Full transcript: Federico Pirzio on London Real
0:20 Okay guys, you ready? Yeah. Let’s do this. 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 format, same studio, but we have crazy people on like Max Keiser and George Galloway, Tim Ferriss, and drug dealers like Howard Marks. So check that out if if you’re wanting a little switch up from the tech. But this is Silicon Real. My co-host today is entrepreneur Colin Pyle, who runs language schools or make coffee startups and he’s celebrating the month of Movember.
0:53 Yeah. You can’t tell yet. You can’t tell yet. No, no, I can’t tell. I’m gonna shave this Friday.
0:57 So I figured I’ll shave like once a week. Okay. And so it’ll, I’ll look, I’ll look like I shouldn’t be around children on Friday, I think. Oh, cause of the. Cause it’ll be a pretty, it’s a pretty bad one.
1:07 Isn’t it, are you saying something about guys with mustaches? Um, well, I’m not growing any mustaches, maybe. Okay. So you’re going to do like these digital effects every week, like a boom, boom, like a step function. And I’ll put it on High Life, yeah, because we talked about that.
1:23 Right, yeah. He wants your Movember story on High Life. That’s a sign of a good businessman. There we go. He’s pitching you during the show.
1:30 Thanks for being here. Thank you. Our guest today is Mr. Federico Pirzio Beroli. No, not bad.
1:35 You like that? Yeah. Okay. I was going to kind of jazz it up, but I’ll leave it at that. You are the founder and director of Playfair Capital, which is an early stage investment Fun founded in 2011, specializing in web-based technology and digital media startups that are capable of disrupting the market and scaling globally.
1:52 Exactly. Say that 10 times. You like that, right? Sounds good. Before you started this venture, you spent some years in Africa working for the UN, Oxfam, PharmaSecure.
2:04 That’s a pretty unique background, I must say. First of all, welcome to Silicon Real. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me.
2:11 Colin like mentioned this about you like did you see this guy’s background and we have I mean We just had someone here this week who came from the city another exotic environment But we don’t get a lot of people that were kind of in philanthropy or activism first Yeah, so it doesn’t really have much of a connection, you know on the surface. I mean what I’m doing now or does so so, you know, I did things like refugee repatriation and communications kind of with with UNHCR oxfam and stuff and then I tried to to get a startup off the ground in Sub-Saharan Africa, PharmaSecure, which was doing basically drug authentication. And now it’s been done, and it’s worked, but this was before the first companies that started doing this.
2:51 Do you know Tommy Davies? I don’t know. OK, he was like our fifth guest, I think it was called Startup Nigeria. But he talked about either your company or a company like this. And so it was basically like a scratch off single use code on medicine packaging, that you could text to a number, like a national number, and then you get a reply with an authentication message, and also where the drugs need to be.
3:12 Right, because you said most drugs are completely bogus down there? Yeah, totally, and actually, you know, I mean, I think it’s over $50 billion a year industry, globally, the fake pharmaceutical industry, right? Wow. Which is, I think, primarily kind of countries producing these things are kind of India, Turkey, Nigeria and you know it really is quite criminal because it’s you’re putting a Sugar pill or placebo or something into into medication, which is literally being consumed by very poor You know someone in the very poor communities who are buying one pill at a time And if it’s if it’s an anti malarial that doesn’t have any anti malarial kind of act agents in it then then You know it’s a kind of indirectly killing people so so we tried to do that and get that off the ground, but but you know the corruption and and the kind of Well-lined pockets of the kind of national medical stores and national drug authorities in these countries was was was like beating your head Against the brick wall and even for your young idealism even for your young
4:11 Absolutely, so you still find it tough even even though you were using like that a really good low-tech solution that used Yeah, their phone network. It’s a very mobile country. Yeah, absolutely Oh, you know the infrastructure is in place already with mobile networks well developed and everything like that. But um But, you know, it was really kind of on a government kind of political level that there was always, you know, the interests of these, I suppose, producers of fake drugs who are making a lot of money out of this, who are trying to stop this from happening, really.
4:40 But I mean, you know, the way that, you know, having spent four years in NGOs really kind of woke me up to the fact of that entrepreneurship is really how you create something that is sustainable, right? That’s something where you, you know, doing things for profit is not, it’s not a dirty word, right? And actually in a developing world doing things for profit is the only way to create anything sustainable, where you’re growing businesses and creating jobs and paying taxes within a country and it’s not a forward organization doing it. And that’s what really kind of caught me on to, made me start thinking about entrepreneurship and then coming back here I was just fortunate enough to have some capital in a family business and I decided to do something proactive with it and sell some shares and I was trying to help companies grow and trying to help build companies.
5:29 That’s a really unique perspective because they say that that’s the fault of a lot of like aid to Africa is the fact that it’s aid and it just, you know, either it goes in the wrong pockets or it develops a mindset of come help me and you know. And also to me one of the greatest, one of the things that I found really tragic, you know, I came back here and I was an aid transparency lobbyist for a year, right, to try and kind of with an idealistic perspective trying to solve this issue, which again was even more frustrating. Transparency lobbyists.
5:57 Yeah. So lobbying big multilateral bilateral donors to publish their aid expenditure, a format that was digestible by recipient country government so that they could figure out what was coming in so that they could spend their own budgets most effectively, more effectively. But all that aside, the kind of lack of accountability and transparency, one of the worst aspects I found of the NGO industry really is that countries where it’s working or which are enjoying relatively healthy levels of growth with a rapidly growing local middle class with disposable income and all the attributes that I associate with a country growing becomes a breeding ground for every NGO and their mother and their brother to start a pilot project because it’s relatively politically stable and it’s a good place, it’s a good testing ground for new NGOs.
6:54 And so the greatest tragedy was that, in my mind, was that the kind of well-educated youth of these countries are going to school and they’re getting a master’s degree in a local university and their goal, their ambition, their goal is to go and join an NGO. So that’s how you’ve made it. You’re in the UN or you’re in Oxfam and that’s where you have a career path, you know, with promotion potential and increase of salary and whatever. And that’s tragic because those young minds should be building companies.
7:26 They should be hiring people and developing the economy locally in that way instead of basically working for a foreign organization that inherently is meant to be temporary. It’s meant to put itself out of business in a way, right? Because you’re solving an issue and then you leave. And the fact that the local population is really kind of their ambition is to go and work for these organizations really, really means that deep down, they’re perceived as being permanent, right?
7:53 And that’s really kind of a tragic situation. And the goal is to work for an NGO, not the government, or is the government kind of time? No, no, no, an NGO. Really? Yeah, absolutely.
8:02 More stable, better? Yeah, totally. And the government, I mean, you know, the government is a whole different kettle of fish as well. Okay. And were you located down there at the time?
8:11 Yeah, yeah. I was in Uganda for a couple of years. I was in Kampala mostly, working a lot in Gudu. And then I worked a bit in Kenya and Tanzania. About a total of two and a half, almost three years.
8:24 OK. I mean, the name Playfair is an interesting name, because all of a sudden I think fair trade. But then again, I know his background. And we’ve had a variety of, what do we call them? We’re trying to figure out what we call them today, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, whether it’s a big VC or an accelerator or angel, that kind of thing.
8:43 But is this fair trade investing in a weird way? What’s going on here? It’s fair trade investing. No, it’s more just a certain, it’s synonymous with a certain kind of attitude I’d like to invest under it, right? I like of transparency and openness and laying our cards out on the table and playing fair.
9:00 And not being a ruthless, cutthroat, institutional kind of vibe in terms of our investment, really. Okay, is there a need for that? Are there people doing it the bad way out there? I think it’s a bit of an experiment to see if it’s possible to create an incredibly sustainable situation whilst being a little bit less driven by really playing everything by the book and having an investment strategy that’s really specific. I don’t know, it’s an experiment.
9:37 Very long story short, I’m just trying to see if being a nice guy can create an economically sustainable situation as an investor. It’s quite simplistic, but in a way, that’s it. A lot of people would tell you, good luck with that. Yeah, I know. I know, right?
9:48 No, but it’s true. You would say good luck with that, and I’m kind of surprised more than anybody else myself that things are going pretty well. No, no. Actually, I would have said that many years ago, but now I don’t think that’s true because ever since we’ve been doing this show and I’ve been doing London Real, the more good and positive energy you put out, it seems to attract people of the same ilk. When you’re investing at such an early stage, I think it’s so dependent on the long game.
10:10 Absolutely. Whereas in iBanking or all sorts of stuff like this, maybe you can make a short wind. But here, if you screw over a few entrepreneurs, you’re done pretty quick, right? And that gets around faster. It’s a small community and pretty much so.
10:23 And this seems like a small community in London. Between shortage and Clerkenwell and a few other places, it seems like what goes around comes around very quickly. One thing we ask everybody that sits in that chair is just basic to lay it down for people that don’t know, but we ask when it comes to Playfair, what have you done? What are your plans for this company, and what makes you different for the rest, and why do you think, I guess, you’ll win in this space, whatever that means, win for your companies or win for yourself?
10:50 Okay, so basically, I think with Playfair, I’m very much in a situation, I kind of have been since the beginning, where I’m running to catch up, instead of executing a kind of executing something according to a plan that was formulated beforehand. I didn’t really know what I was doing in the beginning. I was fortunate enough to have some capital available to me, but as we said, I didn’t come from a traditional background of being an investor. I wasn’t an excellent entrepreneur and I didn’t even work in the city.
11:26 I just was very lucky in landing on my feet by essentially being taken under the wing of Passion Capital, which is based at Whiteberry Yard in Clarkingwell. VC? It’s a VC, but a very early stage, a seed VC, which is quite very uniquely positioned as a VC. I can’t really think of another VC that does such small investments in London anyway. So I invested in a company called Judo, which turned out to be a really good company to invest in.
11:56 That was my first investment, and I knew Damien, the founder at university. That’s kind of where we originally met. We reconnected when I came back from Africa, and he said, I’ve got this business I’m starting. He’d done one or two businesses before. At the same time, around the same time, I met Stefan Günzer and Eileen Burbage and Robert de Guero at Passion Capital.
12:15 And they said, look, I mean, so they invested in Judil as well. Judil. Judil. Oh, Judil. Yeah, Judil.
12:24 I’ve heard of this. And so they said, look, you seem like a nice guy. Why don’t you take a desk as an angel-in-residence at White Bay Yard? And I couldn’t have really landed on my feet any better because I was basically sitting next to some very credible investors with a lot of experience that I trusted implicitly as well, and that I was able to kind of piggyback on shareholder agreements for my first few investments to really learn the ropes, right? Because it is being thrown in at the deep end, and it’s essential to have that mentorship.
12:55 I definitely think that it’s not tax breaks and things like that that make good professional investors. It’s mentorship from better investors, from more experienced investors, just as with entrepreneurs. And so I moved, they said, take a desk as an angel in residence and see what happens. I moved in. I said I was going to do maybe seven or eight investments.
13:17 This is going to be investing in your own capital. Yes, it’s all investing in your own capital. Creative pay for capital around the same time. I said I was going to do maybe seven or eight investments and then somehow two years past one thing led to another and I ended up having, I ended up on, it was I think 21 or 22 investments in December, this last December. And all of a sudden I thought, whoa, heck, this is becoming a bit of a beast.
13:42 This is way too big to manage and I exist. What’s your average investment? Average investment size is about 120,000 pounds. I’ve gone as little as 30, as much as 300, but increasingly that’s kind of more and more of the sweet spot, the 120, 150k range. Which is bigger than the number.
13:59 Which is relative to, certainly for the UK in terms of seed capital, which is on the upper end of the scale of angel investment. And so all of a sudden, now that I had 21, 22 companies, I thought, wait, I have to take a break here, pause and start thinking about developing pay-for-capital internally because I don’t have the capacity or there’s not enough hours in the day to be able to manage all of this. That’s a lot of companies. It’s a lot of companies, right?
14:26 I mean, 10 is a lot of companies. Yeah, right. We had Simon Dixon here from TFJ and he said each partner looks at six or… Yeah. Exactly.
14:36 So you see my point in terms of… And so then I hired… I had to really take stock and think what are the verticals I’d like to add value with and that I need most help with, and also that could help the portfolio companies as well. And I chose, and basically I hired a financial director who was an accountant at the store for Ernst & Young, and I hired a legal director who worked at White & Case as a lawyer. And so those two, I turned to play for Capital and LLP, so I hired them as partners.
15:10 And they kind of surround yourself by people who are very good at doing what you have no idea about, right? Legals and accounting I was outsourcing and I always found quite an efficient inefficient process and kind of you know because Personally, I mean I always find that kind of accountants and lawyers only work as well as the language that you speak to them in and if you’re not a lawyer or an accountant like you can’t necessarily get a certain point across in the right language to extract the most value from that relationship and so and so Hiring those two, you know All the T’s were crossed and the I’s were dotted in terms of all of our cap tables and systems and everything like that internally Also, they were able to help all the portfolio companies kind of implement zero and do all these things, you know Accounting platforms and things like that which are very you know Which is so much more useful to do early on rather than retrospectively like later on when a round of funding comes along And so yeah, so then so group paper capital, so it became three people then thought okay You know, White Bay Road served me very well, but it’s time to kind of, you know, flee the nest or whatever the expression is.
16:19 Right, your wings. Yeah, exactly. And so, sorry, looking at the space, the co-working space to rent. And then, out of the blue, this building kind of was brought to my attention, which it was sent as a tweet to Eileen from Passion. All good things come from Twitter.
16:36 Yeah, on Twitter, right? Literally IPO. IPO today, I think. Is it today? I thought it was today.
16:43 Yeah. But anyway, so this dropped in my lap and I talk about kind of an apple falling far from the tree. I walked all those 200 yards from White Bay Yards, it couldn’t have been much closer. Saw this building and it was for sale, but all of a sudden it kind of changed my thinking and the area, Clark and Wells is a really good area, Farringdon Station is developing with Crossrail. And so I ended up buying the building and then we spent, in March, we spent about eight weeks redeveloping it and then opened late May with 170 desks, that’s about 8,000 square feet over four floors.
17:19 We have two floors of incubation space, one floor, it became the home of Techstars. So it’s the kind of first foreign outpost for Techstars, which was a great anchor to have in the building in terms of having a lot of new kind of US investors and mentors coming through and things like that. And then actually the top floor, so you said Raj was on this show, on the top floor we’ve collected together early stage capital that basically I’ve been syndicating with for the last few years anyway.
17:48 So we have five or six angels and about four or five VCs. And it’s all a very kind of, it’s an open plan environment, it’s all very transparent. We share deals though, we all have different skills and we all, you know, one person know e-commerce, one person will know BTP, SaaS, and being able to just tap into all that knowledge kind of informally is really invaluable. The beginning entrepreneurs were kind of shocked because they’d come through the lift to talk to one of us and they go, oh, what are you all doing here?
18:19 Because I’m talking to you next week and to you and to you like in the next few weeks, but you’re all here. I don’t quite know what to do with this. But actually, you know, now it’s bringing better entrepreneurs because they can talk to five or six sources of capital at once, then we as the capital can talk to each other at once. We don’t have to have five conversations with each of you, you know, traveling to each. Before I was always going to kind of a respective angels members club to sit down and have a conversation and then have the same conversation with another angel and then the same conversation with another angel. And now we’re all sitting together.
18:50 And that floor is, is, are you the landlord of the building or when they walk into that floor, are they walking onto play fair or are they walking on to number one seat and Yeah, no, it’s everything, it’s not like play fairs in the background very much, right? It’s definitely, it’s everyone’s floor, it’s number one, it’s number one seeds, it’s EC1s, it’s hummingbird, ballparks, UKTI has some desks there every once in a while. And then we have hot desks available for foreign angels and foreign funds when they come through London to have a desk and have a meeting room so they can kind of have a venue to meet people.
19:24 Sounds pretty cool. What do you think of this? It sounds fantastic. Yeah. It’s cool.
19:29 I actually haven’t been there. We were talking earlier. I spent some time at Innovation Warehouse. Yeah. Which is close as well.
19:35 Which is close. Yeah. But no, I love that neighborhood. And I think… Yeah.
19:40 Good food. Yeah. It’s so much going on. Yeah. When the Crossrail finally finishes.
19:45 Yeah. If Elon Musk hasn’t changed… Yeah. Hasn’t hyper-lubed out of existence. Hyper-lubed all of life.
19:50 Yeah. By the time it finishes, it’s irrelevant. Yeah. But yeah, it would be really cool. speaking of Elon Musk and before I want to get a little bit more into play fair but you just came back from the tech conference in Ireland where Elon closed it and I was just wondering what you felt the vibe of what was going on there it was a pretty big affair it was a huge affair it was like it must have been more than twice the size of last year it was massive is there a point or it’s too big I mean yeah I thought you know I think how big was it if people to give people an idea over 10,000 people and point That way it becomes too big, it all depends on your level of preparation.
20:25 The more people are at these conferences, the more you have to, you know, have really locked in your meetings and who you’re going to see and what you’re going to do. Because if you haven’t done that by the time when you show up in these places and, you know, it’s like a deer in headlights and you don’t know where to start. So you know, luckily I’d kind of had a lot of meetings lined up and things so it wasn’t too overwhelming. But it is getting huge for a country like Ireland.
20:48 It’s a massive deal. Sure, it’s huge for the economy. sign of a bubble or is this a sign of a trend? That’s a very good question. So the bubble question I think doesn’t actually relate to this because with conferences I mean with conferences it all goes in waves. I always think conferences kind of have a peak and then kind of wane a little bit. Specific conferences too. Yeah specific conferences and then there’s like a flavor of them of the year or whatever right and there’s certain years if you look back over the last few years between the web and and you know and kind of the London web summit different different conferences have kind of peaked and troughed a little bit right and right now is definitely the Dublin web summit’s time for sure for sure okay they’re saying on the like Bloomberg you know it’s it’s the Davos for geeks right yeah that’s what they’re saying yeah wow yeah and when you when you went to this conference it was what Wednesday and Thursday like what’s the general feel you get about it is there a certain like niche of tech you see developing faster than you thought it would, or do you notice like a certain kind of spirit? Are people getting the seed funding easier?
21:53 Is it the series A or the B that they’re struggling with? Are there a lot of yanks there? So there’s, I saw quite a few Americans there. In terms of seed funding, I mean, you know, it’s a testament to how that sector, that sector of the market is healthy, right, I think. And for whatever reason, you will certainly in the UK whether it’s tax breaks or whatever that’s been implemented the last few years you know the difference between I haven’t been doing of it this very long time the difference between 2010 and now is tent it’s tangibly it’s very noticeable for the ease of getting for the ease of getting seed funding because there’s so much more seed funding available but I think there’s definitely a crunch in the series a you know at the state at that stage and it’s only going to get worse because so many companies are starting up, entrepreneurship has become kind of a very trendy thing to do and so many people are leaving.
22:47 Another hot topic on this show. Yeah, but so many people are leaving well-established, stable industries to kind of become startup founders. Now, yes, investors are complaining and moaning about, there’s so much more out there and it’s sort of difficult to find the quality because there’s so much more quantity because everybody is becoming a founder. And I think that that’s true, but I also think it’s quite, A, pessimistic, and B, a very short-termist point of view.
23:17 So we have to weather this kind of stage of popularity of startups as investors. As investors, it’s up to us to be more diligent and to have our filters set really high, to actually troll through and find the quality. But I think that if you look at it over a 10, 20 year timeframe, this is going to fundamentally be a good thing because entrepreneurship is a very particular way of life. And once you become an entrepreneur, I’d like to see some statistics as to how many failed entrepreneurs go back to the corporate world.
23:53 Because once you’re an entrepreneur, it’s a bug, it’s a certain way of life that gets under your skin and you’re going to do another company, you’re going to do another company. Really? I think so. I’d say, right? Or work for it.
24:05 It’s that environment, I would say, you know, it’s difficult to go back to kind of a bureaucratic large-scale macro organization, right, once you’ve been in this kind of very reactive way of professional context, right? And so, actually, on, you know, these entrepreneurs, every entrepreneur needs to have, well, not every entrepreneur, but a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, you need to have a failure, too. It’s good to have a failure, too, before you really know what you’re doing.
24:31 And I think that’s, you know, as a, it is a massively sweeping generalization, right? But that’s, that’s kind of what the UK is going through now. And in 10 years’ time, these guys are going to be in their second or third companies and there’ll be a lot more quality here. So I think it’s something that you have to go through, you know, and it’s fundamentally healthy. But even though in the short time, in the short term, it’s, it’s a little annoying for us because it’s more difficult to find these quality companies.
24:54 But you know, you must meet with a lot of people and I’m going to ask you this question. When you sit down with a potential entrepreneur that wants potentially funding from you, can you tell within the first 20 minutes whether you’re going to invest in this company? Absolutely. Yeah, I thought you did. Absolutely.
25:08 And without giving away all of your trade secrets, what are you looking for? I mean, like, I’ll be honest, when I meet someone, I’m looking for some basic things. I’m looking for things like eye contact, you know, little things like that. What are you looking for? But you know, look, I mean, all these things are massively important to me.
25:24 There’s so little due diligence we can actually do. You have a perspective of how big the market is that they’re trying to get into, and an educated opinion and guess as to how the technology is going to disrupt that. But fundamentally speaking, more importantly, this is someone you’re going to have to be with through seven to ten years, seven to ten years. I would rather invest in an idea I have doubts about, but with the entrepreneur, I have have a really good feeling about just on a personal level about our ability to work together for the next few years, because people, companies pivot and they change ideas, right?
26:07 That’s almost more important, that capacity and that kind of frame of mind of being able to listen and adapt is almost more important than somebody who has a really great idea but is so stubbornly kind of, is just so stubbornly believes in it that it might come at the expense of really listening to the environment and to the customer base and actually not adapting when they need to. So the idea is something to change, right? The person is not. And still, you’ve got to give me a few details.
26:38 What are you looking for in that person? I mean, I’m looking for, I’m looking for, it’s very hard to describe. I mean, is it a CV? Can you tell from the CV? No.
26:51 Or do you not look at the CV? look at the CV of course but it’s not that’s that’s not just a gut feeling it’s just a gut feeling it really is and I know it sounds incredibly but how do you get to that gut feeling because you say that there’s so much noise out there now so you’re getting emails yeah and pitch decks yeah so there must be a process before you even get yeah so it’s partly gut feeling and partly you know there is a personal nature to this of kind of you know often you know some Some of the founders that I’ve invested in are people that I didn’t even meet to invest in. I was meeting to talk about something else.
27:24 But then all of a sudden it speaks to me in a way of I’ve had this problem or I see this problem or I have this burning desire to disrupt this industry. And in a way it’s quite a personal thing. I’m desperate to shake up the big players in this industry and I think that you can do it. Okay. Really.
27:46 And then once you actually get there and sit down with them, I mean the thing is with With a lot of entrepreneurs, and let’s be honest, a lot of tech guys, they’re not always the highest developed personalities, you know? No, no. They’re not always the slickest sales guys. No, of course. But that doesn’t matter.
27:58 No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter. It’s almost better that way, right? It’s like when the CTO wears a tie, you don’t trust him, right? Right, exactly.
28:06 And also, look, I mean, I’m not technical, right? But there’s a natural fit there between me and them in that situation. Like you know and again, this is gonna be a massively general sweeping generalization But you know Israel has a lot of engineers We have a lot of biz dev guys like the Scandinavian countries have a lot of engineers as well But they need each other right because the engineers can build amazing products but if they can’t describe them or sell them to anyone then it’s It’s you know, then it’ll fall flat on his face before even get out getting out of the gates You said we mean the UK has yeah. Yeah Okay, we have a lot of business people and basically, you know, it’s people who can talk and sell really well, right?
28:42 Right and you need those two together and I’m you know, I think it’s obvious which side of the fence I’m I’m on Right. I’m not I’m not I’m not unless you’re a chameleon and that’s I’m a chameleon Okay, no fair enough. I just had to hit you with that question, you know by the way So, yeah, you know, this is silicone real and so we got to we’d like to get real on this show And so I wanted to ask you, you know If I’m one of these young companies and I’m listening to this show and I’ve heard a lot of other people on this show You know, whether it’s the VCs or there’s so many options now There’s like everyone’s got an accelerator. Some accelerators don’t want equity like the Microsoft venture. Some accelerators want equity.
29:16 Some have huge Spanish telecom companies behind them. I’m not going to mention who that is, of course. So why come to you? You know, why come to you guys? Well, why come to us? Because we have a network of of angel-invested-minded capital, whether it’s actually angels or small micro-VCs that still operate as angels, that in turn have a huge network between them, right?
29:44 So on the top floor, and we have the Techstars network with us, and we have basically a multifunctional building with investment, startups, engineers, biz dev, everything in one place. And I think it’s a very healthy environment to develop a company in. And I’d say that’s our main kind of differentiating factor. Okay. Are you noticing your access to Angels by just by nature, they’re in your office, is starting to fill the gap of Series A for the fund, for the companies that you invest in?
30:16 Not quite. Okay. So there is still very much, you know, a gap, right? I’d say together as Angels at Warner yard, we can probably deploy up to 500,000 pounds, It still doesn’t come close enough to series A. I mean, it’s the difference between the states and here in that respect is huge for sure.
30:40 So that is a big hurdle right now. We’ve said that earlier. Yeah, absolutely. And what are your thoughts on accelerators, incubators? So I’m a big fan of accelerators, although there’s a lot of me too going on with new accelerators opening up shop left, right, and center.
30:57 Again, flavor of the month is our flavor of the year. As you said, everybody is trying to pursue different verticals to differentiate in tweaking the model in this way or that, no equity or whatever it is, sponsorship for this, sponsorship for that. A lot of big corporates just want to use space. And a lot of big corporates. Maybe just advertising.
31:16 And the thing is, the big corporates, on the one hand, it’s very good that people with the pipelines that they can open up to startups are interested in doing this. I spoke at a contagious event, Strangely Enough, kind of maybe six months ago, which is all the kind of advertising and branding guys, and your WPP has their accelerator and all these kind of in-house. And I just said, guys, for the love of God, please, it’s great that you have an appetite and a budget to allocate to accelerators, But please you know look to your neighbors in a way look to the established players Right to to take their best practice to take say like textors has a white label product, right?
32:07 So in Nike plus and and Microsoft Biz Park their white label Textors accelerators applied, you know applied to to these big corporates and that least then it’ll save you like two or three years of wasting money going in the wrong direction, right, and noticing this doesn’t work, noticing that doesn’t work, and there are examples of corporate accelerators that are doing just that for the moment. I’m not going to name any of them. But do they leave a trail of startup waste? And they’re trying to find the model and trying to tweak what’s right, and you know, unfortunately at the expense, in some cases, of some startups that get, you know, they get slightly screwed over and they cap tables and whatever it might be. So, you know, it’s great that these corporates have an appetite to do this, but they They should really just open up and basically do some consulting from established accelerators because then at least they can ensure that they’re spending, they have more of a chance of spending their money efficiently first time out of the gate, right?
33:00 And that’s, you know, I think it would be, because it’s a shame to have it all closed off internal in a black box kind of scenario where they’re trying to find their fee because it’s not easy to do this from scratch at all. Does WPP have an accelerator? They have some kind of, they have some, yeah, I mean, I think BBH has an accelerator. I think WPP has an exception, but this is all kind of, you know, slightly behind closed doors in house. You don’t really know what’s going on, but they do.
33:24 Okay. And ultimately, you do compete with a lot of these people, whether you like it or not, because they’re options. I suppose. I suppose other companies, right? I suppose, but, you know, I mean, in the beginning for me, so I became an investor in Springboard.
33:38 Do you remember? I don’t know if you guys remember. Springboard was the accelerator that was taken over by Techstars. And for me, for me joining, becoming a investor in Springboard wasn’t actually financially motivated. I didn’t expect really to make a return out of it.
33:52 It was more an investment into a network and kind of getting to know investors, getting to know startups. Whether we’re competing with them, I guess, I don’t know, I’m an LP in the Techstars Fund, right? So I guess, unfortunately, it’s perceived as being partisan by some even though in my mind it’s not at all. It’s not really picking a side, but it’s just they’re in the building and I think they’re with us. So in a way, I mean, we have a lot of companies heading into Techstars for sure.
34:25 Okay. What really quick definition of Techstars. They started in the States, they have a branch over here. What do they do that’s slightly different? So well, they start, I mean, they were one of the first accelerators around, right?
34:35 Quite common in tech stores. Tech stores started in, I believe, I mean, tech stores started in 2008, I think, 2007-2008 in Boulder, Colorado. Tiny Town, university town, obviously, skiing and university, not much going on, not much VC capital there. Quite a counterculture in Boulder. Quite a counterculture. Legalized marijuana.
34:58 And then a few years later, you know, it’s a really hot spot of VC, there’s a lot of VC capital there, right? It’s a tangible kind of result in attracting money, which is, which is probably why I think the UK government is quite keen on these big, was quite keen on tech stores coming to the UK. And so they, so they opened in Boulder and then, and then they opened in, in, in Boston, New York, Seattle, everyone in Austin now, basically everywhere except for San Francisco, or most big cities apart from San Francisco in the States.
35:28 And they give cash and take equity? Yep, they give cash, they take equity. And every accelerated weight does between kind of 6%, 10%, probably they all have a slight tweak on that model. And when those guys come over from the States, whether it’s from Boulder or from the West Coast, and they spend a few days in your office, and they say to you, Fed, you guys are doing everything good over here, but I think you should concentrate more on X. What would that X be?
35:52 Whether they’re right or wrong. Yeah. Let me think, actually. So I think that a lot of them are frustrated with how complicated it is to close around to in terms of the relatively, certainly relative to the states, like the old methodology of documentation signing, electronic signatures, all these kind of things in the states are much more fluid and easy, and you can close around remotely. You can have a guy in Singapore who’s signing documentation that’s legally binding on online platforms in the states, whereas in Europe we have a legal system that’s kind of much more old school and harder to shake up and change and certainly I know that a lot of these U.S. guys have been quite frustrated with the methodology kind of involved, right?
36:52 Just the red tape of actually closing out. The red tape, exactly, with actually closing out. I haven’t heard that before. No, I haven’t heard that. I was trying to think of something new.
37:00 I mean, a lot of people say that when people in the States, you know, in Europe, people think X and people in the States think 10X, and they say it’s a whole mentality difference. I mean, you’ve heard that over and over. Is that a cliche or is that? No, that’s true. Is that valid?
37:12 I think it’s valid, certainly. But I mean, you know, I think it’s obviously reflected in round sizes and what you call a series A and what you call a seed, right? I mean, it is 10 times less. Right. Is it round size or is it the size of the market compared to the U.S.?
37:29 Well, it’s also size of the market in terms of a lack of balance on the other end of things, on the IPO side and everything like that, right? So you need to have those wins to actually finish the whole process off and justify the beginning as well. And there’s definitely, you know, still relatively quiet on that front. And that’s something that comes up on the show a lot is do we need that big IPO that then has the PayPal effect three years later and then has the effect three years after that of you can totally see companies you can totally see it right like the ecosystem it’s small enough in weird like there’s so much going on but yet it’s still small enough that if if a group of people just wound up with like a billion pounds like like say a couple hundred people even if it was that many people. And they would stay as entrepreneurs. Yeah, exactly. You can’t go out. It’s fetish.
38:19 Fetté. Fetté. Fetté. Fetté. My mistake. No, if they stuck around, it would just ignite the whole place, right? Do you agree with that? I mean, do you agree with that? Yeah.
38:28 But obviously, the crucial part of that statement is that they stick around and reinvest, right? Yeah. But I guess to be clear, so you’re a relatively young guy, and you’re You’re doing all this great stuff, investing and stuff, buying properties. So was your first investment that big a win, or did you have? No, my first investment wasn’t that big a win at all, and it’s doing very well, but I haven’t exited from it.
38:55 I just basically, when I sold shares in this family business, I allocated a part of capital and said, this is what I have available to me, and that’s what we’re working on. Okay, great. Yeah. And if we look over the investments to play for, for the last two years, the 21 or so companies you had as of last December, what are the trends we would see? Well, so this is, you know, it’s quite funny for literally changed.
39:14 So literally today, um, today, uh, Joe, kind of a financial director, um, you know, was putting spreadsheets together and, and did a, did a pie chart of the sectors we’ve invested in right since the beginning. And it’s like, it’s almost hilariously balanced. It’s just, it’s literally the pie is by chance is not even thirds, but like, but you know, 20th, 20th, like it’s basically almost 20th. It’s probably like probably 16th something, but of everything like fashion and e-commerce and everything is pretty much exactly balanced, again, through blind luck, not through a concerted effort, but it really kind of brought home that we are really absolutely spread out over all kinds of sectors. We’re not specialized and specific, we’re not trying to be the go-to person for this sector.
40:06 So now, having that pie chart and looking at it, will you be like, I need to be more in this. Yeah, a little bit. And for the moment, we’re really interested in looking at more of his more in FinTech and more in EdTech. We don’t really have anything in EdTech, and I’m interested in some of that. And actually, one of the things I’ve been thinking about in the last couple of months It’s a really interesting time for content producers.
40:38 Thank you. No. There’s a requirement. Yeah. Get them to check.
40:46 No, because there’s so many businesses that are appearing, and so many businesses that are becoming well established that are aggregating content. That’s all well and good, but you need content to aggregate, and I think it’s just a very good time for those content producers to defeat because those aggregated businesses, some of which are becoming well-established need something to stand on, right, they need the content. It’s kind of an old argument, you know, they have the content and then who’s going to display the content and then who has the content.
41:15 Exactly, it goes round and round. And then what’s the content? Is it Game of Thrones or is it, you know? Is it, yeah, Apaka? Yeah, is it Apaka?
41:22 Hey, I wouldn’t say it’s the other end. No, I’m just joking. Yeah, but what do you see or what do you want to be like five years from now? Do you want like a bigger building where you are or a bigger chunk of capital? Do you want to stay in the angel game?
41:33 Yeah. So what I’d like to do, so firstly, people have been saying a lot of the two things. Number one, the building is too small, as in we’ve been full. Is it really? Well, I don’t think so, but we have been full since the beginning, right?
41:45 170 desks. 170 desks, but we’ve been full since the beginning. Everyone’s going, you know, you could do more. And the thing is, I’m not in the business of real estate and hiring out desks. So it’s not- Well, you are, kind of.
41:56 Yeah, I’m kind of, but it’s not a business model like the trampery or, you know, we’ll do another one and then if it works, we’ll do another one or central working or whatever. It’s just a one-off in my mind, right? It’s a one-off and it’s a kind of, it’s tagged on to the site of Playfair Capital, the pay fares, they’re kind of under the surface, but it benefits Playfair in terms of deal flow and kind of, you know, added value for affiliate companies and things like that.
42:21 So building-wise, it’s going to stay as it is, and I’m not going to do another one. The other thing that people are saying a lot is that we should be raising external capital, that we’re now in a position to do so. And I would really like, I don’t want to raise external capital unless we strictly have to, which at the moment we don’t. I don’t want to invite a situation of justification, of justifying everything that we do to external investors without that being strictly necessary, right?
42:48 Because it actually, in my mind, it takes away some of the fluidity of how quickly we can move. Sure. Increases the red tape. Yeah. Increases the red tape.
42:59 But your companies will need Series A financing. So they’ll need Series A financing. But that doesn’t have to come from us, for the moment. We have a lot of contacts in the VC industry that are doing Series A and we need them and they need us in a way. It’s kind of a mutually beneficial relationship.
43:15 But I would like to basically grow, I would like to become active in Series A, thinking five years down the line, but I would like to do it off of our own back, if that makes any sense. So I’d like to basically not raise external capital, get some exits, grow, pay for capital’s fund, but off of its own back, and then become operational at a later stage, deploying more capital, basically. Wow. That’s good. I mean, that’s a great dream.
43:40 Sure. That’s what we want. I mean, I guess in a way, that’s what we’re saying with these big exits. Have your own exits. Yes.
43:45 And my intention fully is to pump every any any penny we make should be sticking back into it. Yeah, absolutely So we’ll be sticking around for sure. Yeah, I just want to get you get your thoughts on like globally I mean you must travel out to the west coast of the US. I do must go to Silicon Valley Sorry, Allie in New York. Yeah, do you see things there that um that you think they do better or they do worse?
44:05 We had um Steph the hacker in here and he says he he leaves by example every night he would leave leaves by example so every night he leaves at 6 30 p.m. By example as in he’s not gonna be the entrepreneur that’s like I stayed up till 2 a.m. Last night. Yeah, and you know, he you know, he said look, you know I put in my work and then I leave by example Which is very it’s very un-american. Yeah, it’s very un-american. It’s true. It is quite European I mean, there are there are less less I mean again That’s a massive the sweeping statement, but in general I would say you know offices are emptier here at 10 p.m That they are what I’ve seen on in the States Yeah, is that good is that bad you see something I don’t necessarily think that’s a good thing okay personally I think it’d be you know it but you know It is blood sweat and tears being a founder of a company and and I do admire the companies that I see there’s some Companies in morning yard that are you know that are?
45:02 Like to catch an hour of sleep in the office between four and five in the morning. Spoken like a true investor. If I was an investor in some of them, would I not? But if I was, I would say, you know, that’s kind of a positive attribute. It really shows. There’s two sides, like you’re making decisions with my capital on one hour sleep.
45:32 Right. Absolutely. So there’s definitely two sides. No, I was on Sand Hill Road this summer, because I spent a bit of time on the West Coast and we do a lot of Burning Man as well. That’s my other baby.
45:49 Like if I were to call a startup, like that’s kind of the camp that we run there is my startup. If I had to say I had a startup. Okay. What do you run at Burning Man? What’s the camp?
45:58 It’s called what, sorry? Ooligan Alley. Ooligan Alley. Yeah. And this year I brought a plane, so the 727, which we kind of brought from a boneyard in LA and designed basically a crashed landing DJ booth with seats and engine casings strewn around.
46:19 Anyway. How long have you been going to Burning Man? It’s fifth year. Fifth year. So five years ago with four people and then 19 and then 45 and then 60 and then 120 this year.
46:27 Were you living in the plane? No, we were living around the plane. No, it was just a DJ booth. Okay. And is it getting better and better every year?
46:36 Yeah, for me, yes. And for me, it’s every year that I’ve been, has been the best year I’ve been hands down by far. But I guess it’s because I like building stuff. It’s my kind of visceral release every year, right? I get to go and do some welding and, you know, some carpentry and build some stuff and make some stuff with my hands, which is actually really nice, right?
46:57 Considering that I just basically talked to people and sent behind a computer screen, it’s good to actually make stuff. People spend all year on there. Yeah, we spend about 10 months a year planning and then actually a couple weeks beforehand in a workshop, we have about 30, 40 tons of stuff that we bring into the desert. It’s becoming kind of… And is that a completely…
47:19 There’s no cash flow from that back? No, no, absolutely. So it’s just for fun? Yeah. So basically, we have…
47:24 Say we had 120 people this year, everyone paid about $300, gave us a budget of about 36 grand, which the camp cost probably about 50 and then four or five of us made up kind of the windfall really. So everyone kind of gets stuck in very much and it’s definitely participative. Anyway, so you know the West Coast well. So I was on Sandill Road and there’s this, I don’t know what it’s called, there’s a hotel in Sandill Road where all the VCs kind of take meetings.
47:55 I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. It’s exactly, it’s quite a funny place where you just walk through this point and every conversation you’re working by, you hear the overheads, you hear just KPI here and kind of, you know, series eight there and whatever. CPA here, exactly. And I just, it was my first time kind of properly in that environment and I don’t know.
48:15 I just, I wasn’t particularly jealous or it didn’t really make me want to be there. It’s, you know, it’s now kind of established enough that there’s a, there’s a packing order and a hierarchy and kind of politics involved and, and which VCs are. And I just, I don’t, I don’t really want to jump in and play that game if this is, this is more the wild west. Yeah. It’s a little bit more, right?
48:39 And it’s still quite young and it’s still, you know, and, and that has disadvantages, but it also has advantages for sure in, in, in being, you know, this fewer barriers to entry. For me, as an angel, and already it’s harder today, but as an angel three years ago there were no barriers to entry to become an active angel. On paper, what did I have? I had nothing on paper. I had some capital, fine, but I didn’t have, I didn’t have entrepreneurial experience. I didn’t have, you know, certain things that you would need to have, certainly in the States, to become incredible. So in the States, if I’d shown up with some capital, being like, hi guys, I’m interested in doing some investing, I’d be like, okay, thank Thank you very much.
49:16 Great. Now, there’s the line snaking around the corner, right? Everybody else is also interested in doing some investing. Maybe it’s generally a less risk-averse mentality, but many more people angels, and many more people are willing to even re-mortgage a house to help out a friend, or it’s maybe a stereotype of the American dream, but there’s a lot more willingness to take these risks. And so, it would take two or three years in the States.
49:44 It would have taken me two or three years of schmoozing and roving shoulders with the right people before my capital was accepted by someone credible. Whereas here, in 2010, the second I made a blip on the radar saying, hi, I’m interested in investing and I’ve got some capital, everyone floods in. And already with EIS and everything, it’s becoming more difficult. It’s becoming there’s more capital at the early stage and getting those first few investments under your belt, which is how what you have to do to grow as an investor and to become credible is already that much harder, I think.
50:19 That’s why I’m always going to leave five, 10% of my time for helping new angels, because if nobody had done it for me, I wouldn’t be in the position I am today. I’m always people who are like, okay, I’m interested in this and I’d like to become an active angel. going to have some time to try and help them, because I think it’s fundamentally healthy for the community, to create experienced angels who know what they’re doing. And that comes, as I said before, through mentorship.
50:47 Yeah. It’s interesting, because we have Bryce King here who runs the Three Beards event here in London. And we talk about the feeling, because Colin and I go all the time, and the feeling there is going down to the pub in England, and you kind of have a conversation. But you talk about this, and you talk about that. If you went to a Silicon Alley networking event in New York, it would be like, business plan, it’s already on your phone.
51:13 It would be this whole like power thing and over here, it’s just, I guess, hard to describe than British, I guess. It’s just a little bit more of a relaxed way of doing things and more of a, I don’t know, and there’s something quite nice about it, I must say, even living here, than what it It must feel like in New York, let alone San Francisco, I have no idea. But I can understand the scene you’re describing. Yeah, anyway, I think New York is quite late to the game, really, within the context of the US.
51:42 And I think we have more in common with them, for sure. That’s what Bloomberg said recently. That is what Bloomberg said. I saw that he said that recently, yeah. Yeah, he said, yeah, they’re competing more with London than they are with San Francisco.
51:51 Of course, he’s out of a job now, but that’s another story. So, you know, we always finish. You mentioned me this one. You see the mayor of Toronto recently? Yeah, yeah, that’s your boy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I’m proud to be a Canadian Canadian, um, you know, we always kind of round the show up by asking an advice question So we’re gonna hit you with the same question If you could make a phone call to the 20 year old you and give that young man a bit of advice What would you tell him?
52:19 If I could make a phone call 20 year old me How old are you now? I’m 29 Yeah Go to Africa. What would you tell them? I would say don’t be paranoid about what you’re doing with your life because things will fall into place despite not having any stability for a while and actually it’s really healthy to have that instability. For years I’ve spent darting around from this drug to that and never feeling fully into it and going, what am I doing? I think it’s a sentiment that a lot of young people have of something not quite sticking or not feeling quite satisfied, or that perhaps losing faith after a few years of going, what’s really going to motivate me?
53:11 I’m wasting my life. Yeah, exactly. Why am I? And then all of a sudden, one day into the next, some catalyst will appear. And then all of a sudden, it won’t be work. It’ll be your passion. And And that is not time wasted, that’s actually time very healthily spent when you’re young, I think.
53:30 Good advice. That’s good advice. On that same note, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received? What’s the best advice I’ve ever received? I’d say basically, someone told me once that really dealing with your enemies only really creates new ones, right?
53:56 So actually confronting your enemies in a confrontational way is only going to multiply them. And so actually, you know, I suppose, I don’t know, pacifism or diploma, my father’s a diplomat, and I have come to the conclusion, whether I like it or not, that that’s very much kind of my father’s son in that way. And I think non confrontation and diplomacy is definitely one of the kind of fundamental aspects of how I operate. And Nelson Mandela said, he said, you should try not to, you should try to defeat your enemies and not dishonor them, you know?
54:30 Right. So you can compete with them, but you don’t have to. Yeah. Dishonor them. Were you going to say something?
54:36 Yeah, I was just going to burning man. Just the last part of that question is to the 20-year-old that’s listening to this podcast, watching us on YouTube, who is enamored by this tech industry? They hear the headlines, and not even the people that want to be the rock stars, but what advice do you give to them if they want to do this someday, grow up and be like you someday? You know like basically it’s and again I say that I say that to people and I’m burning my cap as well it’s a duocracy right you can talk all you want about what you want to do you can have ambitious plans but people will follow you if you do it right and it’s it’s a this is very much an instinct in my mind that kind of operates as a duocracy you just if you’re if you’re if you’re just if you’re just talking something and trying to get something together, it will go, I mean doing it will go much further, right, and actually get people behind you and give you support and everything like that. So yeah, talking and doing. That’s a duocracy. I didn’t know what he meant at first. I think it’s like a duo.
55:47 No, a duocracy. So a duocracy. Okay, and then you know it’s one last bit of that question that Colin thought up when we had investors on, like what What advice do you give to other guys who were like you three years ago that are like, I want to get into the angel investing. Find somebody who’s willing to bring you into a round. Find somebody who’s, you know, very much like we were saying before of a gut feeling about someone that you invest in, there’s also a gut feeling about someone you invest with Find somebody who’s willing to who operates by those principles, you know with passion capital. They were like, okay. Well We don’t know who you are. We really don’t know who you are on paper But you know feel like you’re interesting guy Let’s see what happens give you a chance type thing come come in and and you know, no you know, no No harm done if it doesn’t work So so basically find find somebody to find somebody’s coattails to hang on to find somebody, you know just just for a small investment or two And then one thing will lead to another.
56:54 What would you say the minimum amount of capital someone would need to have prepared to invest in startups to really go into being an angel investor? So look, I’d say you need at least 10 investments, right? Because otherwise the risk involved is not sustainable. So firstly, before that, this money has to be loseable, right? It can’t be money that your quality of life depends on, right?
57:25 Because then your emotions are going to be totally skewed in terms of your involvement in these companies. Exactly what a city trader is. Fantastic. So, it has to be money you can lose. I would say, and also to be able to defend your position later on and not get diluted into oblivion with at least a couple of companies out of the ten that you’re really feeling bullish about, I’d say you could do it with a million pounds in order to have that extra money.
57:54 Yeah, in order to have that extra money and that safety net or that capacity to maintain your position and don’t get diluted into oblivion once PCs come on board. I’m surprised to hear you say 10 minimum, I didn’t know how you would say that number, but I guess- What do you think I’d say? I don’t know, I thought you might say, well, I’ll start off with three and see how it goes. No, no, no. Like from day one, you just get invested.
58:15 Go big or go home. Yeah. You read your best, it’s your bedding, you read your best, and the risks are bad. It’s a basket, you don’t want them. Exactly.
58:23 Don’t put all your eggs in one of them. Yeah. My grandma used to say that. That’s awesome. Colin did a missing thing.
58:29 We got a lot covered here. Yeah, we got a lot. It’s good, really good. Cool. Some good angles and good advice.
58:36 Yes, fantastic. How do people get in touch with you? Do you want people to get in touch with you? Sure. Very happy.
58:41 I’m just at playforcapital.com. Okay, and Twitter as well. I’m not very active on Twitter actually. I’m not very active on Twitter actually. I’ve got a Twitter account, but I don’t really use it.
58:50 I should, I know, but I don’t. And then we have to ask this to another angel or investor guy. Do you answer your emails? There’s a lot of our former entrepreneur guests. Everyone says they answer their emails.
59:01 But they don’t. But I hear lots of them. We hear. We hear lots of them. The word is that they don’t.
59:05 I’m not the best. LinkedIn, I’m not very good with. I’m getting better with my emails. But there’s a lot coming in, so yeah. I’d say there’s like between 72 and a 78% chance of email.
59:17 That’s pretty specific, you have your analysis. That’s beside the pie chart is your response to this. It’s like a new startup but you don’t look too desperate. Little delay, 70%. But I think it’s tough for entrepreneurs because they often email like say an angel or an investor and they get back and are you not getting back because you don’t like the business plan or just because you didn’t get the email?
59:39 No, just no we get the image just like such just drowning in right and so would you want an Entrepreneur to send a follow-up email or just I’m forget it. I did I basically Honestly the best chance like you know to ensure to ensure starting a Communicating really is to is that to be introduced. It’s not rocket science It’s not hard like to find somebody who knows me right if you’re in the tech sector and you’re doing something and you’re you know you go to one Silicon drink about or one event, you’re going to find somebody who knows me and who can introduce you. And that’s actually entirely the best way. And I’m sorry, it is that way, but there is so much coming in that you can’t really… And are you actively looking for new investments? Are you happy with that? We are. We are closing for investments in the next few weeks.
1:00:32 So for the moment, I think that’s it for us for the rest of this year But then we’re always going to be looking for new investments from January onwards. Okay, awesome. Okay, thanks so much for being here It was really illuminating really interesting here. We are at Silicon real on Twitter If you’re listening to us on iTunes, come check us out on YouTube channel, Silicon real This is episode 20. We’ve been picked up for our second season by YouTube. Fantastic. You happy with that?
1:01:00 Third season. Third season. I think so. Third season. Third season.
1:01:05 We’re cusping. Yeah, we’re always looking for the new story. We’re not just looking for the hugely successful angel in the house, we’re also looking for the guys that are just starting and we’re actually still, we want a failure as well. We want someone who just closed up shop like in the last month or two because we want to hear their stories. You know, we want to get the whole ecosystem.
1:01:23 So we’re really active on Twitter, so send us your suggestions for guests and all that stuff. If you want to get involved in the business side, send us a message as well. We’re always looking for people to have new ideas about, you know, where to take the show. So anything else going on? Help out.
1:01:36 Yeah. Help out Movember for Colin as well. Yes. I will have a mustache the next, the next episode. If you don’t, it’s going to look weird.
1:01:44 It’s going to look like we filmed these. I’ll look like, yeah. It’s like a long time ago. We really do shoot this every week. Exactly.
1:01:49 I changed my watch. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. As we say here at Silicon Real, it’s about the people.
1:01:54 Thanks so much for being here. I wish you guys all the best. Cheers. Thanks.
