Paul Jackson

I don't go in for 'building in public' in general, but every now and then I think it's worth sharing what I'm seeing in the market. The below graph shows the average time to close a deal over time at EmergeOne and you can see that this has been creeping up since last year (adjusted for seasonality) and is currently close to 3 months to close a deal. So what's happening? Well, I was recently at an CFO event where we got a bit of a data driven view into the state of private markets. Some key points that came out: 🏷️ Median post money at Series A has dropped from 80m USD in 21/22 to 65m USD in 2024. This is still up from 40m from circa 2020. ％ Top quartile is significantly over at 107m. 📈 Series B median post money is $137m, top quartile $287m USD, but bottom quartile significantly struggling. 🚀 Deal velocity has slowed but started recovering. 💰 Lots of deals are happening but not priced - bridges abound. So how does this therefore relate to what we're seeing in terms of time to close? Firstly, we are a consultancy providing fractional CFO support to venture backed tech startups typically post Seed and pre Series A so this data reflects what we are generally seeing in the market as well. But the two main issues that are seemingly impacting our numbers are around deal velocity and bridge financing. There are simply fewer deals being done and they are taking longer to close, so the volume of potential clients we can target has dropped significantly. This does, however, mean that the quality of deals we're working on is significantly higher this year. Secondly, as companies struggle to raise priced rounds, they are raising lower amounts of capital on convertibles. This impacts us as CFOs are only truly valuable when there is a significant balance sheet to manage, less capital = less need for CFOs and hence the decision as to when to bring us in gets pushed out. But equally, that insecurity over funds means that founders are much more hesitant to make significant hiring decisions, prioritising hires that can directly influence revenue / traction in the near term. But they also know that they need the support so are often waiting for the 'magic moment' where they hit an inflection point that gives them confidence to pull the trigger. Outside of the deal data, we are also seeing venture indexing towards more R&D heavy businesses (life science, hardware etc.) and these sort of companies are often not commercialising for several years. They have security over spend and regard finance as a future problem. We are seeing a lot of companies approaching Series B without anyone in finance, deferring that decision till they close. But we are also seeing leads come through from a multitude of sources proving there is appetite for strong commercially minded CFOs to support and grow these scaling businesses. So as the market stabilises, I would expect to see these numbers come back. Business wouldn't be any fun if it was all easy, would it?!

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Seeing this says to me the Ruroc EOX launch has flopped. If you're asking customers "why didn't you buy" with options of: "Product Design isn't good enough" "I am waiting for a good promotion" ...You have to be deluded if you think you're going to get actionable information from a survey like this. Here's what has gone wrong for Ruroc. Firstly, "EOX" was designed as the 'Finale' of the Atlas line. It should have been positioned as the pinnacle of the range and should have replaced the Atlas 4. Atlas was plagued with issues from v1.0. We rushed, the pandemic hit, suppliers messed us around, we had to build our own factory REMOTELY to keep up with demand. To fix the issue once and for all I hired a specialist product designer who built out the team to deliver the 'perfect product'. It was costly, but it would allow us to reduce our Customer Service costs, return logistics costs, and reduce our in-house QC team from 18 to just 2-3. A huge cost to get a huge saving. Absolutely necessary for Ruroc to stabilise and continue growing at 70-100% YOY. That product, the one that should have been Ruroc's biggest success, is now called "EOX". To sell products online and grow successfully you need: - Scarcity - "I want stuff other people don't have yet, or I don't want to regret not buying when I had the chance." - Innovation - People want the latest greatest and best... if it's not that, why am I giving you my money if my current product does the job? - Social Proof - it's FOMO, who's wearing it, who's buying it, am I going to be the odd one out if I don't buy? - Reciprocity - What's this brand done for me? How have they engaged me? Do I buy into their mission, do I feel obliged to be part of it. - Commitment - OK I've pre-registered, I've followed the page, I've signed up for the newsletter, I'm watching the launch video, I'm going to buy. Not one of these tactics was properly employed during the launch of the "EOX" Further to that, some genius has made the decision to continue with the Atlas 4 and have it run alongside the EOX So now, as a customer of Ruroc, what does this say to me. Ruroc Atlas 4.0 Track - $679.00 (Has no real track certificate) Ruroc Atlas 4.0 Carbon - $595.00 Ruroc "EOX" - $559.00 (brand new should be better than Atlas 4) Ruroc Atlas 4.0 Street (fibreglass) - $319.00 (Confusingly is lighter than the Track and Carbon Atlas) So if I want the best, I buy the most expensive helmet? I can wear it on the Track right? No, not in USA or MotoGP. I want the lightest, so I buy the cheapest? I want the newest, but is it worse than the old models because it's cheaper? This is beyond confusing for customers. Customers give brands minimal attention. Your messaging is as much in the decisions you make around naming and pricing as it is anything else. Ruroc "Atlas-X" - $659.00 Drop the Atlas 4.0 and discount til it's gone Clear message to consumers - "the new product is better, replace your old helmet now" It's not hard.

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Which UK #Fintechs are now profitable? £1bn OF PROFIT GENERATED BY UK FINTECHS The startup scene has been brutal the past couple of years. Redundancies are at an all time high, recruitment at an all time low, and startups are going bust or raising down rounds at an unprecedented level. BUT, some startups have shown incredible resilience and have achieved profitability, and deserve to be celebrated. Here are the 8 profitable UK Fintechs: Revolut: Founded in 2015, Revolut quickly became one of the UK’s top startups, are have recently confirmed a $45bn valuation. Their 2023 results were INSANE: 🚀 $2bn of revenue 🚀 $545m profit Monzo Bank: #Monzo released their latest annual results a few months ago and they are INSANE: 🚀 £15.4m of profit (vs £116m loss in 2023) 🚀 £880m of revenue (+147% YoY) 🚀 9.3 million users (+26% YoY) Allica Bank: #Allica is the UK’s only digitally-native challenger bank committed to providing a full-service banking relationship to established SMEs and entrepreneurs, offering them lending, savings and payments. It launched in 2019 and became one of the fastest UK fintechs to achieve profitability: 🚀 Revenue increased 141% to £191 million 🚀 Pre-tax profit of £16.1 million Starling Bank: Founded in 2014 the fintech first achieved profitability in 2022. Their latest results show them operating an an incredible 37% profit margin: 🚀£453m of revenue 🚀£169m of net income Zopa Bank Zopa began as the world's first peer-to-peer lending company in 2005. It has since expanded to broader fintech products and gained a full banking licence in 2020. It became a unicorn in 2021 when it raised £220m at a valuation of $1.03bn. Since then it has gone from loss-making to very profitable: 🚀 £222m of revenue (+44% YoY) 🚀 £16m of profit (vs £24m loss in 2022) ClearBank #ClearBank is a technology-enabled clearing bank that enables its clients to offer real-time payment and innovative banking services to their customers.
They released their FY2023 results which showed them operating on a 20% profit margin: 🚀 £111m total income (+91% YoY) 🚀 £18m of profit (+109% YoY) 🚀 £6.1bn in deposits (+103% YoY) Clear Junction Founded in 2016 by Dima Kats Kits, Clear Junction is a global leader in cross-border payments for regulated financial institutions. It's the only bootstrapped company on this list, and is very profitable: 🚀 £19m of Revenue 🚀 £8m of Net Profit OakNorth Oaknorth became a unicorn 2 years after being founded and their latest accounts demonstrate why they deserved it: 🚀 £466m revenue (+73% YoY) 🚀 £187m of profit before tax (+24% YoY) 🚀 30% net profit margin. Other fintechs, such as Freetrade, Moneybox, #Chip, Atom bank and Tandem Bank, have also all achieved profitability recently, but either on shorter time frames or after tax! #isapexchange #isapwallet www.isap.exchange iSAP Exchange FZCO iSAP Group Investments ltd Tino Herold

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Last night at ProductTank London we heard from 4 different speakers on the topic of Product Culture. My key takeaway is this... 'Good' product culture lacks definition. You might read about the importance of product culture, or ask about it when interviewing. You may even try to evaluate how good or bad the product culture is at your company. But here's the bottom line: product culture 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 something that you'll usually find written down, like you would a strategy, a roadmap, or a vision. Hearing someone describe it will inherently be biased. Product culture is the shared values, beliefs, behaviours, and practices that shape a team, org, or company's identity. It changes when you change your beliefs, behaviours, and practices. Not satisfied with the product culture at your company? You're more empowered to change it than you might think. How have you gone about improving product culture at your company?

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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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Two companies with combined £3.8bn revenue are ending bureaucracy for product teams. Here’s how: Anyone who's worked in product teams in the corporate world will at some point have:   - Wondered whether senior management have any idea what your team does, or indeed cares - Doubted if what you are doing is fully aligned with the company strategy - Been frustrated by complex top-down bureaucratic planning and prioritisation     In the last few years, I have seen 2 companies simplify planning by closing the gap between senior management and product teams.   Not only did this make teams more effective, but it provided a huge motivational boost that ultimately made them more productive too.   Here's how they did it:   𝟏) 𝐃𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐁𝐚𝐧𝐤   Monzo Bank eliminated the middle layers of bureaucracy between product teams and management.   Every quarter, the executive committee would talk directly to the product teams and set the top 4 quarterly priorities.   For example:   - Improving customer experience for service W - Improving X part of platform - Expansion to country Y - Cost reduction for area Z   Product teams focused solely on these 4 priorities for the next quarter.   And that was it.   I remember someone from Monza saying “if a team wasn’t focused on at least one of those priorities they would look pretty stupid, and because it was so simple, it worked”.   𝟐) 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫   My favourite example is a UK Investment Manager, partly because it had the challenge of a 10k employee hierarchical organisation embedded with very traditional ways of working.   They introduced a new quarterly planning process – a single day bringing all product teams physically or virtually together.   First, each product team would:   - List their top 3 achievements from the past quarter - List their top 3 priorities for the next quarter   Then the genius part. The CEO, CFO and CTO would physically (or virtually) walk from team to team. It was the first time most people had seen the CEO in real life, let alone have the chance to talk with them.   The exec team would:   - Review each team's past quarter achievements - Assess next quarter's priorities - Ask questions, re-order if needed, then confirm alignment with company strategy   I watched one of these in practice. It sounds simple but do not underestimate the motivational power of receiving recognition and ratification, right from the top.   From what I have seen it is the minority of mid to large size organisations where something like this is actually happening (if you’ve seen it then I’d be interested to know)   —   Closing the gap between senior management and teams can have a huge impact on their motivation and ultimately productivity.

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I would zoom out a bit. A/b testing is just a side effect of following a scientific approach to building a business and product. Not everything I worked on at Booking.com was an a/b test. We still needed to find a way to validate each hypothesis. Still don’t copy Booking’s playbook blindly. There are more nuances that make this approach successful. Your business might be operating under different constraints and context that requires a different playbook.

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It's astounding how much someone can misunderstand the delivery of public services. Of course, if there were no constraints, services could be automated, and many of the people working on public services have that capability. It does not take 'tech founders'. However, the constraints of serving the public with services that are not designed for profit and are linked with policy and other services across HMG - the art is to innovate a low cost and at pace while dealing with those constraints.

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As an ambitious product person, probably the best thing that can happen to you is to report to a Craftsperson manager who has a high bar and can give specific, clear, not-hand wavy feedback on how your proposals and thinking can be more correct, although unfortunately if given a choice, >50% of ambitious product people don’t choose to report to such a manager.

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So Toast is an absolute fricking monster and the best in class vertical SaaS company of our time. 💵 $1.2BN in ARR with 48.4% from payments 💸 Toast Capital has reached $1BN in annualised loans originated 🧑‍🍳 875K restaurants in the US (Toast has 112K: 13% market share) 🚀 75% of locations are coming from inbound channels The first investor invested $500K at a $3M price 😮 The full story and all the lessons 👇 1. Why This $14BN Company Would Not Exist Without Speed - Too many people worry about getting the product right. - One of the most important things you can do is get something out & learn from the user. - We wouldn’t have existed today if we didn’t move fast & iterate. 2. The Man Who Bought 12% of a $14BN Company for $500K - We were trying to raise in 2012-2013. - We were confident but almost everyone said no. - Steve Papa @ Endeca wrote us a $500K check at $3M. 3. The $14BN Company That Did Not Have a Good Business Model to Start - We realized within the first 10 customers that the financial model wasn’t working. - We were making $200 - $300 a month but there were too many customer service calls. - It wasn’t scalable at all. 4. Biggest Mistake: Not Hiring Managers Faster - There is also leverage in hiring managers vs. salespeople or engineers. - You need to move fast once you see signs of PMF. - Building out a team around us would have helped us move faster. 5. The Importance of Market Timing 3 Things: 1. Android 2. Cloud 3. Embedded payments - Without those 3 Toast wouldn’t have existed. 6. You Have to Sequence Strategy - We see many ways to expand the Toast platform across other geos & segments. - We need to be thoughtful about how to sequence this. - This is a long game: You underestimate what you can do in a decade and overestimate what you can do in a year. 7. This Public Company Creates Smaller Companies Within It - We have a New Ventures program for entrepreneurs. - We let them build companies as part of Toast but operate independently. - We want them to have the benefits of being part of Toast without the challenges of being part of a larger org. (links in comments) #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup #seed #funding

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This year is all about survival. I've seen enough data to call it. Multiple reports are showing Flat -> No growth. Wayflyer/Iris Finance report had Q1 overall growth at +4% YoY. Common Thread Collective Index has same store sales flat YoY. What does this mean? This year is about survival. The industry as a whole isn’t growing. We can blame this on whatever we want. But the outcome remains the same. Instead of obsessing about your topline growth. (Which is a steep mountain to climb.) Focusing on growing your bottom line. In a low topline growth year, spend time becoming more profitable. 100% YoY growth doesn’t do you any good if you’re out of biz in 2 years. The goal needs to be surviving to 2025. #shopify

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On 22nd Feb, Dan Siroker and I disagreed about funding round dilution on Twitter. In this episode we hash it out 🥊 ❌ Fundraising rules that are BS 🗣️ What VC’s really mean & want 💸 Getting Peter Fenton to invest for less than 10% My key lessons from winning this fight 👇 1. The Importance of Focus I worked on thousands of things at my first company & thought everything was important. In hindsight, there were only 3 or 4 things that made a difference. Founders need to distinguish between which tasks are truly important & focus on them. 2. The Big Secret When An Investor Asks How Much Are You Raising? They are actually asking how much you think you’re worth. Instead of giving a number, say you’re selling a certain percentage & letting the market decide the valuation. This annoys investors because they don’t get what they want. 3. Elad Gil on When and How to Pivot  The things that work tend to work really fast. Sticking it out & being perseverant doesn’t always work. You have to see some glimmer of hope in the early days. 4. Contrarian View on Selling Stock as Employees Founders should let employees sell their stock at any point. I’ve let my employees sell up to 25% when we were oversubscribed in our series A. My theory is more liquidity = more retention. 5. When They Bring up Title It Is a Bad Sign It shows you where their values are. The best people I’ve hired never brought up titles during the interview. They care about the problem & the company. 6. Why Always Be Raising is Total BS You need to have an on & off switch on fundraising. I have all my investor meetings in a week every two quarters. This removes any distractions when I’m building the company. 7. The Best Question Peter Fenton Asks Founders "What will excite you about being at this business in five years?" Great founders need to be perseverant. They have to stay in love with the business in 5, 10, or 20 years. (links in comments) #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup #seed #funding #fundraising

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Ever wonder what Stripe's early journey from $0 to $100M in 7 years looked like? Here's my uncomplicated breakdown. 2010 -2011: We're Starting Something • brothers John and Patrick Collison, probably over a pint, decided that setting up online payments for their first startup was a nightmare, and they wanted to fix it. So they whipped up a few lines of code to fix it, like it was no big deal. • They slide into Y Combinator's DMs and secured just enough seed money to pay for food while they continued building their software. 2012-2013: We're Onto Something • In 2011, they convince some serious investors like Peter Thiel, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and others to fork over $2M. Safe to say they were pretty good at talking up their idea, which many were skeptical about at first. • Developers learned about and loved Stripe. Staying true to their engineering roots, clear documentation and easy integration made Stripe the hero developers didn't know they needed. • By 2013, they hit their stride. Stripe wasn't just a cool idea, it was a must-have for businesses who accepted transactions online. 2014-2015: We're Growing Up • Stripe started partnering with big names like Lyft and Shopify. It's like being invited to sit at the cool kids table. • They launched Stripe Connect, adding more bells and whistles to keep customers happy and cash flowing in. 2016-2017: Big Money • Stripe expanded internationally. Turns out, other countries like easy payments too. • They brought in specialists and built a proper sales team. No more winging it for the Collisons. • Hackathons, meetups, and developer love kept the buzz going, because let's face it, nerd love is strong. • By the end of 2017, Stripe had reached their first $100M in annual revenue. Not bad for a couple of guys who just wanted to make payments suck less. Want to try this at home, here was Stripe's blueprint for getting from $0 to $100M within 7 years: 1. Solve a real problem: Find something everyone hates dealing with and fix it. Instant market. Businesses were crying out for a solution, and Stripe answered with simple, elegant lines of code that made integrating payment processing as easy as pie. 2. Developer Love: Make developers happy, and they’ll be your best marketing team. Stripe knew their audience well and catered to them with clear documentation, easy integration, and robust support. 3. Get Funded: Convince people with a lot of money that you're onto something big. Only if you're onto something big. (You don't get to determine that, only the market does) 4. Keep Innovating: Listen to your customers, especially those early adopters who took a chance on you. Stripe continuously added new features and refined their product based on feedback, ensuring they stayed ahead of the curve. 5. Go Global: There's a big world out there. Don't limit yourself to just one market. Did I miss anything?

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I’ve been at lots of events recently and I’ve noticed speakers etc fueling a trope: “product management didn’t exist 15 years ago”. As someone who became a product manager in the nineties, I’d discourage this thinking as it under-values what our job is actually about. I was fortunate to spend eight years learning from leaders who were part of an MBO from Lotus. We built award winning, highly profitable enterprise software, but mostly on CD-ROMs. Consequently we didn't have AB testing, fake door tests, CI/CD or HotJar. But we did have sales-led pressures, prioritisation conflicts, remote teams, pricing complexity and disruptive new market entrants. What we also had was a passion to understand the customer’s pains and to then design and deliver something that was commercially valuable that addressed it. My wife works in FMCG, where for decades brand managers have been uncovering insights, then working with manufacturing, supply chain and sales & marketing to delight customers and create business value. That’s product management. Our tools, frameworks, product books and our understanding are ever evolving. And the enormous benefits of online deployment all mean that for many the job is done very differently now than it was in the nineties. But the business basics remain as they always have done. Especially for the very many product managers who aren’t solely working just with digital solutions. I bring this up not to defend those of us with grey hair (or little hair, in my case). My concern is that AI will be a paradigm shift to rival the upgrade from CD-ROM to Internet, and that may frighten some. Your future self will have Copilot instantly whip up a prototype, test it on synthetic personas leveraging mountains of sentiment data, and a Monte Carlo simulation will present you with your best options, in a compelling doc/ppt created by an LLM. But it's just another tool change, and another set of ways to better understand the opportunity, leverage the art of the possible and de-risk getting to a good commercial outcome at even faster rates. A peer has chosen to re-train as a carpenter because they've realised they're at heart a problem solver, and the context isn’t relevant. So please don’t think your super-power comes solely from being current on the tools and techniques of how you do your trade today. Product management has always been necessary and always will be, even if AI creates another shift in the technology, techniques and the pace of the work. #productmanagement

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The AI Sovereignty Paradox: A Tightrope Walk for SMEs Klarna's recent move to ditch Salesforce and Workday isn't just another tech headline - it's a canary in the coal mine for a seismic shift in how businesses approach AI and data infrastructure. The Sovereignty Spectrum - One end: Full outsourcing, plug-and-play AI solutions - Other end: Complete in-house development, à la tech giants Most SMEs instinctively lean towards the quick solutions end. It's faster, cheaper (initially), and doesn't require building a tech empire. But here's where it gets tricky: 1. Data Dependency: Your AI is only as good as your data. When you outsource, you're often feeding your most valuable asset into someone else's system. 2. Algorithmic Lock-in: As these systems learn and adapt to your business, switching costs skyrocket. You become tethered to your provider's roadmap. 3. Competitive Homogenization: When everyone uses the same tools, where's the edge? The Klarna Conundrum Klarna's shift isn't just about cost-cutting. It's a bet on AI sovereignty. By bringing core functions in-house, they're saying: 1. Our data is too valuable to entrust entirely to third parties 2. We need the flexibility to pivot faster than SaaS product cycles allow 3. Our competitive advantage lies in how we uniquely apply AI to our business problems The SME's Dilemma Most SMEs aren't Klarna. You don't have hundreds of engineers to build custom AI systems. So what's the play? 1. Hybrid Approaches: Start with off-the-shelf solutions, but invest in the capability to customize and extend them. 2. Data Ownership: Ensure your contracts allow for data portability and algorithm transparency. 3. Skill Investment: Even if you're not building from scratch, having AI-literate team members is crucial for strategic decisions. 4. Niche Focus: Instead of trying to build everything, focus on developing AI solutions for your core competitive advantage. The Real Paradox The true AI sovereignty paradox isn't just about build vs. buy. It's about balancing immediate needs with long-term strategic positioning. SMEs that crack this code - leveraging external AI while building internal competencies - won't just survive the AI revolution. They'll lead it. What's your take? Is AI sovereignty a pipe dream for SMEs, or the only path to long-term viability in an AI-driven world? #AISovereignty #SMEStrategy #FutureOfWork

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Why Product-Led Growth Doesn’t Have to Mean Sacrificing Revenue – If You’re Measuring What Matters 📈 The Funding Fallacy Many believe that transitioning to a product-led growth (PLG) strategy requires a massive upfront investment. This is a misconception. When done right, PLG doesn’t require a dip in revenue – but it does demand a shift in how we measure success. In fact, a PLG approach can actually reduce costs in the long run. By focusing on product-driven acquisition and growth, you can decrease your reliance on expensive sales and marketing teams. Near Term Revenue Blinders Here’s the real game-changer: traditional metrics like immediate revenue or pre-paid features don’t capture the value PLG brings. Instead, focusing on Lifetime Value (LTV) and customer expansion metrics gives you a clear picture of how PLG drives sustainable, long-term growth. Here’s how to think about it: 1. Revenue Shouldn’t Dip – It Should Transform: With PLG, each new feature should directly create value that customers are willing to pay for, either through deeper usage or added functionality. Rather than funding features upfront, you’re letting the product prove its value, and if it does, revenue grows organically as customers expand their use. 2. LTV as a North Star: Instead of focusing on immediate payments, look at how each feature increases a customer’s LTV. A PLG mindset shifts from “How do we get customers to pay more now?” to “How do we keep customers coming back and paying for more over time?” When you design features that are valuable enough to keep them engaged and growing, revenue follows. 3. Measuring Adoption and Expansion: The success of PLG lies in tracking activation, retention, and expansion rates. If customers are adopting and growing within your product, you’ll see compounding revenue without relying on upfront funding. By investing in the customer journey and product value, you’re not sacrificing revenue – you’re setting the stage for exponential growth. So, is a revenue decline inevitable? Not at all – if you measure what matters. The dip only happens when companies don’t trust their product to create customer-driven demand. When you build around LTV, PLG becomes a powerful growth engine, aligning customer value with company revenue in a way that simply doesn’t happen with traditional models. Would love to hear from others – what metrics have been the most powerful in making PLG both profitable and sustainable? #ProductLedGrowth #LTV #GrowthMetrics

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Founders, If you're in the fundraising game.... You know there's a phase I like to call 'the gap.' It's that tricky period between getting a verbal nod from an investor and actually seeing the funds hit your account. Verbal commitments are great, but they don't always guarantee a closed deal. Here's how I handle this to keep things moving smoothly: Be Prepared to Act Fast: As soon as you get a verbal commitment, make the next steps as easy as possible for your investor. Any delays on your part can open the door for them to reconsider. Set Clear Deadlines: Make sure your investors know exactly when the round is closing. Setting a firm deadline for contributions helps keep everyone on schedule. Keep the Lines Open: Follow up with your investors regularly. Make sure they have all the information they need and gently remind them of the deadlines. And a little tip for peace of mind. Don't count your chickens before they hatch. Hold off on the celebration until the funds are securely in your bank. That's when you know you've really crossed the finish line. ✌️ #venturecapital #vcfunding #entrepreneurship #familyoffice #raisingcapital #fundraising #growth #startups #startupcommunity #startupecosystem #startupfunding

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If you need to make redundancies as a Startup, why not consider offering voluntary redundancies first? Here's why I now think this is a much much better strategy, having been through it a number of times... 1) Talented people will probably leave anyway I get it..: "we wan't to select and keep the best people". I've seen it time and time again. Here is the reality: - The best people will have the most options to move - Those options come thicker and faster after layoffs - Highly ambitious people will often jolt at a perceived loss in momentum of growth The talent drain that can follow layoffs is a painful, protracted period where the question becomes "who's going to leave next...". This can build momentum and start to snowball, as people fear being left holding the bag. 2) Trust is unavoidably broken No matter how much you try to communicate the potential for layoffs, it will still come as a sudden and jarring shock to the team. Even the most empathetic process is still unavoidably a sudden, top-down mandate where there is no consultation. 3) People will start to hide their true feelings Where there is a perceived risk of future layoffs (no matter the promises made), people are less likely to lift their head above the parapet to express dissatisfaction etc. You may have created a state of fear and thus reduced communication between team and leadership. ------------- A voluntary period means: 1) No sudden shock 2) A sense of empowerment as people are given some choice 3) That you are left with people who WANT to be there 4) That you get an honest, open understanding of sentiment in the team In the period right after layoffs, you need a lot of truly invested people at every level to get the team going again. This isn't going to come from the more career-oriented (vs mission-oriented) people who are just passing through, no matter how talented. This way, trust is BUILT through the process, not broken. You end up with a more cohesive group who are more likely to believe in the mission. You will have more open and honest conversations that may uncover broad dissatisfaction. If there are people you really want to keep, invest in talking to them through the process, re-sell them on the mission. It becomes an opportunity to tell people how much you value them, rather than a form of top down control where you've decided they get to stay. If they can't be sold, they will leave anyway. Top talent has equal potential to be a superpowered detractor. If there are people you don't want to keep, this isn't the right way to handle it. Fair, accountable performance management is the right answer over time afterwards (...preferably before). Layoffs aren't a free fix to bad management, they incur a cost to the teams' long term faith and trust in your leadership.

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