's lower awareness of angel investing among women, we do tend to be more time-poor (and angel investing takes time and commitment) and all-men groups might not be that appealing. But I don't agree that we're more risk-averse. My experience with Angel Academe is that we're more thorough which is a strength when it comes to investing, not a weakness.

In terms of why it matters, diversity just makes good business sense! Diverse teams of founders and investors make better decisions, are more capital efficient and give a better return on investment - First Round Capital found companies with a female founder performed 63% better than its investments with all-male founding teams. 

It also matters because women are missing out on the benefits of angel investing. Obviously there's the potential for financial return, but the tax benefits are also very generous. The angels in my group are the most incredible network and becoming an angel investor has opened up huge opportunities for me.

What sort of companies are you looking to invest in at Angel Academe? 

We invest in UK based (SEIS and EIS eligible) tech businesses with at least one woman on the founding team. Some of the areas that excite us are big data, security, digital health and ageing population. We love to see women building game changing businesses, solving important problems and thinking big. We expect all the businesses we see to be generating some revenue and with a scalable business model to deliver a high return on investment. We see a lots of B2C businesses (especially in areas related to fashion, beauty and kids) and tend to set the bar a bit higher for them because the market is just so competitive. 

Tell us about Entrepreneur Academe - your mentorship program

We are now onto our second cohort. The first one ran for 9 months last year and we had 15 female led businesses participating. There are two main reasons behind the initiative. As an investor, it is very hard to get under the hood of a start-up. Entrepreneur Academe gives us a chance to get to know these businesses over a really decent period of time and to see how they deal with the inevitable stresses and strains. The second reason is the opportunity to engage prospective angels who may not be ready to invest yet, but who could contribute through mentorship.

We also know that the Academe offers a fantastic network and support system for the entrepreneurs we mentor. Our light touch program of monthly meetings creates a community of peers facing similar challenges and holding each other to account on reaching their milestones, as well as access to a large pool of mentors with a wide range of expertise.

How is access to finance from other sources such as crowdfunding changing the market? 

There have never been so many options for raising finance. Crowdfunding is a different asset class from angel capital, but a valuable part of the funding ecosystem and here to stay. It is a great place to start investing if you don't yet have the resources for angel investing and it also offers a great opportunity for consumer businesses to build their audience and profile while raising finance.  

Women In Tech

What advice can you offer women who are looking to start their own business? 

Understand the difference between a lifestyle business and a truly high-growth one. The former are crucial to our economy and not to be dismissed - 'entrepreneur' is not only reserved for the latter. If you do aim for the second you need to think big and be ambitious. You need to tackle a problem a large number of other businesses or consumers around the world will pay to have solved. You need to be able to fend off the competition and aim to have a large exit in order to return capital to your investors. You also need to be open to working with external advisors and be what investors call "coachable". If you intend to raise money from angel investors, learn about what they look for and understand their mindset. 

What are your future ambitions?

I want the UK to have the most diverse investor community and I want Angel Academe to play its role in increasing the proportion of women investors to at least 35% of the total - the magic diversity number. If we do that, we can make the UK the most attractive place to be an entrepreneur for all entrepreneurs. I would also like the Angel Academe portfolio to be doing well with some good exits under our belt. I would like us to be one of the largest angel groups, seeing the best opportunities and sought after for quality non-execs and advisors. 

7 snippets for prospective female investors

1. Smart and experienced women make good angel investors
2. You do need to have some capital, but don't have to be a millionaire (see http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/1529/schedule/5/made)
3. Potential financial return! However, angel capital is patient capital 
4. The network - an impressive group of investors and entrepreneurs
5. Future proof yourself against a changing world - be exposed to the latest innovation
6. Invest in the change you want to see 
7. Amazing fun! 

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Follow Sarah! 

Tania Boler - Revolutionising Women's Health

I would like to introduce Tania Boler - the Jonathan Ive of women's health technology! Our serendipitous introduction meant I got a glimpse into her future rocket ship over tea at Riding House Cafe. A few years ago Tania took the entrepreneurial leap from her career in sexual and personal wellness and founded Chiaro - a women's wearable technology company with real impact. Chiaro's first product is Elvie, your most personal trainer. Elvie is a smart kegel exercise tracker and app and is unparalleled in its scientific innovation and exquisite design. Mine hasn't arrived yet but when Tania presented one to me the "out of the box experience" was a hybrid between opening an iPhone and a Tiffany box! Keep reading to learn the secrets to better core strength, control and even better sex! You will also boss that pilates class! 

Meet Tania

Current Job CEO, Chiaro - a women's wearable technology start-up

Education Oxford, Stanford and a PHD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

First Job When I was thirteen I had a Saturday job working on a clothes stall in Portobello Market

Favourite place in London The canal behind my Islington home. I love the juxtaposition of cultures & styles

How do you switch off Watching Homeland - it just gets better and better! 

Necessary extravagance A blow dry 

Go to meeting spot Profrock coffee shop on Leather Lane 

Female inspiration in business I recently met Cindy Gallop in New York. She is a strong inspiration as someone who doesn't care what people think and is relentless in her ambition to change the world

Top finance tip Raise more money than you need

Top networking tip Don't think about job titles 

 

The Journey

You have a long career of working in women's issues, including working for the UN on global sex education curriculum. Can you share a highlight? 

Travelling two days by rickshaw and boat in northern Bangladesh to deliver family planning services with the Marie Stopes team.

Where did the idea for Chiaro stem from and what was the catalyst to quit the day job? 

I thought I was an expert in women's health! This was until I got pregnant and realised that there are so many things to do with our bodies that we don't talk about and that I wasn't aware of. At the time I was leading the innovation and strategy team at Marie Stopes and knew we were at the beginning of a health tech revolution and that I wanted to be a part of it. My vision for Chiaro was to change the way technology is used by developing new products that break down stigma and change lives. I talked to over 40 physiotherapists and kept iterating. The catalyst was winning the UK Technology Strategy Board Innovation Award of  £100,000 which validated the idea! 

Tell us about Elvie, your most personal trainer, Chiaro's first product

Elvie is a small yet powerful exercise tracker for your pelvic floor. It's beautiful and smart - giving women real-time feedback so that they can track their progress.  It's hard to exercise a muscle you can't see. Without feedback, you simply don't know how you're doing. We have designed and patented a new way to measure force so that women can visualise their kegel exercises. Elvie even corrects your lift technique as 30% of women push down which can lead to damage.  A journalist recently said it was like the iPhone - the new must-have gadget for all women. We agree with that!

Can you elaborate on your motivation behind Elvie? 

I think all women deserve smarter technology. Women and men are different physically and therefore have different health and lifestyle needs. Technology doesn't seem to have caught up with this basic fact. With 1 in 3 women experiencing problems due to weak pelvic floor muscles, there has been shockingly little innovation in this area and we hope to use the novel, innovative data to improve motivation for women to exercise and see results.  

Most consumer electronics - when adapted for women - tend to focus on the aesthetics like the colour or adding a jewel or prettier packaging. Sure, Elvie looks beautiful which is part of why women get excited about it - but it is also smart. It has induction charging, no lights, no exposed parts, fully waterproofed, machine learning-based algorithms and personal goals.  But why isn't there more smart technology for women? 

Chiaro

You have won best R&D at HealthTech Awards and Best Startup at the Wearable Technology Show - tell us more about the research and innovation that distinguishes Elvie

My partner is Alexander Asseily and he founded Jawbone so we have really benefitted from his experience in designing awesome products. We worked with academics at Imperial and Oxford and also with some top engineers and designers. The likes of kickstarter have helped inspire a hardware renaissance but I think that we are being flooded with poor quality products that will disappoint customers. We are under pressure sometimes from investors to show how we will launch four products in two years but this is unrealistic unless you don't really care about true innovation and quality.

As well as working with the best, we also worked with the end users throughout the process. I think we had over four sets of user testing and well over 150 women test Elvie and tell us what they think. Just this morning I got an email from a journalist who told me she was at a party this weekend and her friend came racing up to tell her all about Elvie. I fundamentally believe women have been waiting for something like Elvie for a while - something fun yet effective.

How did you pitch Chiaro to your early financial backers Lars Rasmussen (co founder of Google Maps) and Alexander Asseily (co founder of Jawbone) 

I think the numbers speak loudly here. For Elvie as our first product, more than half of all women have physical problems at some point during their lives and one in ten women need to have an operation because of a pelvic floor related problem. The adult sanitary pad market is valued at close to $17 billion over the next couple of years. This has to end and is crazy as it is largely preventable. 

For Elvie, you need investors with vision as there isn't an existing marketing. This is a new product category so there is an element of education involved. We intentionally delayed raising an institutional round, bringing in a lot of super angels instead who bring so much to the table; as well as Alex and Lars we have Nicole Junkermann and Michael Spencer. So far our rounds have been doubly over subscribed meaning we have the luxury of being picky in the next raise. We will look for investors who can help with accessing new distribution markets for example in East Asia or North America. 

What are your future ambitions for Chiaro? 

We want to be the Apple of women's health tech. We are changing the way technology is designed for and used by women and we want others to follow suit. For example, for Elvie, there are a few competitors coming to the market and they are using our language of women's empowerment and placing this more as a lifestyle and wellness issue rather than waiting until it becomes a medical issue. This is great - together we can change the discourse! 

Women in Tech

What is your definition of success? 

When your consumers tell you that your product has changed their lives

What has been your observations of women in tech?  

Female investors are without a doubt amazing Elvie women and ambassadors. However, behind most male investors is a strong Elvie women! For us the female tech journalists have been incredible too - Natasha Lomas at TechCrunch, Olivia Solon at the Mirror and Jemima Kiss at the Guardian. Check out their Elvie experiences: 

• TechCrunch    
• Elle 

What advice can you offer women who are looking to start their own business?

1. Don't worry about what people say about you
2. Live with the uncertainty - it won't feel comfortable and it is a steep learning curve but that is part of the fun
3. Be determined - you need to be the kind of person who doesn't give up as it will always take longer and cost more money than you expected

What is one thing you recommend all women to do right now to safeguard their health? 

Our motto at Chiaro is: Learn your body. Love being a woman

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Check out Elvie! 

Irra Ariella Khi - Cyber Security Trailblazer

I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Irra Ariella Khi. We met on the terrace of the Oxford and Cambridge Club - a tranquil oasis in the middle of London! She is an Oxford Graduate, a former fashion model and co-founded digital company Soul of Fashion Platform. Irra is a founding member of the International Conclave of Entrepreneurs (ICE) in London, and is passionate about identity and cyber security - oh and she also played Bond Girl for the Founders Forum alongside Jason Gissing (Ocado) and Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia)! Her story is one of rule breaking, passion and purpose and is truly inspirational.

Meet Irra

Current Job I am CEO of V Technology -  a cryptographic company which works like Paypal for Passports

First Job I ironed clothes after school for our neighbours - how glamorous is that!

Favourite productivity tool Omnifocus. It's pricey but worth it - it's an App based on the book Getting Things Done by David Allen, helping you capture and sort your to do list

Favourite book The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

How do you switch off?  By playing piano or dancing

Guilty pleasure Watching Netflix whilst eating carbs (currently re-watching Suits from the beginning!)

Female inspiration in business Bindi Karia. She is my inspiration in business full stop, and happens also to be female and awesome!

Favourite places in London  The 5th floor cafe of the Waterstones in Piccadilly (secret geek haven), Mews of Mayfair & the inner courtyard of The V&A museum - a favourite place for me as a parent - it surrounds you with culture and inspiration, and turns into a kid-distracting paddling pool in the summer. 

Top networking tip Always be offering something first – by embracing a 'pay it forward' attitude, good people will fill your world and things will come back to you like a boomerang!

The Journey

Fashion model, mum, entrepreneur, web media / app co-founder and cyber security crusader - how did you get to where you are today?

It sounds like a random collection of things but there is a method to the madness! Oxford was all about being clever and as a child of immigration I was set on paying my own way through. After being scouted and doing some modelling jobs I realised that fashion can pay extremely well and I wanted to pursue it whilst I was still young enough! I moved to Hong Kong (where my look was rare) and created numerous opportunities to learn about the industry and build a strong portfolio of work.

Some might think that fashion and tech are polar opposites, how did you transition from fashion to a tech start-up?

When I returned to model in London, I met the entrepreneur circle of friends socially, and went on the first ever ICE trip. I was inspired by the businesses that they were building and decided to launch my own based on my domain fashion knowledge - Soul of Fashion - a B2B video marketing platform for up and coming designers. Despite raising money, we quickly burnt through it and failed to get the market fit right. It was around this point that Myla was born, and I took a break.

What pulled you back in to start-ups?

My first foray back into business was through ICE and the Founders Forum. I was approached by George Berkowski to work with IceCream app - which helps you to free up space on your iPhone without losing precious photos or videos. I didn't stay long, but it was a fantastic introduction back into the fast moving, risk hungry paradigm of entrepreneurship and start-ups.

Why did you pivot to cyber security?

It was at this point that I was looking for an answer to a much more basic and global problem - what kind of world did I want my daughter to grow up in and what was the biggest threat to all of us as people. My initial involvement in cyber security came about as a single mum. On the first date I went on after having Myla, I caught the guy trying to put something in my drink. I went to the police armed with his dating profile details the next day and was horrified to be informed that they couldn’t do anything as they said it was "not his real identity'. This realisation, that the large majority of what we do is now outside of the protection of our immediate networks, and that I am unlikely to know the people my daughter will likely meet digitally was a huge wake up moment for me! That was when I started working in cyber security and identity.

What is the vision for V Technologies?

The vision for V Technologies is to find a solution to reconcile the internet age and digital natives with accountability. Three out of every four people in Britain have their identities stolen or misused, and those statistics are the worst in Europe. Therefore, the mission for our technology is to conclusively prove that you are who you say you are, as well as proving that no one else is, whilst giving you the relevant authorisations. Hopefully this solution will form part of the contribution to solve the dangerous scale of identity problems which we face in the world today.

The “click”  - 30 seconds that changed your life

It was the day I went to the police: I was hungover, livid at being spiked, and imagining my daughter facing the same situation. It was my aha moment and I was hell-bent on solving identity. I couldn’t let it go (unlike the police), I had to sit down and work it out.

What is your motivation?

My selfless motivation is a vision for ensuring that people - including my descendants - are safe in the new digital world. Selfishly my motivation is a desire to leave a lasting changing legacy and be a part of something bigger than myself. I feel that this project might have enough positive impact for it to matter in the world. If there is a technological change and a new way of solving a very old problem, I want to be remembered as one of the first players in the market.

What has been your biggest challenge?

I anticipate the biggest challenge will be integrating with the current regulation and older identity companies, and working with the UK government in a strategic and positive way. I want to find a niche where technology, disruption, and progress go hand in hand with national security, and I want to be perceived as someone trying to help the situation rather than tear it down.

What was the key factor in your success?

I have a healthy disregard for fear and failure: according to my friends, I take 'a hell of a lot' of calculated risks, and I'm never afraid to try new approaches!

Cyber Security

What is the current state of play in cyber security solutions and who is at the cutting edge of innovation?

Speaking of the UK, one company is currently responsible for 95% of identity checking and is used by all the major banks. However, the current Fraud statistic that 3 out of every 4 UK citizens are getting their identities misused prevails. At the cutting edge of innovation, the UK government is the second in Europe after Estonia to pilot an online identity software programme. It's called Verify - aimed to be more comprehensive and scalable, and it's currently in beta testing, with the aim to roll out to government services. It smartly fractions personal information across 9 independent providers, to avoid any one company knowing how the identity ties together and becoming 'big brother'. Despite this, we are in the age of unprecedented cyber crime against identity, for which these traditional checks are inadequate: we simply haven’t solved it yet.

What is the role of startups, enterprises and the government in addressing cyber threats?

Start-ups often have this audacious attitude of 'I will just come and disrupt'. But I believe is it important to co-operate with the existing structures, and be a respectful player in the eco-system. A lot of fresh start-ups have grandiose visions and throw up more questions than answers, but it's not wise. Being more humble helps: a lot of smart people have often already done a lot of work, so don’t be dismissive of it! Play nice in the sandbox - be open, share your tech and findings, but be politically astute, and protect your IP.

Women in Tech

What is your opinion on the focus and direction of the women in technology debate? 

We are definitely focusing on the gender imbalance part - however, I think we should put more emphasis on our attitude and on changing our own dialogue about women's roles. I absolutely loved the Always TV ads and social media campaign #LikeAGirl - challenging the societal norm that doing something 'like a girl' is a negative - asking "why running like a girl can’t also mean win the race". As a mum of a little girl who will enter the workforce at some point, I again feel strongly that it is not the lack of women in technology that is a ceiling but these dangerous ingrained perceptions of what being 'like a girl' actually means. We need to re-educate ourselves - and to check our peers -and ourselves- for those negative connotations.

What business support networks do you value?

ICE of course. For me, they are actually family -  a fellow ICEr and I had the first ‘ICE baby’ , and 2 of her 4 godparents are both ICE members. It goes beyond family and business - it is so, SO important to surround yourself with a tribe of non-judgmental people, who are like-minded mentalists also taking a lot of risk!

What advice can you offer women who are looking to start their own business?

Something I learnt from Janet Hanson (founder of the female network 85Broads and my first employer) is that women and men tend to build networks differently. Women tend to have deeper relationships within a smaller group, whereas men cast a wider net. The problem is that a lot of business opportunities might not be in your immediate network, so it's important women know this and branch out as much as possible!

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