Full transcript: Alice Bentinck on London Real
0:59 Silicon Real presents Alice Bentinck, Entrepreneur First. This is Silicon Real, the program dedicated to the people of the London technology startup scene. My guest today is Alice Bentinck, who’s the co-founder of Entrepreneur First, Europe’s leading early stage investor in deep technology companies. You help talented individuals build high-growth technology companies from scratch, pre-team, pre-idea. You’ve just announced an 8 and 1/2 million pound fund to invest in these companies.
1:29 You formerly worked at McKinsey & Company for 2 years. You turned down an offer from Google to start Entrepreneur First with your co-founder Matt Clifford, who was here about 18 months ago. I really like Matt. You also, you like him, too. So, you also sit on the board of Sherry Coutu’s Founders for Schools.
1:45 We’ve had Sherry here. She’s amazing. And you’re also the co-founder of Code First Girls. It’s quite a bio, Alice. Welcome to Silicon Real.
1:51 Thank you. Thank you for having me. It’s pleasure to have you here. I just want to start off with a quote. I think it was from you or from someone at your company.
1:58 You said, “We are building companies from scratch in a way that hasn’t been done before, hasn’t been successfully replicated. We have turned the early stage investment model on its head.” Can you tell me what you mean by that? So, 4 years ago when we were starting, we had this idea that we could help more at that time bright graduates start their own startups. And fortunately, we knew nothing about early stage investing.
2:25 And at the time, early stage investing was all about finding a team who has an idea and giving them some cash. And we went out to a ton of different universities and heard the same thing again and again, which is, “I would start a startup, but I don’t have a team and I don’t have an idea.” I think what’s interesting and troublesome about the UK compared to the US is that in the UK, there was no way for smart, ambitious people to find other smart, ambitious people to build startups with.
2:53 So, we naively put together this model where we take individuals. You don’t need an idea. Some people do have an idea, but it’s not not important. We never select based on idea. We take groups of 50 at a time and work with them over 6 months to help them build a startup from scratch.
3:10 So, that’s anything from developing the idea, building the co-founding team, finding first customers. We give them a bit of investment and getting them through to the stage where they can raise serious money. And now, 4 years on, in fact, it’s our fourth birthday next week. 4 years on, the model works. We’ve got a ton of support, which is great.
3:30 We’ve just raised this 8 and 1/2 million pound fund that you mentioned. But 4 years ago, we did not have. We had a lot of supporters, people who were saying like, you know, good for you for doing this. But the message was constantly like, “Can’t you just help people get into startups rather than make startups?” And it took a while for people to realize that actually, team building isn’t impossible.
3:51 It’s just hard, but it is doable. And that actually the problem with ideas is that most people don’t know what a good idea looks like and they need help to work out what that is. And particularly in the UK, where there seems to be this connection where people think startup and they think app. And actually that isn’t necessarily true, and the majority of the startups that we produce aren’t apps. So I think that there’s still a lot of work to be done around that early stage idea formation, and that’s a large part of what we do.
4:22 That’s fascinating. So people said that maybe you shouldn’t try to work on startups but just try to work on team building? They weren’t even sure about the team building stuff. They just thought we should get people to work in startups rather than build startups. Where did this idea come from where you thought, okay, everyone at the time was, you know, incubating and accelerating, but where did you guys come up with the idea of, wait, we’re going to start before that, and really you’re looking for raw talent more than anything?
4:45 Yeah, exactly. I mean, we are a talent organization. I think, and we see this in our young founders now, you know, Matt and I were pretty naive about the industry. I don’t think I even knew what an accelerator was, and because of that it meant that we weren’t trying to replicate an existing model. And I think that is the trouble, where if you’re trying to produce a startup that is replicating an existing model, you’re probably just going to do it badly.
5:11 And you’ve got nothing defensible, nothing interesting. So now we can say, you know, we’ve got this defensible model that doesn’t mean completely different to everyone else and produces some very interesting results, but actually at the beginning that, you know, that that wasn’t necessarily why we were doing it, just because there was demand from students for a model like this. So in retrospect it’s worked after 4 years, but the first year it wasn’t necessarily a good product market fit or it took you a while to get your finger.
5:38 You said you went out. You said most startups don’t actually listen to their customers. They think they know what their customers want. They probably project onto their customers what they think they want. I’ve been guilty of that here.
5:49 And you said that even when you started, you went out to these schools and you were talking to them, but you didn’t really listen. So, the first month was a big learning curve. We printed all these very high-quality leaflets talking about this two-year educational program that we were going to, you know, help super smart ambitious graduates go through. And doing a month of touring around universities trying to sell this, we realized that it was the completely wrong thing.
6:16 People didn’t want to do a two-year education program about startups, but they wanted to build startups. And they wanted help with team building, and they wanted help with developing ideas. So, we scrapped the very expensive brochures and just started going around universities and setting up instead of doing we basically lectured people of like, you know, come and do this and we’d have 70 people in the room. And they’d ask questions that were we were a bit surprised by, but it wasn’t until we sat down one-to-one and actually talked to young computer scientists about what they wanted to do with their careers and what the barriers were to startups that we began learning.
6:51 And I think, you know, this is something that all young startups face where you have to have an idea about what your customers want. But you have to be prepared to iterate on that. Right. And so, what did you change? How did your first year program look differently than what you envisaged?
7:04 And then the second year, what did you change? I mean, the first year’s program we were working out as we went along. But it was like a one-year program, 30 cohort? By then it was a. We also had no money.
7:18 So, it was meant to be a two-year program. Naive a take can be a beautiful thing, right? Exactly, exactly. And it didn’t seem hard because we just didn’t. We never thought we’d fail, so we just kept going.
7:28 It was going to be a two-year program, then it was a one-year program. We didn’t have enough money for a one-year program, so then it was a six-month program. And actually, six months is about the right time. You know, we weren’t going to provide office space. We found office space pretty much 2 weeks before the cohort joined us.
7:46 And that was only going to be for 3 months and then Google Campus saved us by giving us another 3 months. So really the first program was a kind of cobbled together and learning a lot about how to create this new kind of program. And I think what’s exciting now 4 years on is we’re not making up from scratch anymore. We have a repeatable and scalable process where things are still relatively messy. Building teams and building startups from scratch will always be messy.
8:11 But we know what will happen at each stage now. It’s sort of managed mess, organized mess now. Okay. And now do you have dedicated office space that the, what do you call the classes? The cohort.
8:21 The cohort. And it’s an annual piece or every 6 months cohort? So we’re just changing that. So one of the big things at the moment is scale. So year one was 30 people, year two was 30 people, year three was 50 people a year.
8:33 And now we’re going to a model where we take 200 people a year. Okay. So really upping the numbers of people that can go through. 50 to 200. Okay.
8:41 Yeah. So September’s going to be fun. Okay. And that’s a year, but 6 months of that is training. So it’s two cohorts of 100 starting 6 months and then 6 months.
8:53 Okay. In many ways I think it’s going to make the experience better for the cohort members because one of the really important ideas behind the F is founder liquidity, which means are there enough people for you to co-found with at any one point in time? So typically when you join the program, some people build a team on day one and stay with that team for 6 months, but that’s atypical. Most people go through between three and four team iterations. Really?
9:21 So that means you need enough people so that when you come out of a team, there’s 10, 15 other people who are also looking for a team that you can then potentially co-found with. And that cycle of team iteration is really important. So you’re matchmaking the whole process. So they might start in this group and then move to this group and I suppose the counterintuitive thing about it is we tried matchmaking and we are terrible terrible matchmakers. We’re fantastic team builders, terrible matchmakers.
9:47 The counterintuitive thing about team building is it’s all about breaking teams up, not about keeping teams together or forming teams. Forming teams is easy. You get people to just pick, and they pick based on interest areas. But the key thing is when you see a team isn’t working, that you get them out of that team as quickly as possible. So, our aim is that within 10 days of a team coming together, if they aren’t being productive, we break them up.
10:12 So, for us, productivity is traction for teams. If the team isn’t being productive, they shouldn’t be working together. Like we break them up and then help them find a new co-founder. Okay, and there’s a simple KPI there. If they’re not outputting this or delivering this, then time to break it up.
10:25 I wish it was that quite that clear-cut, but almost. Okay. So, say 100 people will join. When’s the next start date? September 22nd.
10:33 September 22nd, coming up soon. Okay. So, 100 people will go in. Those first 10 days, they’ll be broken. Well, they’ll be broken up teams immediately, and then in the first 10 days, they’ll be evaluated in those teams.
10:43 Yes, pretty much. So, we’re a very high-touch program. We spend a lot of time with the startups. We’ve got the core EF team, which is there are 11 of us now. And then we’ve got four venture partners who are experienced entrepreneurs who come in and do a day a week.
11:00 So, people like Chris Mairs, who’s one of the co-founders of Metaswitch, or Phil Hutcheson, who’s a serial B2C entrepreneur. He was one of the co-founders of Kelkoo. Someone from Betfair that used to come in in the past? Yes, we’ve had Ed Wray come in and speak to the guys as well. But the key part of those early days is having constant interactions with the EF team who know what teams in trouble look like.
11:26 And we can manage that process of getting out of a team and getting back into a new team. So, we were talking before. Is your job more? Is your job psychology and sociology? Because you’re almost, you said, like you want to be the Stanford of Europe.
11:41 So, it’s interesting because a lot of times I speak with people here that are, you know, in incubators, accelerators, but you’re kind of one step before the product. Yeah. Where the brains are coming together. Well, I mean, we’re a talent organization, and we’re the, I suppose, the only investors that really do focus on individuals. We select you as an individual.
12:01 During the program, we work with you as an individual to get you into the right team. So it means, I suppose, we do have. We get to know people very, very well. And building a startup is hard. It’s probably one of the hardest things that you can do.
12:16 It’s emotionally challenging as well as intellectually challenging. So, people need a lot of help. And particularly young first-time founders need a lot of help. And so, yeah, there is definitely a psychology element to the show. All right.
12:31 I’m trying to think of what your typical, you know, user of your product would be. Say I’m, you know, finishing my third year at Cambridge. I’m thinking about going to McKinsey or something like that. What would be like a great user experience travel route through Entrepreneur First? What would it be like for me, say, after 18 months?
12:48 Like, how would I find out about you? What would I know? Would I apply? Then what would it feel like? And then when I go, and I, you know, get VC funding in 18 months?
12:57 Like, what’s a good route? And maybe I’ll ask you a bad route. Okay. So, good route. So, say you are a computer science PhD at Imperial.
13:06 And we do a ton of work at Imperial, and maybe you came to one of our Bitcoin lecture series lecture series and you’ve got to know us a bit. We would then put you into our high-potential category and start cultivating you. So, getting to know you and getting to know a little bit about what you’re interested in. Okay. Could I be an undergrad or is it a little bit older of the student you get?
13:27 So, we take some undergrads, we take some sort of research professionals, so PhDs and post docs, and then we take some young professionals, so across the board. And we’d encourage you to apply. Once you’d applied, you’d then go through pretty much 6 hours of interviews in various forms, technical tests, technical interviews. And then the program starts with a kickoff week, a kickoff weekend, which happens is actually this coming weekend, where we take away, so you get to meet for the first time the 50 people that you’re starting with.
13:58 So you’ll have a pod of 50 out of the 100 that you’re kind of connected to. That’s where you get the blue sweaters. You get the blue sweaters, yeah. Band of brothers. You get taken to Dartmoor, you get thrown out into the wilds.
14:10 It’s a great way to get people to bond. You get to talk about ideas, you get to talk about what you’re interested in. We play a ton of board games, anything from Settlers of Catan to Avalon. We’re big board game fans. And by the end of the weekend, you’ll probably have a short list of people that you might want to work with.
14:27 A month later, and I during that month we do sort of catch up events. A month later, the program starts full time. Full time, the first week we do training stuff. It’s partially about training, and it’s partially about getting to know more members of the cohort. And by the Friday of that week, you need to know who you’re going to start working with on the Monday.
14:46 Okay, and they’re permanently housed with you. So we’ve got office space down in London Bridge. They can work there if they want, they don’t have to. We’re pretty relaxed about that. Do you…
14:54 Okay, so they can come in there, or do you encourage them to get space on their own, or they can work from home? So we have a partnership with Workspace, who gives them access to 11 offices around London. So if they want to go somewhere a bit quieter, they can go to, I don’t know, Clerkenwell or something. But we’re very relaxed. Work where’s most effective for you.
15:11 We’re based in London Bridge, so at least once a week they’ll have to come and see us, but other than that, we’re pretty relaxed. Okay. So you’ll be in your team week one, and you’ll have on the Monday of that week, you’ll have sat down with one of my team and set goals for what you want to achieve, by the end of that week. The next Monday, you’ll have another check-in with the team. Sometimes earlier if things aren’t going well, and we’ll have a pretty frank discussion with you about how it’s going and whether it should continue.
15:38 A week later? Yeah. Okay. You can tell. Sometimes you can tell in 24 hours.
15:43 Right. How big are the teams? Always two. Two, okay. Always two.
15:47 Okay. Particularly when you’re building teams out of people who don’t know each other well, threes means someone’s always compromising. And actually, I think this isn’t just true of EF teams. I think threes are really, really hard. The problem comes around ideas.
16:02 So, if you’re on a team of three, it’s highly unlikely that all of you are aligned on the same idea to the same extent. And what we see with teams of threes is people like, “Ooh, I really like this guy. I kind of get on with this girl, but this girl really wants to work with this guy, so we’re going to have to make it work. So, I’ll compromise.” But if you’re compromising for the life of a startup, which is probably 5, 7, 10 years, it’s, it doesn’t work.
16:29 Okay. Airbnb’s three. There’s always an exception to. That’s the rule. I think Y Combinator ran all the numbers, and I think teams of two were way up there, like in the 70s percentiles.
16:39 Ones were very tiny. Yeah. And threes were probably rare. Ones are hard, emotionally hard. But twos good.
16:46 So we’ll get you into your two, and say, at the end of week one, you’re telling us like, “Yeah, it’s going okay. It’s going okay. We haven’t quite achieved what we wanted to achieve, but like, we know how to fix it.” That’s massive warning sign for us. And so we’ll start probing and saying, “Actually, is this the right thing for you to be doing?
17:04 Are you sure you’re interested in it? Are you sure you’re actually interested in it?” And maybe they’ll break up, maybe they won’t. We’ll give them another week. And if the next week it’s the same story, then we’ll say, “We don’t think this is working.
17:14 Can you split up? Here are some other people you can go and talk to. Go and talk to them. And so, say you build another team. What if someone can’t find someone they work with?
17:22 Then they work by themselves for a week or two. And because everyone’s going through this iteration process, it means that maybe in two weeks’ time someone else who actually is a better fit for you has come out of another team and is ready to co-found with you. Okay. All right. So, fast forward my journey on PhD again, you know, at Imperial.
17:39 Fast forward my journey say a month or two or three months down, what’s happening to me? So, you’ve probably worked on one idea for a month and you’ve realized that actually it’s not the right thing to be working on. We would have been pushing you in that direction for quite a while, but often it takes people a very long time to realize it doesn’t work when we say don’t work on this for these reasons. They need to often work through their first idea. So, often people’s first ideas are very, very bad.
18:05 So, you kind of take a month to get through that. You’d probably be working on your second idea and maybe you would be with your, let’s say, third co-founder. And this is going well. So, we’re beginning to introduce you to customers. We’re beginning to help you with your customer relationships.
18:19 You’re interacting with the venture partners who are giving you, I suppose, advice on how best to get those first customer interactions into actual paying interactions. We do a lot of unsexy B2B enterprise stuff. So, a lot of the learning curve that our guys are going through is about how to do sales. And like how to get big companies to part from part with money, even though you’re a teeny, tiny startup. Okay.
18:44 And is the metric, making is the metric getting that money in? Is there a metric like that? Like getting customers, getting paid for your work? It depends. It depends on the startup.
18:53 Really depends on the startup. I mean, the overall metric is, you know, do people really want this? And we’ve definitely seen teams being burned in the past by companies saying, “Yeah, this is great. We’ll use it.” And they’ll use it for 6 months, and they’ll delay paying for it, and they’ll delay paying for it.
19:12 The minute you want to charge them, they’re like, “Oh, it’s not actually a big problem for us.” And much better to work that out sooner rather than later. Yeah. May I think was like John Collison from Stripe when he was here, he was just like, “Make products people want.” It’s so hard.
19:25 It’s so hard. That’s right. And like you said, I mean, if they don’t pull their wallets out, a lot of people will tell you they’ll pull their wallets out. And we had Nick Brisbourne in here from Forward Partners, and he deals with a lot of e-commerce startups and he’s like, until they get the card out, it’s like it’s all talk. They say you can have focus groups of people that would like, “Oh, I think I really would buy that.” but that doesn’t really give much indication whether it would.
19:47 So. Yeah. All right. So just quickly on the kind of companies you work on, you call it deep tech startups. You specifically said you don’t do Tinder for cats.
19:55 No. I didn’t know there was a Tinder for cats. One day there will be. One day there will be. What do you mean by that?
20:01 So, there are many different kinds of startups that you can build, but what we’re most excited about are startups that are producing hard defensible technology. I think it’s something that the UK is particularly good at. Our engineering talent is some of the best in the world. Our CS computer science talent is some of the best in the world. But often what we’re seeing is, you know, guys coming from pretty guys and girls coming from very technical backgrounds but discarding or discounting the value of their technical skills because they want to build a startup, and by that they mean basically build an app.
20:34 An app or an in e-commerce B2C play. Exactly. Something copycat. Something they’ve seen on the tube. Yeah.
20:39 Exactly. Exactly. So what we’re interested in is, I suppose, if you are relatively young and say you’re a first-time founder but you have deep technical skills. So say a PhD or a masters, or maybe you’ve been working for a couple of years, but it has to be a couple of years. It’s highly likely that you know more about the latest advances in name X field approaches to AI whatever it may be than someone who’s been working for 10 years.
21:05 So you actually do have an unfair advantage even though you’re young. You don’t have an unfair advantage in terms of like commercial skills, sales skills, raising money, whatever it is. But you do have a technical advantage. And so, our preference is that the young founders that join us focus on commercializing whatever technology they can build. And often we find that the easiest way to do that, though none of this is easy, is by building products for companies.
21:34 Okay. Yeah, we all have IP. We don’t know we have this IP. And even like you said, someone in their mid-late 20s, they’ve been in it in this niche. They’re not say uh you know, they’re not biased by say been in the market for 10 years.
21:47 They don’t have a weird way. They’ve really got some IP there that they can use. But, a lot of times like you said, they just discard it and go into Yeah. I mean, the way we talk about it with the startups is focus on your edge. You have a technical edge, so focus on it and use that.
22:01 Because most people instantly discard it. It’s a really weird… It’s such a strange phenomena. It’s people saying, “I know I have something that’s of value, but I’m just going to completely discard it.” And we’ll talk about this when we finish, but a lot of the people you target are going along these standard career paths.
22:16 Probably because they just think that’s what I should do. And you can tell them what I told you. And in tech, there’s a weird bias, too. I mean, if you’ve been reading TechCrunch for the last 3 years, you’re probably going into the companies that you’re told to. So, I guess you’re just trying to get them out of that and shake it up a little bit.
22:31 Okay. 3 months, what am I looking like? And 6 months, what do I look like? So, 3 months, we’re just about to invest in you. So, for the first 3 months, we give a stipend.
22:39 So, we give you just over 1,000 pounds a month. And that’s just basic living costs, cover rent and stuff. Tough in London. It is. It’s tough, but doable.
22:48 Lots of them live together. So, live in big EF houses that are cheap and probably quite dirty. So, after 3 months, you are coming up for investment. We are the most ridiculously risk-seeking investors in terms of we are very happy to go early early early stage. So, as long as you over the last 3 months have shown that you’re the sort of person that’s making progress, and that you have the potential to be a good founder, and you have an idea about what you want to work on with some validation, as in you’ve spoken to some customers, and you have a co-founder, we’ll invest in you.
23:25 Okay. But, you can invest in a person, you can only invest in a company. That point they get incorporated. Okay. And what is your standard investment?
23:31 How does that work? So, standard is 16,600. So, the stipend that we’ve given for the last 3 months rolls up into the equity investment. Okay. We take 8%.
23:45 8%. Okay. And you decide, then you’re incorporated, and then you’re now an investor in them. If you don’t decide, are they gone? It’s usually a mutual decision.
23:54 So, pretty much by that time they know if it’s working or not. And what percentage makes it through? So, that stage we typically take 75 to 80% through. Okay. Okay.
24:05 Got you. And now the next 3 months is building, or 9 months is building. Next 3 months is building. So, demo day then is at the end of the program. So, 6 months from when you started.
24:15 And I suppose the final 3 months are where we push very hard. First 3 months, you’re allowed to explore. And in many ways we talk about the first 3 months as like an opportunity to explore, validate, test. We encourage people to change ideas. I think we’re probably one of the few investors who’s like it’s totally fine if you completely change ideas, completely change teams, but after the first 3 months, that stops.
24:38 And you then just need to push to validate your idea so that you’re in a good position by demo day. Okay. So, after 6 months, if I’m having a good user journey, what happens at the end of the 6 months? And then I’ll off ask after that what happens at the end of 12 months. So, at the end of 6 months, let’s say you’re in the position where you have early version of your product, you have some customers.
25:00 Say you’ve got some big-name business customers signed up. You’ve maybe got one that’s doing a paid trial, and maybe you’ve got like four in your pipeline. One of the big things that we key in about when the companies leave is that they have the right advisers on board. So, this is anything from one of our science partners. So, we have a board of seven academics, some leading academics from Imperial, UCL, ETH, all from either machine learning backgrounds, robotics, medical imaging, who are there to advise the startups on their, on how they build their tech, basically.
25:41 So, maybe you leave the start, maybe you leave the program with one of those as an adviser. And we’ll also try and help you get a sort of founder adviser, as well. I think that one of the things we’ve seen in the past that doesn’t help is when startups sort of set free into the real world, raise money, and have no one who cares about them. They don’t have a board, they don’t have any advisers, and often that doesn’t go very well. They can have all the money in the world, but if they have no one who’s really helping them through the startup journey, it’s tough.
26:10 Okay. Where at now? We need money though at 6 months. Yeah. So, then they go pitching for money.
26:15 Do you have an end pitch day? Yeah. So, demo day, they pitch in front of 250 investors, and then we help them over the next 6 months to close their rounds. So, some of them do really quickly, and we’ll do it in 6 weeks. Some of them take a little bit longer.
26:29 It’s pretty much up to the founders, depending on their what they’re what how much they’re trying to raise, and what stage they’re at. Okay. Does everyone get funded? Everyone who goes to funding gets funded. I mean, there’s a very good climate for funding in the UK at the moment, particularly in London.
26:44 And also, we produce high-quality companies. Okay. So, everyone gets funded. You don’t put any more money in. You had your early stage, and that’s done.
26:51 Yeah. What I mean, I want to, just, if you could just tell me quite frankly, say I went through the journey at Microsoft Ventures or at Techstars, and I got to a similar demo day. How’s my experience going to be different with you? Well, you would have started from a very different place. But you get to a similar, so our companies raise on par with companies coming out of Techstars, even though we start much, much, much earlier.
27:17 So I suppose by the end the result is relatively similar, but the inputs are very, very different. Okay, and they raise money after 6 months with you. Yeah. And yet a typical Techstars is like a 90-day. Do they do 90-day ventures?
27:33 90-day. Okay. So you start 3 months earlier incubating. I don’t know what you, you play, don’t want to use that word, but whatever you do to the talent, supporting the talent, and then build it in. Okay.
27:42 Yeah. And do people ask, when they, you know, when you’re interviewing people, I’m sure they say, “Well, I’m thinking about you or I’m thinking about a Techstars or Y Combinator, or no, I mean, with them or not?” No, very much not. One of our theses about accelerators and early-stage investing is that it’s a pretty crap market to be in. It’s very, very crowded.
28:07 It’s very hard to differentiate yourself. You know, how can you compare outside in, my advice compared to Techstars advice? It’s, it’s very hard to compare. You can compare on results, but with startups, you know, it takes 5, 10 years to get proper results, and most accelerators haven’t been around that long. So we’re in a lucky position in that we don’t compete with any other early-stage investors.
28:30 Because we build startups from scratch, no one else could access the startups that we can invest in. So actually our competitors are Google, Facebook, Palantir, doing a PhD, doing a post-doc, because we are recruiting individuals. You know, we’re talent-focused organization rather than a startup selection organization. And one of our big beliefs is, you know, the best early stage investor in the world is Y Combinator. They have the best brand, they have the best results.
28:59 So, if you’re an early stage startup, where would you want to go? Well, you’d go to Y Combinator. So, unless you’re Y Combinator, you’re picking the 201st best, 202nd best, 203rd best startup in the world. And we all know the results, the returns for startups are in that top kind of 3, 4%. So, it’s pretty tough market to be in.
29:18 Okay. What have you learned from Y Combinator? Do you keep an eye on them? Do you model them? Do you learn things from them?
29:24 I mean, our model in some ways the outputs are very, well, the outputs are very similar. The inputs are very, very different. So, they don’t house people. They encourage people to get their own space and their own culture. They give a very small amount of stipend as well.
29:39 Yeah, it’s slightly more now. I mean, it’s the big, the big difference is just that the inputs are completely different. And I think the, some of the interesting things that YC does, that, I think is slightly lacking in the UK startup scene is YC has been really good at hiring better than themselves. So, if you look at the list of advisors at YC, it’s crazy amazing people, really amazing people. Arguably, could you say that they’re better than Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston?
30:13 Yeah, maybe. And I think that one of the challenges that UK and European accelerators and early-stage investors have had is that have, have the founders, have the creators, hired better than themselves? Have they brought in people who are, you know, truly exceptional? And what we’re trying to do now with the venture partners and the science partners is to really bring in people who are way, way, way better than us. I mean, we, we like to think we’re very good, but who are way, way better than us, and we really try and lift the quality of advice and support that we can give.
30:43 Okay. What have you learned in 4 years? Like you said, when you first started you kind of didn’t know what you were going to do. You were really trying to pitch into your own investors. They weren’t really sure you had an idea what the model is, but now you do feel very confident and comfortable with your model.
30:58 So, what, what changed? The big bit was the early stage piece. So, the team building and the idea formation. And we experimented and experimented and experimented. And it took a while to actually work out how to do that at scale.
31:14 And now we’ve got a model where that works. Okay. That’s your IP. That’s the IP. Secret?
31:20 No, because I think it’s really hard to replicate even if you know how we do it. I think it’s really hard to replicate. Okay. ‘Cause pretty much it’s all counterintuitive and then it’s pattern recognition. And having seen 150 individuals go through the program over the last 3 years, and you know, we’ve got 100 joining in September, the pattern recognition of high-performing founders, high-performing teams, and high-performing ideas.
31:46 That’s probably the most useful bit. That’s the hard bit to replicate. Okay. Is anyone trying to do what you do? We’ve heard of a couple of people trying to do it and it hasn’t really worked.
31:58 And I think that the two most important things we do are the quality of people we bring in. You know, we are absolutely ruthless about the kind of people that we let on EF. I believe you. One bad egg ruins the cohort. You, you know, everyone has to be as skilled, as ambitious, as determined, and as focused.
32:18 And as soon as you get people who are like, “Oh, yeah, man. You know, I’m quite interested in startups, but actually, you know, I’m going to do a bit of freelancing on the side or I’m going to do whatever.” You need, you need people who are a group of people who are absolutely focused. So, that’s, that’s super important. And then the other bit is just, knowing how to do this process.
32:37 Okay. Okay. The fund, 8.5 million pounds, you got some great investors, Robin Klein, you know, Index Ventures, Alex Chesterman, CEO of Zoopla. What is the point of the fund? Was this something you always wanted from the beginning?
32:50 And how does this change your business model? The big, the big exciting thing about the fund is that for the first time we can scale. I think in many ways it was lucky that no one would give us any money in the early days, ’cause it meant that we, took time to learn how to do this properly and to craft a product that people really want. But now we have a product that people want. We’ve always had way more demand than we can fill, but now we’re able to take this year it will be 150, next year it will be 200, the year after that will be 200.
33:23 So we’re now going to become the biggest producer of startups in Europe. So we produce around 200 startups over the next 3 years. Wayra? More than Techstars? Way, way more.
33:31 They do about 10 to 20 a year. About companies? Yeah. Okay. And you’ll do…
33:36 We’ll do, by two. What’s divided by two? Yeah, we’ll do about, probably, 50, 60 companies a year. Okay. Techstars, eight per year?
33:44 It depends if you aren’t they? So, just in the UK. Okay. The, for Europe, for Europe. Okay.
33:48 So it means that we’re now recruiting from across Europe and bringing the best European talent to the UK. It means that we’re recruiting a more diverse range of founders, so we’re not just focusing on graduates. We’re now focusing on young professionals as well. You know, you can be any age and stage now. So I think the fund is, the fund is really exciting for us.
34:07 And it’s not necessarily something that we’ve always dreamed of, because I think when we first started, we had no idea how to fund this. We originally funded it through corporate sponsorship alone. But now we’re at the stage where this is the business model that makes most sense for us. Okay. So I’m doing the math.
34:23 150 people, 16 and a half grand each. That you don’t need 8.5 million pounds. Is it because you’re not spending that every year? You seem like you have plenty of money. Is that money just for future, or is that money for a second stage investment?
34:36 Yeah, yeah, or just I don’t know, a new house. No, so, as you can imagine, there are a lot of costs involved with running EF. And I suppose when we talk to people who are joining EF about how much money we invest, we very strongly emphasize that the value we provide is not the cash that we invest, you know, 16K, it’s not a lot of money. The real value we provide is the quality of people you can interact with, both in the cohort and on the advice side. But that costs money.
35:10 So, the, you know, we’ve got a full-time talent team of five people who go out and source the very best technical talent from across Europe. And you know, the very best technical talent have a lot of offers. They’ve got offers from Google, Facebook, Palantir, often from all three at once. And so, to make sure that we always get that top 1% of technical talent, that takes a lot of time and cash. We’re still very, very lean compared to any other recruitment company, but that takes a lot of cash.
35:38 And then there’s the support costs of getting the building the startups as well. So, covering the cost of the team. And that comes from the fund, as opposed to an equity investment in Entrepreneur First. That comes from the fund. From the fund.
35:50 Okay. What’s your thought on the current state of technology here in London? You know, everyone obviously said funding is very easy to come by and easy to come by in London. You know, you’re right on the ground. You’re dealing with, like you said, the largest number of companies now in Europe.
36:05 What’s your take on where the market is, where it’s going? You know, I’m not going to use the word bubble, but what’s your thoughts? I think it’s a really interesting time in London. It’s, there’s never been so much going on. And I suppose I’m not too worried about the bubble.
36:21 And the reason I’m not too worried from an EF perspective is I believe the companies we are creating are creating true value. And this is why we focus on this deeply technical defensible tech tech idea. I would love to see the UK and Europe produce more startups that focus on defensible technology, producing IP basically. And I suppose we want to play a part in being the investor that does that. You know, people also thought we were crazy for investing in double technical teams.
36:57 You know, the question always comes up, but like, who’s going to do the commercial stuff? And our pushback is always, there’s absolutely no reason why someone who’s technical can’t also be commercial. Okay. So, you don’t pair up a business person with a tech person. No, no, no.
37:10 Always double technical. Different. Yeah. And I think that creates. If you look at all of the biggest companies, all of the world, a lot of the world’s biggest companies are produced by double technical teams, or by technical CEOs.
37:21 And I think we need more of that in UK and in Europe. We need to see more technical people taking on commercial roles and leading companies. It’s very, very hard as a non-technical person to have a big vision about tech product. You have no idea what can be built. You have no idea how long things take.
37:36 So, unless you have a deeply technical background, how can you have a big vision about an interesting technical product? So, business school students need not apply. Indeed. I like that. Well, I mean, you have to go after your niche or your micro niche, and this is what you’re going after, right?
37:53 So, yeah, exactly. And guess what? Technical people want to co-found with technical. The joke we were making in the EF office is we are constantly inundated by non-technical people looking for technical co-founders. You know, it’s a really, really hard problem.
38:05 But the problem that no one ever talks about is where are the technical people meant to find their technical co-founders? And that place is EF. Does anyone try to sneak in and pretend like they’re a technical person when they’re really a business person? We do some pretty intense technical interviewing, so they’d just have to be very good at faking it. And on that same note, I mean, you said that the we need to embrace our own IP over here in the UK and really look after these big ideas and these deep tech.
38:27 Do you think to a certain extent we do kind of copycat some of the B2C models and some of the things we see coming from the Valley. And again, like we’re inundated with news, and we naturally form and follow a pack. I mean, do you think that we do follow the States in that manner, and when we should be really thinking about our own deep tech ideas? I think the UK is trying now to differentiate itself. And it’s trying to say actually, hey guys, what do we have that we can turn into startups.
38:57 And I think that’s where the push on fintech and cybersecurity is coming from. I think that makes a lot of sense. So I there are a number of kind of copycat products. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You know, Rocket has made its fortune on copycat products.
39:14 But I think, you know, the more the UK can develop its own niche and develop its own focus, the better. So yeah, fintech, cybersecurity, great. But also, you know, wouldn’t it be amazing if, you know, the new, the US knew that the best deep learning companies were coming from the UK. You know, we’re already showing that we can produce some interesting potential acquisitions, or whatever it may be. You know, we’ve got the right kind of talent for it.
39:41 But now can we see these companies push on to actually become big companies in their own right that might start doing the acquiring themselves. I used to have a phrase on the show that was not another accelerator. And it was just like another blue chip company decides that they’re going to come to London and build a big space out and maybe partner with another firm. And now we’re going to produce these teams that we’re not going to take equity because we’re just nice people.
40:04 And do you get sick of these? Do these cloud your own market? Do they hurt tech in the long run by setting these things up and throwing I think it. Who knows? Who knows?
40:16 I think the, I mean, one reason it’s good is that getting companies in the UK and in Europe to be aware of startups, not necessarily from an investment accelerator point of view. I’m not sure whether that works. But I think what we do need is we need a way for startups to exit. And the way that startups exit is buying, typically by being bought. It’s typically by being bought, usually by a, you know, older, maybe tech company, or by, I don’t know, whichever consumer company is interested.
40:49 But in the UK and Europe, that doesn’t really happen very much. There still isn’t an exit. There isn’t a solid exit market for UK startups. And this is very much not the end of the market that we deal with. You know, we’re at the very, very early stage.
41:03 But if we want to be successful investors, that end of the market needs to be developed. And maybe this is a useful way of raising awareness. I don’t know. We don’t do that, so I don’t know that intimately. Okay.
41:14 I think Peter Thiel has a famous question he asks people. He says, “What do you know that other people don’t know?” And I was just wondering what you, I mean, you’ve been really in the thick of this, in the trenches for the last 4 years. And I’m just wondering if there’s some kind of an opinion that you have that seems contrarian, that you’re just like, “This seems really obvious to me that we need to do this.” And it’s really open a question, but I was just wondering if there’s something that you see repeatedly that needs to kind of change, or we need to focus on more in order to get a better result.
41:42 I mean, it’s a large amount of what it’s, the stuff I’ve already said around technical teams, technical co-founders. Helping, I suppose, I suppose going slightly earlier stage than the EF, I think that the obvious thing that needs to happen is that there needs to be a mindset shift in the way that the most ambitious tech people, whether they’re young or whether they’re old, see their careers and see their career options. And if that happened at scale in the UK, where we had exceptional technical talent en masse quitting their jobs, graduating from university, and considering startups either as a employee, but preferably as a.
42:24 Not everyone should be a founder, but like if you are founder material, then taking that path, imagine what that could do to the UK if that happened en masse. Cuz at the moment, it’s a trickle. You know, even us taking 200 people a year across Europe, you know, this is a tiny, tiny trickle. So, imagine if that happened en masse. Imagine what the kind of companies we could produce and the kind of talent that that would then filter into the startup ecosystem.
42:46 Cuz that’s who you’re battling when you’re trying to convince someone to go to Entrepreneur First, you’re trying to convince them not to go, say, a typical career path that will get them the dopamine loops that are, my mom said it’s okay, my grandpa did the same job, he went to the same law firm. Your co-founder Matt Clifford wrote a great article where he talked about these dopamine loops and about how you reward people. He talked about it when you guys were management consulting, whereas that your prime directive was to make your boss look good and to get like good reviews every quarter or something.
43:14 And that and people actually lived for that, right? Oh, yeah, definitely. And careers were built, and then I think in another article, maybe article you wrote, like, and then a year later, you’re paid a little bit better, and it’s harder to leave, you know, and that kind of cycle happens. Whereas in a startup, well, with you guys, you have to stay together with your team, then you have to produce probably a product with customers and then produce real revenue.
43:34 That’s your dopamine loop. Yeah. I mean, I think the the whole career system is set up to maintain a status quo that’s out of date. And I think one of the real challenges is that the kind of, you know, in the UK, you’re kind of asked to describe, to decide your career when you’re, what, 16? ‘Cause you’re choosing your A-level choices, which decide your university choices, which blah blah blah.
43:57 And the kind of people you’re interacting with, your parents and your career guidance counselor and I don’t know, your teachers or whatever, just don’t even understand what’s possible anymore. And I think that’s a really dangerous position for a country to be in, where young people aren’t properly equipped to make good decisions about their career. And you know, the corporate world is great. And for some people, that’s perfect. And for some people, having a very well-structured career with regular dopamine hits is the way forward.
44:28 But I think what’s dangerous is it’s really, really hard to leave that. And so many young people, who could be potential founders, are pushed into those careers and then find it very, very hard to leave. Because those corporations are set up to make sure you don’t leave. And it’s very, very hard for one person to fight that. You know, in many ways Matt and I were very lucky that when we were at McKinsey, they had a process where after two years you had to leave.
44:52 Right, because you try to get back to B school or something. Yeah, exactly. Analyst program. Yeah. Yeah.
44:56 So it was a clear-cut off point to say, okay, what, what could I do with my life? But most people don’t get that. Most people are in that career and then on the side are having to think, oh, but I really want to start a startup. But I’ll think about it at the weekend. And the weekend, you’re just like, oh, but I’m knackered.
45:11 I’ll do it when I’m on holiday. And on holiday, I’m like, oh, but I’m knackered, so I’m not going to. And you just, you never leave. And before you know it, you’re 10 years down the line and you’re earning way too much money, so you can’t leave. And you’ve got kids and like a mortgage.
45:24 And then, you know, it’s game over. Talk to me about the media bias in tech. I’ve had a lot of people that have sat here with me. Steven Raab and Paul at Pager, Alicia from Skimm Links. And they’re like, this media bias, and it seems to accelerate the last year or two.
45:39 And I love TechCrunch. You know, we had Mike Butcher in here, and I actually think they provide real value. But they push a lot of people into this, you know, this rockstar idea of tech. And you deal with these people on a regular basis. How do you think we should deal with this bias?
45:54 Is this a good thing because it actually pushes. Maybe it’s a counter-balance to those dopamine loops. How do you feel about the way the media portrays tech? And I’m guilty of this, too. It makes our life harder.
46:08 Because the media glorifies the kind of startups that we don’t produce, it means that often the biggest, the most usual conversation we’re having with people we’re trying to convince to come on EF, who are very, very technical, is they go, “I don’t want to do a startup because I don’t want to produce some simple throwaway piece of technology. I want to go and do something hard. I want to do something where I’m going to learn.” And I’m like, “You know, a startup is a perfect opportunity for you to do something really, really hard, push your technical skills, constantly be learning, learn a whole new range of skills.
46:40 And like that, that message isn’t portrayed. The message is like, uh, get rich over get rich quick, get rich overnight, overnight successes, you know, simple products that any of us could build. Like, why don’t you have a go?” And we do get a lot of, uh, interest from startup fanboys. But they’re very easy, they’re pretty easy to weed out.
47:02 But actually the majority of the people who apply to EF are people who aren’t interested in startups. Actually, a lot of our marketing messaging is around building technology, developing interesting products, solving problems, rather than about startups. Because the media has done a really good job of making startups cool, but actually for the people that we’re most interested in, that does make them sound a bit lame. That’s a fascinating take. I take on that.
47:30 Your TEDx talk is called Tech Shouldn’t Be a Boys’ Club. It’s a great speech. Can you explain or summarize what you were talking about? It’s the, the obvious problem of where are all the women? And I, naively, thought when we started EF, “I’ll fix this.
47:46 You know, I’m a woman. I can fix it.” If anyone can fix it, you can. And to be honest, we have made a really good crack at trying to fix this problem of trying to get more female founders. So, a year after starting EF, we set up Code First Girls, which is a not-for-profit organization that teaches young women while they’re at university how to code.
48:08 And these are often arts students who had never been interested in tech. And the idea is to try and show them the kind of careers that tech enables. We thought this would lead to a rush of female applicants to EF, which hasn’t happened. What it has meant is we’re seeing a pretty good number of those women that are going through Code First take further education to become developers. So, we’re producing a good, a good kind of stream of female developers now, which I think is amazing.
48:39 And it’s really changing career paths, which I’m really excited about. But it’s not producing female founders. And I think there’s a lot of issues, some of which are obvious and some of which aren’t, around why women aren’t starting startups. And it’s something that we constantly worry about, and haven’t quite worked out how to solve. What’s your percentage for September?
49:02 Or what will it be for this year? I think it’s 12% for September. Okay. And, start, I remember Matt, kind of, just, we talked about it briefly, and he was just, he was just like, yeah, it’s low for us. And he remember, and he’s like, and I have a female co-founder.
49:16 And it was like 10% I think when you started, or or something. So, yeah, I mean, we haven’t moved the needle. That’s the sad thing. We’ve put so much effort into this. So much resource.
49:25 Set up a whole ‘nother company to try and fix the problem and haven’t been able to do it. And I think there’s, it’s the problem is when there are cultural problems that stop this. But I think what we need to do, and this is where the media needs to play a part, is we need to stop talking about the problems of being a woman in tech and how crap it is. And we start highlighting female role models who are doing awesome stuff. And instead of getting them to talk about being a woman, get them to talk about the interesting stuff they do every day.
49:50 Get them to talk about the interesting problems they solve. Get them to talk about how well businesses are going. Because if I read that, I’d be much more inspired to start a business rather than reading how hard it is and discrimination. Yes, it’s good that we talk about that. But we need to highlight the amazing career path that women can have in technology and in founding their own startups.
50:08 I’m so glad I did this, but if I read the press, I probably would have thought twice about it. Yeah, I agree. I stopped asking the question, “What about women in tech?” because it was, it was really monotonous. So, I instead started asking the question, “What’s the question we should be asking?” Because you’re right, it’s not about this, and you can’t just run the numbers, and you can’t law that it’s going nowhere, because that doesn’t get us anywhere.
50:27 So, and like you said from your TED Talk, a lot of times that the women you had spoke to, the girls you spoke to just didn’t know it was an option. What’s coding? I don’t even know what it is. I don’t know why I should care, as opposed to I don’t want to do that. It’s like they were almost, weren’t informed about it.
50:42 Exactly. Exactly. It’s a, it’s an information problem. Right. Okay.
50:45 Well, you know, thanks for addressing that. I appreciate it. I should, I would just ask people here, you know, just a few questions, as far as you know, I’m American. I’ve been here for a long time. I’m also British.
50:57 Do you have any plans to go to America? How much do you look to America? Or do you not need to? I know you want to become the Stanford of Europe. So, how, how do you feel about those damn Yanks?
51:08 The Yanks do startups well. So, there’s a lot we can learn about how they build startups, how they invest in startups. We definitely read a lot of startup literature from the US. Probably most of the blogs we read are from the US. That said, it doesn’t feel like there’s an immediate need for EF in the US.
51:30 You know, EF does well in ecosystems where there’s fantastic talent, but that talent, for whatever reason, isn’t going into startups. In the US, particularly in the West Coast, maybe not so much in the East Coast, but particularly in the West Coast, that just isn’t a problem. You know, if you are the sort of person who should be founding a startup, you know what a startup is, you know someone who’s starting a startup, and you know the steps you need to take to go off and do that.
51:56 So, I don’t know, long, long, long term, maybe. Short term, as in the next 3 to 5 years, I really doubt that we’ll do anything with the US. Maybe there’s other, more interesting hubs for us to go to, Asia maybe. But we need to see what happens with that. Okay.
52:17 And if I’m listening to this right now and I’m thinking about getting into tech, you know, maybe I’m in my 20s or I’m in my 30s, should I not be asking myself what am I going to build? What’s my product? I mean, if I after listening to you after this period, I should be thinking who should my co-founder be? Or should I be thinking what’s my IP and how can I add value? That’s okay.
52:39 Yeah. So, if you’re thinking about starting a startup and you’ve been noodling about it for ages, and it’s the sort of thing that you keep on talking to your mates at the pub about or whatever, I would push you to think, what do you know about? What is your edge? And if you’re technical, it’s probably like, what can you build that no one else can build? Or what unique take can you bring to?
53:01 So, for example, we’ve got a company in the last cohort that came up with a unique approach to video compression. Neither of them had ever thought like, “Oh, that problem of video compression, we really should be solving that.” It was that they realized that by combining machine learning and computer vision techniques, they could come up with a whole new way of doing video compression that was way, way better than what was out there. So, if you’re technical, think about what your technical edge is.
53:25 And if you’re not technical, think about what you know about, and don’t kid yourself about that. Because often people say, “Yeah, I know about, I know about music, I know about dating, and I know about food, and house sharing.” Those are the four things we hear time and time again. Music, dating, food, and what’s the last one? House sharing.
53:41 It’s only about houses. Okay, right. All right. Everyone is doing that. Everyone, everyone is doing that.
53:46 So, unless you are an expert in any of those areas, and an expert means 10,000 hours, do not start a startup in that space. Think about what your edge is. If you’re working in a company, it’s highly likely you know about a big problem that that company experiences that you could help solve. So, think about, even if you hate your job, think about what that job has taught you, and then use that as a stepping stone to build a startup. Okay.
54:08 And if I’m not lucky enough to get into the Entrepreneur First class, how do I find a co-founder? Oh, it’s really hard. It’s really hard. Terrible answer. Let people know that you’re looking.
54:25 Your co-founder is probably not from your first-degree connections, it’s probably from your second-degree connections. So don’t find a co-founder of convenience. And by that I mean finding the only other person who’s interested in startups. And we see this a lot where, uh, you’re so desperate to start a startup, you find the only other person in your network who’s desperate to start a startup. And then what you get is idea inertia, ’cause you go, “Oh, I’d probably do something in, uh, you know, uh, productivity for teams.”
54:52 And the other person goes, “Oh, that’s really, really interesting. Yeah, that sounds great. But, um, maybe we could do, um, you know, productivity for ticketing. Uh, maybe be a ticketing company.” And you lead to this idea inertia where you don’t actually, you shouldn’t actually be co-founders.
55:05 You’re not interested in the same things. You’re just interested in building a startup. So, make sure you find someone who has the same interest areas you. Either the same, uh, technical interest area or the same problem interest area. So, it’s highly complex, and that’s why you, that’s your IP, engineering how those things work.
55:22 Pretty much. Okay. And the way it’s the current model, it’s just so, it’s so, it’s not even a model, is it? It’s hit and miss, yeah. I mean, what are you meant to do?
55:31 Right. You’re meant to just get over that gap of, you know, idea to product in some ramshackle, random way. And like you said, you might go down some weird route based on someone’s interest, and then you jump to their idea, and you have no other choices, and yeah. Okay. Sounds like a common theme.
55:47 Always say to us, you know, the amount of money we invest isn’t very much. But it’s not the money that’s important. It’s the value of the people that we can connect you to. And it’s really hard if you try to do it by yourself. Right.
55:59 Do you ever get people that ask you about why do you invest so little or why do you take this equity percentage or see some companies don’t take equity? What what is your? What do you say to that? The, I think the most important response is that you understand that your incentives are aligned with mine. If I own equity in your company, I will do anything to help you succeed.
56:22 I will make that introduction that I feel a little bit awkward about doing. I will contact that guy that I met once at a party 5 years ago, because I know that it might be useful for you. If I don’t own equity, I don’t really have any incentive to help you. I’ll help you because I’m a nice person, but actually when it comes to the extremes, when it comes to you’re on holiday or you’re, um, already working 18 hours a day or whatever, and this is, this will be the 19th hour or whatever, you don’t have the incentive to do that.
56:49 You know, it can wait until tomorrow. If somebody has equity in your company, their incentives are aligned. And this is why we have this phrase, no b******t mentoring, and all of our mentors, so our venture partners do the majority of our mentoring. Uh, and the two key components is that it’s consistent, so you see the same person again and again and again, so you can’t get away with like, um, not doing anything each week, but also that they’re compensated.
57:17 So they’re compensated with carry in the same way that I am and the rest of my team is. So that their interests are aligned with the founders’ interests. Everyone’s aligned to help the founders build a big company. Right. So, they have equities as well in the companies.
57:31 Uh, carry from our fund. So, it’s similar. So, it’s similar. Can I ask you just a couple questions about yourself, just in, you know, maybe some habits that you have that might have contributed to your success. Is there something kind of in the last 4 years or 5 years that you’ve changed about yourself?
57:46 Could be like a daily habit or a way that you looked at things, or even the way you cycle London that’s just kind of upped your game when it comes to just being more productive or being just These success And Alice, I always ask people here a few questions, and at the end, I want to ask you the same. If you could make a phone call to the 20-year-old Alice and give that young lady a bit of advice, what would you tell her? I would say it comes back to this career stuff.
58:42 I’d say stop going off to career you don’t want, because that’s what you’ve been, and not, I mean, my parents were incredibly relaxed. They couldn’t care less about what I did, but for some reason I got it into my head that you know, I must do this prestigious career and try and be a strategy consultant. I mean, what, what 20-year-old wants to be a strategy consultant? I mean, that’s crazy. I would have told her to stop worrying about that and actually think about what I was really interested in, which was, you know, I’d always been building little companies and building and, um, selling random stuff and, um, being interested in that, but I just never realized that was an option.
59:19 So, yeah, I would have said stop. Do, do what you actually want to do. Really think hard about what you want to do. Um, because it’s very hard to get rid of the voices around you that are parents or university or peers, um, and just do actually what you want to do. Yeah, just as on a side note, do you find that some of the successful people at Entrepreneur First are doing things they were good at when they were like 8 years old and 10 years old?
59:41 Because I used to make like videos when I was 8 and 10, and like, what am I doing now? And, uh, you know, I used to like buy and sell like chocolates and make little businesses when I was that age. Do you think there’s a high correlation between… Yeah, I actually hadn’t really thought about this, but yes. It’s amazing how many go back to either their, like, 13-year-old obsession that they’d sort of pushed aside.
1:00:03 Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s a really strong, strong correlation between them. I had a guest on London Real, uh, and he talked about your Orwellian destiny, and he said, like, what, what were you good at when you were 10? What do people tell you you’re good at? That’s a really interesting one.
1:00:16 Like, what do you know, not what do you think you’re good at, but what have you get constantly complimented on, you know? And then there was like one other piece, and then those are kind of really contemplative you about. Maybe what you should do. Maybe I’ll introduce you. The second part of the advice question is, best advice you’ve ever received.
1:00:31 Could be business, could be personal. It’s always the hardest questions. I can’t remember who told me this. But it was, it wasn’t that piece of advice anyway. So Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, he has something called the regret minimization strategy.
1:00:49 And I’m a big fan of this. Uh, I suppose the people I admire most are the people who got to 50 and are just really happy and pleased with life. Cuz I think that’s actually much harder than people think it is. And often they’re the people who have no regrets. And so the regret minimization strategy, for those who don’t know about it, is that you do the stuff, do the stuff that when you’re older you would really regret not doing.
1:01:13 And I think that it’s very easy to get into a life where you are constantly pushing aside what you really want to do, and the things that you really care about, cuz you’ll do them later. But later never comes, and that all that means is you’re a bitter middle-aged person. So, if I can get to my middle age and be happy and with few regrets, I think I’ll be I’ll be pretty pleased. Does that just mean take more risks, really? I mean, cuz Bezos was at D.E.
1:01:39 Shaw, he was in New York City, he was making great money, and he just like put it all, you know, drove out to Seattle and did all that. Does it really mean just take more risks? Well, it depends who you are. So, I think for me probably it meant take more risks, but for some people I think it’s just do what makes you happy. So, if you like making food, make food, write a food blog.
1:02:01 If you like making films and interviewing people, then that’s what you should do, but work out what makes you happy and work out what you regret not doing, and then just do that. I don’t think it’s necessarily connected to risk. I think it’s probably a very personal thing. Following your heart a bit more, as opposed to your head, maybe. I suppose both, both answers are connected to doing what you care about, not what other people expect of you.
1:02:23 Right. Final part of that question, and I might have already asked it in a few iterations, but I’ll hit you again. To, you know, to the 20-year-old around the world that’s listening to us these days, could be anywhere, who, well, quite frankly, has this idea of, I want to get into tech. And let’s just address that, cuz a lot of people start that way, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. No, no, no.
1:02:40 What advice do you give to them if they want to get into tech? Outside in, I never realized how friendly this industry is. People just want to help. People really, really want to help and support and give advice, and there’s so much of it out there. So, if you do want to get into tech, it’s like, what’s your excuse?
1:03:03 Why aren’t you already? So, take that plunge, because it’s never been easier. And people just want to help. So, if you are really interested in this and this is actually what you want to do, you’ve got no excuse for not doing it, out will help you when you do. Amen to that.
1:03:17 No matter what industry you’re in now, if you’re listening to us and you’re not in tech, this especially and also, in my opinion, is London right now and probably will be for the next two or three years, just one of the most amazing supportive communities in tech. I have the theory because, you know, the unicorns actually haven’t been harvested yet, and there’s really no tier of the winners and losers yet because we’re all still kind of winning, and there’s not like the people that have exited and the people that have lost, and so, that on top of being new industry, I mean, like I’ve just, you know, I love being around people in this industry, and there’s no you do me a favor, I do you a favor. There’s none of that stuff.
1:03:49 It’s really all everyone is kind of a small community, and we all want this to be great. Yeah. Right. And we all want to be recognized as doing great things, and we all want to do great things. And we realize, like you do, that UK has tremendous talent, tremendous technology talent, hardware talent, software talent, all that stuff, and it’s just about getting it in the right place, right?
1:04:10 Yep, exactly. Alice, I knew I was going to like talking to you. Matt has a really good energy, and I was just watching that interview from a year and a half ago, and I just love your concept. I love the idea. I love that it’s different, and you’ve always been really thoughtful.
1:04:23 I’m confident in your execution, and, you know, I don’t know. I always got a great vibe. So, talking to you and hearing about your IP and how you, you know, you take this, you know, this kind of, you know, psychology piece, and like, really are pairing these people up, right, and that you’re ruthless with your KPIs. It just sounds fascinating. Uh, so, thank you.
1:04:42 I want to come down and take a look at it. I guess you probably don’t want observers, ’cause it probably affects you. Okay. Okay, cool. Well, that’s amazing.
1:04:49 I guess it’s probably too late to get into the September cohort, right? So, the next one is March next year? We’ve just opened applications. So, you can apply at joinyf.com/apply. Perfect timing.
1:05:00 That wasn’t even planned. Fantastic. You know, we always say, on Silicon Real, it’s about the people, because I love the stories in tech, but like you said, it’s just the people that are just incredible here, and, uh, it’s funny, ’cause I have this huge audience with London Real, and some don’t watch Silicon Real ’cause I’m like, I don’t know anything about tech. I don’t care. But I’m like, these are the mavericks.
1:05:20 These are the people taking the risks. These are the people doing startups. These are like the funniest people in the room. So, I always love being around them. And like you said, there’s certain times where you just don’t know which way it’s going to go.
1:05:31 You’re worrying about all the details. You’re up, you’re down. You’re going to go bankrupt, you’re not. Everyone thinks you have a stupid idea. Your investors think you’re crazy.
1:05:39 And then there’s the payoff. So, it’s kind of high risk, high reward. And thank you for your idea on macro happiness. I like that. So.
1:05:46 Anytime. So, there you go. All right. I’m, I’m going to sign it off here. Thanks so much, and I wish you the best.
1:05:51 Thank you so much. Okay. Thanks. This week on Silicon Real, we have Alex Stephany, CEO of JustPark and author of the book The Business of Sharing. JustPark is like Airbnb without washing sheets.
1:06:16 The sharing economy is really a human economy. This is economy in which people are getting goods and services not from multinationals or from governments, but from usually just ordinary people. This is about efficiency. So, the sharing economy is adding value because it’s finding these efficiencies on both sides of the marketplace. And that’s why really this is just the start of a huge, huge trend.
1:06:39 Okay, so it’ll be absolutely second nature to get a good or service from another person. So, you will no longer think of that as a quirky or unusual thing. That will just be part of your daily routine. But London is this astonishing magnet for talent and entrepreneurship and ideas and ambition. Silicon Real presents Alex Stephany, The Business of Sharing.
1:07:10 Is one of the really challenging things about the sharing economy. It’s generally very, very good for consumers, but it can be really bad for some of the service providers.
