Jamie Akhtar
0 appearances on the record.
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11 not checkable as stated how the 13 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
3 predictions · 10 assertions · 8 insights · 5 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 13 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 11 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Jamie argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
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Everything Jamie Akhtar said on Top Founders that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Akhtar: Founders should buy sub-$100k microacquisitions instead of building features
“The other thing we started looking at, and it's definitely something I encourage all the founders to do, look at microacquisitions. So we used to do a platform called acquire.com, used to go microacquire.com. There's a bunch of platforms like this out there. T…”
Akhtar: Startup failure due to the wrong team is the founder's fault
“Because if you're a founder, not having the right team is a hundred percent your fault. Like, you are, you gotta hire the right people. You gotta lead them. And so, not the right team is a bit of a weak excuse for you failing in my opinion.”
Akhtar: Startups with solid unit economics should grow during a recession
“I think if you're nailing these three things, then you can keep growing sustainably. So the first thing is having the right people. We've got the right people around you. You're not over headcount, and you're cool. Having solid unit economics. If you don't hav…”
Akhtar: Angel investors are more helpful than institutional funds offering more cash
“Angels have, we found, have been the most helpful in terms of helping us figure out what to do with the business, and just being there to support as you go down this list, less helpful more cash, less helpful, so, and also more expectations as you go down”
Akhtar: Startup funding market will not improve for 12 to 18 months
“So when I set the scene, the last year has been really rough, and as most of you know, it's not going to get any better for the next 1218 months when it comes to the funding market as well.”
Akhtar: VC term sheets increasingly include anti-dilution and coupon downside protections
“Term sheets are much less favorable now, so expect a lot of things in there. If you see anti-dilution, for example, things like coupons as well, it's basically investors just trying to protect from that downside risk but one of the ones we still clear from is …”
Akhtar: Mid-to-late stage UK startups faced 6x to 7x ARR valuation ceilings
“Mid, late stage companies, it definitely looks like there's some kind of ceilings there. We heard from a lot of people, like the six to seven range was pretty standard.”
Akhtar: Build a minimum sellable product instead of a standard MVP
“An MSP is like a better version of an MVP, a minimum sellable product, so like instead of trying to build something that does technically what you want it to achieve, try and build the first thing that you can get in the hands of a customer, and start charging…”
Akhtar: Crisis leadership requires acknowledging fear over offering false comfort
“It's not about, like, you know, comforting people and telling them it's gonna be fine, but, like, just understanding that they're gonna have a human reaction to this stuff as well, I think is, is super important.”
Akhtar: Remote companies should budget roughly $2,000 per person for annual retreats
“If you're especially a remote team, like get everyone away once a year, somewhere you can do it for about two K a person. But it's definitely worth the budget.”
Akhtar: CyberSmart partner channel achieved 15:1 LTV:CAC and 160% annual NRR
“So our unit economics, our customer acquisition cost lifetime value was one to 15. Our net revenue retention was about 160% a year for partners. And our gross retention was about 99% a month or about 86% a year.”
Akhtar: CyberSmart never had over three months of runway in 2022
“And last year, I don't think there's a single point in the entire year where we had more than three months runway.”
Akhtar: CyberSmart secured four term sheets after repeatedly pitching a rejecting investor
“So we end up with four term sheets in the end and it was really the last one which took a lot of work. I mean, they said no two times, and I kept going back to them every couple months”
Akhtar: CyberSmart replaced 18-month cash burn hiring plan with step-and-see model
“We planned to hire, like, 20 to 40 new people in the next 12 months. When we set out, we had our full financial model. We'd have burned through all our cash in about 18 months or so. Since then, we've basically reverted to, like, a more step and see model.”
Akhtar: SVB offered CyberSmart £3M–£5M debt contingent on closing a round
“This is actually our proposal from SVB.
that we got last year, I think it was about March.
but the strings attached here is like, here, we're going to give you like three to five million pounds, pretty decent interest rate, six and a half to eight percent, b…”
Akhtar: Founderpath provided CyberSmart $1.5M during a Q3 cash crunch
“We spoke to Nathan and the founder path team that actually ended up giving us like one and a half million dollars when we really, really need it.”
CyberSmart founders paid themselves £500 monthly, then £25k salaries for a year
“Like at the start, those four of us, we paid everyone 500 pounds a month. That's like 600 bucks. That was our, we call it pocket money. That's how we started the company. And then we all had 25 K salaries for like a year.”
Akhtar: CyberSmart raised $10M and will likely raise $10M+ within weeks
“We've raised about ten million in cash, and we're gonna raise a lot more probably than ten million in the next few weeks”
Akhtar reveals CyberSmart ARR is $4.5M, surpassing the $3M milestone
“We're actually past three million, I think this deck was a little bit old, but yeah, about four and a half now”
Akhtar predicts CyberSmart will reach $6M ARR by the end of 2022
“And we should hit about six by end of year”
Akhtar: CyberSmart burned hundreds of thousands monthly for average revenue growth
“We had a lot of cash, and we were burning a lot of cash, like hundreds of thousands of dollars per month to achieve this kind of revenue growth.”
CyberSmart had no product or customers during its first year
“In the first year of the company, or one thing you'll, you would have noticed, and you can just see it, is the first year of the company is not even on that chart. Because we didn't have our product or any customers. We spent the first year, like, figuring out…”
Akhtar: Early pandemic triggered communication breakdowns and sales slowdown at CyberSmart
“So for us that, that meant, like, it was such a bad time because, like, our team were all in the office and they were working from home, so all the communication broke down, our customers were like, we, Like, the deal times went up, and like, our churn rate, w…”
Akhtar: War in Ukraine directly impacted five CyberSmart team members
“That directly impacted, like, five RT members, so, who were in Ukraine, and it had, like, shockwaves throughout the whole company, so we had to, like, figure out how, how do we support them, so we basically just said whatever they need.”
Played on the show (2)
Episodes where a recording of Jamie Akhtar was played rather than Jamie taking part, or where the tape carries an address with nobody putting questions to them. Listed because the words are on the record, kept out of every score on this page because they were not said on this show. We read this off the tape: who was spoken to, who was asked something, who answered whom.
| Episode | Date | On tape | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| How I raised a $15m Series B in a downturn | Dec 7, 2023 | 18m | aired address |
| How I hit $3m in ARR during a pandemic, a war and a looming recession | Nov 13, 2022 | 21m | aired address |