Investor Circle
Investor Circle is the podcast series from Canopy Community brought to life to capture insights from investors across the globe. In each short interview we get under the skin of how the investors think and make decisions as well as what kind of people they are.
Our goal is to build empathy within the community of the what, when, who, how and why behind raising funding for your startup. #Empatia
This series is primarily for Founders of early stage startups who are looking to raise their first funding, but it’s also helpful for investors looking to raise their first funds and for anyone in the ecosystem who is interested in how this all works.
https://www.canopy.community/
Note: you can also watch these episodes on youtube.com/@canopycommunity617
Investor Circle
Why Women Approach Investing Differently Than Men
Cintia, CEO of Core Angels, shares insights into how angel investing communities can democratize early-stage investing while providing powerful frameworks for investment decisions.
• Core Angels operates 14 angel funds where investors pool capital and make collective decisions about startup investments
• Their book "Angel Investing Explained" aims to break down misconceptions and bring more women into angel investing
• Women investors typically gather comprehensive information before investing while men often learn through direct experience
• When evaluating startups, the market potential and founding team quality are the two most critical factors
• Team dynamics must be complementary with clear distribution of responsibilities across technology, sales, and product
• AI is enabling founders to accomplish more with smaller teams but human judgment remains essential
• Secondary cities offer promising startup ecosystems with potentially more reasonable valuations
• Entrepreneurship serves as a powerful tool for social mobility and regional development
• Education is evolving toward experiential learning and human-centric capabilities
• First-time founders should carefully consider whether external investment aligns with their goals
Connect with Cintia to learn more about angel investing and Core Angels' community approach to early-stage funding.
Community Membership at Canopy
Virtual Incubation at Canopy
Virtual Incubation for new and emerging Founders. Zero to One.
Scribe
Find and connect with angel investors in the UK Founded by Rob Cossins
Revolut
Business banking from Revolut
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Note: you can also watch these episodes on youtube.com/@canopycommunity617
All right, happy Friday. I'm very pleased to say that Cynthia is here. Hello, cynthia, welcome to the Investor Circle podcast. Nice to see you, silly waves as we have. How are you today, my friend, and where are you today?
Speaker 2:Hello Stu, it's a pleasure being here. Thank you for having me. I'm right now in Carcavelos, close to Lisbon, in Portugal, you know, not very sunny weather, but okay, we can handle it.
Speaker 1:Thank you fantastic now you are ceo of core angels. And for those people that don't know, core angels and what's it all about?
Speaker 2:okay, core angels, we are a community of angel investors, uh, but we are organized in a very particular way because our angels they invest in a common group of startups, so we call it angel funds. So we are a community of 14 angel funds. These angel funds are a group of investors. They pull up their capital together and they decide on the startups they are going to invest together, all as a collective decision. And we are right now 14 in several countries and each group has its own investment. Theses operations, so they are very independent from each other, but they are all united in the same purpose of funding the early stage and following some methodologies and framework of Courageous Model.
Speaker 1:Okay, fantastic. Now, last time we were talking, you told me you'd recently published a book. Yeah, and you flummoxed me a little bit because you said the book was in english, which I was really surprised about because I thought you would have published it in portuguese first. But tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me about the book yeah, you know, yeah, about the book.
Speaker 2:What happened was, um, uh, I was. I was talking to a friend of mine she she's an angel investor, also with Core Angels and we were discussing a few things on how we could bring more people to do angel investing, because it was very frequent that we identify some friends or some colleagues that worked with us in the past and that we thought, well, this person would be great in angel investing, not only from the contribution they would provide to startups, but also they could have angel investing as an alternative investment in their portfolios. But why don't they do that? And we realized that in many cases, people they don't know this activity exists, or they know it exists, but they think it's not for them. So they think like, well, this is just for multimillionaire people or just for people who have worked in the financial market, so they have all those kinds of concepts that put them away from this sort of activity.
Speaker 2:And we started thinking, yes, but you know why they don't know, or why they have all these myths in their minds? Because there are so many information around, so many, so much information around, so it's easy. And then we realized that it's not exactly that easy for the aspiring angels, because you have many things spread but you have feel like so. So we wanted to write a handbook, like a practical guide, so collecting some things on angel investing, what you should know before you start, or also providing some resources where you should look for information, so that we could bring more people, especially women, because it's something that for us is very important to bring more women to the table of investing, and we realized that women they usually of course, not always, but usually they like to have to study and to have information before taking some action. So that was the main motivation.
Speaker 1:They like to have some information before taking action. That's interesting, and maybe men not so much.
Speaker 2:What we see is that men usually of course they don't feel so they like to jump into something that they don't know at all and they kind of okay, I'll get this by doing okay.
Speaker 2:Just work it out, just work it out. I'll say I'm investing, investing and it's fine. And and women, they, they intend to like. When we see the investment committees, it's very frequent to see angel investors, female angels, taking notes or getting the material they just printed to to to read while they're watching the page. So they like, they need to feel more informed before taking some actions or taking some risks. I don't think they are more, I don't think they are less risk tolerant, but I think they want to make more informed decisions because they want to know what are the consequences if something bad happens, you know. So we realize that this is one of the motivations for writing the book and you wrote it in english.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we translated it, yeah we wrote it in english, um, then we decided to translate it to portuguese, um, which for us was easy, because we could review the portuguese version uh, easily, because I'm a Portuguese speaker and the co-author is also a Portuguese speaker. Then we hired a person also to translate to Spanish, because we thought that well, many people in the Portuguese and Spanish countries they know English and they can read in English, but it's not like a comfort language. So let's try to build this both versions, to attend also this audience.
Speaker 1:OK. So I guess if you do it in French as well, you've got like 90 percent of the planet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, almost yeah.
Speaker 1:OK, fantastic. So obviously, I'm in Exeter today and this is like the epicenter of equity crowdfunding in the UK in Exeter today, and this is what like the epicenter of equity crowdfunding in the UK. So you know, this is where Crowdcube began and some of the lobbying for the legislation in the UK that made it happen, and Cedars has done some stuff in Portugal as well. But angel investing in the UK and equity crowdfunding they've really been married together for a long time. So what it meant was you could put 10 pounds into a startup and get a little bit of equity and then track it, and when I was first doing this, you know I had friends and stuff. They put like 20 investments of £10 in something and they'd watch that portfolio and they'd study it and they'd be learning a lot. Why is there not more of this? Why is there not like this micro investment stuff?
Speaker 2:I think we're starting to have this. In fact, in our case in Core Angels, we have some funds where angels they can put a little money, like they can invest like 25K, and they are investing in 20 startups. Okay, so it's a portfolio of 20 startups that will be built and they're investing 25K. Just for the funds who are investing very pre-seed uh. So it's a special depends on depending on investment thesis. This is possible and we are seeing some groups in portugal, um, also batting on this more democratized access to angels where angels can invest, uh, 1k, 5k, something, something like this.
Speaker 2:I think in Core Angels, what we try to do is to make it more professional the angel investing activity, so to make it more, to present some methods, to have some frameworks and tools to reduce the risk, so that it can give more confidence to people to start investing. Because I think it happened to me and it happened to many angels when you start willing to take this activity, to start investing as an angel, you have some questions of you know, you're not so confident that what will be the implications for me if something happens to the startup? Or do I need to understand every single clause of all the investment contracts, or am I able to make a judgment on a market that I'm not so familiar with? Should I invest in something that I'm not so familiar with, or is it just gambling, so there?
Speaker 1:are many questions, you know. Are you worried about liability at that stage? Is?
Speaker 2:that what they are. Yeah, I hear this a lot from many people, like the liability issues, and in each country it's different, but in general there's no implications. But some people they are kind of concerned about liabilities. Other people they are more concerned about okay, I can be invested in the beginning but, depending on the investment contract, I won't have liquidation preferences, so I could be one of the last ones to receive when we have an exit opportunity.
Speaker 2:So these are some of the concerns and we try to explain this in the book also to try to bring some more clarity for people on the, on the risks and the and the. What is the? What are the practices in the market? Um, so this is it. But I, answering to your question, I think that we need more of that. Uh, that's why we have encourages. Uh, also, we just built a syndicate layer on top of our portfolio to provide access to people that can invest only 5k in a deal, and so they start to test the waters, they participate in the deal, they see how it goes, they start learning, they see that, well, that startup that was so promising now it's not growing exactly like they were planning or sometimes they are going very badly, and then all of a sudden there is a turnaround, because something happened and they could get an opportunity. So they start to feel how the nature of the investment, which is pretty different from many other types of investments that we have around. So it's also a learning curve for the angels, you know.
Speaker 1:Okay, super interesting. What's your top two criteria if you're picking an investment?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that my well, there are two top criteria there for me are very clear. There is markets they are serving and the team. The team for me is you know, I already got some evaluating some startups with the huge potential markets and interesting solution, but with a team that I thought they didn't have the right mindset for such an early stage. You know they were kind of thinking that, well, you know it all, just give me the money, I'll do that.
Speaker 1:This will be a huge success and it'll just work like this, right.
Speaker 2:So like a little sequence, just and and you know, we know that in the early stage there are lots of you know backs and forths and you need to listen to the market, you need to get the feedback, change your solution, make some adjustments, go again. It's natural, you know, and it's and sales is something that many I think the majority of founders they don't realize how hard it is until they really get to do that. So when you're planning your startup, it looks like much simpler than it is in reality. You know, like I'm building something so amazing that it's just presenting that people will come. You know, it's not like that at all. It's super hard and I've been a founder and I know and working with sales and I know exactly how it is. It's hard selling innovation, uh. So for me, when I see a team and when I talk about team, it's not a, it's not only if they have a good vibe or if they, if they are passionate about the problem, etc. But it's also if they are complementary and if they they understand the the most important roles in the beginning of the startup.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make sense for you to have a CFO in a startup that's not selling, but you need someone to take care of sales, because otherwise this is not going to happen. And if you're building something technological, you need to have someone in the team that's taking care of tech. And, believe me, there are some people that approaches us with pitches or with plans of building something and okay, but who's going to do the tech? Oh no, my cousin, he will help us. No, no, it's not like this. You need to have someone really wanting to do that, aligned and incentives, meaning in the founding team that is taking care of the tech part, because this is the core of the, the company. So this kind of like job functions slash on the distribution, on the team.
Speaker 1:For me, it's very, very important how do you feel about outsource tech, when people say, oh, I've got a startup studio building the tech for me and you know it's not a co-founder. It's obviously a good company.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it can happen too. I think it can happen. If you're talking about commodity technology, you know like, okay, I'm hiring someone else to build me an app that is will run this and this, and okay, when we have some bugs I'll have to uh, call them and they'll solve it. Okay. But if it's something that you are developing that it's the core of the company, it's, it's a point of differentiation, it's something that I I don't, I, I really think you need to have some core inside the company, because it's it's it's tricky for you later If you, if you have everything outsourced, you know it's your strategic it's, it's a value proposition.
Speaker 2:It's a strategic value that is in someone else company. You know it's it's really hard, I think, but of course I don't. Strategic value that is in someone else's company, you know it's really hard, I think, but of course I don't think you need to have everyone on your developing team to build all parts of technology. There are many things that you can hire a third party to do or have a partner to develop for you. It's not a big deal.
Speaker 1:And what are you seeing and how do you feel about AI in the early stage of startups at the moment?
Speaker 2:Well, you mean the impact on their operation.
Speaker 1:You mean Well, it's like there's a couple of different viewpoints, because one of the things I noticed with a lot of the fans coming through Canopy at the moment is, of course, they can do so much with AI themselves, so they don't need many other people. And that includes like building the MVPs and stuff you know a non-technical founder can actually build by a competent MVP now, straight out of the block. They go to Replete or they go to another agentic tool or something and they just pull this stuff together and it's amazing, right. They don't need any coding skills or any coding experience really to do it. But what are you seeing and how do you feel about that stuff when it comes through?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think. Well, I think that this impact is being felt in all of us. You know, like even in Core Angels, we have been able to do a lot with less people because of using AI, and I think that for startups, I see more and more people saying, oh, I just had an idea and then I built an AI engine to do that in the sales perspective, and then the other person will do that and code another agent for coding, and so people are building entire teams with AI. Okay, I think this is interesting. This is a way that I don't think there will be a return, but in the end, we'll still need people. You know, we still need people to think of how to orchestrate everything.
Speaker 1:You think you will. You don't think that thinking can be done by somebody like an AI as well.
Speaker 2:I think that right now, we still need people to ask the questions, to understand what are the questions. In the future it might change, okay, but I think that right now we still need to have people to ask the right questions and reveal the answers. Also, there are some activities that we are not yet well, the way that we have been using AI until now. There are many things that we just can get what comes from them and just use it, but other things are not there yet, other things we still have to do some review or to connect the dots with other tools, with other things that we are doing. But I think it's a movement. Right now. It's like when internet started. Okay, when we had Google, that was not Google, it was Alta Vista, it was other sites, yahoo we were looking for. The first things that we had on internet was CD. Now that was selling CDs, you know, and then you were doing basic stuff, you were searching for some things and then it was evolving.
Speaker 2:I think with AI will be the same. Right now we are using the chats, for I saw an article last week saying that people are using the chat, cpt or other AIs mostly to produce content and to discuss emotional matters to have some sentimental advice which is really interesting, slash, weird but scary somehow, but people are using for it. So I think we're still too much in the content producing. Of course, not everybody will use it in the same level. We'll always have the top users or people who use it in a more strategic way. But I really think that if the internet made creating companies much easier, with the AI right now, the generative AI it's way easier because you don't need to hire people anymore. You need to hire much less people, uh, and this makes a lot of difference, especially for, uh, introvert leaders, especially for people that don't want to be managing a lot of people well people like me.
Speaker 1:You know I'm an only child. I don't play well with others. I like the idea of a good chat here and there yeah, exactly but you know, two, two, what do you think still about this?
Speaker 2:do you think it's nothing that we can do? Do you think it's?
Speaker 1:well, I think there's some great, some great stuff coming out, but you know, I got a couple of weird reflections. Um, one of the things I really like is using things like google notebook and then put you know if you interview a load of potential customers in your innovator group and you stick all those transcripts into Google Notebook and you basically ask it what should I be building for these people? I mean, that's amazing, right, that's taking all this extra thought power, bringing you down to a very small list very quickly, and that's something that we used to be very artisanal about. Now we can be very thorough about it. A friend of mine or a mentee of mine sorry, she, um, uh, did something the other day which really amazed me and she sort of explained it to me and I'm quite in awe.
Speaker 1:Actually, she, she used chat gpt to do, uh, a job interview, to prepare for a job interview and to train herself. But what was interesting about it is she thinks in tamil, because she's originally from india and her brain is wired to think in tamil. And tamil has like 270 something letters in the in its alphabet and each one has a sound and you just put the letters together and you make the sounds of the letters and that's how you make words right. But she thinks in tamil. So she got it to do the interview for her the mock interview in tamil and then turn it into English because her interview was going to actually be in English. So she was able to really elevate her ability to talk in a foreign language.
Speaker 1:She's been in the UK for a long time but she thinks deeper in Tamil than she does in English and she ultimately got the job as well. And the questions that came out through the mock interview I think two or three of them were actually in the real interview. So she was really thoroughly prepared and when she didn't know the answer to a question, she would then ask chat GPT to say well, what should I? What should I say when I?
Speaker 1:get that question and she was getting like the model answer, so I thought that's really cool. The other thing that floored me a couple of months ago was we have a thing for Canopy, which is on a youtube channel because none of us are youtube like experts and it's called vid iq and it's like a little um ai that reviews our channel and channels like ours and suggests what sort of content we should produce. And you know, canopy guy, canopy team, when we're not that stupid. You know we've done a few things, we know roughly what's going on and we just said to it what should we be doing for, uh, youtube episodes for canopy to get more people coming through?
Speaker 2:and they gave us a list of stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it said how long it should be what we should cover and basically gave us half a script for each thing, and all of us kind of looked at this in a meeting. We went, well, yeah, that's pretty good and that's kind of right, and now really all we have to do is go and do it. It's not a question of the thinking, that was just the question of the doing. If vidIQ had arms and legs, it probably would do it. You know as well, and one of the startups in Canopy is a deep fake video avatar. Sorry to always say it badly, but you know all sorts of stuff. So I almost feel like it's reaching the point where even the experts in us are finding we're quite eroded by what's available, what's already captured, what's building. We'll see where it goes.
Speaker 2:I see, yeah, and I also like to use it like to ask questions, you know, for me, you know like challenging me or I thought about this. Now please act like as a consultant, an expert in this topic and please talk to me. So it's very, very interesting. But this usage to talk about feelings and this part, I was a little scared because it looks like we are going to social media just to show off and to share all the Instagrammer parts of our life and then we are going to chat to PT to discuss our dramas and our broken hearts and what to do with our miserable life.
Speaker 2:So, it looks like some disconnection. You know the same person that is talking to Chad Dupty about how miserable they are feeling right now. It's in the same time on Instagram posting amazing sunset watching by a fancy restaurant in a you know paradise trip trip. So kind of this topic, I guess. But yeah, let's, let's see the next chapters I think.
Speaker 1:I think what it's really doing for a lot of us is it's showing how important, how premium, if you like, authenticity is. So there's going to be a lot of stuff that we can do, but actually the truly authentic, the truly connecting stuff is now this top-notch yeah, this is the talent, yeah, exactly and there's a lot of very samey, similar stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, I love the fact that I can produce a course for helping people in canopy with knowledge using a video avatar and I can produce it in an afternoon for like 30 bucks, rather than building a, you know, getting a set, or going to etique and hiring some production equipment and stuff and spending thousands and then finding nobody really downloads it or only five people get value from this I can do this a hundred times an experiment. It's amazing. All right, I'll close off on that one.
Speaker 1:So tell me, which do you think is the best ecosystem in the world for startups and why do you think it's the best.
Speaker 2:The best is where we are. I think that, of course no, but really I think that Lisbon has been amazing and I'm here for a reason and this is very, very interesting. I think that, and why that? Because I really like the mix of people and coming from different backgrounds, different countries, and I think it's so rich, it's such a value, you know, for any ecosystem. I like very much the cosmopolitan ecosystems because people, they bring different views and perspectives from what they have lived. I like also we've been studying for a while in Corangels like the second or third cities of each country, and I like this very much because usually you have the crowded cities and then the second and third.
Speaker 2:They are not so much in the hype. So some startups they are not, they are not going to be so overvalued because they are in the main cities. But in the other hand, also you will not have some so much capital available from investors. But right now you can be here and invest in there. So it's a it's it's just an issue of putting together good startups and good investors. You can get capital from other places, from the first city to invest in the second or third city. So I like very much this kind of cities as well. I think Portugal has been trying to do something around taking all the attention from Lisbon, but it's still a little shy.
Speaker 1:I would like to say more like we have in spain, that some you are seeing hubs being created, and really not just barcelona, not just madrid, but also other cities being flourishing so I mean what, what I really like about the charter we've been given in london use the phraseology is quite British but to use entrepreneurship as a tool for social mobility, and maybe that really aligns with what you're saying. In secondary cities, what you're doing is creating jobs and creating futures, and you're doing it in your way. So maybe there's not big employers in those areas, maybe there's not big industries, or maybe there was and now there isn't, and actually create your own stuff from that exactly and I think still, this is the fastest way.
Speaker 2:Maybe you know because, uh, if you are, if you're dependent well, in the past you were you used to be dependent of a big uh company that would be the employer of that city to develop that city and then the city would be dependent on that employer.
Speaker 2:So we have this all over the world. Many cities there are just there to be the people living there, they are employed by the same company, et cetera. So this was the old way of developing certain ecosystems, but with entrepreneurship it can be so fast, it can be so quick to bring people, to integrate immigrants into the economy, to make them create impact to. So I think this is the fastest way, I guess, and maybe, um, not only the fastest but maybe the long term, with more long-term impact, because if you are creating, if you're providing good uh environment for an entrepreneur, this person will create this company. Today it might work or not, but if there is a good environment, if they have some, if they have support, they will feel encouraged to create another one or their employees will create other ones. So if people feel confidence in the ecosystem, other ones. So if people feel confidence in the ecosystem. They will. They will not stop creating things. You know, even if they exited and made a lot of money, they will invest or they will create other stuff.
Speaker 1:So that's the stat I read was that the most, statistically, the most, uh, successful entrepreneurs are on their fourth or fifth startup, and usually in the early 40s. So you know, you've made all your experience, mistakes, and you've gathered your wisdom in your 20s and maybe some of your 30s, and suddenly you're, you know, doing something big. But I think also in this world of um because we talked about here for a while here, you know lots of disruptions happening already, lots of disruptions coming.
Speaker 2:What I like about entrepreneurship is it's in your hands, and so maybe this is the thing people have to pick up a lot over the next, let's say, five years, as more disruption comes, because the systems will be doing one thing and you need to take something into your own hands, and maybe it's this yes, that's, that's right too, you know, and and I think also, but that's not for everyone, you know, and this is this is tricky, because in the other, in the other side, we have an educational system that is still, uh, you know, teaching people how to be good employees and how to follow the the rules, and how you know and not to disrupt. But this is a long conversation, you know, but this is, this is a challenge for everyone. Who's a parent right now, you know?
Speaker 1:it's interesting, I think, that education is uh being funded and being driven to be more vocational and I really like what's called experiential learning, where you learn by doing and I learn much better that way than I do by regurgitating things out of books. Right, that doesn't work for me. I know some people that works really well and I know vocational isn't for everybody and I know experiential learning isn't for everybody and experiential learning for everybody. We're all on a spectrum of needs and stuff. But I think the more tangible skills are being valued. And also, when you look at a nation level places like the UK and the US they're investing into plumbing and to carpentry and to building and to things which actually are very tactile, very vocational type experiences. And you know, the biggest growth area in education in the uk is actually apprenticeships.
Speaker 1:So you can even do apprenticeship degrees now you can do apprenticeship, master's degrees, there's all sorts of things you can do through an apprenticeship model and that means that you work and study to this level like level seven. You can go all the way through to level seven stuff, but working at the same time. You don't have debts, you don't have all this burden that you would have if you did a traditional I'm going to take three or four years out in education type thing before I've ever earned any money, um, and you can even do an apprenticeship, mba um. So, yes, your employer is paying for it, paying you. You've got a salary, but you're getting your release, uh, going there and learning that level, you're getting academic supervision and you're building up to that kind of level and this is so good for people that they just don't want to do the other pathway.
Speaker 2:You know, because in a way, people are thought to, they are forced to go to the traditional way because there is no other, and once you have this kind of opportunities, there are some people that just feel that's what I want to do. I want to go to apprentice pathway and then just be mastering on this, but not like developing leadership skills to manage. I don't know how many people you know. This is great.
Speaker 1:I think I think it's huge. You know the thing. I think that's really forced. This has actually been the pace of change, because I think it's huge. You know the thing? I think that's really forced. This has actually been the pace of change because I think people are starting to want more bite size and easy to move forward with education and they're wanting to align specifically with a job or a career directly, rather than saying, oh, by the time I've studied my degree and affect my knowledge is out of date because I haven't applied anything, I'm not in the real world, I'm in this ivory tower, but actually that course was put together five years ago and is certified and approved and I'm actually learning today something from maybe six years ago when it was first put together. And actually AI has meant that we've moved on so far that that's so irrelevant that I can't get a job because they're all doing something different. So I've got to peg these things together much more closely and I've got to take more bite-sized chunks of knowledge on board.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Who knows where universities will be in five years' time.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I really don't, you know, because I think it's becoming just a side source. You know, I don't think it's still the main for certain professions and certain age, but I think that people are realizing that they will have to learn forever period in a way. And maybe university was still. I think it is still there because we somehow need some stamp, some um, but I don't know the future, really, for the next generations. It's so easy to to access content and to articulate, and I've been seeing also many different types of experimental schools trying something, alternative methods, uh, try to avoid this typical academic way.
Speaker 1:But Montessori schools is a really good one of those in Kishka, montessori Steiner schools. These kind of experiential learning places feels like play. You've got this sense of flow. You know it's kind of interesting compared to this book. You must read these lines. You must tell me what's on line three. You know that's a whole different education.
Speaker 2:Exactly, totally different. I give you too much, I think, much more protagonism to the person. Like I can identify also what I should study right now, what is my need or what do I want to do, and, you know, take care of my career and my life. Uh so, and this is something that in the traditional methods, we are always waiting for someone who is more enlightened than us, who owns the knowledge, to tell us what to do or which pathway to go through. That's very interesting.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Well, I'm going to just add in a little reflection from our future work edition that we did a couple of years ago and then, if you want, you're welcome to ask me a question before we close out on the whole best advice for a first time, founder. But you know, we we've done this future of work and education, uh webinar a few times over the years and it's a couple of years ago that we did the last one or overdue doing again. But the what we had was three educationalists and one technologist on the last one and we were saying what is the future of education and how does it fit with work? And at the end, what I do is I, I tell the panel, I'm going to anoint you to be the godparents of my daughter, and she was, I think she was eight at the time, so it's probably four years ago that we did this and we were now the godfather of godparents of sophia. At the end of this about future of education and work, tell her what she should be studying so that she's ready for the future of work when she's 18. And of course, each educationist had their view.
Speaker 1:And then the technologist. I was expecting him to say you know, it's all about science, it's all about maths, it's all about coding. Bear in mind, this was four years ago and it's pre-ChatGPT. He said look his enterprise architecture. I work in enterprise environments. This little circle here, this is the only thing I can't automate yet. I call it the last bastion of humanity. Everything else I'm already automating right now and I'm working on this little circle over here. So what I say to your daughter is I think you should learn about empathy. I think you should learn how to talk to people. I think you should learn how to play music and extend the human experience, because for maths and computing I don't need you. I've got it all done. It's over here, it's in a file system right now. And we all just kind of sat there and went, oh my God, like what's just happened. This is not what we expected from you, but everything that Dave talked about on that webinar has since come true and it's really interesting how that sort of trajectory is going.
Speaker 2:So maybe it's, all about human experience.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's the investment we've got to make. How do you make human?
Speaker 2:It's becoming more human, yes, and developing more your human capacity. You know what makes a difference between you and the machine, because, as you said in the beginning of my career, I was great with Excel spreadsheets. Now, what is it? What is the value on this? You know, I used to work for a consultant company and the thing was doing amazing excel models and building amazing presentations in powerpoint. Now, what's the point? You know there, there's no value in this anymore.
Speaker 1:So you've got a napkin or something like that. It's done in seconds, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, so what are the good students coming from universities going to do? What will be their entry-level work? This is something that I think about, you know, because if the entry-level in the past used to do all this very hard working and now the machines will be doing, how these guys are going to get experience?
Speaker 1:in the beginning.
Speaker 2:Exactly so.
Speaker 2:But but I, but I believe, and this is something that we really do here at home with my kids I have two teenagers and I and I really think that developing empathy, as you said, and like social skills, social intelligence, being able to connect with people and really listen to them it's not just listen to react or not just listen to nod, but really listen and pay attention and try to understand why this person is sending that message, what is the experience behind this.
Speaker 2:Because this will connect you with that person and this will make collaboration possible. Because this will connect you with that person and this will make collaboration possible. Otherwise, we're just in our own worlds and defending each other and not connecting and not collaborating. So I think that the human-centric capabilities are very, very important. I think the challenge for this is that we are becoming more and more isolated. So this is tricky, especially for the young, the children, the teenagers, but like motivating them to be with people, to develop the social skills, emotional intelligence and this sort of thing, because being good at spreadsheets not so important anymore, I guess.
Speaker 1:Interesting, well before we close out. Is there any question you want to ask me anymore? I guess Interesting, well before we close out. Is there any question you want to ask me?
Speaker 2:Yes, I want.
Speaker 1:You want to ask me something. Okay, I'm not prepared for this, but let's go for it. Come on, cynthia. What have you got?
Speaker 2:No, I want to ask for you. I want to ask you, steele, because I know that you've been in contact with so many founders, investors as well, and I think we still have a very big gap of information. I think they are all built differently, like founders and investors. Usually they are two worlds. They have gone through different pathways, they have different mindsets. I think there's still a big gap between them and when we wrote the book the book that you mentioned the name is Angel Investing Explained.
Speaker 2:When we wrote the book we book that you mentioned the name is Angelic Fasting Explained. When we wrote the book, we were thought of writing this to aspiring angels, but many founders decided to buy it because they said I want to understand how these people think, I want to understand what's on their mind, and I still think there is this big gap between both worlds. Okay, do you see the same in your experience, your contact with all these people, or do you think there is some come on ground that maybe should be a hint for a bridge, you know, some way of connection between them and reducing this big gap of information and mindset?
Speaker 1:It's a fabulous question and it's really interesting that I think what we were discussing about education is very relatable to the thing to do with investment. So, just like we're talking about with degree courses you know you're studying it today, but it was probably put together six years ago. If you think about a VC fund, it's very similar. Most funds have a 10 year lifespan. The thesis was back then. Today is very different and I think what we're going to one of the reasons there's this big empathy gap is because one group is working on a six year ago thesis in a in amongst a company of people who are also working on those thesis from back there, and the world is moving so fast that the newer funds and the more micro investment stuff can keep up. But actually the whole vc structure I don't think is appropriate to today.
Speaker 1:So you know even how long does it take you to raise a fund? Right, if it's going to take you nine months a year and a half to get your lps in in place, well, I can tell you 18 months ago my world was really different. I can tell you 18 minutes before that, my words four years ago we you know dave was telling us about the stuff which is really happening already, but it was already happening for him. So you can't tell me that a vc structure that works in that way is going to keep up. And I think the people that are in investment, like I'm I'm in startups, right, I'm 52 and I'm pretty current, but I'm amazed every day with what I'm seeing and making decisions differently this year than how I was making them last year. I think quite a few of the people that I meet in in investment have stuck a little bit I think, in their learning profile, and I think that will change too.
Speaker 1:And I think also, like we just talked about, how do you invest in that human experience versus that technology experience? Yes, there's still deep tech. There's still a whole way piece of investment that's needed in very specific technology, but there's this big, wide part of the market that is going to move from tech because it's irrelevant now. It's the enabler. But it's not difficult and it's going to be about experience and it's going to be about connection, and that's a really different thesis to what a lot of funds have been predicated on. So, yeah, I think that's where the gaps are and I think that's why the gaps look quite big and clunky at times. And there's another thing as well, which I think there's a lot of disenfranchised communities that maybe haven't been involved in entrepreneurship that much and therefore solutions haven't really been tailored for them. So let's take a really small example Men and women, they're different bodies, right, but medicine didn't really test on women independently until the 90s. Now there's a lot of different medicine strands that are very bespoke to women of different ages, as well as men of different ages. Think about founders of color, founders from secondary and tertiary cities, founders from low socioeconomic status. They're all serving themselves and problems that they have, and they're serving communities that are like them, because that's how you do entrepreneurship, right, yeah, but their needs and their communities and their way of growing and their way of connecting is completely different to where a lot of the investors come from, and I think there's a really big gap there that I see very clunky on a day-to-day basis and there's more founders coming through those emerging pathways, if you like, learning for the first time without peer groups that have been successful already. You know, and they're serving.
Speaker 1:There's a big amount of demography that's just been left behind in this stuff and people have said, hey, I know the answer for you and I've kind of brought it to you, but they haven't been at that democracy, they haven't really understood it when they've been doing it.
Speaker 1:It's like a 20 year old founder-old founder from Bhopal telling me a 52-year-old white guy sitting here in Exeter that he knows what I'm thinking he might have a good guess, but he probably doesn't really know, and likewise, I can't do a solution for him or her either. Right, and I think we're going to see a lot more of that, and I hope we do, because, particularly if you're a city like, let's say, boston, one of my favorite places, you're never going to be competitive in the startup world if you don't embrace all the demography of your city and the startup ecosystem has to be for all of those people and the investment part of the ecosystem has to be for all of those people from all of those communities for it to really excel and thrive. So I don't know if I actually answered your question, cindy, because it's such a good one. It made me think real hard.
Speaker 2:No, answered your question, cindy, because it's such a good one.
Speaker 1:It made me think real hard, right? Nobody brought me many other questions. You know I'll have to think a lot now, which is amazing. Great, thank you. Maybe we'll continue this over coffee when I see you next, and so let's close out then. What is cynthia's best advice for a first-time founder watching this, looking to raise money? What do you say to them?
Speaker 2:Okay, I would say first, are you really looking to raise money? This is the first question. You know, and why I'm telling you this? Because, and how? Because I think we have all this.
Speaker 2:I think that we've been trying to inspire the young generations to build ideas, projects, companies, etc. Which I think is great. We should do that. I truly believe in entrepreneurship as a potential, as a movement for impacting society. But I also think that we have this storytelling that is always the same, you know. That is, I have a great idea, I put a pitch deck together and I look for a VC fund and then I will raise five million euros and just like that. So we have this fairy tale and many times they are not asking themselves basic questions like OK, I need funding to my company. Of course, I think that all business they need to be funded. You have to worry about this, you have to plan this. It doesn't mean that you need to get investment. It doesn't mean that investment will come from a VC fund. It can come from an angel, it can come from grants, it can come from crowdsourcing, it can come from in the, from some savings from the founders, and then they will do other types of funding. So I think that the first step is to really understand which game you want to play, because they are different games. So if you are willing to fundraise from a VC fund, from a group of angels, from an individual angel, they have different implications. Your life will be different depending your life and your business. They will be different depending on which game you want to play. So this awareness about what is funding, what are these people doing, what are their roles, what kind of benefits your company can get from different kinds of sources of funding this is extremely important and I don't see many founders having this, questioning themselves on this and sometimes, when they see they are in their series A and they are playing a game that maybe it's not what they wanted, or they are living a life that maybe it's not what they wanted. Or, yes, their company has grown, but they are facing other challenges right now and maybe they have an exit, but they don't get all the money they thought they would get. So I I really think that you should understand what kind of game uh is there for playing and choose the game you want to play, and something that relates to yourself, you know, because it can be very stressful. We see many founders suffering with mental health and, you know, having all kinds of consequences of playing games that they didn't want to.
Speaker 2:And second thing is okay, you decided that you want to get funded, and one fund after the other and exponential growth and scale up, et cetera. Okay, good, there are many different kinds of investors. If you are fundraising, don't fundraise a lot of money. Fundraise the money that you need, okay, oh yeah, but there is someone that wants to put more X money on the table. Yeah, but the earlier you are fundraising, the more expensive is this fundraising for you. You have to give away a lot of your company. You will be putting a lot of investors on your cap table. This is hard to manage. This will become harder and harder to manage with time. So be very conscious about selecting your investor. Don't believe that while you are the only one selected, you also need to select your investors, if they are angels or funds or whatever. So this is very precious about your company. Who is going to be partnering with you to fund and to support your company?
Speaker 1:Really nice. I like that. Thank you for framing it like that. Very interesting. Know the game you're playing and pick your investor as much as they pick you. Exactly. Thank you for doing this today and for sharing the benefit of your experience and your wisdom. Really appreciate it. Thank you for all the things you do in the community as well. It's really special. I've watched you in demo nights and other and other events. I watched you counsel people and help people and support people, even ones you're not going to invest in, and it's really a, really a kindness you give. Uh, it's quite a what I call being a citizen uh environment.
Speaker 1:So thank you so much for all of that thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, stew. Thank you for your words and for making it happen, also for everything you do for the ecosystem. It's it's really amazing, and sometimes we just just do these things because we have other people like you doing also, so it's really a boost of energy and helps a lot. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Happy days, happy Friday.
