Fractional and interim executive
Strategic Leadership
that scales
with your business
Why your scale-up needs an advisory board before it’s too late
We’re not big enough for a board yet.”
I hear this from founders all the time. They’ve got revenue, a growing team, maybe even some funding behind them, but when you ask about their advisory board, the answer is almost always the same: “That’s something for later.”
It’s one of the most expensive mistakes I see in the scale-up world. And it’s completely avoidable.
The single point of failure in your startup is you
So you got your startup past the first valley of death. You found product-market fit, got some real revenue coming in, maybe even raised a round. Congratulations. But here’s a question that keeps coming back in almost every conversation I have with growth-stage founders: why does everything still run through me?
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. And it’s not a capacity problem, it’s an architecture problem.
So you’re writing a proposal for an open call…
If you’re a startup eyeing European open calls, here are some invaluable insights from Aneta Gałązka: "Navigating EU Open Calls: A Startup’s Guide to Overcoming Common Challenges" ... and as someone who’s been an evaluator myself, I can wholeheartedly back these...
European Defence Tech Funding Landscape: A Comprehensive Guide for Startups and Scale-ups
I wrote about the involvement of Venture Capital in the defense industry a while back (click here to read up on that one). However, with the current geopolitical tension and Europe looking at investing more in defending itself again, there have been some important...
Navigating Tomorrow: Empowering companies through Futures Thinking for strategic success
Humankind has always wanted to know what will happen in the future. From the rulers of ancient Rome to CEO’s of current companies, all of them have been looking to predict the future, in order to secure their empire or their business. Thankfully, nowadays we have reliable tools to allow us to chart a course through the uncharted waters of the future.
About grey rhino’s, black swans and the incumbent’s dilemma
Image by Holger Detje from Pixabay and by Geran de Klerk on Unsplash There are a number of articles online comparing COVID-19 to a black swan event. But is it really? Let’s check out some definitions. Investopedia describes a black swan as “an...
Startup success is the execution of your ideas
“Ideas are just a multiplier of execution”. To see the true value, you need to multiply the idea with the execution.
If you have a startup, how can you hire your A-team?
One of the things that is important to grow your startup and scale-up is the team composition. Investors tend to look at the team behind the startup, and prefer well-balanced teams. Especially the core team needs to have what we call “complementary skills” – you can’t all be the CEO or the head of tech or the finance wizard.
Venture Capital, the Secret Service and the military
What do spies, soldiers and venture capital have to do with each other, you might ask? Well, even spies need innovative new ways of working and spying. Not to mention that the whole security and protection market is also moving online. Servers and sensitive data need to be protected … or hacked. New wearable technologies need to be developed to support agents and soldiers in the field.
Is there a second valley of death for startups and scale-ups?
Recently, some articles popped up talking about the further challenges for scale-ups, namely in wat is now dubbed “the second valley of death”. What happens to companies once they have secured their first funding rounds and achieved product-market fit?