Founders

Sessions

Start-Up

In this episode of the Seedcamp Podcast, we were joined by Sheila Marcelo, Founder, Chairwoman & CEO of Care.com. 

Sheila joined Seedcamp on our US tour to meet with our Founders and talk about the personal life experiences and passion that led to her building Care.com, the world’s largest online care destination. She touches on everything from creating company culture and failing fast as a young Founder, to scaling the company and being coached as a CEO.

Sheila Marcelo, Founder of Care.com

Phil Libin, Co-Founder and Chairman of Evernote and Managing Partner of General Catalyst Partners, joined Carlos Espinal for a chat at Web Summit in Dublin. 

Phil and Carlos discuss everything from his long-standing career as a CEO, looking at his key advice for managers making the transition from early-stage leader to the CEO of a growth company, to the origins of Evernote and, in Phil’s new role in Venture Capital, what the future of apps looks like. Phil gives insight into the thoughts that led to him stepping down as CEO of Evernote as the company scaled. Debating when to recognise that someone skilled in running larger organisations makes sense for your business and that you can hire the best talent. 

Phil Libin, Co-Founder & Chairman of Evertnote and Managing Partner, General Catalyst Partners

Ben Drury, Founder of 7Digital, joined Seedcamp’s Dave Haynes for this interview talking through his journey as an entrepreneur. From starting in the first dot-com boom within early online music tech to building 7Digital during the dot-com crash, Ben discusses everything from building new services for a new era of technology, acquiring and selling other companies, to 7Digital’s own IPO. 

Ben Drury, Founder of 7Digital

In this episode, Carlos was joined by Damian Kimmelmann, Co-Founder and CEO of DueDil, a fintech company that provides accurate, comprehensive and up-to-date private company data. 

After talking through Damian's background as a serial entrepreneur and the idea that built DueDil, we switch focus and talk through sales, looking at how to find and scale a b2b sales team.

Damian Kimmelmann, Co-Founder and CEO, DueDil

Starting by scoring a first interview with Guy Kawasaki Harry Stebbings walks us through how he started his network from scratch and built his massive following for his 20 Minute VC podcast show. 

In this podcast, Harry shares his story with Carlos giving unique insights on to some of the amazing marketing efforts that he has created to drive user growth and retain his audience all while highlighting the accomplishments of his interviewees. Discover how he uses channels like Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter to drive his audience to the show and how he discovered which channels best converted for him.  

www.thetwentyminutevc.com
www.twitter.com/HarryStebbings
www.seedcamp.com
www.carlosespinal.com

Harry Stebbings, Founder of the 20 Minute VC Podcast

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

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 Sessions: David Mytton on SaaS funding

The Seedcamp Podcast