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Deep Dives

Human Resources

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In this Podcast, we have a chance to sit down with Brett from the Forsyth group (http://www.forsythgroup.com/), an Executive Search Firm. 

Covering everything from how to prepare for hiring internally to how to deal with egos, Brett shares his wealth of knowledge both from the point of view of his current role placing top candidates within top-tier firms, to his time as a founder himself.

Bretton Putter of the Forsyth Group

In this episode, Carlos was joined by Yodit Stanton and Verena Wimmer, to unpick exactly what we mean when we talk about Data Science, the role of the Data Scientist, how startups can think about using data and when to consider hiring for the role, which tools are best and what we'd like to see in the future. If you're ready to learn more about the power of data, this podcast provides a great place to start.

Yodit Stanton is Founder of new Seedcamp company Open Sensors, the Internet of Things startup providing public and private infrastructure for real-time data, she is also the organiser of Women in Data Meetups in London.

Verena Wimmer is Lead Data Analyst at Hassle, the online cleaning marketplace recently acquired by Helpling. Verena also organises Data Mates, which brings together data-wizards, journalists, and data-driven designers to tell beautiful stories with data every eight weeks in London.

Seedcamp Dives into Data Science

In this episode, Carlos was joined by Dr. James Smith and Jonathan Heusser, for a look into Bitcoin - what it is, what it means for the industry and how the startups developing within this new space. If you want to get to grips with Bitcoin and the future of payments, this podcast is the best place to start.

James Smith is CEO and Co-Founder of Seedcamp-backed startup, Elliptic. The company identifies illicit activity on the Bitcoin blockchain and provides services to the leading bitcoin companies and law enforcement agencies, globally. The team recently announced a $5M series A round to keep building out its blockchain forensics tool.  

Jonathan Heusser is Founder of Queueco, a market maker for digital currencies. They develop a scalable, automated trading platform and deploy it globally to trade on all major digital currency exchanges. Their strategies rely on the latest statistical and machine learning techniques and support the digital ecosystem by adding much-needed liquidity.

Seedcamp Dives into Bitcoin & Blockchain

In this episode, Carlos was joined by Ernesto Suarez, CEO of Halo Insurance Services, and Nikolaus Sühr, CEO and Co-Founder of Seedcamp's own KASKO, to discuss the future of insurance tech. The insurance market, like the financial and property markets, is poised for startups to shake up the status quo - and they already are! In this conversation, the three discuss what is happening in the space, the key players emerging across the sector and what we can expect to see in the coming years.

Seedcamp Dives into the Future of Insurance

In this episode, Carlos was joined by Alistair Shepherd, Founder of Saberr (http://www.saberr.com/), a Seedcamp portfolio company. Saberr, is a people analytics company that helps organisations make better decisions about their people. The marketing industry was transformed when it started using data to drive decision-making and Saberr believe people functions are at the same inflection point.

In his chat with Carlos, Alistair talks about the reasons startups can succeed and fail, and how important it is to build a team that works well together. Using a shared value set and making sure the team is 'even', ensuring that you can map out the performance of a team with each new hire, in advance. The two discuss what builds good working relationships, and how to define and manage diversity and culture in the team.

Alistair Shepherd of Saberr on Hiring, Firing, and Building the Perfect Team

In the ‘Seedcamp Podcast Series’ we talk with key people in the tech startup industry to hear their stories, key advice and learnings from their experiences.

In this episode, Dr. Edward Challis Founder and CEO of Seedcamp-backed Re:Infer (https://reinfer.io/) and Christoph Auer-Welsbach, IBM Watson Partner Innovation, joined Carlos to discuss Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and whether or not we will have to worry about humanity’s fate in the future.

With their experienced backgrounds, we covered the state of artificial intelligence today, some of the plausible uses and evolution of AI in the near term, and dispelling some of the myths around what is AI and what it can and can’t do.

Related Bio Links - 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardchallis
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophauerwelsbach/en

Seedcamp Dives into Artificial Intelligence with Reinfer & IBM Watson

In this episode, Carlos was joined by Matt Buckland, Head of Talent and HR of Lyst (www.lyst.co.uk), the fashion commerce platform, and Rob O’Donovan, Co-Founder & CEO of Seedcamp-backed CharlieHR (www.charliehr.com), the free HR platform for small businesses. We took a deep dive into best HR practices, a really hot topic for companies that are scaling their businesses and looking for the best tools and practices to manage their teams.

The importance of creating a company culture is already common knowledge, but as part of this podcast we explore this in more detail by actually defining it with examples from Matt & Rob's extended experience. They touch on ways to institutionalise and organise the processes, how software can turn real social interaction into meaningful data, and the importance of having a smooth, genuine on-boarding process for your new hires. 

Listen to great advice and real stories on what works best (or doesn’t) when it comes to categorising behaviour and getting a reality check on what does the new generation of hires find fulfilling in their roles - key defining elements that build up your brand culture and values.

Related Bio Links :
uk.linkedin.com/in/mlbuckland / twitter.com/ElSatanico 
uk.linkedin.com/in/robodonovan / twitter.com/rjodonovan
www.seedcamp.com / twitter.com/seedcamp
www.carlosespinal.com / twitter.com/cee

Seedcamp Dives into scaling Human Resources with Lyst and CharlieHR

How can companies promote great technical leadership, and how should startups approach hiring developers? On that topic Seedcamp partner Carlos Espinal is joined by Jackson Gabbard, one of the founding hires in Facebook’s London office and now an Expert in Residence at Seedcamp.
 
Having made the transition from an English degree to a career in software development by teaching himself to code, Jackson also recalls how he overcame gaps in his technical knowledge through focus and hard study – leading to multiple promotions at Facebook after some initial struggles.
 
Jackson, who conducted over 500 developer interviews while at Facebook, helped create the mobile timeline and worked on abuse prevention systems, cautions against non-technical founders outsourcing their dev work abroad because it can limit product development in the long run.
 
Learn why the myth of the ‘10x engineer’ is a dangerous one, the reason it’s important to have product visionaries and not just great salespeople, and how tech companies can ensure good people management.

Show notes:
Carlos Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
Jackson's YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UCcdCkJKXlRoXVD03eo-q8mQ/ 

Related bio links:
Carlos: linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / twitter.com/cee
Jackson: linkedin.com/in/jacksongabbard / twitter.com/jackson_gabbard

Jackson Gabbard, Seedcamp EiR & founding Facebook hire on great tech leadership

Which slices of the financial stack will new technologies irreversibly transform, and which will be the enablers – artificial intelligence, NLP, virtual assistants or blockchain – most significant in this transformation?
 
On that topic Lex Sokolin, Partner at Autonomous Research, a leading research firm for the financial sector, joins Seedcamp partner Carlos Espinal. Lex is a futurist and entrepreneur focused on the next generation of financial services. He was founder and CEO of NestEgg Wealth, a roboadvisor acquired by AdvisorEngine. Prior to NestEgg, Lex held a variety of roles in investment management and banking at Barclays, Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank.  

Alluding to his own entrepreneurial experience, Lex suggests 'most people who build fintech companies think they're going to get the attention economy but instead what they get is a financial services business'. He explains that unless start-ups have the ability to chase customer acquisition with millions of dollars, the smart bet historically has been to sell directly to banks.
 
Most consumer facing roboadvisors and fintech companies today, he says, are just ‘a new distribution mechanism, a new UI, sitting on top of existing wealth management solutions'. But, he argues, AI’s most visible effect will occur at this layer, through voice or chatbot enabled interaction with financial services.
 
Lex also addresses the recent proliferation of Initial Coin Offerings, a financing mechanism for cryptocurrencies and decentralised applications. 'The things that are built [in the crypto economy] look wildly different and look like they really can't be replicated on the traditional stack, on an 80s core processing system’, he says.
 
It’s a world, he argues, that closely resembles science fiction, promising the ‘full collapse of all asset classes into software' and autonomous machines transacting with each other entirely through digital assets and tokens.

Show notes: 
Carlos Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
Autonomous NEXT: https://next.autonomous.com

Related bio links: 
Carlos: linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / twitter.com/cee
Lex: linkedin.com/in/alexeysokolin / twitter.com/lexsokolin

Lex Sokolin, Fintech entrepreneur on Roboadvisors, AI and Token Mania

Hiring and retaining talent is one of the most severe challenges of early-stage companies. Employee stock options are a fair, but often misunderstood tool for aligning interests between early employees. Fortunately, the Director of Talent at Index Ventures, Dominic Jacquesson has combined knowledge from both sides of the Atlantic and created a comprehensive guide called “Rewarding Talent”.

In the podcast, Dominic shares his findings on the differences between European and US startups and gives tips for early-stage founders on building sustainable long-term relationships with its employees. 

“We are very much advocates of giving something to everyone. It might be a small amount, but as you scale, try to make everyone an owner.”

Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
Index Ventures: https://www.indexventures.com

Carlos: 
medium.com/@cee
www.linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal
twitter.com/cee

Dominic:
https://medium.com/@domjacquesson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicjacquesson/
https://twitter.com/domjacquesson

Rewarding Talent: https://www.indexventures.com/rewardingtalent
Rewarding Talent (online version): https://www.indexventures.com/rewardingtalent/handbook/rewarding-talent
Rewarding Talent (quick guide): https://www.indexventures.com/blog/rewarding-talent-quick-guide

Index Ventures OptionPlan: https://www.indexventures.com/optionplan

Dominic Jacquesson, Director of Talent at Index Ventures, on employee stock options

This Much I Know is the podcast from Seedcamp, Europe’s seed fund.

Tune into hear the inside story from startup founders, investors and leading tech voices: the people who’ve built businesses, scaled globally, failed fantastically and learnt massively.

Seedcamp invests early in world-class founders attacking large, global markets and solving real problems using technology. Seedcamp provides the infrastructure to fast-track a founder’s vision and create value through immediate access to smart capital, a lifelong community of support and a global network built upon a decade’s experience backing exceptional talent.

Seedcamp Dives into scaling Human Resources with Lyst and CharlieHR

The Seedcamp Podcast