Sessions

Humans are innately community-seeking. It's why we section off into groups on playgrounds, congregate around political leaders, and build families, biological or otherwise. Communities add value, and membership goes far beyond group identity; it even drives purchasing decisions. From clothing and bottled water to open-source software, community is a powerful tool for company building, and one that no founder should underestimate.

"No two communities are the same," Seedcamp's community manager Precious Oyelade tells us. "Yet there are repeatable steps and actions you can do to make one work." And this is what Seedcamp's newest series, "Precious on Community" seeks to dive into. Over the few episodes, Precious will be interviewing community builders from all walks of life to share findings and document key learnings about how to build an effective community. 

Welcome to Precious on Community.

Shownotes and links:
- Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee
- Precious Oyelade - twitter.com/preciousolade
- Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com
- Seedcamp's This Much I Know with GORUCK: seedcamp.com/podcasts/this-much-i-know-founder-ceo-of-goruck-jason-mccarthy-on-building-community-and-walking-the-harder-path
- Tribes, Seth Godin - goodreads.com/book/show/3828382-tribes
- How to build a community with people - www.gettogether.world

Introducing Precious on Community: What does community mean?

The power of community lies in the ability to thrive virtually and scale across borders. Behind these communities, lie powerful and dedicated leaders whose intrinsic motivation to connect and support members creates compounding value.

On the final ‘Precious on Community’ episode, Precious speaks with Erika Batista, VP International at On Deck on managing and growing their communities.

On Deck is an ecosystem of founders, investors and angels providing programmes and creating communities that strengthen each other one after the other. Erika shares her experience of building community through new geographies and finding the ‘North Star’ that resonates with individuals and unites them as a community. She offers advice on striking the balance between doing things that don’t scale, and managing the influx of information that comes when thinking about community as a growing product. Precious and Erika explore the difference between operational failures and experimental failures, and Erika offers some hot tips on how she manages to get her community members always coming back to events. Tune in, it’s a good one.

Show links:
Precious Oyelade - www.twitter.com/preciousOlade
Erika Batista - www.twitter.com/erikabatista
Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com
OnDeck - www.beondeck.com

Precious on Community: Managing and Growing Community with On Deck

The power of community lies in the ability to thrive virtually and scale across borders. Behind these communities, lie powerful and dedicated leaders whose intrinsic motivation to connect and support members creates compounding value.

On the second-to-last ‘Precious on Community’ episodes, Precious speaks with Hung Lee, Curator at Recruiting Brainfood on managing and growing communities.

Recruiting Brainfood is an industry newsletter for talent professionals that Hung Lee started in 2017 and has grown to 38,000 subscribers. Hung shared a lot of important questions to ask yourself when starting, managing and moderating a community: Have you nailed the community values down by being true to your intrinsic motivation? What does the community member get for showing up? How will you ensure the community doesn’t get corrupted? The age-old question of Platform was raised as Hung shared his preference for newsletters over Slack (naturally), and how setting up a community is as customised an experience as setting up a bar, “you need to go and create a reason for being”. 

Tune in, it's a good one!


Show links:
Precious Oyelade - www.twitter.com/preciousOlade
Hung Lee - www.twitter.com/Hunglee
Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com
Recruiting Brainfood - www.recruitingbrainfood.com

Precious on Community: Curating a Community Solo with Hung Lee

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 week we have Joe Furr, founder and creative director at Point Studio, deconstructing his thought process on web design and soulful branding. Aged just 28 years old, Joe has more than a decade worth of experience and has worked with brands such as Thriva, Oinky and Seedcamp, among others. On tailoring an identity, Joe notes: “You are thriving for something that’s timeless, but a brand is never finished.”

Tune in to hear what goes on behind the scenes of a design studio, why it is important to work with clients who understand their vision and how to navigate your look in a constantly evolving environment.

Links:
Joe - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/joe-furr-85446826/
Joe - Twitter: twitter.com/whatthefurr 
Carlos - Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3
Carlos - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal
Carlos - Twitter: twitter.com/cee

Point Studio LDN: www.point.studio
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com

Seedcamp Sessions: Joe Furr, Founder at Point Studio, on web design and 'soulful' branding

Company culture is one of those areas which seems quite simple on a high level, yet only a few businesses excel at. This week we are bringing in Bretton Putter, the founder of CultureGene, a next generation executive search consultancy. In the episode we examine what exactly 'constitutes' company culture, the criteria to look for when hiring, and how to effectively test for cultural fit in the early days. 

In his most recent book, 'Culture Decks Decoded', Brett has combined his analysis of hundreds of culture decks and tackles the patterns that make up a sustainable culture. The benefits are clear, but the path to success remains vague. As Bretton says, "Probably the most commonly forgotten aspect about creating company culture is that it has to be managed."

Links:
Bretton - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/brettonputter
Bretton - Twitter: twitter.com/brettonputter
Bretton - Medium: https://medium.com/@BrettonPutter 
Carlos - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal
Carlos - Twitter: twitter.com/cee
Carlos - Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3

CultureGene: www.culturegene.ai
Culture Decks Decoded: www.culturegene.ai/books/culture-decks-decoded
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com

Seedcamp Sessions: Bretton Putter, Founder of CultureGene, Bringing Clarity to Company Culture

Recorded live at our Seedcamp People Summit, Marin Jankovski recalls the beginnings of GitLab and how the company grew to become one of the largest distributed workforce, with 67 locations around the world and not a single office space for their 1200 people.

In the session, featuring an inspiring introduction by Ben Gateley CEO and cofounder of our portfolio company CharlieHR, Marin explains the two most crucial pillars their team depends on when working remotely: communicating async - “it’s inclusive and it allows people on different times to contribute and not be left out”; and to always be able to individualise the single source of truth.

Tune in for practical insight on how to build an efficient remote team, how to convince investors to follow in this mission, and how to include people in important decision-making processes. 

Links:
Marin Jankovski - linkedin.com/in/marin-jankovski
GitLab - gitlab.com
GitLab Handbook - https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/
Seedcamp - seedcamp.com
CharlieHR - charliehr.com
Ben Gateley - http://twitter.com/Gateley

Marin Jankovski, GitLab's first engineering hire, on how to build and scale distributed teams

In this week’s recorded video podcast Seedcamp partners, Carlos and Tom, join forces to discuss some of the key terms startup founders should keep in mind when considering a  term sheet from investors.

Carlos and Tom first met when Tom, in his previous life, was one of the lawyers working on helping to set Seedcamp up as a fund. Fast forward six years later and Tom - now one of our investment partners - shares how he wears both his investor and private equity lawyer hat to support portfolio companies and to help startups more broadly gain a comprehensive overview of how to navigate different legal complexities that can arise when it comes to setting up and fundraising for your startup; especially important in today’s challenging times. 


In this Legal Hour Session, Carlos and Tom cover different golden rules on how to document and structure an investment round along with key information on how to factor in option pools. It’s well worth also reading Tom’s latest article - “The most important clause to look out for in a dreaded “down-round”, uncovering potential concerns for startups fundraising in these current circumstances. Tune in for advice on how to “focus on the terms, not the structure”, “not letting market standard verbiage prevent you from doing your research”, and how “to always think comprehensively about your terms”.

Tom Wilson - twitter.com/tom_wils
Tom's article: https://medium.com/@taw/the-most-important-clause-to-look-out-for-in-a-dreaded-down-round-cac2b70e8fc8
Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee
Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

Legal Hour with Tom & Carlos - Legal terms to be aware of when bringing in new investors

14% of the global GDP goes from government to businesses every year. But how does the public procurement office run this global economy and how can companies trying to sell to government navigate its inner-workings? The rather opaque admin of the process is exactly what drove three university students to decide to build Stotles, specifically addressing the murky waters of government contracting and a proud Seedcamp-backed company

Stotles’s founding team, CEO John Witt, COO Taj Kamranpour and CPO Carsten Schaltz, join Carlos in this week’s podcast to discuss how their work aims at bringing more large, medium and small business into the fold and increase competition to benefit everybody in the market: suppliers, government buyers and taxpayers. A rather appealing mission when a 1% increase in efficiency can turn into a £20bn saving for taxpayers.

Tune in as the Stotles team reveal how they are democratising government procurement by providing data that empowers companies to be active on biddings, rather than reactive and how they can help companies to close contracts and build credibility in the private sector, as they ultimately strive to get companies and government to work better together. 



Links
Stotles - www.stotles.com
John Witt - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jwitt10/
Taj Kamranpour - linkedin.com/in/tkamranpour
Carsten Schaltz - linkedin.com/in/carstenschaltz
Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee
Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

How businesses can win public-sector contracts with Stotles

After the success of our first Legal Hour podcast in which Tom and Carlos discussed commercial legal terms and what founders should look out for, they’re back again; this time with a detailed look at how to structure your round and legal terms to be aware of.

The purpose of this episode is to arm all founders with valuable information to help you make the most knowledgeable decisions, as no founder or investor should be afraid of any legal structures - “they are all trodden paths that other founders have gone through, and they are all tools from which to use”.

The session will cover various legal structures both founders and investors should be generally already familiar with, but going more in depth as to what the considerations should be when going for equity share purchases over commercial contracts, or the importance of understanding the different national jurisdiction a company might choose to comply with, and why, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of each along the way.

Tune in to deepen your knowledge about legal structures for your next round, and to allow for better speed, simplicity and clarity, in your decision-making process. 


Links
Tom Wilson - twitter.com/tom_wils
Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee
Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

Legal Hour with Tom & Carlos - Legal structures to be aware of when setting up your next round

On this third episode of the Seedcamp Legal Hour, Tom and Carlos are joined by Anthony Rose, Co-founder and CEO of SeedLegals, the world's first legal automation platform for startup funding and a proud Seedcamp portfolio company. Besides being a serial entrepreneur, Anthony’s career has also seen him take on huge feats such as managing the launch of BBC iPlayer, for which Wired UK named him "the man who saved the BBC”.

With one in 12 of all early-stage investments in the UK going through the SeedLegals platform, the company now holds key insights on what is market standard when it comes to legal terms. One of the mistakes Anthony has noticed throughout the years includes founders requesting bespoke contracts. He comments, for an investor, it’s like going on a holiday and having a rental car. So you get out of the airport and you jump into the rental car and if Saab or somebody has moved all of the controls into a different place […] it’s a nightmare.”

Tune in to learn the six critical things to get sorted legally when you’re just starting a company and how data can empower founders to make better legal decisions.

Links:
Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee
Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com
Tom Wilson - twitter.com/tom_wils
Anthony Rose - twitter.com/anthonyrose
SeedLegals - www.seedlegals.com

Legal Hour – The 6 make or break legal issues to consider when starting a company

Tom and Carlos are back with another episode of the Legal Hour podcast where they’ll walk you through the standard terms for term sheets, advisory agreements, and founder collaboration agreements and why founders shouldn’t blindly just use templates available without proper diligence. 

The term ‘standard documents’ came along not only from wanting to absorb the lessons learned, but also to introduce some level of simplicity in rather complex legal agreements. However, what is defined as ‘standard’ changes depending on various external variables that alongside others include how competitive the market is currently. So, if the standard terms aren’t static, but rather continuously shifting, what should founders look out for before placing their signature on any of them? 

Tune in to hear from Tom and Carlos as they’ll walk you through the most important elements that aren’t typical and should be adjusted to a specific company’s needs. 

The key resources mentioned:
Seedsummit - https://seedsummit.org/
YC SAFE - https://www.ycombinator.com/documents/
Resources by Tom - https://tom-wilson.com/
Blog posts by Carlos - https://thedrawingboard.me/



Links
Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee
Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com
Tom Wilson - https://twitter.com/tom_wils
Blog by Tom - https://tom-wilson.com/
Blog by Carlos - https://thedrawingboard.me/
YC SAFE - https://www.ycombinator.com/documents/
Seedsummit - http://seedsummit.org/

Legal Hour with Tom & Carlos - what to be aware of when signing ‘standard terms’

Your team is the single biggest determining factor for your startup’s success. Building a great product, unlocking market potential, and attracting loyal customers require expertise and hustle from within. And, no, we do not just mean from within the founding team. Individuals across departments and seniority levels determine whether your company rises to stardom or flops miserably. 

To attract and retain the right talent, startups use employee ownership as an incentive scheme. Stock options have become tech’s currency. There is a common fear among founders that dilution resulting from a sizable stock option pool is too costly. Though, in reality, it is too costly not to incentivize your team properly. Competition for top talent is just too high to afford doing so. 

At Seedcamp, we firmly believe that employee ownership is an essential ingredient in advancing the European startup ecosystem. This is why, in the following two episodes of Legal Hour, we dive into the nitty-gritty of employee incentive schemes. Joined by Ian Shaw, a partner at Orrick who heads the London employee share schemes and incentives practice, Tom and Carlos discuss everything founders need to know about designing an effective option plan. 

In this first episode, the trio clarifies definitions and types of agreements needed to understand the space. Put the kettle on and listen in!


Links:
Ian Shaw - linkedin.com/in/ian-shaw-6ba480a9/ 
Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee
Tom Wilson - twitter.com/tom_wils 
Index Ventures Rewarding Talent Handbook - indexventures.com/rewardingtalent/handbook
Index Ventures OptionPlan - indexventures.com/rewardingtalent/handbook  
Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

Legal Hour with Tom & Carlos — Incentivising your team through Employee Share Schemes (Part 1)

Your team is the single biggest determining factor for your startup’s success. Building a great product, unlocking market potential, and attracting loyal customers require expertise and hustle from within. And, no, we do not just mean from within the founding team. Individuals across departments and seniority levels determine whether your company rises to stardom or flops miserably. 

To attract and retain the right talent, startups use employee ownership as an incentive scheme. Stock options have become tech’s currency. There is a common fear among founders that dilution resulting from a sizable stock option pool is too costly. Though, in reality, it is too costly not to incentivise your team properly. Competition for top talent is just too high to afford doing so. 

At Seedcamp, we firmly believe that employee ownership is an essential ingredient in advancing the European startup ecosystem. This is why, in the following two episodes of Legal Hour, we dive into the nitty-gritty of employee incentive schemes. Joined by Ian Shaw, a partner at Orrick who heads the London employee share schemes and incentives practice, Tom and Carlos discuss everything founders need to know about designing an effective option plan. 

In this second episode, they dig into specifics around tax structures and option plan structures.

Links:
Ian Shaw - linkedin.com/in/ian-shaw-6ba480a9/ 
Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee
Tom Wilson - twitter.com/tom_wils 
Index Ventures Rewarding Talent Handbook - indexventures.com/rewardingtalent/handbook
Index Ventures OptionPlan - indexventures.com/rewardingtalent/handbook  
Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

Legal Hour with Tom & Carlos — Incentivising your team through Employee Share Schemes (Part 2)

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.

Sessions

The Seedcamp Podcast