Henry Joseph-Grant Profile picture
May 18 11 tweets 3 min read
I was never a fan of the pampered mentality that came into startups.

I cringed as I saw money be wasted on totally unnecessary shit like expensive offices, kitted out with artificial grass and ping pong tables.

Hiring people with sexy logos on their CV, but were often useless.
It's such a misconception that pampering people makes them work harder, or perform better.

I spent a year of my career based at one of the worlds top PE companies @ their prestigious Mayfair office.

They had it all, like literally every creature comfort you could ever think of.
PE has a dumb culture where people need to do facetime and be in the office more than they're at home, most MD's / VP's practically live at the office, with clothes there and everything.

Thing is, I saw firsthand a lot of their facetime hours are spent on Internet shopping / FB.
I was the first in each morning, last out of the office in the early hours at night.

They were shocked by how hard I worked as I was "only" working for one of their portfolio companies and my work ethic stood out.

That work ethic wasn't shaped by the office luxury. It's my DNA.
I would work my ass off regardless of pampered surroundings or not, because I was laser focussed on building a business.

I urge founders to really be economical and have humility in this cycle.

Be fair, have empathy.... but also lean and fucking mean.

Don't waste money on BS.
Make sure every single person you have on board is rowing and adding value, including you.

That isn't purely measurement, that's also thorough onboarding, ongoing support, seamless internal comms and no sacred cows culture, it's about survival, progress, and teamwork is the key.
Don't let go of solid performers, because you think ex FAANG (or whoever) is going to come in and do a better job, often they do not.

Keep a mix between grey hairs, youth, energy and proven experience, but keep everybody humble and working together.

Don't allow them/us culture.
It's counterintuitive, but you never stop needing entrepreneurs, for sure, many wont be able to grow with a hyper growth company, but often that's only because of poor legacy decisions e.g having people in job titles they haven't earned or aren't capable of.

Always think ahead.
The culture should be honest, you shouldn't need to fire people, each individual (including you) should know when they've taken the company as far as they can + when it's time to past the baton on to the next generation.

Having to force those decisions is a culture failure imo.
So....

- Don't pamper, empower.
- Don't blame, support.
- Don't set people up for failure.
- Don't overlook, be meticulous.
- Don't expect, without example.
- Don't react, prevent.
- Work with, not against.
- Don't neglect, introspect.

Humility >>>
Ps - please get rid of the fucking ping pong tables, that's three desks you could squeeze in. 😅

Your people shouldn't have time for games at work anyway...

Give them as much balance as possible, so they can recharge, unwind and play ping pong in their own time. 💜 #Onwards

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More from @speirin

May 19
Part of the reason why media publications are so hard to monetise effectively to support real journalism:

They don't treat their content as product...

There's a big disconnect and lack of understanding of the interests of their AMU's.

They optimize for clicks, not stickiness.
I remember when I started to work with @Irish_TechNews in 2017. I immediately did customer discovery calls with startup founders, angel investors, tech corporates + venture capital funds.

I asked them what content they wanted to see. Obviously each had very different "wants"
From the coverage they needed + coverage they wanted to read.

All said they had never been asked that question by any tech publication, they didn't understand the pressures of journalists + they felt the only way to gain coverage was via pricey PR agencies who had relationship.
Read 13 tweets
May 19
I really respect what @anthonyrose is building @seedlegals, they've worked hard to upskill founders + are leaders in EU ecosystem.

That being said their SeedFAST ASA instrument (UK version of a safe) is VERY expensive.

You can get a lawyer to do everything below for £1k + VAT. Image
I really think it's important for us to. Increase transparency and help founders save money (especially at the earliest stages)

Historically, theres always been a tax on founders naivety and inexperience, aided/abetted by an opaque investment process + echo chamber.

Founders >>
Let's do the maths of using @seedlegals....

1% of 500k = £5k
0.5% of 700k = £3.5k
0.2% = £2K

So on £2m raised using a SeedFAST ASA instrument you're paying = £10.5k (0.525%)

That's £9300 more than you actually need to be paying, when you can use a lawyer for £1200 all in.
Read 5 tweets
May 19
There's two types of founders

Parasitic:

They're happy to profit from destruction, removal of freedoms, tightening of controls + use exploitation.

Symbiotic:

They're determined to empower, increase independence, decentralise controls + won't exploit.

There is no inbetween.
You have to make a concious decision to be symbiotic, preventing your innovation + brilliance being used for harm.

You don't need to be concious to be parasitic, it's a by-product of naivety, lack of strategy/experience + happens by default as you scale, unless you have control.
Most founders start w/ honourable, good intentions, but good will/nature gets very easily cannibalised by ruthless outside pressures.

The only way to maintain control is by learning economics, not getting blinded or motivated by greed/short term gain + prioritising independence.
Read 5 tweets
May 18
Sometimes I just imagine what could be achieved if every human had access to world class education, health care, balanced nutrition, stable and safe places to live, disaster economics wasn't a thing and neither was materialism, disaster economics and destructive capitalism. 💭
Over the coming years all the climate greenwashing, economic and financial transition to things like UBI will be "sold" as trying to achieve the above, I just don't believe it will get us there, given those who will drive it have profited and maintained control by the inverse.
I don't believe our world is as fragile for a conflict between two nations to break global supply chains, causing current fuel, food + cost of living crisis.

I don't believe the resources of the world aren't abundant enough to provide for all.

Greed + incompetence is the cause.
Read 9 tweets
May 17
I truly believe we'll see the true talent of venture capital investors during this cycle.

The previous cycle optimised for greed + short term wins.

This cycle requires genuine talent to know which horses to back, where to find them and most importantly to build relationships.
Also factoring in that they need to decide whether to keep doubling down on portcos they knew built on quicksand and haven't got solid fundamentals.

LP's will be watching every move like hawks and the optics of any mistake or error of judgement gets magnified ten fold.
The intel available to founders now is becoming more and more transparent in terms of predatory, unsupportive, bait and switch moves.

Many of the founders (who will win in this cycle) have bad experience with VC's in the previous cycle, so many will skip past them and take US $.
Read 5 tweets

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