Startups

Everyone says they’re looking for outlier founders — until they meet one. The founder with no industry background, no flashy technical pedigree, no Stanford PhD, and no time at a unicorn. The one who doesn’t “fit the pattern.” But the pattern most VCs use to evaluate founders has almost nothing to do with outcomes. In Europe, 55% of unicorn founders had ZERO experience in the industry they disrupted. Two-thirds weren’t technical. The majority had under 10 years of work experience. Just 10% had worked at a unicorn. Oxbridge and the usual credential circuits barely registered. And yet these were the people who built the most valuable companies in the region. The signal wasn’t in the CV. It was in the momentum. What actually stood out? Prior startup exposure and having built something before — successful or not. Founders who’d seen chaos up close. Who knew how to get from zero to one. Investors still over-index on polish and “founder-market fit.” But the founders worth backing are the ones with scars, not slides. If the résumé looks too good, it’s probably not the real edge. The best bets often walk in disguised as a risk.

For 13 years, I’ve been on the frontline of the B2B data wars. Here are the 5 strategies startups can use to defeat larger incumbents in their battle for market share: BACKGROUND: When I was VP at ZoomInfo they outflanked D&B by going after SMB. When I was President/COO at Apollo I saw them build a self-serve PLG engine to take that very same SMB segment from ZoomInfo. In the coming years, some B2B data startup will do to Apollo what they did to ZoomInfo, and ZoomInfo did to D&B. That is the nature of the beast. Here are the 5 ways I've seen new companies defeat incumbents: 1. Capture Attention Better Than Your Competition -  Only companies with the ability to cut through the noise succeed -  No matter what you do, there are likely over 20 teams doing the same -  Lower the search cost for the buyer. Nurture a community, develop a memorable brand, think about market virality early on, invest in an Inbound flywheel 2. Just Be Different - There’s always room to innovate - Innovation can be in GTM or packaging (doesn't have to be product) Example (Packaging): ZoomInfo differentiated from D&B by selling a self serve tool for $5K/year; when most data vendors were selling data dumps for $100K+/year. Apollo differentiated from ZoomInfo by selling a self serve tool for $99/user/mo to SMB; when others were selling $25K/year plans to enterprise. Example (GTM): ZoomInfo innovated in GTM with efficient inside sales teams as opposed to D&B’s field sales staff. Apollo innovated with PLG for the data business as opposed to ZoomInfo’s inside sales team 3. Refuse To Copy Your Dominant Competitor - Most entrepreneurs have so much respect for the dominant competitors that all they can think of is playing catch up and aim for feature parity - By the time you copy a feature, the dominant player will build 5 more and the gap widens - Instead, craft your own path. Identify an audience that your competitor is ignoring and roadmap that will make you look distinct 4. Relentless Focus On Optimizing The Low End Of The Market - Most disruption comes from the low end of the market - Zoominfo went after the SMB, which D&B was willing to forego without a fight - As the ZoomInfo business grew, they moved upstream and Apollo went after the low end of the market that ZoomInfo did not care as much about anymore - It’s only natural that Apollo will find going upstream more attractive as the business scales, paving way for a NewCo to acquire the SMB market once again 5. Be the best at something and don't try to be good at everything - Every team can be exceptionally good at something - Identify what your superpowers are - Is it Product, Sales, Marketing, CS? - Double down on your strengths, ignore your weaknesses - Do more of what you are good at to create a competitive edge TLDR: 1. Learn how to capture attention 2. Be different 3. Don't copy your competitor 4. Focus on low end of the market 5. Be the best at something P.S. Have questions? AMA in the comments. 👇

I always look at these 4 metrics to find potential winners: 👇 (Especially true for B2B startups) 1️⃣ Chunky ACV (Annual Contract Value) 5-6 figures per contract. Long duration, like 2-3 years. This means significant growth per client over time and a high chance of attractive payback in < 1 year. 2️⃣ Shorter Sales Cycles Ideally less than 4 months. Swift deal closures—less time, more action. 3️⃣ High Margins Think 85% gross margins. More top-line reaching the bottom line, and profitability becomes inevitable with well-managed expenses. 4️⃣ Low Churn Less churn = steady recurring revenue Less time and money are needed to snag new clients. For B2B Enterprise monthly user churn: 🔸 <0.5% is great. 🔸 1-2% is good. These are gears working to create strong economics. They stack up, generate internal capital, and catalyse scale. We use these key numbers as a litmus test to find resilient businesses. When done right, B2B tech offers investors attractive returns adjusted to risk. P.S. These metrics are usually present in the post-seed stage. If you're in the super early investing game, they might not be fully available yet.

Underrated business model: Turning a service into a product. It helps solve the issue of scaling for: • Agencies • Freelancers • Solopreneurs Here’s how a "productized service" works: First, let's talk about the trap most consultants & contractors fall into: Trading hours for dollars. Even at high hourly rates, you're still capped by time. Earn more = work more. Stop working, and the money stops too. But there's a better way... Enter the "Netflix of Services" model: Instead of hourly billing, you package your expertise into a subscription. Clients pay a fixed monthly fee for access to your skills. Just like Netflix doesn't charge per movie, you don't charge per task. 7 quick examples: 1. DesignJoy • The service: Design work for $4,995/mo • The product: Unlimited design requests The keyword is “unlimited.” Whether a client makes 5 requests a month or 50, the price stays the same. So, what's the catch? Clients can submit only 1 request at a time. Each one gets placed in a queue. This natural throttle prevents overwhelm while maintaining the "unlimited" promise. 2. WP Curve • The service: WordPress maintenance • The product: Live access to a developer 24 hours a day for $59 The model worked so well, they scaled to an exit to GoDaddy in 2016. 3. ViralCuts • The service: Short-form video editing • The product: A trained editor to embed on your team (I'm part owner on this one) 4. Ninjas • The service: Accounting & tax help for ecomm businesses • Product: Fixed scope, flat monthly fee The founders originally prepared custom proposals & struggled with revenue. 10 months after productization, they reported hitting $10k MRR. 5. Contentfly • The service: Content creation • Product: A set amount of words/month → So... How can you replicate this? 3 things you need: • A skill/service. • SPEED in performing that skill. • A niche searvice offer within that skill to set yourself apart. Once you’ve picked your service: • Package it into a monthly subscription • Set clear boundaries and expectations • Use tools to automate delivery • Focus on speed of execution Just remember... The real power isn't in the "unlimited" promise. It's in the constraints you build around it: • Defined scope of work • Clear turnaround times • One request at a time These boundaries make the unlimited model actually sustainable. When you're not trading hours for dollars, something magical happens: You think bigger. And the best part? Productizing your service creates a systematized business with recurring revenue. Resulting in a real business you can actually sell someday. ↓↓↓ Think about creative ways to make money is one of my favorite things to do. Grab these resource to steal my top 13: https://lnkd.in/gkMtSr-3

Every time I reread these four books, I find a new leverage point I couldn't see before. They're not on most startup lists because they're not about startups. That's why they work: 1. Seven Powers by Hamilton Helmer This isn't a "strategy" book in the loose sense. It's an index of durable powers (scale economies, network economies, switching costs, cornered resource, branding, counter-positioning, process power) and when they actually bite. The point isn't growth for its own sake but asymmetric advantage - growth that widens the moat as you scale. Takeaway: Pre product-market fit, only counter-positioning (attacking incumbents with a model they can't copy without self-harm) and cornered resource (exclusive access to something critical) are real. Post product-market fit, scale economies become available. Choose one primary power and kill any project that doesn't reinforce it. 2. Obviously Awesome by April Dunford Positioning is frame control. If you don't set the frame (the category where customers mentally place you), the market will do it for you and you'll be benchmarked on the wrong axis. Dunford gives an operational process for defining your competitive set, value narrative, and the "best-for" claim that makes price comparisons meaningless. Takeaway: Run her 5-step exercise: competitive alternatives → unique attributes → value themes → who cares most → market category. Then rewrite your homepage copy and pricing page to match. 3. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight Phil Knight's memoir about building Nike from selling shoes out of his trunk to a global empire. Don't read it as a hero's journey. Read it as a case study in creative constraints. Knight turned cash scarcity into competitive advantage through the Futures program (getting retailers to commit 5-6 months ahead) and creative financing when banks wouldn't lend. Takeaway: Map your biggest constraint. Turn it into a differentiator. Nike turned cash scarcity into advance retailer commitments that gave them predictable revenue when competitors couldn't. 4. Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows Many leaders optimize parts without seeing the whole. Systems thinking reveals where small changes create cascading effects - like how improving onboarding can paradoxically reduce retention if it brings in users who churn faster. Takeaway: Draw your growth loop as boxes and arrows. Find the one constraint that, if removed, would change everything else. That's your only priority. The best books should be reread at different stages. Each time through Seven Powers, different powers become available. Each time through Obviously Awesome, your positioning gets sharper. What book changed how you make decisions? Not how you think about them - how you actually make them.

Want to build a unicorn? Impossible if you have not studied in Oxford, TUM or the likes!? That is at least what one might think, when looking at a lot of the publications. But in fact, it may only be part of the truth. We have looked at over 800 unicorn founders across European tech of the last 20 years and the data reveals some surprising insights. Firstly, talent is really broadly distributed - prestigious education and employers are not as critical as one might imagine. The density of successful founders among the alumni of the top 20 employers and schools (ranked by number of unicorn founder alumni)  is high - and it likely will continue to be. But - 60% of unicorns have no founders from these schools and companies - their founders come from 350+ unis and 500+ employers. All of these are startups that one might have missed looking at past careers and education. Secondly, experience matters but unicorn founders have a pretty diverse background. There is no archetypical profile. When we look at what founders have been up to before they started their companies, we find that ~40% gained experience in startups, ~30% come from big tech or corporates, 1 out of 7 come from consulting and 1 out of 11 from banking. And while most founders bring significant previous work experience, some founded their companies right out of school. I guess there really is not one career path that would prepare founders for the rollercoaster ride of building their own rocketship?! Thirdly, across Europe there appear to be some distinct regional differences. To name a few - the Nordic countries show the highest share of founders coming from past startup experience - in particular Sweden and Norway - likely driven by favorable political conditions to build startups as well as a very active investor scene. Germany shows the highest share of alumni of consultancies - which can probably be attributed to the fact that consultancy penetration is high (over 19k consultancies are active in Germany and the large firms have very sizeable presences) and the eCommerce era brought forward many successful ex consultants. While studying the past is useful, conditions have dramatically changed in the last 18 months and that is driving a new crowd of founders. When we take a look at the founders starting out today, more and more founders are alumni of big tech and other startups. To a large extent this is driven by changing opportunity costs of key employees in tech companies, i.e. for them, leaving their well paid roles is more attractive than it was 2 years ago. Applications of founders to our residencies are driven by exactly that kind of founders - in 2022 vs 2021 we saw more than 8x as many founders from JustEat, more than 2x from Klarna or Delivery Hero, 3x from Booking - and the list goes on. Looking forward to seeing what the next years will tell us about who the most successful founders will be throughout this rocky period… #founders #team #rollercoaster

A founder said something recently that stuck with me: “startups win by doing 100 things 10% better.” In tech, it’s easy to chase the big wins—the game-changing product launch, the massive funding round, the viral campaign. But the most resilient, scalable companies are built on relentless execution of small improvements. Think about it. Customer onboarding becomes smoother which drives higher retention. Feedback loops tighten so teams can act faster on insights. The product is constantly refined so that friction is removed at every turn. These micro-improvements compound over time. Alone, they might seem insignificant. Together, they create a strong foundation—and a competitive moat. It’s the inverse of “death by a thousand cuts”—this is growth by a thousand wins. Startups often fall into the trap of waiting for “the one big move” to change everything. But the ones that thrive understand that their edge comes from focusing on incremental gains, making every single part of the company just a little better every day. The takeaway? In a crowded market, the companies that obsess over the details—the ones that compound small wins—are the ones that thrive.

Founders who major in Computer Science are 60% more likely to build a unicorn. In the U.S. alone, 662 unicorns were founded by Computer Science majors. Engineering comes next in terms of absolute numbers (560 unicorns). But here’s the catch: engineering founders are no more likely than an average VC-backed founder to found a unicorn. How do we know this? This result comes from new research my team at Stanford and I have just completed. We assembled data on every U.S. unicorn and more than 4,000 of their founders, and then compared them to a large, representative sample of startups and founders. This allows us to estimate an odds ratio — how much more (or less) likely a founder with a given characteristic is to found a unicorn. Here is the breakdown by field of study for ten most popular majors:  1: Computer Science (662) — Odds: 1.6  2: Engineering (560) — Odds: 1  3: Economics (264) — Odds: 1.15  4: Business (214) — Odds: 0.75  5: Mathematics (192) — Odds: 1.5  6: Chemistry (95) — Odds: 0.8  7: Psychology (52) — Odds: 0.7  8: History (50) — Odds: 0.6  9: Philosophy (49) — Odds: 1.4  10: Marketing (47) — Odds: 0.7 I’ll be diving into the backgrounds of unicorn founders over the next few months. If you have specific questions about them, drop them in the comments — we might investigate them or share our previous research with you. NOTE: Data covers 2,430 unicorns and 1,961 random sample companies. The odds ratio represents the ratio of the percentage of unicorns with a specific undergraduate major to the corresponding percentage of random sample startups. Random sample is a group of companies paired with the unicorn sample based on matching criteria, regardless of whether they achieved unicorn status.

In 1993, I got the call no entrepreneur wants to get: "We're out of money." My business partner, Jeremy Middleton CBE, and I had poured our life savings into FastFix (what HomeServe was originally called). And monthly losses had gone from £10,000 to £50,000. We had no cash. Everyone told me my days as an entrepreneur were over, and I should consider going back to my job at Procter & Gamble. But I refused to give up. Then, by chance, we stumbled on the missing piece of the puzzle. Someone rang and told me about Sutton Water, a small company in Surrey that had developed a plumbing insurance model. I found some of their customers and quickly brought them to the Holiday Inn to interview them. "What do you like about this scheme? What don't you like?" They said the annual inspection was pointless. If the underground pipes in their garden were leaking, they'd know about it. So we took out the expensive inspection. We added in drainage cover and internal plumbing emergency cover. With the last £10,000 in the business, we sent out 1,000 leaflets. 38 people signed up and paid £50 each. That might not sound like a lot, but it's a take-up rate of 3.8%. Then we sent out 10,000 and got the exact same take-up rate: 3.8%. It was enough for me to stand on my desk in front of 23 anxious people who thought they were about to be made redundant and shout, "Yes, we've made it!" The model we came up with back then became HomeServe, a £4.1 billion company that started from 1,000 leaflets. Here’s what I learned from nearly losing everything: 1. You can't expand a business into profit.  ↳ If you can't make something work on a small scale, it will just lose more money on a bigger scale. 2. Talk to your customers.  ↳ I didn't guess what they wanted; I asked them. That Holiday Inn board table conversation allowed us to put together our business model. 3. Test small before you scale.  ↳ We risked the last £10,000, not another £100,000. That 3.8% response rate was enough signal to know we'd found something. 4. The best business models flip the problem.  ↳ We stopped chasing one-off transactions and started building recurring revenue instead. It took getting backed into a corner before I found the right answer. But I wouldn't wish the same fate for other founders and CEOs building now. That's why we run our Business Leader Growth Workshops. If you're a UK founder or CEO running a business with £3 million or more in revenue, and you want to learn how to find your breakthrough model, join us at the next one: https://lnkd.in/e5wQ6JGS They're free and designed for real peer-to-peer learning with those who have been exactly where you are. Share this to reach other founders who would benefit.

78% of B2B tech companies fail to differentiate themselves effectively, leading to commoditization and razor-thin margins. I've analyzed 100+ B2B tech companies between $500K to $3M in revenue, and the pattern is painfully clear: Most founders are stuck in the "me too" trap, trying to compete on features and price while wondering why their growth is stalling. Here's what your buyers ACTUALLY care about (based on real data): 1. They're terrified of making the wrong purchase decision 2. They want proof you understand their specific challenges 3. They need confidence you can deliver consistent results 4. They're looking for a trusted advisor, not another vendor 5. They want to know why YOU specifically can solve their problem Yet most companies: • Copy competitor messaging • Focus on generic benefits • Hide behind corporate speak • Blend into the noise • Fail to leverage their founder's unique expertise The bigger picture? Along with your product uniqueness, your founder's story, expertise, and unique approach also impact the way your buyers look at your brand. When we helped our clients shift their positioning from "what we do" to "why we're uniquely qualified to solve this problem," the results were dramatic: • Buyers were more interested to buy (win rates increased) • Average deal size grew (buyers ready to pay more) • Volume of leads increased, and sales cycle decreased. The market doesn't need another generic solution provider. It needs YOUR specific perspective, experience, and methodology. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. Start being THE go-to authority for your specific target customer. The companies that win in 2024 won't be the ones with the most features. They'll be the ones who clearly communicate why they're different and back it up with proof. If you're ready to stop competing on features and start commanding premium prices, let's talk about how to EXPLORE and POSITION your unique expertise as your biggest competitive advantage. #B2B #SaaS #ProductStrategy #Growth #StartupAdvice