The end is almost here. Sad I know. One week until the end of the programme and IMO today was one of the most fun days.
We had the pleasure of learning from Lois Ollerenshaw from NBS Ventures, which is the investment arm of Nationwide who primarily invest in fin-tech companies. Sad to hear that there was no synergy with Spiela, but Lois is connected with a member of the WalkingVC team who invests in marketplaces so when we are ready I’ll connect with her. Hopefully, she’s launched the podcast by then.
The topic was networking. She started by allowing us to outline our thoughts on networking & took us on an o journey of how to network not as people just as founders. As someone attending a lot more professional, I found a lot I learned interesting and applicable, a lot of the moves I’m going to use ( don’t be mad if I use them on you. I’m hindsight you won’t as you won’t know). A takeaway from Lois which I had to act upon ASAP is the document to keep a note of everyone you meet and some interesting facts about them. I find myself forgetting how I met people so this was a great idea. I personally don’t believe the human brain was designed to maintain relationships with as many people as we are forced to know in the digital age so I’ve already started filling in this CRM
One of the most anticipated seminars was hosted by Funke Philip the lawyer, lifestyle business owner & investor; a self-professed workhorse. Funke’s great. I’ll start with her, can’t wait to work with her. She managed to make a module from university that I hated interesting, interactive, engaging and entertaining. If my lecturer made Law this interesting I may have actually gone to her lectures.
At times it took a less light uplifting tone because we were talking about serious topics such as share allocation, IP, and protecting ourselves as founders. All needed of course. Legal and external stakeholders was a breeze to walk through but some uncomfortable truths came to light when we touched upon legal and internal stakeholders. In my view, I prefer the devil I know to the one I don’t.
There was a lot to unpack from what Funke shared, not exclusive to just the law, but also investor/founder relationships. I’m looking forward to making sure myself and our team have a look at our AOA and seek legal aid to update. The main takeaway is that there’s a lot to learn. I listened to episode 960 of the This Week in Startups podcasts hosted by JCal and he mentioned that as a founder you have a responsibility to understand 70% of your business functions so when you do delegate or hire you understand and can identify the areas which you lack. Fortunately, I met Merlie early in the programme and we are on our platform Farill.io so that makes the learning easier
Talk to you soon ✌🏿
-aj
Bedroom 2 Boardroom 🚀 