Podcasts

Maja Kecman joins Ben Goldsmith to talk about both product and app innovation in healthcare. 

Maja currently leads Helix, a team of designers embedded in St. Mary's Hospital, and is currently spending the summer on a secondment at Balderton. 

Listed below are a few key questions in the podcast: 

2:10 How do you get a product to market in healthcare? 

4:30 How does a product innovation in healthtech evolve? 

7:15 Can MVP-style thinking and procedures be applied to healthtech?

9:00 Due to the specialist nature of healthcare innovations and high up-front cost in product, does the funding procedure look different. 

1130 Do VCs in healthtech need to be doctors or medical experts?

1430 What is your piece of advice to an inventor/entrepreneur in healthtech

1615 Is the NHS a good or a bad thing for healthtech?

1850 Due to the recent proliferation in healthcare apps, Maja forwards the idea for a system by which the NHS (or another qualified third party) offers a mark of approval to healthcare apps. 



Where the NHS can improve & product innovation | Maja Kecman on Health Tech

Joe Steele, CEO of Bookatable, chats with Ben Goldsmith about how Bookatable have grown to put millions of diners in touch with 12,000+ restaurants in 19 European countries every single month...

0:00 Intro: How the Bookatable business evolved from Livebookings. 

1:54 Why Bookatable's offering to restaurants is key to success.

3:00 Supply versus demand

4:40 It's a crowded market for both restaurants and customers... how does Bookatable achieve cut-through on such scale?

7:30 Bookable isn't just for good deals, you've got a deal with Michelin! How does that work behind the scenes?

9:05 Who are your customers? Does the Michelin deal help bring in more foodies? 

10:30 Running a marketplace business with lower margins and/or purchase figures is hard: how you make the numbers work? how do you get the best LTV out of your customers?

13:00 Great advise from Joe Steele to future marketplace entrepreneurs: if you're running a marketplace business, your P&L needs to be built and structured entirely differently to other businesses, as success looks different to you. 

15:10 Who is Bookatable's key demographics? 

17:40 Is there a mobile versus desktop split in terms of experience or user behaviour? 

19:30 Bookatable is huge now. Does the service differ from city to city, or country to country? 

21:10 Stockholm v London v Munich: the differences in expectation for both restaurants and customers. 

23:20 How should a marketplace business enter a new market? And why you shouldn't just try and 'copy/paste' your business model






Becoming a dominant Marketplace | Joe Steele, CEO of Bookatable

Rob Moffat, Principal at Balderton, recently hosted an Academy session at Seedcamp. Following his presentation to our Founders, Rob joined our own Dave Haynes for this podcast to give his investor view on understanding customer acquisition costs. 

Rob talks through different marketing channels and how more startups are using mobile, TV and even direct mail, as search engine marketing becomes more expensive. Pulling on his experiences working with Balderton investments such as Wooga, Qubit and HouseTrip, Rob provides an overview of cost per acquisition (CPA) and lifetime value (LTV) and the risks of blending the two. Giving a summary of what VC’s look at when analysing your marketing data. The full presentation Rob gave our teams is available here:

http://www.slideshare.net/robmoff/understanding-customer-acquisition-costs-a-vcs-view


Rob Moffat, Principal at Balderton

Tom Blomfield becomes the second of GoCardless' original cofounding team to join Ben for a podcast in the last couple of weeks. Tom is building Mondo, a bank that is challenging the high street incumbents. In this episode, Tom talks about the challenges of applying for a banking licence,  
shares some tips for first time entrepreneurs, and explains why opening banking APIS are - at the moment - rubbish. 

0030 It's Mondo's first birthday next month! Feel free to send them a cake in the post. 

0130 So far, the reaction to Mondo has been overwhelmingly positive. Why do you think this is? It used to be difficult to get people excited about banking! 

0230 Tom explains why most high street current accounts are rubbish, and why Mondo is better. 

0340 According to Tom, your current account should be a 'home screen app'; and users should feel as comfortable using it as they do on Google, Facebook or Twitter.

0415 How does Mondo attract consumers? 

0612 Tom compares to cost of customer acquisition between high street banks and Mondo... 

0700 Last year it was reported that Mondo were applying for a banking licence - when are you due to get your hands on one?

0825 Why are Mondo applying for a banking licence? Lots of so-called 'challenger banks' aren't actually banks... why is Mondo going through all of this effort?

1000 What is a 'bank in a box'?

1050 Tom tells the story of how and why he got involved with Hiroki and Matt at GoCardless

1350 Experience is very important, and Tom now has three businesses under his belt. In light of his previous successes, Tom shares some tips for first time founders... 

1630 Why do Mondo run hackathons? And should more banks run hacks?

1800 Tom explains that most banking APIs lead to dummy data... he also explains why this is rubbish, and why Mondo's API provides access to real data. 

2300 How can I get a Mondo card?





How an entrepreneur built a bank | Tom Blomfield, CEO of Mondo

Chris Morton is the CEO and founder of Lyst, a fashion aggregation and discovery app, and universal checkout cart. Before launching Lyst, Morton was part of our investment team here at Balderton Capital. Chris talks to Ben Goldsmith about building a team from 3-150 people, and about the decision he made to take the business through a massive pivot. 

0020 Chris has taken Lyst from 3 cofounders in London, to a team of 150 spread across continents. 

0100 Chris explains that fluidity and informality were key to hiring at an early stage. Of course, this has changed over time and now Lyst have recruited a Head of Talent to bring order to the proceedings. But Chris is proud that they can still hire at speed. 

0305 Question: Do early entrepreneurs need to have a 1/2/5/10 year plan for hiring? Chris advocates hiring for today, not tomorrow; as the concept of what 'tomorrow' is going to be can change. 

0450 Sometimes the earliest hires that an entrepreneur makes can't scale with the team, because these people are best at launching companies. This isn't a black mark, it's just the way scaling works. But Chris does advocate managing changes to your business actively, rather than being passively pushed about by them. 

0700 Question: What is the effect of raising large sums of money on team growth? Chris explains that he advocates a process of SCALING RAPIDLY and then 'FIXING' any feathers that may have been ruffled during this process. 

0930 A piece of advice Chris has for other entrepreneurs: don't use the size of your team as a measurement of success. 

1200 50% of Chris' team at Lyst are engineers or data scientists. Chris explains how, as a non-technical founder, he maintains and grows such a specialised team. 

1600 Question: How important is a technical cofounder? 

1800 Chris is a rare thing: an investor turned entrepreneur. Chris dives into how his experience at Balderton helped when it came to raising money. 

2110 Lyst went through a huge pivot - Chris explains how he convinced his team, his investors, and other stakeholders that this huge change was the right thing to do. 

2535 Another big tip from Chris: When you make a huge 'bet the business'-type decision, such as a large pivot, you can't always be as data-driven as you would like. Of course, use all of the data around you, but don't be afraid to listen to your gut: finding a mix of conviction and data is key. 

2830 Chris talks about why it's useful for entrepreneurs to be challenged by their investors. 



Chris Morton, CEO and Founder of Lyst | Scaling, Fixing, and Pivoting

Balderton Capital are one of Europe's largest tech VCs, investing the best breakthrough technology companies in the continent. This podcast will share weekly insights for those at the forefront of the European technology scene: our partners, investment team, portfolio companies, and other selected experts and contributors. The 'cast will be a worthwhile listen for anyone who is looking to raise venture capital investment, building a technology company from the ground up, or is enthusiastic about the London & European tech community. If you'd like to read news & updates from our team, check out our news page: http://www.balderton.com/newsfeed

How an entrepreneur built a bank | Tom Blomfield, CEO of Mondo

Balderton

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