Angel Investing School: Talent is everywhere, opportunity isn’t

Do you dream of being an angel investor but don't know where to begin?

Learn from the co-founder of The Angel Investing School, Andy Ayim , about how he is democratising the world of angel investing and why being a non-conformist can lead to great leaps in learning.

Find out how Andy's backpacking trip at 21 sparked personal and professional growth and led him on the path to entrepreneurship and angel investing.

Key Takeaways

- Find out what keeps Andy moving forward with confidence, and how someone becomes a trusted advisor to new businesses. 

- We explore toxic company cultures, the importance of being true to oneself, and the democratisation of angel investing.

- Lack of diversity in angel and VC funding and the need for equal access to opportunity for all

- The importance of serving customers rather than investors, especially in challenging climates, reminding founders to focus on their intrinsic motivations 

Have questions about this episode? Ask our hosts, chat now via our website

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Oh these are the experiences that harnessed my ability to be in a position where I can really add value and advising them because I've been in their shoes. So that's a very, very important skill that really differentiates you know what you need as an advisor and a trusted advisor, an angel versus actually being a founder. You're listening to founded and grounded with Ollie collard and Laura Rawlings. The podcast brings you the honest realities of startup life. If you're a founder or aspiring entrepreneur, this is for you. We know running a business can be lonely and tough at times, and we want to help you get ahead with simple tips and sound advice. Every fortnight we hear inspiring stories from an early stage business owner who's only a couple of steps ahead of you, talking about what they've learned. And as your hosts we share our own insights and experiences as founders. So you can apply this to your own business. Hello, and welcome to the founded and grounded podcasts. My name is Laura Rawlings, and I'm co hosting alongside business startup Coach Ollie collard Ali, how are you?

Ollie Collard: 1:20

I'm doing great. Yeah, the clocks went forward yesterday. It feels lighter. And you know, that springs around the corner. And you know, there's there's the change in the air, which is good.

Unknown: 1:29

Oh, yeah, I know. And I'm looking forward to having our evenings back. You know, I've enjoyed hibernating. But yeah, I'm ready now ready for some nice evenings out?

Ollie Collard: 1:38

Yeah, we want to bring out the pizza oven in the evening. That's our first task this week. I think,

Unknown: 1:43

Ah, is that a bit like when you get the barbecue out, you've got to get some wire brush and soapy water and start scrubbing it all down.

Ollie Collard: 1:50

It's not too bad because it gets up to like 500 degrees. So incinerates everything so yeah, it's not so bad as the barbecue.

Unknown: 1:58

Wow, I feel this is almost we could almost do an episode. On its own the sorts of exciting things you're looking forward to cooking Alfresco. Getting out of the barbecue getting out of pizza oven, I'm liking the sound of all of this very. Let's talk about who are entrepreneurs this week, I've really enjoyed listening to the conversation that the two of you had. So do do the honours and introduce who we're going to hear from today, Ali.

Ollie Collard: 2:23

So I caught up with Andy I am who is founder of the angel investing school. And I've actually been on the programme myself and absolutely a massive advocate of everything that Andy is doing. I'm really excited for people to learn a bit more about Andy's background and why he does what he does.

Unknown: 2:40

It was so interesting. So I came at this completely blank sheet of paper didn't know anything about Andy. And when you initially mentioned it, I thought this was about teaching people, I suppose I was thinking people like me about angel investing venture capital and how to get it, how you might be able to attract some of that funding, not how to be one. But if you want to make a real change, as we'll hear in his conversation, actually, what he's doing is so much better than what I initially thought. And yeah, you've experienced that firsthand. Let's jump in straightaway. Shall we then and find out a bit more about Andy's fascinating background. And what the angel investing school is.

Ollie Collard: 3:22

Andy, good morning, how you doing?

Unknown: 3:24

Very well, thank you. It's a great, great day here in ethics, but did a lot to be grateful for lots of smiling.

Ollie Collard: 3:31

Amazing, Andy. Well, it's great to see your smile, and your smile is definitely very infectious. I'm absolutely delighted to have you here. Before we get started, if you could tell our listeners exactly what angel investing school is all about. And also why you got started with it in the first place. That'd be great. Yeah, I'd love

Unknown: 3:49

to thank you for giving me a platform to share more about my story. So the angel investing school put simply is online school and community that trains professionals on how to get started with investing in startups. Angel investing as a topic is very opaque, a very small portion of the world even know what it means. And venture to venture capital as an industry is very similar. You know, so what we try and do is we try and democratise access to this financial education to make it more accessible for everyday people like you and I, and how we got started, which is a part of your question. I want to go a little bit more back into kind of how I grew up, because I think that context really matters. So I grew up in Tottenham, in North London in a very multicultural community. And, you know, a lot of my parents and uncles and Auntie's were in, you know, like working class kind of jobs like nursery nurses or mini cab drivers. So I didn't have much exposure to the world of entrepreneurship or, you know, even professional jobs in the city. So, I'll give you an example. You know, when I was younger, my dad is to have a relationship from one Loku corner stop shop owner and used to order the FT week comes back to that shop, because the Financial Times was sold in Tottenham, because the readership was in the area. And by my dad doing that it really expose us as children as we've grown off as teenagers, to the world of finance and business and middle class lifestyles, and it raised our aspirations. And we realised that actually, like where we're from, doesn't determine where we end up in life. What we need is access to opportunity. So that whole theme of you know, access and opportunity really grew with me, as I went through my professional career and realise, actually, like a lot of the working world is is very different to this world that I grew up with in Tottenham. And actually, talent is typically distributed equally across the world, but opportunity isn't. So how can I play a role and really democratise and more access to opportunity? And the angel investor School is one of many ways in which I can express myself to democratise opportunity.

Ollie Collard: 5:58

So Andy, what exactly does AI is offer

Unknown: 6:02

chosen angel investor school trained professionals on how to get started invest in startups, we have three main offerings. The first is that we do corporate training where we go into employee resource groups like the blank Google Network, and train them up on how to invest into sparks and help themselves syndicates. So they can invest alongside each other into into startups. The second is that we have a public course that we run every April and September, which anyone can apply to, to learn how to become an angel investor over an eight week intensive course which Ollie has completed and can vouch for. And the third is the third is our angel investor school membership, which is an ongoing subscription to gain access to a q&a with me, deal flow master classes from our experts, an ongoing community, and we're just getting started. Next, you're gonna see a lot more than I can speak about just yet.

Ollie Collard: 6:55

I was gonna ask a bit more about your childhood. So talking about that time, you've obviously spoken about your dad raising your aspirations in terms of showing you what is possible in the world, which is fantastic. But were there any signs at that point of time that you may have taken like an entrepreneurial path.

Unknown: 7:13

While say looking back now is that is a real value to be a nonconformist? And actually I'll go further to say that when you're Nonconformist, you can often operate at the edge of your comfort zone, and for doing so at least your greatest leaps in learning. So a great example is you know, when I was 21, I went backpacking to South America, and a lot of my friends said, it's not the black thing to do, and you're probably going to die while you go. And I remember like, when I first arrived in Peru, where I started this journey for three months, I was in a hospital and I was very ignorant, I didn't realise that I hosted I'll share the room with other people. So I ended up like literally like locking my back my backpack to the leg of my bed. And I remember that night just feeling like What the hell have I just signed up to three months later, I looked back and forth. This was one of the best and most impactful things I've done in my life. And what it did is it really raised my aspiration, and opened me up to different cultures and learning from immersing myself into different cultures and worlds, whereas learned about the Inca tribe during the incut show and going to Machu Picchu, or taking incredible perspective pictures on the sort of floods in Bolivia. And what I naturally did was I started writing personal emails and long blog posts, to my friends back home to expose them to what I was learning. And little did I know that actually, that was a strength of mine, and it became a core part of my story going on, I often would write letters back home about what I was experiencing in a language that they would understand and find accessible. So a great example of that was in 2014, and 15, moved to San Francisco in a consulting firm that I was working with. And my main premise was to build a business that was kind of like a blank sheet of paper. So I ended up networking with a lot of the leading venture capital firms out there Sequoia Lightspeed ventures Greylock partners, and Andreessen Horowitz. And if you look at the Fast Track MBA into venture capitalism and how it works, but again, my natural inclination was to write blogs on medium which you can still find today, and LinkedIn about experiences that I was learning about how I grew up feeling like failure, I couldn't afford to fail. So failure was very negative. But here I'm learning that failure is a badge of honour, when you frame it as actually a learning experience, and there's no failure for truly paying attention to your learnings, self learning all of these lessons and packaging it up and sharing it to basically people back home. And I think that started to build like my brand in his space around, like really democratising access to this education of what venture capitalism startups and angel investing is, and that was back in 2015. And I just continued that good work so today. The last thing I want to add on today actually is you know, someone described this to me when I when I went back I can that, you know, when you're on the beach and you look across the shore, sometimes you can feel like our Sun meets the ocean. But it's a matter of perspective, because the sun never meets the ocean. And if you rise up to a high enough level, you will realise that. And I think the same is true for human potential and aspirations. Like if you're able to mentor, inspire, and encourage someone who can really raise the aspirations, and then it comes to down to them as to whether they're really determined and persistent enough to go the road. And this a lot of the advice I give to entrepreneurs, is that it's not about intelligence or being smart, actually, like the company is a result of the people that you hire and your ability to be persistent. And to not give up even though you've got to face trials and tribulations and have those those tough moments we have to overcome adversity.

Ollie Collard: 10:44

So you're talking about opening up opportunities, because obviously, you saw that opportunities weren't equally distributed. So what kind of like injustice is did you see or just not people not having access to opportunities that other people potentially do have?

Unknown: 11:00

Absolutely. So at its core, when I looked at the data that was available, I learned that less than 11% of venture capital went to women or female founders, despite the fact that made over 50% of the population. And when I looked at, you know how much venture capital was going to black founders, I saw as less than naught point two 4%. And that was injustice to me, because I feel like entrepreneurs can come from anywhere, to access to opportunity for entrepreneurship equally come from everywhere. And when I learned about stories like Kevin Systrom, the founder of Instagram, when he first started, the business was called bourbon. And he was a Stanford alumni. And he said, on the masters of scale podcast of reed Hoffman, I don't know why this angel investor from Stanford's alumni invested 100,000 into him. It was that nepotism and that access that you had to network that gave him the opportunity to have the runway to iterate, pivot and figure out what then became Instagram. So when we talk about access to funding in this space is so important because it correlates to outcomes and when you're able to achieve and, and everyone should have equal access, and runway and time and space to experiment and figure out if they're able to scale a successful business or not. And the current dynamics of the system that we operate in with venture capital doesn't allow for that. Instead, what you find is that there's a lot of often middle class white men in positions of power as general partners, who are making these decisions based on their networks, like whose ex McKinsey that I used to work with or whose ex Oxford or Cambridge I used to go university with, and invested in more people like themselves. So the answer in short, is I try to train up more diverse professionals. So they can pattern match against themselves and invest in more people like themselves, and in doing so, have a richer pool of founders. Because at my core, I believe that innovations that serve society should be created by a representative pool that looks a lot more like society that we live in.

Ollie Collard: 12:55

And in terms of angel investing school, how did you go from that initial idea and that vision to actually validate there was enough demand to set this up?

Unknown: 13:04

So great question. So what I did after I started realising that a lot of people asking me for introductions to angel investor today can learn about angel investing and getting started is I thought, I need a more scalable way to serve these people. I can't keep making these model introductions, not fair in the angels. So not a great use of my time. So I ended up sending out a tweet. This is classic MVP, for any founder that's listening. And in that tweet, I had a really horrific PDF, that's really embarrassing. So I'm not going to share it with you. On his podcast on a PDF, it had like a six step curriculum, to say this is what I want to cover over a course to teach people about angel investing. I had a lot of people reply to that tweet, I wouldn't dare say went viral, but we had like, you know, over 100 people retweet it or comment on that tweet, the result of that I created an air table form to say, if you're really interested in this, fill out this registration form, we had about 50, people fill out that form. I said, if you're really, really interested in this, then here's a form to make a payment for 300 pounds to secure your place. That was the initial fee. Okay, the prices have since increased. And through hook or crook or phone calls, and manually onboarding people and speaking to people one to one, we had 17 People eventually sign up for that first experience. And then I brought in experience angels and VCs from my network to teach on each week of that curriculum. And that was the first ever class for the angel investor school back in February 2020. And I remember we had to even pivot nothing was meant to be in person. But then because of the COVID crisis in March, we had to change that and made sure that it was it was remote. And again, I shaped the business model that we have today where we still do remote facilitation for classes, for corporates for individuals and as part of our membership. So yeah, I think this journey of being a startup is constant learning, experimentation and being open minded to change as long as you're staying on track with the mission that you're trying to achieve.

Ollie Collard: 15:02

For people listening who maybe haven't been exposed to the world of angel investing or venture capital? Can you just break it down in real simple terms and just tell people, what angel investing is? And what is venture capital?

Unknown: 15:14

Absolutely. So on this journey of starting a business, they may become concerned times along that journey where you feel like you need additional capital, some more money in the business to help you grow. It could be because you want to hire more people, because you wanted to live develop some technology, because you want to grow into a new region, maybe because you're not in a good situation where you have more customer demand for what you can serve. And therefore you want to scale your operations in order to sell that skill or serve that demand. So in those situations, you consider actually, where can you get capital from, for a lot of early stage entrepreneurs, you can't really go to the bank, because they require certain trading history, like two years of bank account details, because you don't have because you're just getting started, you might be able to tap in some grants for some competitions, but they're often very long applications of only very few people getting awarded those opportunities. So many people turn to what we call angel investors, which are individuals that are willing to risk their own money, and invest into early stage entrepreneurs in the hope that they're gonna, you know, different motivations, but they're going to learn about a new industry, maybe learn about a new technology, maybe learn about building a business, from the from being from the feet of an entrepreneur, maybe learn about, you know, it could be like growing a business on aspects of that, or it could be to make a certain return. And in doing that, the investments are stopped in the hope that you can go along this journey with a stop as that stock continues to grow. Okay. And with that funding, the reason why is very different from a bank loan, for example, is that you're not often paying back debt in interest, but instead you exchange them for shares in your business. Okay, we're venture capitalists, they're doing something very similar. But instead, they've got investors that have invested into their fund. And they, as money managers, they're investing that money into different early stage startups. And their hope is that some of those startups will grow to be really big, and make them enough of a return, that they can return their money to be invested or invested into their fund. So the real subtle difference between that angel investor, and that VC, or venture capitalist is that the venture capitalist is incentivized with their business model to make an extremely large return in order to make money for the investors that invested into them. Whereas an angel investor is an individual. So their motivations can vary, and therefore even making a return may not even be the primary requirement.

Ollie Collard: 17:34

I wanted to change track slightly, because you talked about it before, but the word community, and I've done the investment, angel investing school, and I think it's fantastic. And you have really fostered that sense of community within it. But the word community often gets bandied about. Some people often confuse it, confuse it with audience. So I just want to ask, what does community mean to you?

Unknown: 17:58

I'm going to share two stories. I think that really summed up in a beautiful way for me, growing up I originally from Ghana, but I grew up in the UK. And there's a proverb that we grew up with code, it takes a village to raise a child. And the whole philosophy there is that like, is, is I am because of us. So the more I contribute to the community, the more I pour into others, the more I become, the more I'm in service to myself. And that whole philosophy is around like building a value land community where you can do meaningful work with people who care. And the second story that really ties it together nicely for me is Kevin Kelley, who used to be the wide editor in chief wrote a really popular blog called 1000 true fans. And by a true fan, he's talking about going deeper than just your audience to understand the people that want to learn from you, be around you, and be around each other on the shared experience for a number of years. And a real difference between like a real avid community versus just an audience is that relationship over that transaction? Right. So it's the fact that we want to build a long term relationship, that that's a part is just a transaction where sometimes an audience, it can be very transactional. You know, I'm writing a blog post and read my blog post, versus a community where we're having discussions, what I'm in support of what you're doing, when you're in support of what I'm doing, what we're learning from each other. It is the most symbiotic relationship that actually last last a long tenure of time. You know, it's and I count our relationship, like my relationship with you. In that same way, like the fact that I'm on your podcast, the fact that you're a part of the angel investors for the fact that we're going to go on to have more discussions and hopefully collaborate in the future. That's exactly what communities do for each other.

Ollie Collard: 19:39

You're an angel investor, yourself and your founder. I want to know what the number one skill that is different between being a founder and an investor. This

Unknown: 19:51

is going to be a really unpopular opinion for many of the venture capitalists out there but I believe that you have to earn the right to advise an entrepreneur and to earn the right you have to have opera issue experience in a high growth startup yourself. So you felt the growing pains of what it means to grow a business and how hard it is to, you know, scale culture, to have an inclusive culture to build a product that customers love and endures as you build, to have the growing pains of making trade off decisions that are really difficult around fundraising and building teams. Like you have to be on the inside to field and experience that all you have to start at a startup yourself. So when I look back on my journey, I started a startup my brother and a few friends called mixtape madness, 15 years ago, which we scaled to over a million in revenue, my brother still runs the business today. And we didn't take on any angel of VC funding, basically, because we didn't know what it was at the time. But it was a blessing in disguise, because we ended up building a customer funded business, which is a primary skill actually of an entrepreneur. So going along that journey, I learned the growing pains of what it means to build and grow a business. So put me in a more qualified position to start advising entrepreneurs, especially with the lessons that I was learning, like I explained before from my blog posts and speaking at events, and then I went to work in high growth startups and the product manager for word first, Investec, Head of Product Management as zero, zilch, you know, these are the experiences that harnessed my ability to be in a position where I can really add value and not be evaluated, secreted to a founder when advising them because I've been in their shoes. So that's a very, very important skill that really differentiates you know, what you need as an advisor and a trusted advisor, an angel versus actually been a founder. Word about our sponsors. As a founder, cybersecurity isn't top of your priorities. Yet Alliance has identified cyber threats as one of the top three risks facing business globally. This is where Nova blue comes in. Its founder Steve Mason was technical director with GCHQ he was in charge of keeping the nation safe from cyber threats. He set up Nova blue to help keep businesses safe. Nova blue are offering founded and grounded listeners, a free cybersecurity health check, simply go to Nova hyphen blue.co.uk, forward slash podcast offer. So Ali, one of the first things I think we should mention is about networks, because it's just runs through this conversation today. And as I was listening to you and Andy talking, I was reminded of a conversation that I had with a friend who was working, they'd been recently recruited to work in political risk analysis. And they were talking to their boss who was recruiting for someone else. And they I remember my friends saying they simply got the CV of the applicants and bend everyone who hadn't been to Oxford. And they just said, Why would I pick anyone else? I know exactly what I'm getting if I go for that type of candidate. And I was astonished because I was completely ignorant to the fact that there's a bias for starters. I mean, I was quite young at the time, but also how these kinds of networks run deep and can run against you. And great for people who get out there and realise, well, I'm gonna have to create my own here, which is, in a way, you know, what Andy's done. But yeah, finding one that works for you, it's very much worth getting out there. And getting to know people isn't it?

Ollie Collard: 23:21

Isn't it becomes quite cyclical, doesn't it? Because people like to hire people like them. Yeah. And then it builds that cycle of, you know, no one entering the the angel investing industry or VC world because, you know, people don't represent them. So why do people get involved with it in the first place? And I think it really takes something quite significant in seismic to actually change that. And I love what Andy is all about, and trying to solve that pain point.

Unknown: 23:48

Yeah, absolutely. Hearing how he created the angel investing school, you know, putting that note out there on Twitter, it brings us back to minimum viable product, which is the words that if there's one thing I take away from this series, it's just the strength in getting out there with that, and how he then evolved it with what turned into his community, you know, and doing it kind of collectively. I think in the past, I've been guilty of thinking you've got to come up, serve the answer, serve the perfect product, and then that's fine. Actually, so many successful businesses I see with a really strong community, right from the start right from that little tiny idea of doing it together.

Ollie Collard: 24:31

Yeah, and he's obviously built up that community over time and then he's put out the the offer out there into the world and obviously got an interested list of potential people willing to take part in actually the first angel investing school, and then he's gone a step further and says, Write money where your mouth is who wants to pay for it now? And then obviously, you know, he's created that first course. But it sounds obviously quite easy, but he's spent probably years building up that that community first which is the pivotal point. And I think a lot of great businesses are built off that community first aspect. And I think where a lot of entrepreneurs, sometimes struggle is they think they have to create the whole thing straightaway. Whereas if you do have a simple kind of MVP, you can actually build the track as you're going round. So keep on laying it, and building it as you go round. And then you don't have to build the whole thing before you start selling it.

Unknown: 25:28

And I guess some of the risk is mitigated more there as well, isn't it when you're doing it like that? Because you're not just making a massive leap into the unknown? You already have your feelers out there. And as we saw and heard, you know, that funnel of right, would you be interested in this? Okay, what about if it was like this, and it's just like narrowing down the funnel to you put in the calls, and then you've got the people who are going to sign up and come along to it?

Ollie Collard: 25:53

Yeah, there was no need for him to kind of think about all the technology he was going to use, like thinking about all the facilitators that he was going to involve in the programme. He didn't need to do all of that. First, he needed to know a, was there a demand for it? Were people interested? And then once he had that answer, then he can start developing the latest stages of it.

Unknown: 26:12

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So true. And, and then it going on beyond that, I mean, just community as the bedrock beforehand, building your audience, whatever you want to call it. But you've got to have that connection with people to start with and a place to sell to. And then it going beyond that, that initial transaction and becoming part of a community, this is a theme that does run through the two of yours, you know, conversation together, doesn't it? That symbiotic relationship?

Ollie Collard: 26:39

Yeah. And I like what Andy says here, in terms of it not being transactional, it's about the exchange of value between people. And I think wherever you go to one of their meetups and witness or the the interaction between the community and people adding value to one another, and exchanging knowledge. And everyone's got a shared purpose and a set shared vision. And Andy has purposely done that, to bring everyone together and make it a very inclusive environment. And it feels really special, it honestly does feel very special to be part of that.

Unknown: 27:09

That's good to hear. Before we move on and hear about some of the challenges he's experienced, I do just want to pick up on one of the points he raised about who can advise entrepreneurs, and what qualifies someone. And I find this fascinating, you know, I am a therapist, you're a coach. And for both of these kinds of titles, you can get qualifications in it. And you can belong to various professional bodies, and you know, have your insurance and have recommendations. But ultimately, anyone can put themselves out there as that person, can't they, it's not regulated in that way. And when it's your business, same as when it's your health, you want to be savvy about whose advice you're listening to. And yeah, so what he was saying about right, who can give this advice, I thought was really interesting.

Ollie Collard: 28:00

Yeah. And I think you've got to obviously do your due diligence in terms of the person you're speaking with and see about their past experiences and their successes and their failures. And, you know, go and speak to some of their past customers, I think that's the best way of doing the acid test is actually going out there speaking to them, and seeing how they've helped help that person actually progress and transition and make a change in the world. Because otherwise, you're, you're gonna go into it with potentially getting bad advice, and that could probably hinder rather than help you.

Unknown: 28:30

Yeah, definitely. Okay, talking of hindrances, let's move along and hear about some of the challenges then, that Andy experienced in doing this, and in particular, some of his favourite failures. I think one of the favourite failures so far has been on being too transactional when I shouldn't be focused on building relationships. So one of the early successes of angel investing school is that to goo to consider the client to train the black network at Google on how to invest into startups. And I nearly eroded the relationship I had with someone because I was too transactional. And they were in another tech company in kind of leading of like, Hi, I'm doing this work for Google, I'd love to do at your company. What I should have really done is just checked in and said, like, I'd love to just catch up, have a coffee, find out how you're going how things are doing. And if then that conversation naturally goes a direction where I could share more about why we're doing great. If it doesn't, actually, it's fine, because I'm just maintaining the relationship that I have. And looking back, I really regret that at the time and I'm so happy that I went back and I apologised to that person and mended it and and said, you know, that was really transactional. That wasn't me. And I put my ego and pride aside and Kevin has had that conversation in doing so. I've managed to maintain the relationship with that person.

Ollie Collard: 29:54

What advice would you give to people like if they think they've made a mistake? How do you resolve mistakes in life? Running a business,

Unknown: 30:01

I think part of being a really inclusive leader is, is being able to actually put your hand up and see when you've got things wrong. And you'll be surprised how many people are inspired by that and respect that you have the ability to do that. You know, especially in this age of Council, culture and social media, if you have the courage to lead, you have the courage to say actually, like, put my hand up, I've made a mistake, is what I've learned from that mistake, and actually going forward is going to be the difference. And that sets the example in the cadence for the rest of the organisation around. Yeah, we already continuous learners here we have the humility to make expensive mistakes in this environment and not being not be judged by our mistakes.

Ollie Collard: 30:40

Can you talk about any other times when the shit is really hit the fan, and what you took from that?

Unknown: 30:46

Yeah, I've been in experiences, even prior to the angel investing School, where I've been at companies where, you know, the cultures have been really toxic. And you know, you can often go for an interview process, and you feel like, oh, this sounds like an incredible opportunity, but something's not quite right. But they're trying to sell to you and you're trying to sell to them. And then there's this key period that we call probation, where it's really important, actually not for the company to only evaluate whether you have a place to stay here, but actually is for you to have to feel empowered in really evaluating whether you want to stay here in this environment. And I remember during a one one company in particular, where it was such a toxic environment from the leadership, that I realised that I wasn't really hired to change that culture. And therefore, I had to step aside and say that this opportunity is not right for me. And it took a lot of courage because they loved me that that I could see my career ascending and being promoted in that environment. And there was a lot of opportunity for me ahead. And it was a company that was only essential and they will grow in ways I didn't see right with my value set, and who I was and what I wanted to represent in the world. And I think it takes career confidence to get to a stage where you feel like it could be 100%, your authentic self, and you feel like actually free doing that. It means saying no, even in the face of great opportunity. And I recognise a lot of people early in their careers will struggle to do that we've our founders were early on in their journey, it's truly empowering when you can reach a place where you can really be a full expression of yourself in that way.

Ollie Collard: 32:11

And I know you're quite big on values and being sort of self reflective in terms of how things fit in with your own lifestyle. But when you don't have the opportunity to do that, and things are going wrong, who do you call,

Unknown: 32:25

there's two things I do, actually, I'm a big journal. So I made sure I write in my journal daily, if not weekly, and I try and reflect on that every so often. So I do work on like a wash up or retrospective of myself every two weeks. But I look back at what's worked well, what hasn't worked so well. And what I've learned, and that gives me a great opportunity to almost self correct myself. And a Secondly, like, they wouldn't like me to call them this. And they don't know that I term that they use this term. But I have a set of a trust what I call like a board of trusted advisors. And these are essentially friends of mine that I can turn to to help me make more informed decisions. Right, one of those that my former manager, our first guy called Mark Abraham, and other guys, Frost is mainly who's an early mentor got me into my first career. But these are the people that I turned to, when I'm looking for advice when I'm looking for a sounding board, where I need to be challenged and beat up a little bit. And I know that they're gonna, they're gonna tell you the truth and come from a loving place of doing so. Ali, we mentioned about building a community and it going past being transactional. But here, this is a great example, isn't it of Andy learning about that, and under the pressure of trying to sell and make business work, realising that you shouldn't be too transactional? That that's not that that isn't a good thing.

Ollie Collard: 33:49

Yeah, he went into this conversation, I think with Google, he said about, you know, having this idea at the start of it, that what he wanted to get out of it. But what he said in hindsight, is actually should have gone up, build the rapport, maintain the relationship, and then if it naturally steered in that direction, then they could have been open to that conversation, rather than trying to pre guide it and pre frame it too narrowly. Because then ultimately, you could damage that relationship. And I think there's a really good lesson in there.

Unknown: 34:16

And I can understand how it happens, you know, I can definitely extend a great deal of empathy to what happened here is that when you are under that sort of pressure, you get that one shot, you know, you can hear all of the different things that are kind of going on, they got to be focused, gotta go in gotta they, they're very busy. They'll just want this. So you can totally see how that can happen sometimes. But yeah, take it a try to take that step back and just appraise people, relationships, connections, who you do business with all that sort of stuff that we all know, but it is easy to forget.

Ollie Collard: 34:51

Yeah. One thing I'd say is, particularly to founders, if you're trying too hard, sometimes it comes across in quite a negative way. So I think If you're being overly salesy or you know, overly pushy or applying pressure to the other person, people are going to smell it a mile off. And the advice that I always give is go with the energy of, I'm doing it without you anyway, do you want to come along on this journey? I'm doing this? Are you coming along for the ride? Yes or No? If you're not, then that's obviously your decision. Whereas if you're trying to literally make the sale too early, then it can damage the relationship.

Unknown: 35:29

Those things are hard to judge, aren't they, sometimes when they are in the room,

Ollie Collard: 35:34

and, and it obviously gets easier over time and more experience of doing, you know, sales meetings. And, you know, if you're particularly like a b2b business, it's going to be a longer sales cycle. So you're not going to be converting people within, you know, it's not like comparing, it's like online shopping of like, a one, one, click buy out on Amazon, it's literally you're building relationship, you're putting in weeks, sometimes months of work, to convert somebody from not knowing anything about you to being most aware. And then finally, being a customer and an advocate of your business. So it takes time. And I think the more you practice that, that sales cycle, and understand where to potentially apply the pressure, then, yeah, but that's the key for me.

Unknown: 36:18

It's a really good point. And I am not sure, I suspect that if you're going into this for the first time, you might not know, like, how much do you invest? How much do you how much legwork do you do? You know, for free? Which is what we're talking about here, aren't we? You know that how, yeah, how long does it take? How long is a piece of string when Yeah, if it's gonna work, and when it is? Like God?

Ollie Collard: 36:41

Yeah, it's really hard. There's a great bit of research that Google did some time ago, Laura called Google zero moments of truth. So basically, what it did is it took the initial two moments of truth. So the first moment of truth could be that, say, for example, you saw a product on a shelf, or you saw somebody's website, that's the first moment of truth, the second moment of truth would be maybe eating the product are experiencing the service. That's the second moment of truth. But what Google have said now is that there's this new zero moment of truth that comes in obviously, prior to those two things, where people are doing a lot of research in terms of their buying decisions. So on average, they spend seven hours researching a product or service before they commit to making a purchasing decision. So the quicker that you can get people up to that seven hours of, you know, engaging with content. So it could be a podcast like this, it could be a blog, it could be a video, it could be a face to face meeting, the more likely they're going to make that positive buying decision. And that's obviously on average, seven hours, some people see comes to that quicker, wherever it takes a lot longer. So there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

Unknown: 37:56

I know we started by talking about selling business to business, but I was instantly drawn to the last thing that I've just purchased, which was like 50 quids worth of books. And it's really I was thinking, What did I do here? Or first of all, I had saw a recommendation from someone else, then I added them I checked to see if they were in the library or on Blinkist. Then I when they weren't, they got added to my private Amazon list. And then I went back to it. And I thought, No, I do want those books, you know? Yeah. So interesting, our little habits and patterns, and you're right, the relationship, nurture the relationship. Okay, what else do we want to say here? Oh, yeah, speedily, because I got off on a tangent there. Great advice on journaling, journaling and doing that every few weeks or so whatever timeframe fits you but so that you can write down what's gone, well, what hasn't gone so well, and then bring in some reflection on to that. And I think it does build up your own confidence as well as seeing potentially patterns or ways of behaving, or, you know, things you've tried that have or haven't gone so well, but it is a really helpful way of also boosting your confidence because your brain will naturally want to focus on the bits that went wrong. So if you're also doing the good stuff, then you know, which you're training your brain to do, because that's how it's gonna grow, then it's a really good little tip. And I was heartened to hear that that's what he does.

Ollie Collard: 39:19

Yeah, and I love it. And there's a lot of you know, press about it at the moment, but it is a really good thing for a your mental well being. But that's kind of cathartic experience of doing it. And I think the key takeaway, though, is doing that reflection, so you might journal every week, but then if you don't revisit it, then you don't get the ultimate value of it. So I really liked Andy's point of making having this kind of wash up session, as he called it, where you go back and analyse it and let you say you'll be able to find patterns and you know, potentially unlock you know, new potential in yourself by reviewing what's gone well and what hasn't,

Unknown: 39:57

and I forget how clearly he spelt this out, but crucially, it's not Just what went well, and what didn't? But what was it that meant it went well, or didn't go? Well, because that's important that you understand that element of it. I know he raised it here again, and having his trusted advisors, you know, people who he goes back to, it's always interesting. It's like having a nosy around, hearing who people go to. And it was, yeah. fascinating to hear who Andy goes to when he wants advice. And how he keeps that relationship going as well. That's one of the bits that I find hard, it feels, I've kind of sat through meetings where people say, Oh, you need to think he's in your network. And I'm a bit like cringe about this, especially if there's, you know, sort of two steps removed. How do you gently just keep that relationship tinkling along, you know, you're maybe not in a position to add anything to that person's life, particularly, you're not asking for anything, but you sort of need to you kind of want to keep a touch point, do you know what I mean?

Ollie Collard: 40:54

Yeah, but you could do simple things like maybe they've done a LinkedIn post, and it could be adding a nice comment to it, it could be leaving them a recommendation. And there's things that you can do at distance, that will build up that value and that trust with yourself. So I think there's definitely things that you can do to nurture that relationship, even if you feel, you know, like they might not even really know you, there's things that you can do to bring them closer into your network to have that longer term relationship that you're looking for.

Unknown: 41:24

I'm glad I mentioned it, I knew you'd have some advice on that. Right, then moving along to the final section of the interview. And this is a bit of future gazing but of advice questions for you listening. So pinback curious for this. As we hear what Andy has in store for the next few years? It's a great question, the scary one, isn't it because I'm not a mind reader. So I can't say how it's gonna turn out. But, you know, my real ambition is to train 10,000 diverse professionals and angel investing in doing so we're going to see a lot more diverse founders get funded, I wouldn't be able to tell success stories at scale of, you know, founders that look a lot more like society, and succeed at scale doesn't necessarily mean becoming a unicorn. But founders are really leading the way in achieving success in business and as as investors in this space. So you know, I want to really diversify the cap tables on a lot of these Dubs. So that actually like is a lot more wealth being created for a lot more people that look like society.

Ollie Collard: 42:23

Love that, and the difference you actually think that will make to the world if we do have more people who are representative of society becoming investors, and also becoming founders? What difference you reckon that will make in the world? I think it'll

Unknown: 42:37

be twofold. One, we're going to have more inclusive entrepreneurship. So we're going to have more products intention designed with the rest of society in mind, right, we're not going to have men designing products for women, and they have no clue what they're doing. And secondly, we're gonna have representative role models. And we can't really underestimate the power of representative role models. Never think back to there's a guy called a kid called Jordan Peterson. I think back in 2009, he was in the White House from Obama. And it's a famous picture of him, stroking Obama's hair. And he's asking Obama in that moment, like is your hair like mine? And it's such a powerful reminder of like, if a kid really believes that, you know, the president of the free world has hair like me, then a much more accurate, chief to know. And that's the impact that we can have when we have more representative role models.

Ollie Collard: 43:25

Is that something that you want to ask founded and grounded listeners?

Unknown: 43:29

Yeah, I think the biggest conversation that I'm having at the moment, a lot of founders, when it comes to fundraising in this climate is, you know, should I change this? Should I adapt my story? Should I tell a certain story in a certain way, so that my company could get invested in and I'm actually going to remind founders that it needs to be contrarian, you're not in the business of serving investors, you're in the business of serving customers. So this is a time to really tap into your way to intrinsic motivation to remind yourself why your style is business. So my question to founders is during this class, this climate, how are you doubling down on serving your customers rather than your investors?

Ollie Collard: 44:08

I'm gonna put you on the spot because the next bit of the show is one of the key tenants of founded and grounded. So we always ask our featured founders just distil down just one piece of advice that they would pass on to a founder or somebody thinking of starting a business. So Bandy, what would that be?

Unknown: 44:26

Intelligence is overrated, companies are resolved the people that you hire, and your ability to have grit, persevere, and embrace luck, because there's going to be a lot of luck along the journey.

Ollie Collard: 44:37

And how would you increase luck Andy?

Unknown: 44:40

I think you increase luck by persevering and showing up and being consistent in delivering quality consistently.

Ollie Collard: 44:47

And the working people find out a bit more about AI s and find you personally online.

Unknown: 44:52

Thanks, Ollie. By the way, this has been a great conversation. I've looked at a time and I'm surprised it's flown by and you can find a is on the angel invest in school.com, also angel investor school on Instagram. And you can find myself on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter as Andy a

Ollie Collard: 45:08

bit of a curveball now. So if I knew you better Andy, what's one question I would have asked you.

Unknown: 45:13

One question that you could have asked me if you knew better was what lifestyle design choice that he made is having a child.

Ollie Collard: 45:21

Love that question, Andy and as a parent of two, and I know you're expecting another in December as well. So yeah, what's the answer to that question, Andy?

Unknown: 45:31

I think there's two two parts to that answer. The first is, it's quite morbid, but when I think about being on my deathbed, and no, I'm not going to be asking for my investments for my money, my my smartphone or my MacBook, I'm going to be asking for more time with my loved ones. So how can I optimise my time today to spend more time intentionally with them? And the second part of that answer is, I've noticed that like, when you have an intrinsic motivation, and something that compels you to act, that is beyond yourself, like having a child, your ability to persevere and go forever, is a special like, it can't be described as a parent's love and desire to do for their child that allows you to go further with your ambitions and your endeavours in the world. And I definitely felt the impact of that, since having a child and the choices that I've made along my career, even as an entrepreneur and taking risks.

Ollie Collard: 46:24

So true, Andy, I mean, when my wife went back from maternity, with our daughter, who's our second child, I've ended up going down to four days a week and be doing that for over a year. And it's the best decision that I've ever made. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and your inputs. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Unknown: 46:45

This is mine. Thank you. So there's, there are just two things that I think we should pick up on here. Because we've talked loads, but one of them is about serving your customers. So Andy's question, how are you serving your customers, that is the focus that is what it's, that is what it's about, it's easy to get looking at the other metrics and measuring other things. But ultimately, this is the route to success, isn't it?

Ollie Collard: 47:13

In very simple terms, obviously, if you don't have a customer base, you're not going to have a business. So you've got to be looking after them. And I think what good businesses do well is really they turn their customers into champions. So it's about really advocating on behalf of the business, then you can intensifies the referrals. And ultimately, what it means is that your marketing spend is going to drop drastically, if you're building the super champions of your business, and they're doing the selling on your behalf. So I think you've got to be really looking after them making sure that you're adding value to their life, and making it easy for them to refer people into your business.

Unknown: 47:52

Yeah, I feel at another point, we should come back and talk about the referrals and how to, you know how you can make some money from that. Do you know what I mean? I feel that that's a whole area in itself, isn't it that is worth coming back to? To finish with talking about creating your own luck. Where do you stand on this, Ollie?

Ollie Collard: 48:15

I think you have to create your own luck. I mean, there's a great quote that I love that 80% of success is just showing up. And I think it's so true. Like if you're consistently showing up, being consistent, being present, saying yes to potential opportunities, then ultimately, you're going to create more opportunities, and then one of them is going to go somewhere. So I think if you're going in with a closed mindset, and maybe not committing to things, and being a bit potentially disengaged, then you're not going to create your own luck. Whereas if you're being open minded and welcoming opportunities, then yeah, that's when the magic really happens. I like

Unknown: 48:55

it on that note, shall we just reflect back for a tick? So we're gonna catch up with Samantha our community lead, then? Because we always ask our founders to ask a question of you listening to this. And it's good to hear what you've been saying in response to that we want to weave that in. So let's head to Samantha and find out what you have been saying in response to our previous episode. So Sam, just remind us who the entrepreneur was and what it was they wanted to know. Last episode, we spoke to piers Linney, again, as Dragon's Den investor and channel thought Secret Millionaire, about his new business, mobile locks and the journey he's been on finding out some really interesting things we didn't know. And I'm sure you won't have known about his childhood and his journey to business. So a fantastic guest to have on the show and one so many of us know and aspire to. But it's really interesting to learn a little bit more about the background of his journey that maybe we didn't know Before and can help inspire rest further, of course, as all our guests do, here's had a question for all of you listeners. His question was as a founder, what are the core services that you need, but struggle to understand and implement? To no surprise, the answers between CRM software project management systems, accountancy software or other came back highly CRM software, I think, leads and sales is often one of the blocks, although it's one of the things we most need. And once in business, it can often be one of the biggest blocks and barriers is how to grow that how to organise that and CRM, software's can be quite a black zone of the unknown, really in business, of course, followed by accountancy software. So all CRM software took 50% of the votes. accountancy software took another 25%. Again, not massively surprising, other than it wasn't higher finances. Again, one of the things that unfortunately, is a massive block and can stop us from succeeding and growing in business, I know it can really cause some people some stress and uncertainty as to how to grow their business, or how to even start a business when it comes to looking at the finance and accountancy side of what has to be done to. So no surprises there, project management systems only had 8% of the vote. So I think we're all fairly comfortable with that as a generalisation. And 17% said other with some suggestions, as to very specific sort of software's there are so many out there that help us in many different ways. And there's always going to be those kind of areas that we struggle with. But I'm sure peers will be very interested to know that most of us, it's those CRM, software's that are causing that block. So thank you very much if you voted and told us a little bit about what you're struggling with, to understand and implement in your business. And of course, if you would still like to join the conversation, you can come and find us on social media, and let us know what you think what blocks have you got in your business? What are the services that you are struggling to implement and continue to tell us your ideas and thoughts? Alrighty, yes, do keep your keep the conversation going on social media, anything you want to chip, in any observations, answers to the questions, we would very much love to hear from you. And you may well get featured at the end of the podcast, who knows? Ali, who we got coming on next time.

Ollie Collard: 52:36

So I'm so excited about our next guest, Laura. He's a serial founder, also an investor himself. He runs a brain care company called heights. And he's also host of the UK is number one StartUp podcast called Secret leaders. And it's great to be collaborating with secret leaders, obviously, as being the number two StartUp podcast in the UK. And I can't wait for our listeners to hear more about Dan's journey.

Unknown: 53:03

Brilliant. Okay, well, that's to come. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening. Until next time. Thank you for listening to founded and grounded with Ollie collard and Laura Rawlings. If you've enjoyed this free podcast, we'd love you to recommend it to someone else. You can leave a review on Apple podcasts regardless of where you get your podcasts from. And join our online community and share your comments with us. We're on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram is always good to hear from you.