Hannah Smith

Taking Windward public in London was a significant milestone, but the landscape has shifted dramatically. The startup and VC world is facing a silent recession as severe as 2008, yet it’s flying under the radar. Funding is scarce, and many promising companies are quietly closing their doors. But this isn't just about survival—it's about adapting and thriving. In tough times, resilience is key. The startups that emerge from this storm will be the next Airbnb, Uber, or Microsoft. How are we positioning ourselves to not just survive but lead in this new era? For us - it’s very clear. Leveraging our blue chip customer base, proprietary data and mature tech platform to build #generetiveai first products (stay tuned!) Don’t take anything as trivial . Success requires a combination of so many factors. Every day is day 1! Link to the full piece on Forbes : https://lnkd.in/e-5kENaT #wnwd

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If a VC can't take 5-15 minutes to truly understand the market you've spent years dissecting—they're not the right fit. Not every problem is 'obvious', especially when you’re innovating in niche spaces. That’s exactly why they’re hidden gems waiting to be discovered.💎 You’re not looking for just any VC; you’re looking for the one who sees the value in your deep dive.

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49 founders and senior startup leaders respond to a survey from Sifted on the relationship between founders and VCs. Are expectations off from the start as VCs try too hard to pander to their founders with over promises of "value-add" and extensive platform teams? Do founders need to be reminded of their primary role - execution?

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Founders, what would you want to hear from a VC who loves your idea but is at capacity? It's a good problem to have, but right now at Developer Capital we have a full pipeline to diligence of incredible Founders and innovative ideas. Deal memos take him, talking to customers takes him, helping existing Portco's takes time. Time is our gating factor. But we keep meeting with Founders who's ideas we think are worth doing the work on. My current approach is to meet with these founders, but be transparent about our backlog. If they dont hear back from us for a couple weeks they shouldnt freak out. Is this the right approach? What would you want to hear from the VC in that spot? #VentureCapital #Founders #Startups #VCAdvice #Entrepreneurship #InvestorInsights #StartupJourney #Funding #Transparency #DeveloperCapital

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I’m constantly asked for advice for first-time startup founders… and I've always struggled to boil it down to what really matters, because there is too much to say. The harsh reality is this: the vast majority of founders have literally no idea what they are doing, across any (every) dimension. I certainly didn't! And 3 companies in, I only sort of know what I'm doing, on some things, sometimes. So what do you tell first-time founders? How is anyone ever successful? How are great companies ever built? It turns out it’s simple: your product or your go-to-market motion have to be so overwhelmingly brilliant that they make up for your mistakes everywhere else. So focus on those 2 things, and if you’re lucky, the rest of your incompetence won’t matter :)

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🚨 Fundraising Alert 🚨 Top tier companies raising Pre-Seed to Series A in the next 6 months should apply to Focal where they can pitch almost all their prospective investors at once. Demo day is on May 16th. ✅ Applying takes 7 mins ✅ Previous applicants raised from funds like Sequoia, Balderton, Episode 1, Lightspeed and GV. ✅ Even if you find fundraising easy, this is a way to build added momentum. You can apply here: https://lnkd.in/eTdTtSw7

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If you're looking for VC funding in the UK, check out FundFinder.live If you're one of those people that likes to just play with all the circles on an Apple Watch because it's super satisfying, but struggle to pick one because playing with the interface is too satisfying, then maybe don't go to this website :) FundFinder has a similar interface to Apple Watches, but on web. Thank you Hector Mason, Jack Richardson, and the team at Focal for sharing this. Simultaneously showing me a very useful tool that could save me time in research, but also could waste lots of my time thanks to my brain (not sure if ADD or something else). And thank you to Concept Ventures and Justified Studio for building it. Oliver Kicks - who deserves the credit? #random #fundraising #startup #vc

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Trigger warning. UK founders to VCs: "you (generally) suck". I was taken aback by the intensity of comments made during an exit fireside chat organised by our friends at ARGO, Jeff and Aneesh. Room full of founders, we're talking about the importance of starting exit planning very early (say 3 years+ prior to exit) and the message is: "I would never feel comfortable bringing this topic up to my board, I just would not trust them to handle any of it well". Ensued a discussion about Tier II board vs. Tier III boards, how much VC boards suck, how VC's just do not know how to interact with founders and how a number of key topics are best actively avoided. Nods across the room. The Tier I Board, the kind of place where you could actually bring up strategic topics like, you know, "who might actually want to buy us some day and how do we start building the right kind of relationships today" seemed to be a sort of faraway land, as if sitting with the Knights of the Round Table or the Jedi High Council would actually be easier to achieve. Damn. So we can say all we want about founder-friendly blah blah but if this is still the prevalent reality for UK and European founders, what the heck are we doing and when do we start the topic of "being a great board member" seriously? We need to collectively get out shit together and start training investors to be better board members.

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💡 Sunday read. Was catching up on some reading today and enjoyed this TechCrunch article with Marc Lore. His comments about startups and taking risk - specifically seeking out risk specifically - is insightful. From the article 👇 "But startups are very different than big companies. When you’re at a big company like Walmart [whose U.S. e-commerce business Lore ran after selling it one of his companies], it’s all about incremental improvement. There’s no incentive to take risk. As a startup founder, chances are you’re going to die. Chances are you are going to die every day that you’re living and doing this startup. The probability is 80%, with only a 20% chance of this actually working. So you have to take that into account when you’re making decisions. You have to seek opportunities to take risk, to reduce your risk of dying. The status quo is the worst thing you can do. Doing nothing is the most risk you can possibly take." Full article here https://lnkd.in/gQhuyeiu

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One of the best pieces of advice to founders as they’re about to pitch VCs “Be dumber” 1. Much more common to lose people or open up a random can of worms than to wow someone with some overly complex point 2. Simplifying something into plain English is a form of mastery

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Is “launch early” bad advice? I always thought it was a cliche VC tagline… but (annoyingly) it actually works. We launched Accend (YC S23) publicly a couple of weeks ago with our press announcement in Axios, and the effects we’ve seen are incredible. More people booking demos, reaching out, wanting to join our team. Of course, it helps to have a product that does what it says and a line up of customers to give us more credibility. The hard part about launching early is learning how to separate the noise from substance. More people are booking calls with me through the link in my bio - but a lot of those conversations don’t go anywhere and aren’t a good fit for Accend. Even though it’s easy to get starry-eyed seeing the metrics go up, more demos doesn’t mean more conversions and more sales. You have to ringfence the core audience you’re trying to serve - for us, that’s fintech platforms and banks struggling with manual KYB - and double click into it. It takes a lot of focus and discipline to avoid getting distracted, but all-in-all it’s been a net-positive throwing ourselves into the spotlight. So even if you don’t feel 100% ready, just launch. You can always course-correct later.

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Honest confession- Most VC’s won’t admit but they hate it when they lose a startup to another fund. The most common response I hear is - “We only need to do 2-3 deals a year. Our model accounts for it." and they blame the market and founders.  I look at it very differently. There are 2 reasons why I would miss a deal. 1. First, if it's beyond my control—usually due to a deal structure that doesn't fit my fund model, like a high valuation. I would not worry about this but if it starts to happen too much - I need to rethink that maybe I need a larger fund. 2. If it's not beyond the fund model – the truth is I actually wanted to do it and I lost it to another fund here I always ask myself these questions-  - Did I see it late? Maybe my access needs improvement. - Did I move too slowly? Time to hustle more.Is my brand lacking? How can I strengthen my presence as a VC? - Did I misread the market and the founder chose someone else? I need to develop a deeper thesis and stay informed. VC funds are also like startups. You need to build a moat just like startups do. We keep asking founders what their moat is—but we need to ask ourselves the same question. If you want to succeed over 10-15 years you need to be self critical and keep evolving from year to year. #vc #fund #startups

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Question for all the founders in my network: What tools are you using for your customer waitlists? 💡 I've seen everything from simple one page websites to more developed integrated engagement/management platforms. Keen to know what people think is good! #founders #vc #startup

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Food for Thought: The Great Pivot Debate 🤔🛋️ As I look at the landscape of startups, including some reflections on Fr8Labs (we're doing okay for now, thankfully!), the idea of pivoting often comes up. It's like that moment in Friends when Ross is desperately trying to pivot the couch up a narrow staircase. Pivoting is a tough decision—it's about finding balance. On one hand, there’s resilience and the drive to push forward; on the other, the agility to adapt and change direction when needed. But let’s be real, sometimes the staircase just isn't built for pivoting, especially when you have a foundation of customers and a growing pipeline. Is pivoting always an option? Or are there times when it's just not possible to shout "Pivot!" and expect things to turn around? Curious to hear your thoughts and experiences with this pivot dilemma! #startups #resilience #adaptability #pivot #entrepreneurship #startuplife #Friends Week 14 of 26 Weekly Posts Challenge (https://lnkd.in/gXTFNTHT).

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What makes a great VC investor? Just spoke with a seasoned investor on what makes a great VC. His opinion: 1 - Trusts founders to execute: knows they’re doing the real work 2 - Provides capital and backs it up when needed 3 - Asks the right questions and helps steer, without taking the wheel Thoughts?

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At Equal Ventures, we’re heavy investors in marketplaces, but often find that VCs mistake any transactional business model for a marketplace This can be REALLY dangerous, so we’ve codified the differences for marketplaces from brokers and storefronts The strategic sources of competitive advantage are different for each of these models, as are the methods to win, so it’s incredibly important to know which game you are playing to be able to win https://lnkd.in/ezuSbfWh

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