Rare Founders: How one entrepreneur turned his failed startup into a community empowering platform

Experiencing the collapse of a startup can be devastating, yet for Vasily Alekseenko, it was the catalyst for change. 

After witnessing the dark side of fundraising, Vasily took matters into his own hands. Rare Founders was born with a simple mission to connect founders and investors.

This is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of networking, pitching, investment, and the magic that happens when founders come together to uplift one another.

We discuss the importance of diversity in the investment landscape, the significance of community, and the future of early-stage funding.

Key Takeaways

- How to be more resourceful and do more with less. Focus on creative solutions and confidence in your vision

- How to overcome your insecurities and pitch with confidence

- Fun as a foundation. How to inject fun into your startup and gamify life as a founder

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

Transcript

Dr Becky Sage: 0:00

Oh

Vasily Alekseenko: 0:09

it was complete radio silence and I still don't know why did this exactly happen? Whether it was Russian or it was just like something else going on.

Dr Becky Sage: 0:24

You're listening to founded and grounded with Ollie collard and Dr. Becky sage. 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 insights and experiences as founders so you can apply this to your own business. Hello, I'm Dr. Becky sage, co host of founded and grounded podcast and I'm here today with Ali. Ali. How are you?

Ollie Collard: 1:16

Yes, very well. Thank you Becky. We're very excited to announce that we are now on Tik Tok.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:22

I was gonna say we won't be dancing. I think maybe we will dance at some point on our Tik Tok. But also you'll be hearing lots from our guests and behind the scenes stuff. So talking about our guests who have we got on this week,

Ollie Collard: 1:35

we have got a serial founder called Vasily, who is founder of a company called Rare founders. They essentially are building up a community to bridge the gap between founders and investors to enable people to pitch for investment, and essentially build their confidence at the same time.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:56

I really enjoyed listening to Vasily, I think he just has this uniqueness and this fund that he injects into everything that he's doing and definitely into the business and how he's building the business and building something that is unique and loved. So let's go and listen to what it is that Wassily is doing with rare founders and how it got started

Ollie Collard: 2:22

Vassili Good afternoon. How are you?

Vasily Alekseenko: 2:25

I'm doing pretty pretty well.

Ollie Collard: 2:27

Excellent. Well, that's good to hear. So of the new year, and firstly, can I just say, hats off to you? We had a cancellation this morning, I put a post on LinkedIn, within three hours of this session taking place and you seize the opportunity. And you said yes, and you're here. So firstly, thank you, and congratulations for taking the opportunity.

Vasily Alekseenko: 2:48

No, thank you very much. Obviously, as a founder, you just take all the opportunities you have in your life, otherwise you wouldn't succeed.

Ollie Collard: 2:57

Great piece of advice there. Firstly, you started rare founders just under 12 months ago, you're building a community to bring together founders and investors. The idea came when you were trying to raise investment from your previous startup foregin. What is your mission for rare founders? And why do you care? Okay,

Vasily Alekseenko: 3:17

that's actually a pretty good question. Oh, let me think so, the reason why I care, because when I was fundraising for my previous startup, I was personally like, and like I faced quite a few challenges as a founder. And one of the biggest challenges after you already have a business, you have a little bit of traction is overseas to get an investment. And realistically, it's quite quite difficult to do anything unless you have an existing network of investors. And let's face it, most of the founders in London are foreigners, people come in from different countries, different backgrounds, and I'm pretty sure that 99% of them don't have any connection. So that's why they are already in all struggling before they even started. And so, for me, the solution was to go to quite a few networking events. And, you know, potentially, I would meet investors in there. Realistically, investors don't really like to go to this kind of events. And those who do go, it's quite difficult to identify them. So it's quite difficult. And obviously, like it takes time to build any of these connections, and it's a huge, huge effort. One of the other challenges I faced as a founder was the fact that I wasn't able to practice my pitching skills. And there are obviously like, unlike events where you can go and very often you have to pay for this one hour 250 pounds plus for just an opportunity to practice even though quite a few event organisers claim that you will be able to get investment in there but again, once you have an experience once you have been on this road for a while If you understand that, you will never get any money in the room, it might help you to start some conversation that you will continue later. But realistically, you have to be delusional to expect to get any money out of it. And so this was my two main challenges. And as a founder who have been bootstrapping the business for more than a year, and didn't have any money, realistically, again, you just count every single penny you have. And even though these opportunities do exist, they are very often unaffordable, and add again, then I'll add, some organisers did this for different reasons. So I was pretty much I just had enough. And so I just had enough with someone else taking advantage of my situation. And that's why I just decided to do it all in my own week. Interesting,

Ollie Collard: 5:57

and what happened with your last startup, then if you don't mind me asking, oh, it's

Vasily Alekseenko: 6:01

failed. Please don't cry

Ollie Collard: 6:04

about? Well, the stats are, you know, up to 90% of startups won't make it past five years. I think you were running it for around four years, is that correct?

Vasily Alekseenko: 6:13

Ah, it was about three, I think it's on a half. And we had products who had traction, we had customers on the waiting list, we waited like million times. And eventually, we just got to the point where the business couldn't really progress anywhere without an investment. And considering what is happening in the industry. Now, and over the last couple of years, it's just getting more and more difficult to get any investment when you are at this early stage simply because these days, venture capital the request quite a bit from, you know, what precedes stage founders. And that's why we just, we just, we just couldn't get there. And considering that on the journey on the corporate wellness. So with my startup, I just kept facing, you know, like blocks after blocks. And it was just like never ending. At the same time, everything I started doing on the community side, kind of like, boom from the first event. And back in August, I looked back at everything, and I just realised that on the community site actually do have a lot of traction. And I decided to focus on this full time and said goodbye to folding sadly, I mean, it was a very, very difficult decision for me, but but it is what it is. I don't regret this experience, simply because I wouldn't be on my journey. Now, if I didn't have to go through all these obstacles. 100%.

Ollie Collard: 7:45

And we've read founders, then how are you trying to monetize the business model. And also, I'm really interested about some of the wins, you've had to date from your community.

Vasily Alekseenko: 7:56

Okay, so in terms of monetizing, I now know that when it comes to communities, it's super difficult to monetize anything, simply because initially, when I started all of this, my agenda behind this was very simple. I just wanted to meet investors, I didn't want to make any money, I didn't plan to do anything with it, it's just was kind of like, gradually growing, growing and growing. And so realistically, we all have to pay the bills. So eventually, it gets to the point where you need to look into the ways what you will do with this. Because otherwise, I mean, you can't afford I mean, if I had no money behind me if I was able to spend my life and like doing the church or conversely. But again, reality is different. You have to pay your bills, mortgage, whatever, whatever. And what we started, I didn't really want to go into the role of charging founders who will come to our events, just because I see what we do is a huge opportunity for everyone. And again, I wanted to do this from the beginning as far as possible and as affordable as possible for everyone. So we initially started with running events for free, which was a great experience. We had like huge numbers on the first events. We had 500 people registering 250 people attended. And this is considering considering that I've never done before. I didn't have any network. I didn't have any connections, I still don't know where all these people came from. And so I think it was event number three, where this model kind of created quite a bit of problems for us. We actually used an amazing venue not far from here. It's Park Road Piccadilly Circus, and it's a huge restaurant and the back of the restaurant, we had two big rooms. And this event was happening around London tech week last year, and we just didn't expect that many people to show up. The venue had like our rooms had a capacity of 200 people had 300 people, and the line was going through the entire restaurant, the manager was going crazy, because he was like, What the hell is going on there. And so, again, it's a good problem to have when you have such a huge demand. But it is a problem because obviously, like I wanted for people who would come to them, and you have an experience, but you can't have an experience where you have, like an like so many people, and it was just simply boiling. And then we introduced the nation model. Because I was like, Okay, maybe if people would be anything, it will be, I don't know what convinced them to actually come to the event, node statistics didn't really change much what it did do for us back, so we have about like, 50% attendance rate on the good day 70%. So this 50%, who didn't come even though most of the people do donate just one pound, this is still the money that we can use to buy whatever work props, whatever we actually do at the event. So it's still kind of like a little bit of money. And on top of this, we are relying quite a bit on sponsors. And it's a hard job to get sponsors involved. But we were quite lucky because we got interest right from the beginning, from big companies, big names were interested in us and wanting to do something with us long term. And initially, it was all exciting, then I realised after a couple of months, that's this is pretty much b2b sales. And that's why the sales cycle regardless of the interest in politics time when they come and they need to invite other people learning to convince people and then there is a budgeting thing. And so we still have quite a few of these conversations happening. And kind of like, the plan is to rely mostly on this. But since I didn't really want to change anything about our main event, we are like, well, we just started experimenting with a few different other concepts where we will host something much smaller, where we would actually charge founders and alike for joining. And that's kind of like an what would be our way to get money to oversee, like, survive, but at the same time not to compromise what we already created.

Ollie Collard: 12:16

I love that. And you're giving founders an opportunity to pitch their business to investors. I'm interested to hear your pitch about what benefits rare founders brings about for both founders and investors. Okay,

Vasily Alekseenko: 12:30

let's say I wasn't ready to pitch today. And so at our events, so just to clarify all of like, the structure of everything that we created, it came from my just like, horrible experience with gold or like going to like going to a bunch of events. One of the experiences was you often go to this events, you know, like, start talking to people is great. If you connect with someone and you have things in common and you have a conversation, it's all good. But sometimes you run into someone who just not necessarily No, like open to like either answer your questions or to ask any questions. But since we're live in the UK, and being polite is quite a big thing in this culture, it's often very uncomfortable to leave this conversation. And it's uncomfortable for both sides. And I had this experience. And that's why when I came up with an idea of running our own events, I initially wanted to help other people who potentially no one would struggle with it. So we came up with this concept where people do come for the event, we normally have a speaker in the beginning for just like 20 minutes, it's like very low key there is like nothing corporate as such. And so then we start networking. So networking part takes 20 minutes, then we break into open like pitching sessions, we randomly pick five to six founders from the room who get on the stage, and they have just one minute to pitch the business. We also made it quite entertaining. So I don't know like you. I don't think

Ollie Collard: 14:05

I've seen some of the content. Yeah, so we

Vasily Alekseenko: 14:09

have big neon sign. And it's very some people describe this as a community club. And as a community club mixed with like networking and pitching. And that's exactly what I wanted to create, right from the beginning because we had some experiences, right? Right when we started were quite a few founders. They were shaking, and they couldn't finish this one minute. And we had this particular guy he just gave up like, like, halfway through. And I could see that he was super uncomfortable, but I didn't let him leave the stage. I was like, You know what, take a break, go back, go go to the back and it will get back to you once we're done. And then he did the second time and it was even worse than the first time and he was almost crying but I didn't want him to escape from this because I know that pound, you just need to get over this fear. Because that's like every Everyone is struggling. So I remember the origins, everyone just started clapping. So he eventually finished his one minute pitch, he was crying, but then people started giving him hugs. And so I was like, you know, like, now you've done it. So that's why it doesn't matter if you did this in a great way in electronic Wait, no, like, realistically, no one cares. But so for him personally, I think it was a very big win that regardless of the struggles, and like he actually did this, and that's pretty much what we do. And that's what is different about our events. I don't take any black pride bookings for pitching, I don't take any payments for the storm can reserve anything, the only requirements for anyone to get on the stage is for these people to be founders, and for their businesses to walk through the fundraising now or starting soon. And I just randomly pick people and so like I have very good visual memory. So if people read the pitch before I give chance to someone else, because what I tell to everyone that even though we do have investors in the room, that people should see this opportunities with us or with other events as an opportunity to practice, simply because again, you're not gonna get money in there, regardless of what people tell you. All you do is your experience of being uncomfortable and talking about your business in front of strangers. And so I think we did this pretty well, and founders love it. And I know for the fact that at least three founders who came to our events, they managed to get your investments outside of this. Like, I don't know exactly how much and I was just like one farmer told me it was like 5000 pounds, but this was 5000 More than I did. So that's why it was, you know, like still pretty good win for everyone.

Ollie Collard: 16:57

I love this facility, because it's very grassroots level. And what you're saying is you're not just connecting founders, with investors, what you're actually doing is giving people opportunities, but more importantly, your confidence building. You're injecting confidence into these early stage founders so they can get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

Vasily Alekseenko: 17:18

That's, that's what we do. I think this is kind of like my life mortar. Every single time I feel uncomfortable about something, I tend to push myself towards this just to get over it. Because I personally don't want for my insecurities to stop me. And I hope that what we're doing at this events helps other founders as well. Amazing,

Ollie Collard: 17:41

and how do you work with other players in the kind of startup ecosystem here in London, to kind of avoid duplication and create a more kind of joined up offering for founders.

Vasily Alekseenko: 17:55

In terms of duplication, I think what we initially created this kind of like an informal structure of the event, or I didn't mention another thing. So when when founders pitch, we also introduce water guns. So we normally have like a big timer for one minute, and people will be on one minute, they have been sprayed to water. And so it's up to them if they want to take this extra seconds just to deliver their message. But all of this, again, the crease at this one like entire atmosphere. So this is quite difficult to replicate for someone who already did events before simply because most of the events in London, 99% of them, they are quite corporate, and they're quite serious. So I don't see anyone introducing something like this. And kind of like an electron to replicate this at the same time. Having said that, we do have now copycats. And obviously, like whatever we created, it's not rocket science. It's just I mean, it's just an idea that came from my experience. And some people saw it and so started and like literally like ripping off our statistics and the structure and the name and a lot of other things. And it was also eye opening experience. Because again, that's kind of like this. That's the reality. And that's how it works. And if you have something worth copying people will do it. But now, like I was a little bit kind of like upset about right, right in the beginning. But the one thing that I know people can create this, my crazy ideas that just keep coming up every single day. So that's why if something works for them, and if they help they're like canola community useful for founders, I mean, like great, just I wish they could create their own ideas.

Ollie Collard: 19:38

I love that. And I think you know, everyone is unique, you're unique. I'm unique. people listening to this are unique. And it's about how you create your own experiences that people can't really replicate. Yes, they can copy bits of it, but ultimately, you're injecting fun into the process. And also in regards to people copying you actually is Part of most validation point, it sounded like you firstly felt a bit upset about it, but then having time to reflect on that. It sounds like you've changed your tact a bit.

Vasily Alekseenko: 20:10

I'm trying to. I'm trying to let go. And also, your second part of the question in terms of how we work with like other community players. I personally, when I started this, I didn't see anyone who was doing something similar to I can look into spaces, my competitors, simply because as you just said, Everyone is unique. Everyone is doing their own thing. And so I attended quite a few of these events. And I enjoyed them for what they are. And we, like had very successful experience with collaboration with one another event organiser, and we did an event together, we had a couple of other conversations in terms of like, you know, like other communities, so we could just like, you know, like, try to do something together. And realistically, it just sounds like I do like this worth realistically, because the side is million times. When it comes to communities, I think the right approach is to collaborate because this is pre marketing. By collaboration, you just expand into the new audience. And so a lot of organisers, they do understand this, and that's why not like they're quite open to this. And so this year, we'll definitely want to have more new things happening. Word

Dr Becky Sage: 21:30

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Ollie Collard: 23:41

Yeah, definitely. I mean, at the events, they're there, we've kind of water pistols and not making everything so serious. I mean, in the name of the Joker, why so serious. And it's something that I think gives them a bit of a USP and gives them a bit of an edge in terms of their events and the community. They're building that they do have this uniqueness they have fun. Whilst it's very serious subjects about raising investment, why can't you have fun with it at the same time. So I think gamification and injecting some fun into the day to day or being a founder is really critical. Because sometimes you can just get bogged down in the detail and lose sight of what actually you're trying to achieve. So anything you can do to make it a bit more fun along the way is definitely going to lead to better outputs.

Dr Becky Sage: 24:30

I was definitely lucky in the early stages of my business, and actually even before that, that I was very much part of a community that was kind of a digital creative community. And of course that has a lot of game makers, a lot of designers within that community and I remember a good friend of mine actually said, like, why shouldn't the important things be fun? And I think that that's perhaps the key point to take away here that the fun doesn't just mean that it's hollow and kind of frivolous, the fun is actually helping It's helping to, like you said, build a USP for rare founders. But actually, it's building the confidence of those founders that are standing up to pitch. So it's actually really helping with impact. And I think if we can think about that, in terms of how we engage with our audience, then that can really help us as a business and help those people that you're there to try and help. Yeah,

Ollie Collard: 25:24

picking up on confidence, I think this is such a massive thing, Becky, I would honestly say this is probably the biggest barrier holding back founders, people often say it's, you know, money or lack of knowledge, or whatever it is. But actually, confidence is something which really kind of plagues a lot of founders. And I think if they were going into things with a bit more confidence, it would actually have much bigger ramifications for the success of their business. So I think anything that you can do to try and increase your confidence, whether that is, you know, practising your pitch, or employing a coach or mentor to work with you. And these are things that really can help you have a bigger impact and actually have more confidence in running your own business, you

Dr Becky Sage: 26:18

are speaking my language, Ali, I actually have a whole series of workshops and trainings that are and they're very interactive, but called founder first. And they're really about this piece of around increasing confidence, developing those kind of internal skills and your mindset. And this is so important, because if you don't have that, when you get understanding about how everything else works, and you get the the nuts and the bolts about what it is to build a business, you're not going to put those things into practice, if you haven't got that confidence that sits behind it. So I think you may be silly, like, we're all on the same page. And we're like, let's let's give confidence to founders. And a mentor of mine said that the most important trait for founders is humble confidence. So I just wanted to flag that too. So it's about being confident, but still having humility. And if you can find the balance between those two things, you're in a good place. Yeah,

Ollie Collard: 27:17

that's definitely check out the ego. Because that doesn't help anyone. But I think people just want to feel comfortable in their own skin. And it's okay to not have all the answers, because nobody does. And what I say to people is, you're definitely more capable than you think you are. And it's just that that sort of tipping point in their mindset of actually going right, I don't have all the solutions. But I can work through this and come up with the solutions based on my knowledge and experience and just going about things in the right way. Yeah,

Dr Becky Sage: 27:54

and I think that Vasily just inherently understood this, because he had his own challenges. He's not afraid to talk about those challenges that he had early on. So he really understands the need of entrepreneurs, which is why he can then create something in his own way that stands out in a sea of all these other events across the sector.

Ollie Collard: 28:17

Yeah, I mean, the events industry, post COVID is definitely alive and kicking again, which is great, because you know, it's very important, it can be quite isolating as an entrepreneur. And I think if you're going out there on the circuit, engaging with other founders and investors, it just gives you an added network. And also a sense of confidence that you're not doing this alone, even if you are a sole founder, there's other people that are going through the exact same challenges that you are at the same time. And I think that that just gives you an added layer of comfort in terms of being a founder. So I would always encourage people to try and go out and engage with events, on a sort of, you know, at least kind of a weekly basis, if possible, or once a month, for the very minimum,

Dr Becky Sage: 29:05

you learn a lot by being part of that ecosystem. And just getting yourself out there. It's something that you touched on when you were talking to Vasily was this idea of people copying good ideas. And I'm actually not surprised in this case, I guess that there is a sense of, oh, look, there's something you're working over there. There's something that entrepreneurs want, we're going to pick it up and copy it. And so wants to talk a little bit more about that, because I think it's something that many founders are really afraid of. And sometimes they might even hide their ideas, such that they don't get copied. But if you're hiding your ideas, you're not out there doing it. So it needs to be something that you overcome, but I guess to be aware of it and perhaps being aware of the positive aspects of being copied as much as the challenges that might come with that and how you overcome those challenges. So first of all, something I wanted to pick up on Is this idea of being having similar people in the market, especially those that have seen you and copied you is a validation point. So there is something there that it helps you to say we're doing something valuable, because if we weren't other people wouldn't even want to copy it in the first place.

Ollie Collard: 30:17

Great point, sir. Berkey, I think you're exactly bang on the money that, you know, nobody can replicate you in a carbon copy format. So you are bringing something unique to the table. But as you say, actually, copying the act of copying is a sign of validation that you're doing something, right. So actually, if you take it as a compliment, rather than sort of getting angry and upset about it, which is probably going to be your initial reaction, enables you to think, right, well, these are the new ideas that I want to bring about, and nobody can keep up with constantly copying people. So I think actually is a positive factor. Just going back to one of your previous points as well, I think if you're the kind of pre startup phase, where you've got this idea in your head, I would highly encourage you to go out and speak to as many people about the idea and the problem as possible, rather than sort of harbouring this idea, not talking to anyone. And just thinking that you're sitting on the next million dollar idea, because you're not, unfortunately, ideas are quite cheap. It's all about execution. I'd say you know, 99% is about execution. 1% is the idea.

Dr Becky Sage: 31:30

Yeah. What's the isn't there an Einstein quote about inspiration? And perspiration? Yeah, where did that inspiration, that idea? Great. But you need to actually be able to execute on it. And I think that's something I wanted to delve into a little bit further around that is looking at the different types of businesses, of course, it might be easy to say, well with an events, business, or how can we stop ourselves from, from kind of having all these people wash into the market, and then not really being able to get enough market share, and there's too much competition. But I think that staying unique when it's something that you know, a business like this is really important. And building the community. We've talked about this a lot already this season, about building communities. And it really was something that I felt by being unique, but silly and rare. founders are building this community of entrepreneurs. And that community piece is a little bit more intangible and potentially not as copyable as just the notion of let's do an event, that's fun. And that allows entrepreneurs to pitch.

Ollie Collard: 32:40

Building a community is incredibly hard work first and foremost. But if you're doing it in the right way, it's such a valuable asset to your business. If you're fostering connections between people in the community, making introductions, and just making everybody feel welcome, then that that essentially can't be copied. And on the note of kind of copying as well, and I think we kind of touched upon it before is actually it can be the basis for collaboration as well, because you can tap into a shared audience. And you know, the simple formula, that one on one, one plus one makes more than free, essentially, is quite a proven concept in business. So I think if people are copying, do take the positives from it. And also there could be scope there for collaboration as well. Yeah,

Dr Becky Sage: 33:30

absolutely. One thing I did want to mention with regard to this, and especially if you're if you're a business that's going down an investor route, you will often hear investors talking about your moat. So this is the moat like it would like the moat around the castle. What's the moat around your business? So what where is that gap that you have away from collaborators? And I think that it's important for you to understand what your moat is. So what is it that's keeping you ahead? Or what is it that's keeping you having a share of the market that share of the market that you need in order to create get to your business goals? So thinking about that, in this case, and like you said, you can even having partnerships with people who are doing something similar that might be part of your moat, because you've got those partnerships, you can actually then bring more revenue in. We talked about the uniqueness in this case, and how and the building of the community and all the work that's gone into that all of those things are going to put you in a position where maybe there's a gap from other people who are new entrants into the marketplace.

Ollie Collard: 34:40

Yeah, it's a really important thing for founders to think about, because this is essentially the long term viability of your business, isn't it? What's going to keep you ahead for the next five to 10 years. So you know, it's going to be obviously different for different businesses. It could be in relation to your IP it could be in relation to your business model. or there are so many different areas which you can be unique in. And obviously you might have more than one moat around your business. So I think it's a really good kind of searching question that founders need to think about early on, on their journey. So

Dr Becky Sage: 35:18

this business is still in relatively early stages. In fact, it's an early stage business, then we would often interview and that's because as you mentioned, in the first part of this interview, that Vassili took the opportunity to come and make the most of the fact that you actually had an open slot for interviewing, and he jumped in at the last minute. So he took that opportunity, something that he's learned to do as an entrepreneur, I've got to get the feeling he's he's always done that it's part of his entrepreneurial characteristics. But he has learned a lot along the way, despite the fact that the business is still only a few months in, mostly because he's been there and done it before. So he's had this lesson of being a serial entrepreneur. So now it's time for us to go and listen to the challenges that Wassily has faced and what he's learned through all of his experiences as an entrepreneur.

Vasily Alekseenko: 36:22

I was trying to do too much and too fast. With my previous company with fogging, I was convinced that we will be able to take the world from the day one, and we wanted to build the marketplace, that's what would have everything a wellness related multiple languages, currencies and structures globally. And I didn't see this as an issue back then. Now going through this experience, I realised that I wasted a lot of valuable time and a lot of resources, obviously, like all of this development also cost money. But for anyone who developed anything who's listening right now, they would know that it's all takes time, and things are normally take much longer than you initially expect. And that was definitely one of my biggest problems. And this is what I'm, it's very difficult to avoid this, I think if you're having like an like, if you're ambitious, because you just think, oh, you know, like, I can do everything and doesn't matter, like bring it on, bring it on. But again, you will have 24/7. And that's why you know, you also limited in your skills, you can't realistically do everything without getting other people involved. And then also like request resources. So this is what I'm definitely trying to do differently. This time. For example, with our events. We started in London, and we want to test all the different concepts in London before will start expanding into other cities in the UK and especially into other countries.

Ollie Collard: 38:07

I liked that. And it sounds like you're now walking rather than trying to run before you were walking previously. I hope so. Building a business can be all consuming as you as you well know, what's one sacrifice that you've made either consciously or subconsciously?

Vasily Alekseenko: 38:27

One sacrifice, I think there is definitely more than one sacrifice, simply because right now, I think my businesses is all I have. And it's definitely number one, number one priority on my list, then I have my dogs, then I have my partner, and then pretty much everything else. And I'm not ashamed to admit this because again, I know why I do this. And I do understand that realistically, you know, what, maybe 10 years from now or 15 years, I might regret some of my decisions. But as of today, I'm happy with it and I'm happy to pay the price, whatever this might be just because I'm working on my dream. And I don't want for anything to stand on the way but this obviously means that I had to sacrifice and like time with my friends with I don't know like with my family like I haven't seen my dad for more than a year and I was initially planning to go and see him in December then I thought January now we'll have this big event coming in March. So I think maybe after this event and but that's again, it is kind of know like what it is and I don't think my experience is any unique. Every founder is going through the same and it's just again, you suddenly have like all the success have a price. Like all the successful people if you are going to their biography, you will see that they pay this price for being an electrician Famous, I don't know, with electronic families, divorces, kids and health and what I will liken to like whatever this is. So yeah, health is another thing that I definitely have been neglected. I put weight over COVID and steel and electron to get rid of it. But at the same time, I now know for a fact that no way I'm going to go to the gym because I don't want to waste my time in an all. Again, I'm happy to pay for it.

Ollie Collard: 40:27

It's a conscious decision is what you're saying. Excellent. Wassily, I'm really interested to know about some of your personal barriers as well, that you faced along the way I know you're from Russia, and you spoke there about going back to see your dad, and I know you're in a same sex relationship with your partner. has this impacted your business in any way, either positively or negatively?

Vasily Alekseenko: 40:51

On the negative side, like the fact that I'm Russian, that's obviously I mean, I don't think this like today doesn't really make much of a difference. But when the whole thing happened between Russia and Ukraine two years ago, that's when I actually know like, I quit my full time job. And well, I really had traction for foregin. And my plan was to get investment on the wasteful destruction. And I left my job, Mike. So first of January, it's actually was like two years couple of days ago, I left I left my job. And I was confident that in three months, I would be able to get an investment but no one like literally like nominal talk to me. And all the investors are reached out to me, it was complete radio silence. And I still don't know why did this exactly happen? Why did because I was Russian, or it was just like something else going on. But it was quite tough, because obviously, I don't live in Russia. I'm like, most responsible for our government and what making a decision that of course, that they make, but this intellect it you know, like it affected me living living in another country. And it definitely, I think in the beginning, when it all happened, quite a few investors were definitely confused about all the restrictions. And I'm pretty sure that they even they didn't know if they were allowed to happen or like to do any business with like anyone with Russian background. And I definitely know what could do a few months to for this things to to get clear. But for me, like it was tough, it was tough, because again, I left my job, I put everything into this business. And this was outside of my control. And I definitely got depressed out. No luck, no luck as a result of this. Because again, it's like nothing was happening. But it's all kind of like what part of the journey and to be honest, like I wouldn't change a thing. It goes again, I went through this, I learned from this, I definitely got much stronger as a result of this. And this forced me to look at other alternative ways of getting to the same point B from point A.

Dr Becky Sage: 43:15

Ali, I was really glad that you asked that question, because identity actually really does often impact whether or not a founder has all of the opportunities open to them. And in particularly, we talk about it a lot within the investment space. So let's delve a little bit more into how identity might impact investment. What's What's the deal hourly?

Ollie Collard: 43:42

Unfortunately, I think it does have quite a significant impact on your chances of raising investment, which being perfectly honest, is completely unfair. And it it shouldn't happen. I mean, I've heard anecdotal stories of people where they've, they've been pitching investment events, and they've turned up and somebody's gone to them, or were you the cleaner. And it's like, Jesus, this level of discrimination. And all of these barriers that people have to overcome to even get on to the centre stage is ridiculous. And this is why I love entrepreneurship, Becky, because it's such a level playing field in terms of anybody can have an idea and execute on it. And you know, it doesn't discriminate against you based on that. But there are lots of barriers that are put in founders way which we really do have to break down and I think in this day and age, it shouldn't be happening. There's there's some good movement are seen in the sector. But we're we're far from there. Yeah,

Dr Becky Sage: 44:48

unfortunately, more investment goes into a very, very narrow subset of individuals and that's people who have gone to elite universities who are white who are male. It's a big Challenge. It's something that I've been part of many conversations about, particularly as a female founder, and I was when I was a female founder back in 2014. And so recognising that there has been a shift, certainly in dialogue. It's difficult to say how much of this is lip service, because we certainly see that. And one thing that I have very much noticed is also that a lot of diversity and inclusion initiatives can backfire. So we often see, ultimately little, little bubbles forming, and people talking into an echo chamber. And, particularly for me, something I felt as a female founder was, I ended up being in all of these rooms where I was talking as a female founder, instead of talking as somebody who like with a technology with an innovation with a business. And so you spend a lot of time and energy kind of being pigeon holed in that way. It did give me a platform at times, and it gave me a support network. But it actually doesn't necessarily help you. And more broadly, with diversity and inclusion initiatives, they have shown that if there is anything where affirmative action is in place, that the people who get through something via affirmative action, often then struggle, not because they don't have the skills, but because they know that they're there because they fulfil a quota rather than they're there, because we're going back to the confidence thing, right doesn't really build your confidence, if you feel like, I'm just here, because I'm a woman, I'm just here, because I don't know, like, if somebody is of a certain race, or neurodivergent, or disabled, or whatever else it might be. Yeah,

Ollie Collard: 46:44

I mean, it's a real issue back here, I think, you know, 10 years on from being that female founder in 2014. to Now, it sounds like, you know, a bit of progress is being made. But as I say, before, I think we've still got a very long way to go. And I think, as you say, there's lots of good talk. But a lot of these events are a bit of a talking shop with the same people attending from the, from the ecosystem having the same conversations to the same people. And is this really impacting change, particularly when, as you say, we're, we're using positive discrimination, to hand select the people that should be there.

Dr Becky Sage: 47:22

There are some statistics that say that there there is change happening. But actually, the, it's very, very difficult to see if there's real change happening. So some of these stats which come came from the British business bank in 2023, include that 13% of first time equity deals went to all female founder teams in 2022. So that's a big difference from where we were even two or three years ago. However, if you look under that, only 2% of funding is going to all female teams. So even if 13% of deals are going to them, I need to present a funding are so you're getting less money by a significant amount, per deal. And then we had 10% going to all ethnic minority teams. And again, this is first time equity deals in 2020. Do so that again, that is a shift. But we still have like this 2% of funding that we're seeing for all female founders. And I think it's something like point 6% for black women. So you know, really low. And I'm sorry, I haven't got that statistic in front of me. But it's a roundabout that. So we're seeing, there's only 2% of funding, that's the same as it was a decade ago. So we're all kind of putting this energy in saying that we're doing things that that are making a difference. But we're still seeing only 2% of funding going into all female teams. We are seeing more going into teams with at least one female founder, I think it's a lot more common now to see entrepreneurs wanting to build their teams with a more diverse leadership team and founding team. And, again, I don't have all the stats there. But 20 27% of deals went to these teams with at least one female founders. So we are seeing an increase in that side of things, at least.

Ollie Collard: 49:17

What it boils down to is this. People want to engage with people who look like acts like think like themselves. And if they don't see that, then they're just going to be turned off. And I think that's what we really need to do. And I'd encourage founders to actually go back and listen to a previous episode, which was in season four, and that was interviewing Andy I am from Angel Investing school. And basically his company is all about democratising angel investment. So making it more accessible and inclusive. So you have more angels that are more representative of society. Obviously, that's just an angel level. I mean, There are some VCs out there doing some good work like Aida ventures, and others in the sector as well. But we're still a long way away from where we need to be. Yeah,

Dr Becky Sage: 50:12

and we've also just had this announcement from the government about increasing the threshold for what's defined as a high net worth individual, which essentially means whether or not people are able to do angel investing. And the debt which is going to raise the barrier from 100k salary per year income per year, to 170k. And I don't know about you orally, but on my LinkedIn, I've seen a lot of this data coming out, it has a massive impact on the number of in terms of gender divide, at least, and I'm sure in terms of other types of divides as well, in terms of who falls into this category. So it's going to knock out many, many women who might be angel investors, from being able to be defined as high net worth individuals, which of course, if again, if if you don't look like if you don't experience the same things, as a founder has experienced, and you're not looking through the same perspective, this often is why people don't get funded. So if we're removing the number of potential female investors, then that's gonna have an impact on what gets funded.

Ollie Collard: 51:24

Yeah, and I mean, there are some people campaigning to get this reverse, but I don't know where that's gonna lead to, I think ultimately, as you say, it's going to, because of the gender pay gap is going to mean that less women are going to be qualified to be angel investors, which means, you know, less investment is going to go to women and women led businesses, which is going to have a backwards effect on the direction that we need to travel in. Absolutely.

Dr Becky Sage: 51:52

So I guess I've been on my soapbox for a little too long at this point. But we'll, I just wanted to talk about what can actually be done. And related to that point, we were just making, promoting diversity at the top really helps. So this is diversity in the decision makers. So on those investment teams, of course, we talked before as well about obviously, as an entrepreneurial team, bringing in a more diverse group of founders has, you know, there's there's many benefits to doing that as well. But certainly promoting diversity within the investment landscape is important, fostering inclusion in the investment pipeline. And when I work with on inclusion, I talk a lot about cultures of belonging. And I think this links back to, you know, what Vassili is doing by having different types of communities that are working to make people feel confident. That's actually what we really mean, in terms of fostering inclusion, it's does somebody walk in and feel like you met you said this earlier? Do they feel like they can just be in their own skin, be themselves and come in and kind of build their confidence by being part of this community? Are they gonna go in and just be knocked down and down and down by all the barriers that exist by and a lot of the times, these barriers are quite invisible, so it really eats away at somebody's self esteem. So I think that fostering inclusion is incredibly important. And then we also need to embrace transparency and accountability. So being able to speak up about what's going on being able to actually get real information and real data, because I think it's there's often lots of stories. And if you've so you talked about that one about being mistaken for a cleaner, and I know that there's other people who've been mistaken for waitresses, and there's been other you know, I've been mistaken for kind of assistants and stuff like that before. And honestly, I would think this is an urban myth. If I hadn't actually been there, when these things had happened on multiple occasions, like we hear the story so much that we think maybe this isn't even real, this is just something that's going red, but then you see it happening. And it's like, Ah, this is still going on. Like, somebody looks at somebody else and says, you don't really pass for what the picture in my head of somebody who's in a leadership role is. And so I think being being more transparent, being more accountable, telling the stories is really important. So there's a few things that can be done very top level, and hopefully, we will start to see more of a change. All we can do is keep banging the drum, I guess, and keep building our own cultures of belonging. Yeah.

Ollie Collard: 54:32

And what I would say is, if you've had this experience, then let us know we will happily share your voice on the podcast because these stories are unfortunately commonplace. And the more we talk about it, the more we get the word out there, the more change is likely to happen. So do get in touch with us if you've experienced something similar, just lastly, on the issue of kind of having diversity in leadership. One interesting anecdote when I used to work back at the Prince's Trust was, I had four women above me to the CEO. And that is incredibly rare. And I definitely embrace that effect. And I enjoy working with women in senior positions on a par as well. And I think if more organisations took that approach to having not just women, but diversity at the top, then we would have a lot better outcomes.

Dr Becky Sage: 55:32

And I think what I really love about what bacilli is doing is that it does feel different, it does feel like it's a different kind of room for people to step into, feels like there's a, there's just a different energy. And this is what we mean often when we talk about kind of cultures and communities that are being built and that are inclusive, and that let different people in, who maybe really don't feel like they fit in certain other environments. So let's go back and find out what's in store for the future of rare founders.

Vasily Alekseenko: 56:10

I mean, the future is bright, and the future is bleak for sure. And what I mentioned before about ambitious founders, I'm definitely one of them. And you want to take over the world with this. And what I want what I want, I want for what we do to exist in every single big startup hub in every single country, where founders would go regarding, again, middle lesson, or like they might be travelling the US, they would go to New York, and they would look at what we actually do in there. Because they know that they know what kind of experience they would get if they go and attend this events. And the only difference that will be for them is no like, it just felt like a different community. And so different connections. So what we work tried to do in terms of community, I kind of, like unlock my ambition is to actually get there, where people would feel that they are part of the community that will be connected, regardless of the country they came from. And so as a result of this, I do want to help some very promising world changing startups to get to life, I give up on my dream of changing the world through the corporate wellness startup. And once I realised that, with doing what we do, we can actually have a much bigger impact by helping this founders because like, seriously, like, the quality of founders who come to our events, and some ideas, sometimes they hear that's just mind blowing. And it's just amazing. When you feel that you know what you're, you know, like you're part of the journey, and you can actually, like help them throw like on like, whatever means. And so another thing that we started doing, and we will be expanding more into this, one of the site is actually going back to monetization question that you asked me in the beginning, what I realised very quickly, after starting with events, that's a lot of investors struggling with getting up to date and kind of like reliable data on startups just to kind of like filter and see what are the startups that are relevant for them. And so right now, there are quite a few resources like CrunchBase, as obviously the biggest one, a lot of venture capital funds, they accept pitch decks through their website. The problem is CrunchBase has a lot of data, but all of this data is all dated. And with venture capital, the bigger the company, the more applications to get through on a daily basis. And sometimes by the time they will get your something that is relevant for them, which can be a half a few months old, but for founder's this few months, it's it's a very, very big period of time, because a lot of things could have changed within this timeline. And this thing's potentially could have been an indicator for investor to actually start the conversation with these companies. So what we want to do as a result of all of our events and expansion globally, is to create CrunchBase for real estate startups from procedure zero say where the data is life, or kind of more up to date. And all this data is pretty much show will be driven by your community. So founders investors, meeting at our events, conferences, whatever we will be organising. So I believe that once we achieve this, this again, it will help investors to identify good opportunities and also will help founders to actually get in front of the investors.

Ollie Collard: 59:54

And on the same note, looking ahead, how do you see the world of early stage funding changing Over the next sort of five to 10 years,

Vasily Alekseenko: 1:00:02

I do hope that in a couple of years, after all this high valuations driven by AI and technology, or what the couple are, or would like over the last few years, will bring things back to reality, simply because the way things are working today, if you're early stage startup, it's, it's very difficult, it's very difficult because you can be, you can be resourceful, resourceful, but everything has its limits. And if you're building something on the technology side, it does require investment you otherwise, it's very difficult to like, expand and get to the next level. And right now, if you don't have any revenue, and if you don't have any connections, it's close to impossible to get any investments. And obviously, this will create a lot of like it will create a gap in the industry will like within the next few years, the same like I read somewhere that when it comes to venture capital venture capital this year, they need to start deploying the capital, because a lot of them have been sitting on money for a while, and they will have a mandate. And if they don't invest money until a certain period of time, they have to, they have to give it back. But the fact that in 2023, or many of them didn't make any decisions didn't move anywhere, this will create a gap for them in the next five years, in the in the pipeline. So this year, things definitely should start moving. And I do hope that this pressure that investors have, it will bring their expectation a little bit down from early stage founders. Because otherwise, it's just like, it's very difficult. I mean, statistics speak for themselves, it's like their heart.

Ollie Collard: 1:02:01

I've come to one of your events for the first time. You've selected me to do a pitch, I'm very hesitant. What advice would you give to me.

Vasily Alekseenko: 1:02:10

I mean, I don't think you would raise your hand if you are very hesitant. Because again, no one is forced to get on the stage. But the same advice I give to everyone and I mentioned this already, that when people get on the stage, they should just like, let go of their fear too often a lack of being perfect. And they should see this as their opportunity just to practice. And this is just their own challenge. Because realistically, no one cares how good they patients, if they're good, or they're bad. If anyone understood this, there's almost like this completely another problem. But this is just for themselves. And it's just kind of like an like their personal win if they just get over this fear and do this. But to be completely honest, I never had this issue we had, we had an event in Dublin, that was completely different experience. I had to force people to get on the stage to pitch for business. In London, I have to fight people off because like everyone wants to have this opportunity. Because again, there isn't that many opportunities in London where you can actually do this. Interesting.

Ollie Collard: 1:03:24

One of the key parts of our podcast is asking our featured founders to distil down just one piece of advice that you'd pass on to an early stage founder. What would that one piece of advice be?

Vasily Alekseenko: 1:03:39

Find ways to do things without money? A lot of investors they do look at co founders who are resourceful that's like, again approached us quite a few times. And only, like, for me being resourceful, wasn't necessarily my choice is just something that I had to do when I started this event. I didn't have a venue, I didn't have any money for paying for the rental for the marketing of or for anything else. And I still managed to find the venue. Like literally I went to I went to Green Park and everyone who are told to say due to its homeless, like you're wasting your time, no one Why would anyone give you any for free. And I knew this, this is where investors were and I wanted to have something wrong Green Park. And I was like, I'm just gonna go on just we'll have a look. And I spent about three hours to work walking around. And so after this three hours, the HUDs for the New York for free. There were a couple of galleries that obviously have customers during the day but in the evening they absolutely empty and so for them the interest was to get your oldest into the room. And so there were a couple of coffee shops we eventually did this event. Like initially it was John Jules by Green Park and So the reason why I sold this opportunities because I understood how the business works. And so for them specifically during the day there will be still with customers from people who work there. But in the evenings, the empty, and they were pretty interested in hosting my event there for free. But for me to go through his experience is just like, we just opened my eyes and I was like bloody hell, you can actually like you can do this without money. And then from this moment, is just started getting like bigger and bigger. And as of today, I didn't spend any money apart from money on like props for the for the event, all the venues we had, we didn't pay a penny for the stuff, because everything we did was in the interests of like over the venue. And so actually managed to make money on top of this. And I was lucky enough to get quite a bit of help from from volunteers. But then again, this is also part of understanding what actually resourceful means, trust me, I'm being tired, like, I'm tired to being resourceful. Like, I cannot wait just to go somewhere and just pay for the venue without any negotiations. But this is something that all the founders need to, like, understand. They obviously like everyone has a different use case. But they need to understand that you actually can get progress without having the seminar or connections or resources or like money, whatever that says, you just need to open up your mind and think outside of the box.

Ollie Collard: 1:06:35

Yeah, I love that. If you don't ask you don't get right, exactly. Personally, where can people find you online and read more about what you're doing? We're for our founders.

Vasily Alekseenko: 1:06:45

So if they want to find me online, myself, specifically, they can find me on LinkedIn, I'm quite active on LinkedIn. And if they want to see more about what we did with red founders, its array of founders.com. And they will be able to see all the events that we're holding in their facilities.

Ollie Collard: 1:07:02

Thank you so much for your time this afternoon. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:07:10

Wassily has shown great resourcefulness in terms of being able to make things happen, by opening his mind and thinking outside of the box, I feel like this is just such a mantra for him that you just have to get a break out of that mindset that says things have to be done a certain way and think outside of the box. So I want you to have kind of a fun conversation with you narrowly about like, what can we do, you know, when we don't have maybe the resources that we want, we don't have the money to do what we need to do in the beginning. But we really want to get things moving. And I think this is something that many entrepreneurs find themselves in this position where they're like, I can see where I would get to just over the horizon. But how do I get to that first point? So what sort of things can founders do? If they're kind of at the beginning, and they don't have the money, in fact, don't even need to be at the beginning, right? They might be wanting to do something new, and they're not sure how to move on without resources. So yeah, what sort of things can entrepreneurs do? So

Ollie Collard: 1:08:15

an exercise I like to do Becky, is completely flip that question on its head. So I would say, imagine you had a billion dollar budget? What are you going to do with that budget? What campaigns you're going to run? Who are you going to employ? Right? What is like, what is this big vision that you have? Because what that does is it just takes out the the the lack of resources that you may have at the moment, and it puts you into a bit of a an abundance mindset of thinking, right? What is this goal? What is this vision? What am I actually trying to achieve? And what you realise is that there be some things in there that probably don't require any money. And so it's just a different way of thinking about that the same problem, but just with removing some of the barriers along the way. Yeah,

Dr Becky Sage: 1:09:05

I love that. Because I think it's definitely a trap that people fall into, especially once they get into that cycle. I've seen this often, when founders are thinking, I don't have any money, so I can't do anything. So like, I just need to, you know, they get very, very trapped and, and by switching your mindset and starting to really look at that big vision that also kind of puts you into a creative space in terms of your mindset, it takes you out of like being trapped in that kind of just very linear thinking and very kind of practical right now. And it bursts that box open so that you can really start to vision where you want to go and and then new ideas come from that they flow in and and you know, I think I'm sure there's people listening that are like oh abundance mindsets, whatever. but it really, really works. I'm like, I'm someone who comes from a scientific background. And I often like to think that I'm quite rational in my thinking, but I've had to do a lot of work to really embrace more of those, that mindset switch and, and thinking about that abundant mindset and being open to opportunities that might arise, that are beyond what seemed to be initially in the realms of plausibility

Ollie Collard: 1:10:29

100% Becky, I think it, it doesn't come overnight. But I think the more you practice it, the more it becomes part of your your daily life and becomes a habit and ultimately rewires those those pathways in your brain to enable you to think like that. I'd also add that, you know, there's things that you can do for free as well, it could be hiring an intern from University on a eight week placement, it could be utilising some AI to help you do some very heavy lifting. So there's definitely things that you can do for free. And then also, it's just about reaching out to people in your network and just asking them, you'll be very surprised how many people are willing to help if you are respective of their time. You give them a reason why you're specifically asking them. And then thirdly, you're being very specific about the question that you ask. So go and do it as a trial, go and ask free people free things that you want. And let us know the results. Yeah,

Dr Becky Sage: 1:11:32

let us know. I want to hear what happens out there. I think I need to go and do that too. Gonna gonna do that this week. And I, the thing I want you to pick up on with that as well is that going back to your point about being able to get into that bigger picture, being able to see the vision be very clear about why you're, why you're asking this and where you're going with the ask, and having that clarity of vision. You know, we know that this is a leadership and entrepreneurial skill is clarity of vision, you have to spend time like actually nurturing that. And if you have that, people will come with you, they will buy into that ask if you're still very like not sure if coming back to confidence, as we were talking about earlier, if you don't have confidence in where you're going, then when you ask that question, it's going to come across that you don't have confidence in where you're going. And people will be like, Well, maybe not this time, because they don't see that this could lead to something bigger, they don't see that they're unlocking something really important for you. And it might just feel like a bit of a drag. So it I think having that vision and that clarity in that belief is such an important step in terms of that process of thinking going to ask for something from other people. Such

Ollie Collard: 1:12:46

a great point, Becky, I think you have to be very clear, as you say on that vision. And you know, people don't obviously buy what you do they buy why you do it. So if you are really selling that vision, then you're going to attract the right people into your business and enable you to really grow the business because you've got the right support in place.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:13:06

Yeah. So if you're interested in knowing more about rare founders and Wassily go ahead and check out the links. And now, Vassili has a question for you. So let's go over and listen to that question.

Vasily Alekseenko: 1:13:21

So my question is, always the being a founder is super challenging. And I met quite a few founders who joked that if they knew how challenging this journey would be, they would never do it. And I remember like, myself, I will showcase I will say in the same, but on the way here, I thought that regardless of the challenges, this has been the best experience in my life so far. And so that's the question, if you knew what challenges the Shawnee would bring to you, would you still do this or you will potentially just stay at your own work full time job and to be more secure about your day to day life?

Dr Becky Sage: 1:14:06

Thanks for that facili. We'll get that question out to you on the socials. So do make sure you go and answer the question for us. And speaking of questions, Ali, what are people saying about the last episode from Felix at shazzy?

Ollie Collard: 1:14:20

So last time, we had a really interesting question from Felix at kin, founder of share Z. And he wanted to know, what are you going to achieve this year? So we ran a really interesting poll on LinkedIn. There were four main options to choose from a personal development goal, a business goal, something that's health and wellness related, or something completely different. We've had the results back and a staggering 83% of you were really focused in on your business goals for 2024, which is not entirely surprising. And yeah, People were focused on personal development, and health and wellness as well. But yeah, really unsurprising that everybody is really focused in on achieving one of their big, hairy, audacious goals for their business. In 2024, we had some interesting comments. One comment that really stood out was from Gemma Johnson. She is a founder of a sports tech marketplace. And she was very focused in on raising her pre seed round. So she was gonna go off and listen to the episode with Felix, given all of his fundraising successes, and we also recommended looking back at some of the other marketplace episodes that we featured in season five, which include the likes of Yup, green works more happy, and of course shares as well. So really interesting to see what everybody is focused on for 2024. And

Dr Becky Sage: 1:15:57

Ollie, tell us about our next guest.

Ollie Collard: 1:16:01

We've got an amazing person, Bonnie, who is the founder of SOS dance global. She had a dream when she was younger to be a professional dancer, and she's worked with some of the best people in the industry. She's now on her second business, SOS dance global, which is a platform and a community which is really changing people's lives. So stay tuned for this one.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:16:27

I can't wait to hear that. Thank you everyone for listening. If you like what you've heard, please leave us a review on Apple podcasts. And don't forget that there's a big selection of previous episodes. Just search founded and grounded on your favourite podcast player. Thank you for listening to find it and grounded with Ollie collard and Dr. Becky sage. Don't forget to press that follow button to help us to grow the show.