Human Resources

Investors

LegalTech & Legal Matters

Sessions

q42018

On this edition of the Seedcamp Podcast Series, Carlos Espinal and Tom Wilson, Investment Manager (and ex-Lawyer) at Seedcamp, have a chat with Tina Baker, Partner & Co-founder of JagShawBaker (http://www.jagshaw.com/) and real-life rockstar (http://tinab.tv/tinabhome.html).

Rockstar Lawyers and how to tackle early-stage legals with Tina Baker

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

We had the chance to sit down with Fred and Todd of Foley & Lardner (http://www.foley.com/) to discuss points startups should consider as part of 'flipping' to the USA or starting off as a foreign company vs. one based in the USA.

A little bit more background on Fred & Todd:

Fred Adam is a partner and business lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP. He advises public and private multi-nationals, investment funds, and fund portfolio companies regarding international outbound and inbound tax planning, fund formation structuring, domestic tax matters of all types and international tax matters relating especially to global business model planning and global tax efficiency projects, transfer pricing, mergers and acquisitions, financial services (PE, Venture, Hedge, etc.), and pre- and post-transaction integration structuring. In particular, Mr. Adam concentrates his practice on taxation and structuring involved in international and domestic tax matters, fund formation and investment transactions, private equity investments, and domestic and international mergers & acquisitions. His experience also includes domestic and cross-border fund formation, taxation and structuring, domestic and international real estate matters, and day-to-day advisory for international and capital market businesses. Integral to his planning experience, Mr. Adam also has significant experience relating to tax controversy matters and transfer pricing. 

E. Thom (Todd) Rumberger Jr. is a partner and corporate lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP where he focuses his practice on private equity, mergers and acquisitions and venture capital, and Internet, software, telecommunications, digital media and financial services companies through all stages of their growth. He is vice chair of the firm’s Private Equity & Venture Capital Practice, co-chair of the Technology Industry Team and is a member of the Transactional & Securities Practice.
Mr. Rumberger counsels his corporate clients, ranging from start-up, emerging growth stage and venture backed, to public domestic and foreign companies, on a wide variety of matters ranging from formation, capitalization, key executive employment and general employment issues, and corporate governance, to early (convertible debt and seed preferred) and later stage venture capital, debt and public equity financings and offerings, strategic partner, reseller, and similar commercial agreements. In addition, he has broad transactional experience representing public and private company, and private equity, buyers and sellers involved in mergers and acquisitions and financings. Additionally, Mr. Rumberger works with foreign start-up and growth stage companies in establishing a presence in the United States.

A discussion on "Flipping to the USA" with Fred & Todd of Foley & Lardner

In this episode we were joined by Josephine Goube, Director of Partnerships & Communications at Migreat. She discussed her background, how she became involved in making immigration easier for companies, discussing Entrepreneur Visa options available to set up a business in the UK.

Listed as one the top 35 women in Business in Britain in 2015 by Management Today, Joséphine currently heads Migreat, the fastest-growing global platform for migrants to get access to information and immigration support. She previously worked at TechStars London and Rainmaking, co-founded the London School of Economics Business Incubator & graduated from the New Entrepreneurs Foundation.

Josephine Goube, Director of Partnerships & Communications at Migreat

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 latest episode, Carlos was joined by Jeff Veen, Design Partner for True Ventures, a Venture Capital firm that focuses on supporting the earliest stage Founders and their teams. In the podcast, Jeff and Carlos discuss how a Partner with a design background views potential investment decisions, unearthing a lot of advice on design for startups in the process. 

http://www.seedcamp.com
http://www.carlosespinal.com
https://trueventures.com/

Jeff Veen, Design Partner at True Ventures, on How a Design Expert Views Investments

Seedcamp Partner Carlos Espinal had the chance to sit down with Playfair Capital founder, Federico Pirzio-Biroli, to discuss his background prior to starting Playfair and Co-Working space Warner Yard. 

In this episode, Federico shares with us his passion for frontier markets, and his views on the opportunity to move the needle in those areas for the better, leveraging his experience in building Playfair and seeing the EU ecosystem develop over the years.

For more on Federico's latest move, check out the Business Insider piece covering his departure:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/playfair-capital-founder-federico-pirzio-biroli-is-moving-to-africa-and-warner-yards-coworking-space-is-closing-2016-6

https://twitter.com/fede_r1c0
https://twitter.com/cee

Founder of Playfair Capital, Federico Pirzio-Biroli, on the future of investing in Africa

In this episode of the Seedcamp Podcast Sean Seton-Rogers from PROfounders Capital meets Carlos to share some of the lessons learned over his career as an investor – from experiencing the “The Bubble” first hand to more recently being able to invest in almost 30 European companies in the last 5 years.  

Sean has been working closely with great founders helping them to focus in the right things to make sure they can grow and are able to raise their next round.

Sean also shares with Carlos the story of his times through the “Social Wars” and how he met with Michael Birch and Xochi Birch founders of Bebo while at Benchmark and helped them grow through their acquisition by AOL.

Carlos and Sean also discuss the evolution of the startup ecosystem in Europe and how it became a relevant market for the US investor as well as the rise of Unicorns coming out of Europe.

http://www.profounderscapital.com/


Sean Seton-Rogers, Partner at PROFounders Capital

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

In this episode, Carlos was joined by our very own Tom Wilson, a qualified UK Lawyer and member of the Seedcamp investment team. Together, they took a deep dive into the Legal Tech sector, an area that Tom is particularly passionate about given his past experience (and headaches) as a lawyer prior to joining Seedcamp.

We touched upon defining the Legal Tech sector and the various sub sectors that make up the legal eco-system. We went on to discuss some of the topics that are making the Legal Tech space so interesting right now including: a push for increased transparency, tech solutions focused on the automation of processes (i.e. NLP etc.), the maturing ecosystem, the generational shift and more broadly the innovation (i.e.AI etc.) and areas of our interest taking place right now in legal services.

Show notes from the episode:

Apply to Seedcamp x Nextlaw labs - http://seedcamp.com/seedcamp-x-nll/
Tom's blog post on the sector - http://bit.ly/29KtaAf

Related bio links:

- Tom -  https://twitter.com/tom_wils / https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tomwilsonseedcamp
- Carlos - www.carlosespinal.com / twitter.com/cee
- Seedcamp -  www.seedcamp.com / twitter.com/seedcamp

Additional show links:

- Apperio - https://apperio.com/
- Lexoo - https://www.lexoo.co.uk/
- Beagle.ai - http://beagle.ai/
- Legal Robot - https://www.legalrobot.com/
- Juro - https://www.juro.io/
- Legal Zoom - http://www.legalzoom.com/

The Legal Tech Sector explored with Tom Wilson

In this episode, Seedcamp Partner Carlos was joined by the experienced investor and entrepreneur Christoph Janz, Managing Partner at Point Nine Capital. The result is an in-depth conversation about investing in SaaS companies and the key KPIs to have in mind for this sector.

Listen to Christoph​ sharing his story​ about catching the “entrepreneurial virus” at just 12 years old​, and re-living some of the stories from his time as the co-founder of DealPilot.com(acquired by Shopping.com) and Pageflakes (acquired by LiveUniverse), as well as an investor in companies such as Zendesk, FreeAgent Central, Geckoboard and many others.

If you’re a founder, operator or investor in any globally ambition SaaS business then you’ll want to hear Christop’s take on key metrics that early startups should have in mind to scale their businesses and get his thoughts on everything from customer acquisition challenges to sales pipelines.

Show notes from the episode:
Christoph's blog: http://christophjanz.blogspot.com
Seedcamp: http://seedcamp.com

Related bio links:
Carlos: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / @cee
Christoph: https://de.linkedin.com/in/christophjanz / @chrija


Christoph Janz, Managing Partner at Point Nine Capital

In this episode, Seedcamp Partner Carlos was joined by Vincent Jacobs from Kima Ventures. Together they speak about Vincent's education and career which includes working at Seedcamp back in 2012.

Sharing some insights on how Kima Ventures works, Vincent speaks about their investment strategies as well as the deal pipeline management techniques they have been building since 2010.  These strategies allow them to manage a large amount of applications and also a portfolio of 380 companies.

Vincent and Carlos also dive into the evolution of the startup landscape in the last few months and the challenges that Kima faces when investing in companies all over the world, including countries that are underserved by investors. Finally Vincent speaks about the evolution of the requirements for raising a Series A round during the last few months and how those differ between the UK and the US.

http://seedcamp.com/
http://www.kimaventures.com/
https://twitter.com/vincejaco
https://twitter.com/cee

Vincent Jacobs, Partner at Kima Ventures

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

What does the advent of artificial intelligence spell for the future of legal services and lawyers themselves? On that topic Seedcamp partner Carlos Espinal is joined by founder and CEO Matt Osman of Legit Patents, the startup building AI-powered applications to automate parts of the R&D process, and Neil Miller, Partner at JAG Shaw Baker and formerly General Counsel at SoundCloud.

"The lawyer of the future is going to look much closer to a combination of a strategic advisor, an account manger, and someone in charge of customer support," suggests Matt, pointing to the recent phenomenon of law schools incorporating coding into their studies. "Quite a lot of their job will be interpreting and packaging the results that are produced by software."

Meanwhile Neil describes which aspects of the legal process will be automated first - including much of the grunt work currently performed by paralegals and associates. Yet he notes there are services which will be immune, including family law which 'requires a level of empathy you won't get with AI'. 

Speaking about his experiences at JAG Shaw Baker and SoundCloud, Neil also provides a 101 on legal basics for startups and 'the things that become more complicated if you don't fix them early on,' from incorporation, cap tables and granting options, to keeping track of open source libraries and rights associated with them.


Show notes: 
Carlos Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
Legit Patents: www.legitpatents.com
JAG Shaw Baker: www.jagshawbaker.com

Related bio links: 
Carlos: linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / twitter.com/cee
Matt: linkedin.com/in/matthew-osman-36b658110 / angel.co/matthew-osman
Neil: linkedin.com/in/neilmiller

The future of legal services with Legit Patents and JAG Shaw Baker

I launched the Seedcamp 'This Much I Know' Podcast back in 2015 with a view to hearing and sharing the exceptional and often unknown stories of many inspirational thought leaders. We've learned about our guests' lives, goals and ambitions as well as their thoughts and first-hand experiences when it comes to building and scaling startups, teams and communities. 

As we near our 150th podcast and following feedback from you, our listeners, we are introducing a new, shorter-form podcast called 'Sessions'. Our Sessions interviews will be hyper-focused on a specific issue, idea or functional area and provide you with digestible content and tangible actions you can take away and apply to your own businesses. 

Naturally, we will continue to do our long-form podcasts for those of you who enjoy the deeper dives and we hope Sessions will be the perfect accompaniment to this. 

So please do tune in and let us know your thoughts along with any 'Session' areas you'd like us to explore or guests you'd like to recommend.

We're thrilled to kickstart Sessions with David Mytton, CEO of Server Density, on why you can't build SaaS without significant funding

In a recent blog post, David argues you can't build a SaaS company in 2018 without significant funding. With increased competition from alternative vendors, investing in product and engineering to differentiate from other solutions is imperative -- and comes at a significant expense. Tune into this informative podcast as David, who received investment from Seedcamp in 2009, explores why bootstrapping a SaaS business in 2018 is no longer viable plus much more. 


Show notes:
Carlos Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
David's blogpost: https://davidmytton.blog/you-cant-build-a-saas-company-in-2018-without-significant-funding/

Related bio links:
Carlos: linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / twitter.com/cee
David: www.linkedin.com/in/davidmytton / twitter.com/davidmytton

Seedcamp Sessions: David Mytton on SaaS funding

At $765m Atomico IV is one of the largest venture capital funds ever raised in Europe. But what do Atomico look for in the companies and founders which they choose to back? In this second Seedcamp Sessions podcast, Ben Blume, Principal at Atomico, elaborates on the fund's investment thesis and processes, explaining the high level benchmarks that the firm looks for when investing in entrepreneurs, from technological defensibility to deep domain experience and inherent scalability. Ben describes in more detail the principles which guide's Atomico's decision making process (including 'Now is the Age of the Entrepreneur'), as codified in their manifesto, as well as their appetite for 'visionary and risky bets'.

Show notes:
Carlos Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
Atomico's Manifesto: http://www.atomico.com/manifesto

Related bio links:
Carlos: linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / twitter.com/cee
David: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/benblume / https://twitter.com/benblume

Seedcamp Sessions: Ben Blume on what funds like Atomico look for in founders

Rob Moffat joined Balderton Capital in 2009 and was promoted to partner in 2015. He is currently a board director or observer with five portfolio companies: Carwow, Wooga, Nutmeg, Prodigy Finance, and Patients Know Best.  Prior to joining Balderton, Rob worked for Google in London, as a Manager in the European Strategy and Operations team, and for five years in strategy consulting at Bain. In this Seedcamp Sessions podcast, Rob covers the different growth engines which have proven successful for startups -- from paid marketing for companies like Carwow, who need to be rigorous in how they think about acquisition, through to continuous product innovation for companies like Revolut, and partnerships and business development for startups like Zego. Rob also covers how to navigate VC and strategic partnership relations, and how Balderton is thinking about the evolving Insurtech landscape.

Show notes:
Carlos Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
Balderton: www.balderton.com

Related bio links:
Carlos: linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / twitter.com/cee
Rob: linkedin.com/in/robmoff / twitter.com/robmoff

Seedcamp Sessions: Balderton's Rob Moffat on startup growth engines

Edward Wray graduated Oxford University to pursue a job at JP Morgan, where he spent 7 years eventually leaving as the VP of Dept Capital Markets & Derivatives. Going on to co-found Betfair in 1999, he was its first Chief Executive until 2003, when he moved to Australia to set up the company’s joint venture. It floated on the stock market in 2010, valued at £1.4 billion and is now one of the world’s largest online sports betting operators, processing more than 5 million transactions a day.

In this Seedcamp session, Ed shares many aspects of his journey, from raising £1m from his family and friends, as no VC was prepared to back him, to important life lessons he learnt through first time mistakes, like trusting your gut instinct. Now Director of Funding Circle, Ed says that when joining as director of a company, it’s imperative that employees live and breathe the business as well as understand that they themselves don’t always have the answers.

Show notes:
Carlos Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
Funding Circle: https://www.fundingcircle.com/uk/

Related bio links:
Carlos: linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / twitter.com/cee
Ed Wray: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-wray-b25b011/ /  https://twitter.com/edwray21

Edward Wray on scaling up, learning from mistakes and creating liquidity

with Stephanie Cohen and Martin Casado (@martin_casado) 

As chief strategy officer of Goldman Sachs (and former global head of financial sponsors M&A), Stephanie Cohen has seen it all when it comes to the ins and outs of M&A. And what it means to innovate from within, especially at a large company.

Given Cohen's unique vantage point and nearly 20-year tenure at Goldman Sachs, Casado -- himself a veteran of both an acquisition (Nicira) and big company innovation (VMware) -- interviews Cohen in this episode of the a16z Podcast, on the ways that big companies navigate innovation... both inside and outside. How do they make the decision to build vs. buy? How does one diversify perspectives? And so on. 

This episode is based on a fireside chat that originally took place at our annual a16z Summit event in November 2018.

a16z Podcast: M&A and Innovation, Inside Out

The Hidden Power Of The Venezuelan Diaspora

Episode 16. Stephen Baker and RJ Scaringe, CEO of Rivian, an electric car startup, sat down at LA CoMotion to discuss how the consumption model for cars will evolve over the next decades. RJ calls Rivian the “Patagonia” of electric cars - a comfortable vehicle encouraging  customers to go out and explore the world. The car’s smart battery can learn from its user and adjust to his preferred charging mode in real-time. RJ Scaringe believes that as we move away from an exclusive consumption ownership model for cars, we will adopt more use-case specific modes of consumption.

The "Patagonia" of Electric Cars - Stephen Baker chats with RJ Scaringe, CEO of Rivian

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.

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

The Seedcamp Podcast