
On the 29th November, I will be hosting a breakfast session with Capital Enterprise at Geovation to discuss the growing need for alternative capital emerging in order to fix the funding gap for first time founders.
You can grab a ticket here.
Between my blog, newsletter, book, investing and the work I do as Entrepreneur-In-Residence with OneTech, I’ve had the privilege of serving and supporting hundreds of entrepreneurs discover and create products that customers love.
Those that know me well, know that I always have a Google Doc pinned to my mobile and desktop where I keep a journal. A habit I started five years ago. One of the blessings of keeping a journal is that it reveals to me the things I am curious about and the decisions I make. When I looked back and connected the dots earlier this year, I noticed a pattern emerging among the pool of founders who bootstrapped (took no/ or little external funding) their startups and were able to successfully replace their income, hire a team and quit their jobs.
I didn’t have enough data to feel confident that this was a widespread trend, but I had a feeling it could be. I started noticing the following patterns:
- Many of the founders were non-technical.
- They were diverse (women, people of colour, from low-income backgrounds etc).
- They all created content and community then earned capital through selling products to enable them to quit their jobs and go full time on growing their businesses.
Personally, at the same time, I was moving from full time employment into consulting and creating products following the same steps.
On content, I’ve published over 150 blogs for various publications such as Crunchbase and Blavity as well as been on over a dozen podcasts and numerous videos for speaking engagements.
On community, I have been an avid part of various communities such as YSYS (Your Startup,Your Story) where I am on the advisory board to BYP (Black Young Professionals Network) where I spoke earlier this year on a panel at their leadership conference (and podcast). Or more recently, Mind the Product where I spoke earlier this month at their yearly conference.

On capital, through my work with Backstage Capital, we looked at almost 1,900 applications from diverse founders for our accelerator programme and we invested almost $2.5M in 25 startups. There, I led the London cohort which had 5 amazing diverse founders.
There are founders such as Jamelia Donaldson, founder of Treasure Tress who managed to create amazing content with her podcast She’s Obsessed, an engaged community with The Teen Experience and products her customers love. Sending thousands of monthly subscription boxes of hair products for curly and kinky hair to over 26 countries.
Others such as my brother, quit his job as a Finance Analyst, went full time as a cofounder with his music discovery and distribution business, Mixtape Madness and has managed to hire a team and work with the likes of Spotify, Apple Music and Universal Music.
Many founders like the ones above felt VC was not the only route but found it challenging to find alternative funding options. They wanted a form of patient capital that would enable them to preserve optionality and stay in control of their company’s growth.
In this breakfast session on 29th November at Geovation, London, we plan to discuss what alternative funding options exist for founders outside of venture capital and where gaps exist.
We will hear from founders who have grown through leveraging alternative funding as well as a broad range of investors too.
Come and join us, and get your tickets here.
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