The Ledger
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Retail investors making only a few Crowdcube investments will likely lose money
“So if you're making a couple of early stage investments on Crowdcube, you know, you're probably going to lose your money.”
Charlotte Street Capital ignores spreadsheets and exit plans for early-stage deals
“We don't spend time looking at spreadsheets and projections. We don't spend time looking at potential acquirers or exit plans.”
High tech startup valuations in 2015 are not a bubble
“So I don't think the valuations themselves are symptomatic of a real bubble. Even if I do think they are pretty high.”
Late-stage VCs impose aggressive, restrictive terms on companies
“So the later stage VCs will Potentially have quite aggressive agreements with their companies with lots of you know, first rights to any income or to any proceeds at their disposal you know, conditions that the company, tying the company down, what they can do…”
Product culture is stronger in the US, services culture in Europe
“The product culture is stronger in America, and the services culture is stronger in Europe, and in particular in London and the UK.”
Early-stage startup valuation is a distraction for investors
“When you're in the early stage worlds which is the really early stage world you know, valuation is, is a bit of a distraction, and probably the right way to think about it, and this is what early stage investors should do, is to first of all say, well, how muc…”
FCA survey shows two-thirds of UK crowdfunding investors lack experience
“I mean, the FCA, which is the regulator here in the UK, they commented on a survey recently, which suggested that I think nearly two thirds of crowdfunding investors admitted they had no previous investing experience.”
Thomas Jones predicts insurance is the next major industry for tech disruption
“Yeah, I think my answer there is probably insurance, and the reason is, and you know, it's a big area, it's boring, it has a lot of data you know, the kind of young startup kids don't tend to focus on it, they focus on retail things.”
Charlotte Street Capital makes five to six investments yearly
“We now find ourselves probably actively making five or six investments a year, and also these days, we tend to, we're trying to both lead the investments, or sometimes actually set the businesses up ourselves, because in some cases, we spot a market opportunit…”
Thomas Jones says a startup's vision inevitably changes every 12 months
“In 12 months time you know, the vision to the future will look quite different, and another 12 months later, it will probably look different again”
Charlotte Street Capital avoids founders lacking market fit to prevent boredom
“If they don't have a natural, if they don't naturally belong in the market they're operating in, then That's a bigger risk, and probably not one that we'd want to take, because the risk of them getting bored, even, is, you know, is material.”