Bindi Karia - Queen of Startups

Full transcript: Bindi Karia on London Real

0:21 Let’s do this, guys. This is Silicon Real, the video podcast dedicated to the people of the London technology startup scene. I am Brian Rose. I also host London Real, which is a similar program. It’s a bit longer. We have guests like Tim Ferriss from the 4-Hour Workweek, futurist Jason Silva, even Russia Today’s Max Keiser came on and yelled when he was here. My co-host today is Mr. Bryce Chris Keen, who is the founder and director of All Be And Drive.

0:51 He’s also a member and co-founder of The Three Beards. If you don’t know who The Three Beards are, you need to find out. They run the silicone drink about every week, which we will all be going to after this broadcast. And it’s a lot of fun. It’s cool.

1:06 It’s not all business, but it’s not all a hoot in having fun. You can talk. You can meet people. I love the vibe. I think I’ve been to like five so far.

1:13 I really like it. And I’ll be number six. Yeah, I think so. Don’t Pitch Me Bro events, which are monthly, I believe, and your digital sizzle, which is quarterly. Quarterly, yep.

1:21 Okay, awesome. Thank you for being here. And our guest today is Bindi Karia. Did I get that right? Karia.

1:27 Karia, there you go. Close. You are the Vice President of the Accelerator Program at the Silicon Valley Bank here in London, which I think has over 20 billion in assets, maybe, right? Market cap of around $4 billion. I’m just making this stuff up.

1:40 I’ll just let you keep going. Okay, that’s cool. offer a variety of financial services to companies, I think typically in the technology, life sciences, and even in the wine industry. Is that right? Yeah, absolutely. That’s cool to have that kind of crazy one in there. You guys…

1:54 300 premium vineyards in the valley area. Very cool. Yeah, I think you guys have done financing for companies like Twitter, Cisco, Mozilla, Pinterest. Back in the day, you guys have been around for a long time. We have. Formerly, you were part of the Microsoft emerging business team known as BizSpark, I believe, and you You guys invested in venture capital in tech startups for like five years, is that right?

2:16 Well yeah, we launched the program five years ago. And it wasn’t actually VC, it was actually a program where we provided software to early stage startups. So it was just a way for Microsoft to convince earlier stage companies to adopt the platform. Okay, very good. You know, and it was investment in different ways.

2:35 So the cost of software. Okay, good. I want to hear about those early days. Yeah, absolutely. But I still want to just tell more people about who you are.

2:40 You sit on a few boards, advisory boards, including Seacamp, Astia, EVCA, what does that stand for, EVCA? European Venture Capital Association. Okay. Yeah, I’m no longer on that one, but that was sort of a digital advisory board a couple of years ago. Okay.

2:55 Yeah, they’re just looking at sort of the future of digital and a fair number of VCs and people like myself and corporates were, you know, involved in that. Okay. Very good. You’re also, you were, I think, on the Wired UK top 100 digital power brokers. Yeah.

3:08 Were you on that list? I’m getting there, man. And I was on it for three years, and I’m sure this year you guys will be number one. The beards will be number one, for sure. I doubt it.

3:18 I doubt it. I know. You were also named as one of the six most connected women in the UK by the IOD, which is the Institute of Directors. Correct. I mean, I don’t know what I’ve been doing with my spare time.

3:27 Anyways, Bindi, welcome to Silicone Reel. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. Great way to spend the end of the day on Friday.

3:33 Yeah, it’s fun. It’s a lot of fun being here. I had heard about you, and I was learning more about you, and it’s just kind of a fascinating piece that you bring in your episode number six you know we’ve had we’ve had seed guys on before we’ve had people from Tech City like Benjamin Southworth but you have a very different kind of business model when it comes to investing in companies and I wondered if you could try to explain because I don’t think a lot of people understand the difference between bank financing and what you might not you might do as a bank as opposed to the typical angel investor or the venture cap firm which I think people are familiar with but a Bank, you know, I don’t think people know the role there and I was wondering if you could explain what you guys do Yeah, well, I think it’s important to sort of explain the history of Silicon Valley Bank So first of all in the UK, we’ve been around a decade But we only got our British banking license about a year ago. So we’re we’re about Britain’s newest bank So park that for one minute in the valley. We’ve been around 30 years and it was founded over a poker game Like guys involved in Tech in the Valley and really what they noticed that there was really no finance or financial services institutions that understood the needs of tech companies and venture capital funds, so they formed Silicon Valley Bank.

4:50 And fast forward 30 years later, you know, some of the names you mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, you know, our customers, we’ve been lending to our friends at the bank, And the wine story, it kind of makes sense, right? You’ve got people with big exits, you’ve got venture capital partners, where are they going to put their money in vineyards? So I think the wine division sort of was a natural extension of what we do. And I think some of the coolest events that we do would be our client wine tastings.

5:18 And we do that with our clients, and then obviously with the wines from some of the vineyards that we bank in the Valley. So yeah, it’s very cool. And if you will get to give people like capital structure 101, I mean, I spent a little bit of time in banking and so you know people understand they can have equity investments is when you kind of buy shares you can have debt investments when you’re loaned money and they each employ different places on the capital structure do you guys strictly do debt financing and for someone out there who’s just a startup guy and he doesn’t know the difference between a check for a hundred grand and a check for a hundred grand yeah can you explain the difference and yeah absolutely so um I think if you think about it we actually are part of the journey of the company so we’ll start out accelerator you know both in the valley and now here in the UK and eventually other parts of Europe.

6:04 We start by just being your commercial bank. So we’re a bank account for you and we look after your commercial banking and your banking needs and then you start to get angel investments and you can deposit that with us, blah, blah, blah. And then you get to a point where you’re looking at a big, chunky Series A financing. And that is what the equity financing is. So you will get, you know, family offices or very wealthy super angels or venture capital funds that are willing to put a lot of money in.

6:33 The debt financing side is actually, it’s just a simple loan. And what that means is, you know, we lend alongside a venture capitalist that we’ve worked with over the years. And we, you know, it’s three years loan payback over 36 months. So it’s a very simple, straightforward loan. But I guess the benefit of what we call venture debt is it means it extends the runway for the founder.

6:58 So they don’t have to lose as much equity over the longer term. So the VC will take equity, we will lend it to them, and that might give them 6, 12, 18 months extra of runway on top of the equity financing, which means they can grow the company to a better valuation, a better level of revenues, and it just gives them more runway. And therefore it’s preserving more equity for the founder. And so VCs, you know, quite often bring us the opportunities, founders will approach us directly.

7:28 But it’s just, it’s a nice way to work within the ecosystem. And then I think the other thing that we do is we work very closely with venture capitalists where they’re a banker and we actually have a banking practice called private equity services and we’ll actually work with the VCs. In the Valley, we actually have a VC fund and we’ll co-invest alongside VCs. And we’re actually also an LP, so we are a fund of funds, and we’re an LP in a lot of the biggest funds, you know, on the West Coast, a couple of funds here in Europe, but that’s very, very much West Coast focused.

8:03 Here in the UK, we’re a commercial bank, and we will start with companies at an earlier stage as of a year ago, because we can do just proper bank accounts, but then we have parts of the business that are called growth, and then, you know, some of the companies that will bank are really well-known growth companies here in the UK, Shazam, Mind Candy, for example, Monetize, et cetera, et cetera. And then we actually work at the top level as well, so what we call corporate. So a lot of the PLC and listed companies on the exchange will do different types of financing at that level.

8:36 So I think Cisco is a great example of that. We started with them from early days and, you know, to this day we still work with them. And when you’re going to make a loan to a startup company, maybe it’s a pre-revenue company maybe you don’t do that with we do what will you do okay I mean it’s effectively a high-yield loan or what you know the Milken days used to be known as junk junk bond financing because you just don’t know what the revenues are gonna be like how do you price the coupon on something that I mean and is it quite expensive to borrow money at that stage well I think it’s a good question I think the way that we look at it is we look at the product that the company is creating so we tend to really love SaaS based companies because We understand the revenue model.

9:15 We understand the in-comings. We see the invoices coming in from clients and the whole SAS kind of cloud-based software as a service. That’s why I’m here to ask this question. So basically cloud-based business models. So it’s a subscription-based model.

9:29 And we see that coming in, and we see that they’ve got big blue chip customers and the like. We can see their revenues or where they’re going. And then we also get a level of comfort, because we know that the VCs are in there. So the, you know, the, I guess the more, not basically the VCs that we know and we’ve worked with over the years. So Accel Index.

9:49 And in a way, they’ve put money into the company. So they don’t want to see the company fail. We don’t want to see the company fail. So we know that we all want to see that company be successful. So, you know, we price it accordingly.

10:02 It’s very different according to each company. Really, it’s very, very specific. And our bankers at that level really understand lending. And we get it. We get that business model in a way that a lot of other typical banks don’t.

10:16 Do sometimes the CEOs come back to you and they’re like, I can’t pay a 12% coupon. It doesn’t make sense. And I’m going to go back and try to get some more equity. Or is it usually less the issue of where you price the debt? We sometimes get that pushback.

10:27 But actually, if you think about it over the longer term, if you say 12%, that actually is going to be cheaper than giving up a similar percentage of equity over the longer term. Really, this is a benefit to the founder over the longer term. It’s giving them more runway, and it might appear more expensive at the beginning. But actually, if you think about the kind of equity they give up in the event of an exit, it’s gonna be a lot cheaper, to be quite honest.

10:52 It’s nice having this as an option, because I know- It is an option, absolutely. Sometimes you just don’t. Venture debt is a very different instrument, but it works for the right kind of company. And we as a bank do that. Obviously, there are other venture lenders as well, and they will just lend.

11:07 I think the difference between us and them is venture lending is one of the things we do, other typical types of commercial banking and financing, but we’re also a bank account, right? So we have an online platform. We do US-UK banking, like one screen, two tabs, and we’re one of the only banks that can do that right now. And this sounds like a sales pitch, but it’s not. It’s just…

11:29 No, it’s really informative. It’s just, yeah. But basically, it’s actually really interesting. When I talk to entrepreneurs and we’re like, yeah, we can open up a US bank account for you from London if you’re the kind of company that we can work with, usually we come in through introductions. So the kind of companies we work with are always through warm intros, through lawyers or venture capitalists or people that know the bank well and we trust.

11:51 And so we can run their US bank account from here, we can run their UK bank account, we can run it in four different currencies. We have foreign exchange trader in-house. So we’re small, we’re nimble, and we’re a purely online platform as well. It’s a nice option to have, because that can be a real pain trying to juggle all those accounts. It can be, yeah.

12:09 And any company these days is going to have revenue streams in euros and dollars and sterling and expenses. So that can be helpful. Who’s your competition in London and in a weird way, why do you think you guys will win? I mean, high street banks, right? Really?

12:22 Yeah, in the sense from the commercial banking perspective, absolutely. But the high street banks, the way they work is they bank all SMEs. So tech startups are one part of SMEs. And a lot of the bigger high street banks have really clued in that, wow, tech is hot right now and we want to work with you guys. But they’re going to apply the same kind of criteria that would apply to other type of small and medium sized enterprises.

12:48 I think where we’re different is we focus purely on tech. And they hire people like me because I’m a banker in training is how I like to describe it. I’ve been in the bank almost five months now, and I’m learning about lending and blah, blah, blah, but my background is software. I know technology, I know software, and I can meet the founders and the CEOs and understand their business and their technology and get excited about it and can bring it into the bank and go, wow, this is a really interesting company, we need to work with them.

13:19 And I think they’ll be great in this vertical and that vertical. And all my years at Microsoft, and prior to that, I was in a tech startup and a very small VC fund. I’ve spent a lot of my career in this space, so I kind of understand it and understand the more exciting companies. They call you the queen of startups. Oh yeah, that’s embarrassing.

13:36 Is that true? That’s what I’ve heard. That’s what the press is saying. That’s quite mean. That’s quite mean.

13:43 It’s very flattering. It is. I would take it. No, I think that name just started because there’s an article written in about 2009, and at that point, we just launched the startup program called BizSpark, back in my Microsoft days, and at that time there was only 650 startups, so the journalist that wrote the article, Lopa Patel, I’ve got to give her a name check because she’s the one that coined the phrase, and she’s like, oh my God, you’re like the queen, you’re working with 650 startups in the program, and the funniest thing is that was just the beginning.

14:17 When I left, there was about 3,700 startups just in the UK in that program, and about 60,000 worldwide, and across Europe there’s about almost 12,000 startups. So it was actually quite fun. And I would say over my time at Microsoft, easily I worked in depth with probably about 200 startups closely. I saw a huddle at the very beginning, and back in the day when it was just Andy and Allie and a couple of others, late 2007, early 2008, and you look at them now, and they’re 100 plus, and they’re on Series C now, and I’ve seen a lot of these companies grow up over my time.

14:54 So it’s been an amazing journey, starting in 2008 to now. It’s incredible, the history of what’s happened in the UK this time around, as opposed to the first time around. Yeah, I wanna talk about that first time around. We usually try to hit you with like a devil’s advocate or a random question, and I’ll let you go first. If you have one online, otherwise I’m gonna hit her with one.

15:15 I reserve the right to say I’d have no answer. I do think, but I’ll hit you with that. So just about the business model, like say I’m a guy that I’ve already done some angel funding and maybe I’ve done a series A and I’m coming up to where I need some more money and I talk to you guys and you guys look, I can give you a loan like you say 36 months, I can extend out, you don’t have to dilute yourself by trying to raise more equity. But on the flip side is if I don’t make my coupon payments in the capital structure, you will become the owners of the company.

15:43 Is that right? And has that happened in the past? And is that a concern that people should have when raising money? You know, we won’t lend to companies where we think that will be a problem. We’re really upfront.

15:56 If we don’t think we can lend because we think they’re gonna have troubles paying back within a year, we won’t do it. We’re a bank, right? We’re very careful about how we lend. So we’re constantly in communication with the founders. Can you actually afford to, do you have enough runway and enough cash to pay us back over these 18 months?

16:14 What are your revenues like? What kind of numbers do you need to hit? And our bankers and the lending team are very good at that. So we try to make sure that doesn’t happen. Has that happened in the past?

16:24 You must have had defaults. Past, I don’t know. I’m too new in the bank to answer that. And even if we did, it wouldn’t be something that would be appropriate to answer. But honestly, we try our hardest not to let that happen.

16:36 We try to work very closely with the founders. I’m guessing the last thing you want is just a balance sheet of a mess on your books. Yeah, we’ve got a pretty good reputation, balance sheet wise so for people not understanding like equity and financing 101 like for example General Motors declared bankruptcy a couple years ago and all of its equity investors got a base basically zero and its debt holders became the new equity holders and now they have shares of GM and it’s turned around and that’s all that whole thing works so with this kind of a loan obviously if they don’t make their payments you guys can effectively if you want become the equity holders which must get kind of murky yeah we don’t You don’t want that.

17:11 Our bread and butter is this whole debt financing. And really, we care about the founders. I mean, there’s a reason I’m at the bank, because the bank is passionate about entrepreneurs and the relationships with the entrepreneurs. And I won’t tell a lot of war stories, but when I went to meet the founder, the guy that set up the accelerator in the valley, 2004, 2005, think of the companies that started back then. And I look at how passionate he is about the relationships with the founders, and I look at my counterparts in New York, Boston, San Francisco, Palo Alto, all around the states.

17:47 We all are cut from the same cloth. We really care about the entrepreneur and the founders, and obviously the venture capital and private equity side of the business, but we really are passionate about the sector. So, you know, we wanna see them be successful, because it means success for us as well. And you’re gonna be bumping into the same people five years from now, 10 years, 15 years. And there are stories, again, I won’t say the exact war story, but there’s one very well-known recently listed company.

18:15 And we did their first bank account. And the reason we did their first bank account because their angel investor was someone we’d worked with for years in his first two startups. So it’s a relationship thing, and it lasts and lasts and lasts. And what I’m finding five months into the bank, a lot of the business that’s coming my way is because of relationships I’ve built over the years. So people are calling me going, hey, Bins, you helped us two, three years ago getting us software.

18:43 Can you help us with banking services now? And I’m finding I’m getting a lot of repeat business. And so it really is down to the relationship and being there with the company and for the company. And I’m not talking just through ups. I’m talking through downs.

18:57 I mean, I have seen a lot of companies go down. It’s quite funny. There are some founders I’ve known so well. There’s a phone call and I can hear it in their voice and I’m like, what’s wrong? I’ll never forget this.

19:09 This was two Christmases ago and I was on my way to Christmas break in the Alps and there was one founder, we’d been trying to call each other, so I called him from my cab on my way to Chamonix, my favorite place in the Alps, and you could hear his voice was strained. I’m like, yo, what’s up? What’s going on? And he’s like, I think I have to file for bankruptcy. I’m like, what happened?

19:33 So he told me the story, and the interesting thing is he was still a fighter, right? He’s like, I’m going to file for bankruptcy, I’m going to try get the IP back, and I’m going to come back in a different iteration with that IP and that technology. Now the interesting thing is, the IP was so popular, five people bid for it under the bankruptcy. And so he actually had to pay over the odds to get that technology back under his name. He’s relaunched the company and they’re back to strength and they’re growing and growing and growing.

20:07 And so I do see a lot of stories like that where they go through a really rough patch. We all know it’s not that easy being an entrepreneur. It’s not just up. It’s a lot of downs. But you see that.

20:17 And then I look at him 18 months later, him and his co-founder, and they’re back. And they now have 10 different customers and their business model is slightly different, but the core IP and the technology is still the same, which I always thought was a brilliant product in what they’re doing. It’s fascinating. Sometimes the tech is right, it’s just like the company structure, the capital structure, the mistakes they made in the past. In their case, they backed one horse and they had a huge contract with one company, one corporate, and the corporate actually reneged on that contract and said, you’re right, you’re right, we are in the wrong, you can you can sue us, but by the time you sue us, you’ll go bankrupt. And that’s really terrible, but then the lesson they learned is don’t put all your eggs in one basket, you’ve got to diversify.

21:03 Because what they’ve done is they’ve focused on just one company and one client and all of their developers and everybody was focused on that one client. And then it all went pear-shaped. And so that was the big lesson he learned. So now he’s diversified and you learn from your mistakes. And we’ve all been there, guys, right?

21:22 We’ve all had it. Especially in the startup space. When we hear about all the success stories. Oh my god, I’ve made a ton of mistakes. Nine out of 10 are probably the bad ones.

21:28 Bryce, what do I need to know about Bindi that I wouldn’t see on her CV? Oh, oh, the stories. The stories, Bryce. Not now, Bryce. There was this yacht in Cuba one summer.

21:39 I always miss the point, like, with the guests that come on, Bryce is always like, OK, Brian, but you don’t know this about them. So you know much more about her. But what, you know, what wouldn’t the casual observer know the one that looked at her LinkedIn profile? What wouldn’t they know about Bindi? That’s a great question.

21:52 Besides if she’s the queen of startups. I love skiing. And marathons. And marathons, biking. I’m doing tech bikers again this year.

21:59 There’s one other thing she’s the queen of. What’s that? Bindi’s, in fact, the queen of karaoke, if I’m not mistaken. I believe. But going completely off track.

22:08 One of the stories in Startup Land is Bindi’s legendary vocals. Oh, I don’t know about that. I’ve heard about it. Or is it Guitar Hero? No, it’s Dance Dance Revolution.

22:17 It’s Dance Revolution. Sorry, not karaoke, it’s Dance Dance Revolution. I always get those two good views. Yeah, but karaoke we love too. I’m moving this on now.

22:24 Question number three, we have a loose structure here. Yeah, here we go. If you had to sign to non-compete right now and completely get out of the current business you’re in right now, which I guess is banking, really, or anything to do with Silicon Bank, and we gave you 20… Silicon Valley Bank. Silicon Valley Bank, my mistake.

22:39 SBB. Come on. Get the brand right. I was thinking of Silicon Real. Yeah.

22:44 Another great… Exactly. Another great Silicon beginning. Brand. Yeah.

22:49 I wonder if you’re here. And say someone gave you 20 million pounds. What would you go do? What other aspect of the tech sector here in London would you go after yourself? I think from a personal perspective, I love fashion, and I think I would try to, I don’t know what the answer is, but I think I would try to do something in fashion tech.

23:10 I think I’ve always been a collector of fashiony things, I think, Bryce, what do you think? I love my shoes, my bags, my clothes, and it’s interesting. I follow fashion a lot, and so I think I’d love to do something in that space. It’s not the right time for me and I think I am where I’m meant to be. Whether I was in the bank or the corporate, I’m meant to be the supporter of entrepreneurs.

23:34 They’re the real risk takers and they’re the heroes. But if I did something, yeah, I think it’d be around that. I love the space and the ecosystem and I’m seeing lots of interesting things pop up. London sometimes plays like the ugly stepchild to sometimes in the States and we’re all immigrants here. We can I think that gives us the perspective of looking outside because we’re not invested because we’re not completely I’m a Londoner. Yeah, I’m a Londoner. I was born in the UK. Well, you’re still Canadian So but I was raised in Canada, but I came back. Okay, so I’ve been in London longer than I’ve been in Canada Okay, well, I have a passport and I’ve been here for 10 years But what do you see right now that’s happening in London that excites you is there like one or two sectors where you’re like Yes, London is going to own this space worldwide. I think FinTech is very exciting You know, I was actually in a startup for three years and that was 2002 to 2004.

24:27 And that was a trading technology startup. So you’re a former financial services guy, so this was a commodities trading platform. And there was every inter-dealer, broker, trader, and trading floor in the banks had this bid ask screen for commodities trading. And it sort of came up when Enron Online died. So sort of, it became the platform of choice.

24:50 Remember those days? Oh my God. Yeah, they were in a counter party. Yeah, we’re aging ourselves here, Brian. But anyway, God, I call that the nuclear winter.

24:56 But what I learned a lot about was FinTech. And I’m seeing a massive resurgence of that. I think, you know, level 39, just launching, when was it, Bryce? It was about February this year. Yeah, we did like one of the first events there.

25:11 Exactly, it was like sort of early, yeah, February, I saw the preview. so it was about early March, it officially opened. I think there’s a lot going on here, and obviously London being the center, one of the financial services centers. I think New York, there’s a lot there, but I think London really has the opportunity. It really is one of, it’s a center, time zone wise, it’s the center, if you think about Canary Wharf, 25 major banks that are focused there in the city, a lot of the smaller banks are there, which is where we’re based, so I’m really excited about FinTech.

25:41 Yeah, I was in level 39 last Friday, and I met Eric out there, who hopefully will be a guest soon, but I was really impressed. One of my old buddies, I worked at ICAP PLC for a long time. Oh yeah, so ICAP kept trying to buy the startup that we were in. I’m sure, yeah. It was very funny.

25:54 He used to come over to our office and try to buy us, but we were like, no. They probably had no idea what you were doing. No, no, they were scared by what the startup was doing, so they wanted to buy us, yeah. And of innovator’s dilemma, you were putting like real people out of jobs with these technology platforms, and there’s a lot of money involved, so it makes sense. But yeah, level 39 is really interesting.

26:11 I mean, funny enough, our guest Tommy Davies accosted me when I was at level 39. He’s amazing. He just grabbed me and he was there and there’s a company called Open Fin that’s there. That’s my old buddy at ICAP. Within about 20 minutes I bumped into all these people on this floor in Canary Wharf and it was wild.

26:27 And it was just. I really think there’s something there. I mean, it’s still new, it’s still a nugget but I just feel really positive about what’s going on there. And probably because I know FinTech because my first job after the startup and then the small VC fund I was in. My first job at Microsoft, I was in the FinTech sales team.

26:48 So I was selling to CIOs of some of the biggest banks and working with them on their business productivity strategy and helping them with how the heck are you gonna use Office and SharePoint and all these other big Microsoft products across your banks. So it’s a special subject for me and a special topic for me. So I’ve gotta put that down as a bias. but I really think we’re on to something. It’s come up before on this podcast.

27:14 Yeah, I really think we’re on to something. And then I’ve just been meeting some really cool companies from level 39, and you know, they’re really trying to, and even Techstars in London, I don’t know the percentage, but there’s a lot of payments and FinTech companies right now. All sort of innovative payments and FinTech providers. I’d say about half, isn’t it, Bryce? Yeah, they’ve just announced their first class.

27:35 Yeah, their first class was 11. I’d say probably four or five really interesting financial services type players whether it’s payments or who’s your favorite at the moment in the market I’m not gonna say I love all startups he’s like that’s why she’s the Queen yeah she’s good she’s good no behind me and I have ones that I think will be positioned for success but I’m not gonna say that cuz that’s not fair on the other side no we miss the guy from Techstars he was here from Colorado I think last week yeah Dave Dave. Yeah, Dave’s a great guy. He’s Rocky Mountains, man. That’s where I’m from.

28:05 Boulder. Yeah, Boulder. Yeah, he’s a nice guy. Alberta. You know, Rocky Mountains is where I come from, so.

28:10 It’s nice there. Was that a question you had? I got a question. I’m curious about one of the things I wanted to ask you. What do you think about the startup loans scheme, Biz?

28:20 I have to be honest, I don’t know enough about it, so is that the one where they have to personally guarantee? Yeah, it’s like small loans to 10, 15 grand. It’s like a student grown, isn’t it? of encouraging young entrepreneurs that they’re positioning, I don’t have two minds about it but effectively it’s small loans and it’s basically encouraging entrepreneurs the tiny bit of seed money but to go into sort of to go into debt effectively. It’s a loan from the government.

28:42 It’s like a student loan and then they have to pay back despite the fact the business works or not. Exactly, which is kind of like do you go and seek seed or crowdfunding or friends and family or do you take a small loan? But I said 10 to 15 grand is a very small loan. But it’s a lot if you know, you don’t make money, right? Exactly, yeah.

29:03 But I think their position is a bit obvious. They sort of say they want to appeal to people who want to open their own DIY shop. You have to be below 30 as well to get that loan, don’t you? Yeah, I think in that case it’s sort of a buyer beware. If you’re going to take it, understand the risks.

29:17 So I think it’s really up to biz to educate the people that take those loans. That if you do this, this is at your own personal risk and you’ll be liable for that money. And I think that’s the important thing. And if that’s the case, and people still want to use that as an instrument to fund their company, then so be it. But I do think people need to be educated that they’re personally liable, not their company or the organization.

29:41 So I think it’s about encouraging responsible borrowing or anything. I think this is really important to educate people starting companies, because for them, if you’re starting a company, you just need the money. But if you know that this money is personally liable for, this money is under an LLP. So if it folds, you’re not going to, you know, limited liability partnership. This money is debt financing, that kind of thing.

30:02 So it is good for people to know. Am I like, my other, yeah, it’s important to understand all the types of financing. I think, you know, it’s my duty, I believe, to educate people, like particularly about the debt financing. And, you know, that’s why I do things like this. And I think really it should be our duty in any type of financing to educate people.

30:21 And then they can make the best informed decision, which is going to make them successful. Ultimately, this is them taking the risk. They’re working day and night, and they’re giving up their holidays and their relationships and everything to make it work. And I can’t say enough how much I respect founders of companies. They amaze me.

30:39 You know, they’re my heroes, as far as I’m concerned. They work hard. They work their butts off. You were talking earlier about how this is kind of the second wave of what you saw. And you saw the first wave of like what, early to mid-2000s and then the second wave of kind of 08.

30:54 Nuclear winter that was. I saw kind of a first wave at the end of the 90s, but that’s another story. And I was there too. Are you worried? Yeah.

31:01 What do you notice about the two different waves? Like what’s… Yeah. Okay. So I think the first wave, you know, this is very common knowledge, right?

31:08 Everyone, you know, it was a lot of ridiculous valuations and businesses were being built on the back of nothing. There was really no business there, business model. year roughly? Sort of 99 to 2001 like it all tanked mid late 2000 didn’t it? Yeah early 2001 was the next day crash. It was all tanking at that point and I think it’s because there was no real proper viable businesses right that was the boo.com time. I’ve never seen like six pitches for like dentist.com yeah or pet.com. All the different pet combinations. People weren’t really thinking of the business they’re like let’s have big parties and you You know, I was part of it, I was having a great time and I was going to those networking things first Tuesday and I was working back then in the PwC incubator and even PwC was financing startups.

31:56 Really? Yeah, they were like putting money into four or five startups and back then I was a super junior consultant and I was like, you know, looking at the business plans for companies and doing the due diligence on them and putting like, you know, and then that tanked once IBM took over that part of PwC. Now, I think people are much more focused on the bottom line. They’ve got a proper business, a business model. They’re looking at how do we get revenues, or in some cases, or in a lot of cases, particularly on the West Coast, how do we get the kind of users we need that we can monetize?

32:30 I think people are smarter business people of this time around, and they’re looking at the business model. And the ones that don’t make it, I think, are because they hadn’t really looked at the business model. And actually, we ran a startup Outlook survey, which we released beginning of May. And we did it in the UK and US. Now, the interesting thing is I forget the numbers, because it’s been about a month or two since I looked at the survey.

32:55 But funnily enough, British entrepreneurs had a greater focus on the bottom line. So they were more likely to hit their revenue numbers and targets, and they were likely to be more profitable than the American companies that we surveyed. I believe that. Interesting. Our theory behind that actually was that I think the investors in Europe just tend to focus on that.

33:17 This is again a theory, hypothesis, and you too can debate about this, but I do think that the investors here really want that focus on the bottom line. So startups tend to be more profitable. There is less money being given to them, so they have no choice but to make money and to think about making their revenue targets. In 2013, in the survey, they were so positive. They were more positive than the American entrepreneurs because they had hit profitability or revenue generation in 2012 and 2011.

33:47 Right. As opposed to back in the days when you would brag about your burn rate. Yeah. Yeah. That was how cool you were.

33:53 Exactly. Yeah. So that’s kind of come full circle. Yeah. I think it’s a lot more, I think for lack of a better word, it’s a lot more responsible business management now than it was back then.

34:05 And it’s been fun living through the resurgence because I was kind of, I feel there at the beginning, you know, like there’s a little potted history, if it’s all right, that I can give. Yeah. So late 2007 Seed Camp launched and, you know, back in the Microsoft days, we were there helping give software to the five Seed Camp and Vesti startups. I think Mike started TechCrunch Europe around that time as well. It was late 2007.

34:29 Mike, forgive me if I’m wrong, but I think it was around that time, 2008. I got my job for the startup team at Microsoft in January 2008. And I was on board to plan and strategize and do the launch for BizSpark on this side of the pond. And we launched that November 2008. So that’s 2008, like people were starting to say, oh, there’s really interesting startup-y things.

34:55 Then you go into 2009, and the first ICE trip happened. And ICE, if you don’t know, is sort of this group of entrepreneurs, and to this day, it’s just almost a support group of entrepreneurs supporting each other, and people like myself, and lawyers, and other people, VCs, that are part of the ecosystem, and we help each other, we mentor each other, we try to be supportive. So the very first trip was February 2009. And then you start to see other corporate programs launching, so IBM entrepreneurs launched, I think, in about early 2010, I’ve just got to get all the timing straight.

35:36 If you go back, going back to 2008, Huddle had just began. They were late 2007, had their Series A funding, late 2007, early 2008. Companies like Shuttle, Skimlinks, Minecandy, a lot of these companies that are growing. Just the second wave. Yeah.

35:53 They all launched around 2008. So for me, that’s a really special year, and you look at them five years later. And then that 2010 thing started to gain momentum, more and more corporates are getting into it. Amazon had always been around, you know, with AWS, but around 2010, and again, Amazon, forgive me if I’m wrong, Chris, tell me if I’m wrong, you know, around then, AWS for startups started to launch. And then you get to 2011, and the beards turned up, right?

36:21 Right? So you guys were about 2011. What was it, early, mid 2011? We met in June or July, I’m close to venting to oldest. Yeah, so mid-2011.

36:30 Then you get to, like, November 2011, and that’s when the government announces the launch of Tech City, right? And so all of a sudden, the government’s got this whole focus. But you go back to 2008, I’m sorry, that’s when Moo.com and Song Kick and all those guys were already at the roundabout, and it was already organic. So in my view, three years later, the government came on board and said, wow, there’s something special here. Let’s launch the announcement for, you know, Tech City. So that’s late 2011.

37:01 You get to 2012 and oh my God, everything’s happening, right? So Google announces entrepreneurs like Google for entrepreneurs and campus opens around March last year? Yeah, March. Silicon Valley Bank finally gets their British banking license in June. A year ago, last year.

37:17 Yeah, but the thing is we’d been at it for two and a half years, right? It wasn’t easy to get a banking license in Great Britain. But we saw there was something in it. So we’re like, we’re going to make the commitment and the investment, and we did it. So I mean, I’m so impressed by the team that did it.

37:32 I came on board after, but the team that did it, they built a bank. Like, they built the whole platform and the operation, and they extended it from the US, and they worked hard to get that license after two and a half years of working with the FSA back then is what it was called. So that launches, and Telefonica announces Waira sort of early 2012. And they launched the Wair Academy around June 2012. And now you look at 2013 and it’s just everywhere.

38:03 There isn’t a corporate I’m not speaking to or they’re not innovating, and they’re getting their guys out learning about startups, Nokia, Microsoft, IBM, AWS, Google, Telefonica. I mean, I could just keep naming corporates that are going, oh my god, these entrepreneurs, there’s something in it, right? So if you think about back in the day, and then actually one last thing. It’s a great history lesson. Yeah, and back in 2008, there’s also this very special event that Huddle launched called Drink Tank.

38:33 And one of the things I first did, I was like, sure, I’ll sponsor that, you know? And that was around February time, and that was just a, hey, we’re a bunch of entrepreneurs, we don’t know anybody, oh my god, it’s so lonely here. Well, let’s meet together once a month, only CEOs and people like Bindi who have money to put behind the bar because she’s a big corporate. You know, that’s the only reason they let me in the room is because I was sponsoring. Yeah, I mean, you’re just not being really open here.

38:58 But what a great way for me to meet great CEOs. And you know, to this day, some of those CEOs are my very, very dear friends because we kind of all grew up together, right? I grew up and I grew the program. You know, the CEOs said great things about me and the stuff I was doing with them. So I wouldn’t be where I am without their support.

39:16 And then I see some of these guys now. They’re gonna be our next big exits. And I’m just, I feel like a really proud friend to see some of these folks and how they’ve grown. So what’s 2015 gonna look like? What’s 2017, 19 gonna look like?

39:29 That’s a great question. I would like to think that we see some great exits for Europe. So. Which we need, right? We need. We need to show that.

39:36 We need some big exits. I’m really passionate about that. And I’ll give you an example of my journey about leaving Microsoft and coming to SVB. And you know Microsoft was an amazing time and I would not be where I am without that program and the support I got from them and they just threw me out there and like go do it Bindi, right? Would not be without it.

39:56 But I quickly realized I needed to be with an organization where there was one foot in Silicon Valley but they were looking at their European expansion. And that for me was my dream job in tech, working with a big portfolio. They’re in the Valley so I get to go back to California. I love the West Coast, but I’m a European. Despite the Saxon, I am a European, I’m a proud European, and I’m a Londoner, and I’m a proud Londoner.

40:21 So proud I volunteered at London in 2012, right? I wore that uniform, it was good fun. So, you know, it was an amazing experience, right? But the point is, that was my dream job, where I’m like reporting, you know, whether here or to the Valley, and I’m helping the European push. And that’s exactly what happened with this SBB job.

40:40 I’m helping with the European push. And I wanna see Europe be successful. I really wanna see some great exits. So my hope and my vision is that we do see some great exits. And those great exits show the world that we can actually exit.

40:54 They also give the funds to those entrepreneurs to reinvest the way we’ve seen the Facebookers and tumblers and all of that. And that is actually happening, actually. So what I’m seeing is people that are in series B, C, right now, they’re actually very quietly reinvesting in the key ecosystem, right? Some of them go, yeah, we’ll give 25, 30K to our mates who are launching a business. I won’t say who, out of respect for that, but they know who they are, and they’re actually reinvesting in the system, right?

41:22 And they’re probably doing it very quietly. You look at Profounders, for example, right? And they’re, Brent Hoberman and, you know. Yeah, and all of those guys, they’re putting their money into a fund and reinvesting it. So that’s Brent and Michael Birch, right?

41:39 So they were sort of big the first time round. They’re putting that money back into a fund and reinvesting. Atomico with Nicholas and the Skype money, same thing. But they’re now looking at bigger levels, right? So they’re doing big Series C rounds and a lot more growth stage.

41:54 But you look at these founders who are putting money back into other funding vehicles or they’re seeding. And I’m seeing a lot more of that this time around as well. So I think there’s a movement. There’s a lot more we need to do. We’re a heck of a lot further behind.

42:08 People are still less risk taking here than they are in the Valley, but I really feel positive. And maybe I’m just, that’s my Canadian side, but I do feel we need to see some big exits, and that’s the only way we can keep sustaining this growth. What do you define as big? So what would you say is a great exit? Like what’s your value range?

42:25 Obviously we wanna see billion dollar exits. Everyone wants to see that, but I actually don’t think there’s anything wrong with 100, 200, 300 million dollar exits. So the startup I was in back in the day exited for $300 million cash out because they never took VC investment. And I wish I’d stayed. I really wish I’d stayed, but I joined as employee 17, and I left when there were about 55, 60 people.

42:51 Big mistake on my part. Should’ve stayed, but never mind. So what a good a should have right now. That’s a good enough exit. It’s still a very sizable exit.

42:58 It’s still a sizable exit. But in the Valley, that’s not big enough. But I think we just got to keep getting more and more of those types. but the billion dollar exits are what we’re all after. What do you say on the IPO debate?

43:09 What do you think about the European IPO debate, which is kind of raging around? Do you think we’re going to see more of that? Do you think it’s going to just keep rolling around? Do you think it’s an echo chain? Because we’re like a tenth of the IPOs of the state.

43:19 Yeah. Yeah, I think something needs to be done. And I think, you know, like Joanne’s initiative with Future50. Is that what it’s called? Future50.com?

43:28 Yeah, Joanne Shields. Joanne Shields. Yeah, exactly. I think there’s a lot of movement in that direction And I know there was an announcement made, was it 2011 or 2012 that they’re going to try make the LSC more amenable to exits for companies of a certain size in the tech sector. So I think there’s been a lot of movement in that direction.

43:49 We just haven’t seen it yet. So I want to see more like that. So again, not really a straightforward answer, but I think it’s a long game. Absolutely. Now, we need to find out a bit more about you.

43:59 So here’s a question for you. If you could pick up the phone and make a phone call to the 20-year-old Bindi and give her some advice. She might not take this advice. Don’t do that podcast. If you give her some advice and it can’t be, you go girl, Bindi, you’re doing great.

44:16 You should give her a piece of advice. What would it be? I think I would have told myself, take the risk and start a business. I think back then, I would have been a bit more amenable to that kind of risk. So I think I should have started a business back then, because I hate to say it, but tech right now, it feels like a young person’s game.

44:39 And if you don’t start it in your 20s, that’s it. And so… Like you popped Korea, like you’re acting Korea. Yeah. And I think…

44:46 There is something to that. There is something to that, but I do see a lot of folks who have been in banks and been made redundant, and now they’re starting up their own businesses. So I’m seeing a lot of that as well, which is great, and the sort of that experience cannot be matched, if that makes sense. But advice to myself, I would have definitely started a business. I did take my own advice, which is I got on a plane and came to Great Britain, and I didn’t regret that because, you know, I finished uni and I was like, what do I do?

45:14 What I want to do is in Toronto and New York, and then I looked at my British passport gathering dust. I was like, I’m just going to go to London and see what happens. So I actually did pop up here with $300 Canadian dollars in my pocket. When was that? 1996.

45:28 Wow. That’s wild. And I’m still around and, you know, I still can buy shoes. So I haven’t done half bad. Okay.

45:35 On that same note. That reminds me, I need some shoes. Yeah. We’ll go shoe shopping after Bryce. Excellent.

45:40 Excellent. I’m good. We’ll wrap this up. Staying on advice. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

45:45 Oh, best piece of advice would have been, you know, I’ve had several times I’ve been out on the street and I failed. That’s a whole other story, so a couple of times. And the best advice was given to me by the chairman of the start-up that I was in at the time and it was called Trey Port. And Alan, the chairman, actually said, Bindi, you’re nobody until you’ve failed three times. Very American advice. But in Great Britain at the time and I grew up, you know, Indian, Asian as you say here, and you don’t see that. Like We don’t accept failure as a culture.

46:18 But actually, the two times I was on the street and I was living on Sainsbury’s points the second time around in 2004 to get food, because I had zero money. And my friends were being lovely and buying me drinks once in a while, because I couldn’t afford to go out. You’re nobody till you’ve failed three times. And the lessons I learned from those two troughs in my life were invaluable. And it’s toughened me up and it’s made me realize It’s okay, right?

46:46 And the best entrepreneurs I see just pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and they’re back out there. And I go back to that story with that entrepreneur whose business went into bankruptcy. He didn’t stop to think twice. He had two very young kids, he was stressed, he’s like, meh, I’m just gonna go do it again. I’m gonna buy that IP back, because I believe so strongly in the product and he did it and looked at him to this day.

47:13 So I do think that, for me, was the best advice. And I actually sat back, thought about it, and like, all right. And then, again, Alan, that chairman also said, bindi, you know nothing, which was great advice, because it made me sit back and go, oh, yeah, I was a consultant. I hadn’t really rolled my sleeves up and worked operationally in a business. And that’s what I ended up doing the last 10 years.

47:32 Even though I launched the startup program, it was still, you had to operate a business, and you had to run a business, and grow a business, and build a business. And I think learning stuff operationally, not just theoretically, is uber, uber important. And I’m doing the same thing again at the bank, right? I’m not just selling the services, I’m trying to build up a team and the operations and the processes and new banking packages internally. So it’s really important to do that, I think.

47:58 That’s very good stuff. The final bit of that question is, to the 20-year-old listening, it could be the 20-year-old young bindi or someone else out there, what should they do if you wanna give them some advice so they can grow up like you or Bryce? Don’t grow up like me. Yeah, that’s what everyone says. Shave, every day, shave.

48:15 Yeah, shave, definitely shave. You may end up looking like this one day. Actually, Bryce had a surprising answer to this question when I asked him on London Real, but what do you tell that 20-year-old to do if they want to do something to get into this space? I think taking the risk is really important. I mean, so what if it doesn’t work out, right?

48:34 Just take the risk and bloody well do it, I think, is very important. If you’re passionate about something and you think you have an idea and you want to do something, go for it. Because, so what, if it doesn’t work out, don’t be scared of failure. I think that’s the first thing I’ll say. And that’s exactly what Alan told me in 2002, 2003-ish.

48:55 But don’t be scared of failure, because big deal, you learn from it. You dust yourself off and you move on. And you learn a lot about yourself. So for example, the one thing I learned about myself was I’m better off working with portfolios, opposed to just one product and just one thing you know and doing the same thing day in day out with just one product I’m better off juggling a million plates and you know working with portfolios because I think that’s where my greatest strength comes out and mentoring and helping and being supportive that’s more of what I’m good at so I think it’s also taking the time to step back and look at yourself and understand your strengths and weaknesses I think people don’t do that enough. And I know all my weaknesses, let me tell you. Well yeah, well you fail, you get to find out, yeah, what you’re made of and what you’re not. You learn a lot about yourself. I got one other question then if you have something cool, otherwise we’re gonna wrap this up. When you choose people, what is that one characteristic that you look for? Maybe it’s in someone you’re gonna loan money to, or you know, because I think ultimately why we’re doing this show is because it’s really about the people behind the businesses, because I think People invest ultimately in people absolutely I know Tim Ferriss was here And he said no one signs NDAs anymore in Silicon Valley because it’s not the idea everyone’s has that idea. It’s who can execute it

50:15 Yeah, so what is that one personality trait that you look for you know Raj said something funny last week He said I’m looking for the guy with a chip on his shoulder with something to prove You know and I was like wow that’s pretty heavy, but I I would I would actually say it a different way. I would say passion and Unwavering dedication and unwillingness to take no for an answer same same thing different coin different shoulder Okay, I’m saying the good angel side of what Raj said. What were those the naughty angel side, right?

50:48 Unwavering dedication and belief in their product, right? They’re like, this is the answer This is the solving the problem and this is the answer and they’re passionate and they don’t take no for an answer I mean some of the best entrepreneurs I know are just like poke poke poke poke poke in a nicest way. And they’re intelligent beyond belief. They’re just beyond intelligent, again, is a trait that I’ve noticed. And also a tremendous amount of self-awareness as well is what I would say. Like I was saying, knowing yourself and knowing your strengths and weaknesses and knowing when you need to bring someone in the team to make up for your shortcomings.

51:29 It’s not it’s just you’re not perfect right and knowing when it’s time to step aside and let another CEO take over So I was out for Dinner the other night with the CEO and he said to me he goes Bindi the exciting part for me is starting it and building it to this level and I’m no longer excited about it now It’s this level and it’s a machine is chunking away I’m gonna step aside and let like an adult CEO take over and grow it because that’s what the growth CEOs are good at And he’s like I’m gonna go launch same company but I’m going to go launch a different business unit and build this product set out because that’s what I’m strong at and he had all of those characteristics but in particular he had an incredible sense of self-awareness so I think all of those combined make incredible founders and all the founders that are doing well to this day you know you know who you guys are guys and gals I should say you you have that you know and that’s consistently and I And I think the last thing, observation I have to make is a lot of the great companies that I’ve seen typically have co-founders, right, so all the biggest, best, fast-growing companies I’ve worked with and had the privilege of working with have had co-founders.

52:41 There’s a yin to a yang, they balance each other out. And I see it more and more rarely that it’s just one single founder. So the co-founder thing, there’s something in it and I think we need to do some research into that and you should start into being co-founders because the cool thing is when I sit down with them and they finish each other’s sentences off. I love it. You just go, you’re like a married couple, right, because you’ve been working together, you’ve been living together, you’re in and out, you’re finishing each other’s sentences, but they both have their different strengths and weaknesses.

53:10 So one co-founder is the coder and developer and product person. The other person’s a commercial and the sales guy and out there fundraising or a science gal and out there and fundraising. Do you see what I mean? Yeah, no, I’ve heard that before, you get into the end, you need the one guy that pushes, the one guy that pulls back. Yeah, and you know, they balance each other out, so, you know, people like that are always very investible.

53:31 The team. I think that’s very important. That’s a very good answer. There’s no I in team, and that’s all very cliche, but there’s a reason for that. There’s a following to that phrase, but I’m not going to use it.

53:41 Is there anything in conclusion that you want to mention? I got one last question. It’s probably a nice one to wrap up on, but for all the sort of listeners who don’t know Bindi. She has probably gotten from the point of the podcast quite a public face and stuff and obviously has been always very lovely to myself and the beards who are big fans. Oh I’m a big fan of the beards. The beards don’t forget. The beards don’t forget. No we don’t. We’re like elephants with beards. Never ask a Sicilian or a beard to second favour after you’ve been beards first. But obviously Bindi, you’re quite a public person in London tech scene. Obviously it was a huge coup for Silicon Valley Bank to get you from Microsoft and all that sort of thing, but I suppose my final question, which is a really important one, is especially just playing on the back of that last bit about hitting rock bottom and then coming back up again, how do you stop yourself from getting jaded?

54:29 How do you keep at it every day? How do you keep optimistic? That’s a great question. I mean, it is public, and she is always very, very, very bubbly, and we’ll talk to anyone in our experience, which is great, because when we do drink about it, we expect all that guests to want to talk to everyone. She comes down.

54:41 It’s a good question, man. It’s a good question. You know what? I I actually think of balance and and balance is very important. That’s a very personal thing for me. So Exercise you believe it or not, you know Recently last three four months. I’ve not been exercising because I’ve been working so much and that’s my own fault Right because I really want to do well and hit the ground running and blah blah blah But I think that gets you quite jaded if you just work work work work and you’re not taking exercise and balance I think that’s key. I think taking balance because people were working 24 7 you know 365 and I think taking the time to step back and do things for yourself I think it’s important and maybe you don’t need that much balance but sometimes to me that’s what stops me from being jaded so taking parts and all these crazy challenges so I’ve done like the UK challenge for years and I’ve run a marathon a year for the last five years and I’ve just committed to tech bikers again despite the fact I’m a terrible biker but I’m gonna do it anyways you know things like that I think exercise is really important and I think the balance is very important you know doing yoga and you know things like that and you know founders don’t always do that they’re so all-consuming but actually which is great that’s the best part about the founder but I think having a healthy happy founder is also very important and that’s what I try to

56:02 Do I’m I’ve not been listening to my own advice but I’ve started to again So as you’ve grown, you take a chunk of the week and say, switching off, taking a complete step out. Yeah, I mean, this week, finally, I took me time and I went for two runs late at night, like not until 8.30, but those two runs and I woke up yesterday really happy again and I was like, I didn’t understand why I was unhappy and I was like, ah, those two runs made a difference, right? And I ate healthy and I cooked good food.

56:32 Meditate too. Yeah, meditate and yoga and all that kind of stuff. You got to take care of yourself in order to take care of your company and people or teams. Do you think them? I really believe strongly in that.

56:43 I agree, too. Do you just want to quick aside before we wrap this up, do you think people in Britain work hard enough in the tech sector? Well, that’s a loaded question. I think so. That’s what I do for a living.

56:52 Yeah. That’s loaded questions. I mean, lots of people will be like, no, not at all. I think so. You know, people were like, well, people cleared the office out at five.

57:01 I’m like, so? Maybe they’re going to business meetings, or maybe they’re going to work from home, and I think, you know, I think in the States they do work crazy hours, but here, you know, I think so. Okay, there’s definitely a healthy balance, you know, there’s definitely, I noticed when I talked to people at startups, like, no, nine to six, and, you know, we still have our own time, and the drink about’s very popular, you know, people are out on Fridays, and there’s some kind of a healthy balance.

57:27 Yeah, but I think sometimes the best business, in my view, will happen at events like that where you’ll meet someone and you’re like, oh, let’s have a meeting and this might result in something. And some of my best business has resulted from those kind of evening events where you’re meeting people or you’re speaking or you’re a judge on a panel and you’re like, wow, and you wouldn’t have met them had you not done that. Yeah. The three beers are the lubricant of the tech startup scene.

57:49 Oh, I can take that in so many ways, right? Yeah, we can do what you want with that. It’s true. Oh, gosh. We’re going to let that one go.

57:55 Yeah. Anyways, we need to wrap this up. Yeah. What were you going to say? I agree with Bindi, but I always say to people, my response to that is, I would challenge anyone who thinks that UK tech founders and companies don’t work hard enough is go and work in a big corporate, go and work in a big corporate agency or a big corporate bank or something, and you’ll see, that’s when you start to see that kind of, oh, it’s okay, because I’ll be here tomorrow doing the same thing, or I can slip through the cracks, and you go do that for a couple of years, and then come back and look at how tech founders work, and they just don’t.

58:25 They’re just the ones that don’t want it. Yeah, no, I think they’re always hardworking, and that’s why I talk about the need for balance, because a lot of the founders here are just so busy focusing on their business, and it’s fantastic, but balance is important, too, because then you need to be healthy and happy to grow that company to the next level. No, that’s very true. There’s one business that requires all their employees to come to the drink about on Friday.

58:44 Is that the beards? No, no, no, no, although technically, yes. No, Signkick, our favorite Dutch founder is the Signkick boys. Oh, bless them. It’s the Dutch boys, bless them.

58:51 They’re amazing. I was in the Dutch Financial Times this week, thanks to those guys. I had an issue. I haven’t read it yet, because it’s in Dutch. It’s in Dutch.

58:59 He’s one of the translate engines. You’ll be fine. Yeah. Well, it’s fine to paywall like the FT But they can send me a scan they so blessed But what a great idea because they’re valuing like you said that time outside where you’re gonna be chancely meet into someone could be Just as hard as working eight hours more that day because it all is all about the connections But also bottom line if you’re doing a pitch or a big deal and you need to work those long hours You got to do it, right? You just got to do it Sometimes you got to put the head down and go behind, you know, and just just go for it Right, but take the time to step back and balance as well Okay, very good. How do people get a hold of you, Bindi? Twitter? Yeah, at Bindi. Probably best way. Nice.

59:34 Okay, is that the best way? Websites or anything? Silicon Valley Bank? Tweet me. It’s probably easier, or through LinkedIn.

59:40 You can find me there and Yeah, you’ll be on me. You’ll be on the show. This is officially our longest silicone reel ever. Really? I thought it was going to be when I was just looking up Bindi, and we could talk a lot more.

59:51 It’s just Twitter. Just Twitter if you’ve got questions. Yeah, oh no. Anything going on with silicone rail or three beers or anything coming up with you of special note? Yeah, we’ve got the showcase event from, we just ran the art tech hackathon, the annual art tech hackathon last weekend, so we had to go up the showcase show on the 16th of August at the South Place Hotel in Moorgate.

1:00:11 Oh, South Place is lovely. We’re taking over that whole first floor. Fantastic. Cramers maybe was possible. Super cool guys.

1:00:17 They were amazing all weekend. We had the most gentrified five star hackathon I think the world has ever seen and it was amazing. It’s a very funky hotel. Okay, so when people want to go to that, they can go to the Three Beards. Yeah, go to Three Beards website, sign up for the stash, and we’ll be releasing the information probably early next week about how to get tickets.

1:00:31 Excellent, for Silicon Reel, we’re at Silicon Reel, and we’re on Facebook as well, come check us out, tweet at us if you have guest suggestions, if you have anything, if you’ve got pictures you want us to include in the intro, because this podcast, hopefully, is a reflection of what the scene’s all about, and we’re just kind of giving it back to you. I think this is recommended listening for anybody moving into the tech scene. Like, listen to this one hour, And you’ll glean much more knowledge than reading 10 articles on the FT, because you just walked through a history that Bindi gave you, and I think you need to know your history to know where you’re going.

1:01:02 So that alone was very valuable. So thank you so much for coming. Thanks for the invite, guys. Thanks very much. It’s been a fun hour, and you’re right.

1:01:09 It went quickly. It was quick, doesn’t it? Wow. Amazing. It’s crazy.

1:01:14 All right. On to drink about, I say. On to drink about. All right. That’s silicone real.

1:01:21 It’s about the people. Thank you both. Thank you.