For any start-up, building brand awareness is one of the highest priorities on the to-do list. After building a great product that solves a lucrative problem, along with a world-class team to keep the momentum galloping along, getting your story out there is a key component of driving growth.
In 2015, sat in a restaurant in SoHo, a group of my friends couldn’t contain their mirth. “You’re building a platform for government… innovators? Isn’t that an oxymoron?!” They weren’t alone in their scepticism. Trust in government has been in freefall for years, and stereotypes abound. The crusty bureaucrat, gleefully encircling our lives with rules and red tape, or the duplicitous politician, sneaking around Westminster and expensing new bathtubs. Across the pond, government is portrayed as House of Cards, or as one entertaining podcast host has it “the plot of House of Cards with the cast of Veep.” The tech industry has hardly helped matters by violating user data and enabling the spread of targeted misinformation about people, politics and policies.
Improvements in technology and the internet of things (IoT) are transforming the way energy is being generated, used and traded. With countries across the world committing to ambitious carbon reduction targets and the cost of renewable technologies reducing, we are seeing the energy landscape evolve at pace.
We’re living through a time of unprecedented demand on the care workforce in the UK. Across the country, 10% of all healthcare shifts are filled by temporary workers and the way they are managed – by expensive and inefficient recruitment agencies – is bleeding billions of pounds out of the system.
A positive workplace culture is a vitally important feature of early stage businesses, conferring competitive advantage on those that prioritise its development and nourish it over time.Workplace culture starts to form when founders make their first hires and the dynamics within the executive team start to form. It is made up of a number of attributes: some tangible, others less so.
Certain characteristics are obviously positive, such as teamwork, just as some are clearly undesirable, like bullying. Many others, for example learning, purpose, authority, stability, results, risk, safety, fall somewhere in-between.
We’re at a crossroads when it comes to traditional healthcare across Europe. In a world of an ageing population and rising costs, healthcare systems are at a breaking point. Barriers are put in people’s way and stop them from getting the support they need, be that financial barriers, lack of knowledge or even time pressures.
At Smedvig Capital we lead investments in tech and tech-enabled businesses at Series A and Series B. Our approach is to act with conviction, backing 2-3 business a year, becoming a long-term, supportive partner to a focussed family of companies.
Life insurance normally makes people uncomfortable. Nobody wants to think about death, and especially not about the bureaucracy that comes with it. But life insurance wasn’t always like this: it used to be a force for good, a source of comfort.
Is Andreesen Horwitz’s step of renouncing its VC status a sign of the future? (Forbes April 30.19)
A16Z, like much of the VC industry, is responding to the need for greater flexibility in the modern world. Investment opportunities are not homogeneous, rather they come in all shapes and structures. Meanwhile, private markets are growing, offering more opportunities and greater demand to try new things. The move by A16Z enables it to take these opportunities and attract the best deals, by attracting a broader range of talent, driving untraditional thinking and building a differentiated brand.
There was there no simple, chic and affordable way to buy flowers online.
