Notion: Recent Episodes
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This was originally posted on May 29, 2020.
P402 - Staying uncomfortable, with Matt Welle, CEO, Mews
Founders must be prepared to take themselves outside their comfort zone if they want to continue to lead a fast growth business.
Highlights -Build emotional intelligence to get the best from your people. -Find a balance between operational excellence and innovation. You must have both. -Stay uncomfortable. If you want to grow you need to embrace change.
Matt Welle is the co-founder of Mews, the Hotel Property Management System company based in Prague. In this interview, recorded shortly before the COVID-19 Crisis, Matt discusses his personal leadership journey.
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This was originally posted on May 26, 2020.
P401 - Surfing to Growth, with Tae Hea Nahm of Storm Ventures
Tae Hea describes how startups can unlock growth (find "Go-To-Market Fit") and why that requires executives and founders to unlearn.
Highlights: - Why surfing? Unlocking growth feels like the transition from paddling to surfing. - Surfing to growth is a 3 step process: Catching the wave, Riding the wave and Having the right surfboard - Unlearning is critical to executive growth.
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This was originally posted on March 24, 2020.
TEN05 - Helping fitness entrepreneurs live their dreams with Glofox Glofox mission is even bigger, Improving health and wellbeing on a global basis. That is something really worth doing.
Highlights
Building exceptional teams and an exceptional company in three different timezones is the big challenge. The big question is “how do avoid getting so obsessed on the here and now that we miss where our industry is going?” A business built on impact, purpose and pride.
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This was originally posted on March 20, 2020.
TEN04 - Helping small businesses survive and thrive on the hive with Futrli Despite massive tech advances, 50% of small businesses fail, says Hannah Dawson. We want to play our part in helping those companies fulfill their potential.
Highlights: - As a former small business owner, I know hard it can be when you are all alone. - We want to create a network effect of small businesses helping each other to succeed through our platform and community. - The one thing Europe desperately needs is a new generation of tech growth experts, if not we will all cannibilise ourselves.
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This was originally posted on March 17, 2020.
TEN03 - What is success? Looking back and being astonished at what you have achieved Michael Grupp, Founder and CEO of Byter, the no-code automation platform shares his hopes, fears and desires for this new decade
Highlights: - As a lawyer I was scared of the future and sold the status quo. Now as a tech entrepreneur I’m living in status quo and selling the future - We want Bryter to become the de facto file standard for lawyers around the world - My greatest wish is for Europe to realise that the future can happen here. But to do that we need more tech in our blood.
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This was originally posted on March 13, 2020.
TEN02 - Building a company of global scale and significance David Williams, founder of Arqit - the quantum encryption company
Highlights: - Creating global scale, making a tonne of money and having a lot of fun doing it. - My biggest challenge? Hiring the very best and smartest people. - Building sovereign capabilities to solve strategic issues for the UK
Chris Tottman discusses his hopes and fears for the next ten years
Highlights: - A new category of venture capital. It’s got to be so much more than just a fund. - For me, calmness is success and it’s changing the way I operate. - Spinning the flywheel of success ever faster.
Build a business to be proud of, with Catherine Birkett, CFO, Gocardless. The path to achieving a successful exit is to build a business to be proud of, while keeping an eye on the end game.
Highlights: - Achieving an exit starts with building a business to be proud of - Think about how the business will endure and scale past the exit or IPO - Get your house in order and use failed sales attempts to prepare yourselves
VC money should be raised when a company is ready to accelerate: At seed stage sell the dream, at Series A sell the growth, at Series B show the spreadsheet.
Cristina Fonseca, co-founder of Portugal’s Talkdesk, angel investor and Venture Partner at Indico Capital shares her fundraising experiences with Stephen Millard at Notion Capital, as part of Notion’s Pain of Scale podcast programme.
Highlights: - Securing the “right type of investors” is critical to startup success. - At Seed you are selling the dream, at Series A selling the growth and at Series B showing the spreadsheet! - Don’t go chasing unicorns. More: https://notion.vc/resources/how-to-raise-venture-capital-with-cristina-fonseca/
There is no better place in the world than Europe in general and London in particular to start a tech company, no better place to scale it and exit it than the US.
Dan Glazer, London Office Managing Partner at Wilson Sonsini, shares his thoughts on US expansion for European tech and the exciting future that awaits Europe, UK and London as the startup flywheel really starts to spin.
Highlight: - When and why European tech companies should raise capital in the US - Nine steps to take to de-disk US expansion - Some “hiring hacks” to win the war for talent in the US
Read more: https://notion.vc/resources/starting-in-europe-scaling-up-in-the-us/
Hannah Dawson, Founder and CEO of Futrli, discusses her ambition to solve company failure rates through AI-driven, actionable insights to help secure the financial future for thousands of small businesses around the world and why she is leading the way with a freemium business model and product-led growth. Highlights: - Freemium focuses the mind on delivering impact again and again - All the A’s - aligning organisational design and strategy with customer acquisition, activation and advocacy - Why building a community could be the game-changer
Read more: https://notion.vc/resources/product-led-growth-and-freemium-business-models-at-futrli-with-hannah-dawson/
When we think of the very best tech companies on the planet – Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix – what sets them apart is that innate ability to innovate. Gib was previously VP Product at Netflix and Chief Product Officer at Chegg and is now one of the most highly valued - and well-travelled – speakers and thinkers in product strategy on the planet today.
Highlights: ·Why culture is so much more powerful than a bunch of rules ·Building great products is messy, that’s why strategy and customer science are so important ·Why you should never lose your punk startup risk-taking muscles
Interviewed by Paul Papadimitriou and Stephen Millard.
Read more: https://notion.vc/resources/talking-product-strategy-consumer-science-and-culture-with-gibson-biddle/
Highlights: - The three phases of startup growth - Why customer retention and revenue expansion are the most important measures of product-market fit - How you know if you have go-to-market fit - And why “pacing” is critical for “growth and mo”
Read more: https://notion.vc/resources/learning-how-to-deliver-predictable-scalable-revenue-growth-with-mark-roberge/
Mark Roberge is the founder of Stage2Capital investing in SaaS companies and helping them grow, he’s a Professor in Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, the former CRO of Hubspot and the author of the best-selling book, The Sales Acceleration Formula. All proceeds from the book go to https://build.org/ - BUILD is dedicated to proving the power of experiential learning through entrepreneurship and igniting the potential of youth in under-resourced communities.
Sarika Garg shares her experiences with Notion on building a dominant industry player, disrupting the procure to pay category.
Highlights: - Why tech companies must connect their vision with immediate impact - The role of value ladders - The importance of selling and delivering on outcomes - A big fan of Geffrey Moore, Sarika shares her experience of shaping their strategy with his thinking and The Chasm Group
Why, when and how to hire extraordinary people.
Highlights: - Unicorns hire for a far wider range of experience and perspectives, creating a magic soup of thinking - The best founders hire way more senior people much faster in the first 12-24 months post Series A - And the tenures are shorter as they bring in new people for the next stage of the journey
You're building a remarkable company that will change an industry - so stop hiring like an HR manager, with Chris Tottman, Notion Partner.
- Why the best teams are built on chemistry first and repeat pedigree second.
- Founders are founders not because they want to manage things, but because they want to imagine things.
- A bastardised version of three horizon thinking to help create long term strategy in parallel to world class execution.
Jonathan Gale has taken two of Europe’s biggest SaaS success stories from early product/ market fit to global scale.
Highlights: - Capital efficiency is a critical output of product market fit - Choose a market in which less than 1% market share means hundreds in millions in revenue - Don’t confuse constraints for objectives - Emotional alignment with strategy is critical
Read more: https://notion.vc/resources/why-great-product-is-the-foundation-of-every-saas-success-with-jonathan-gale/
Playing long games for big stakes in the public and private markets with Rich Goold, Partner and Head of Tech Law at EY Highlights: - Map out your long term value journey - Think about why the people founders surround themselves with is critical for long term success - Think about your advisers - legal, financial, etc - as being partners, not cost centres - Build your universe of buyers and establish long term relationships - Over the next five years we expect the M&A market for European tech to be very healthy - Why public markets need to evolve to meet the needs of tech businesses - What trips people up on the path to a successful acquisition
Read more: https://notion.vc/resources/playing-a-long-game-for-big-stakes/ And: https://notion.vc/resources/helping-tech-founders-finding-their-way-through-the-public-and-private-markets/
Raising venture capital with Jos White, General Partner at Notion. Jos shares the lessons he’s learned as a founder and investor from thousands of investment pitches. He believes founders are no.1, but there’s much more to consider, why he passed on some opportunities, and what he's looking into for future investments. Read more: https://notion.vc/resources/raising-venture-capital-with-jos-white/ And: https://notion.vc/resources/fundraising-at-series-a/ And: https://notion.vc/resources/fund-raising-why-i-sometimes-pass-on-great-opportunities/
Vasco Pedro is the CEO of Unbabel. He tackles the challenge of internationalisation, critical to any ambitious European technology company - if they want to build a category defining company thinking about when and how to internationalise is a critical decision and has profound implications on the business from an organisational, commercial and technological perspective.
Vasco also argues that there is little time for founders to learn on the job and one of the most important challenges is for founders to bury any hubris or entitlement and to hire game changers with proven experience alongside or even above themselves if they want to achieve their potential. More: https://notion.vc/resources/accelerating-the-shift-to-a-world-without-language-barriers-with-vasco-pedro-ceo-unbabel/
Lilly Bacher is Global Head of Pricing at ProfitWell and works with tech founders and product teams around the world to conceptualise, effectuate, and realise pricing strategies with new products, legacy products, perpetual to SaaS, and so on. Key points: - Please talk to your customers and understand, at a granular level, their willingness to pay. - Don’t overlook the impact that pricing has on monetisation – more so even than just selling to new customers. - Don’t just set and forget. C, commit to an ongoing strategy to optimise your pricing.
Learn much more: https://notion.vc/resources/pricing-please-dont-set-it-and-forget-it/
Lea Hickman is a Partner at Silicon Valley Product Group (svpg.com), a firm dedicated to helping technology companies on product vision, strategy, discovery, design and development process through advisory, consulting and training services.
Key points discussed:
- Why mindset is the biggest difference between best tech companies and the rest
- Why product managers in startups need to be gritty and scrappy
- Why founders need to avoid falling in love with their ideas
In-depth read: https://notion.vc/resources/building-tech-products-loved-by-millions/
Nick Mehta is the CEO of Gainsight, the category defining and leading customer success company for SaaS businesses around the world. Nick kindly joined Notion to take part in our Pain of Scale podcast to discuss why customer success is so critical to success in recurring revenue businesses.
Key points:
- CSM is about way more than churn, it’s about deep and intimate customer understanding.
- Why a customer success manager should be one of your first five hires.
- How customer success is evolving and driving convergence between customer success and product development.
- Why in today’s economy companies must deliver shared success.
Read the full story: https://notion.vc/resources/why-customer-success-is-a-values-driven-movement/
Brynne Kennedy, founder of Topia, the leader in the emerging category of Global Talent Mobility, discusses her first hand experience in designing a category from initial market insights, to the importance of building and aligning communities to help customers move to the future of work. - Why categories really matter is that all homo sapiens want to be part of something bigger than themselves. - Category design, when done well, can create enormous amounts of discretionary effort. - Why building a category is a team sport. We wrote even more here: https://notion.vc/resources/why-building-a-category-is-a-multiyear-endeavour/
This podcast explores the growing pains every startup will face as they succeed. Step one is to recognise the stage you are at and recognise the transformations the leadership and the business will need to deliver in order to maintain constant 2-3 X annual growth, adding $10’s in millions in revenues and potentially growing an organisation from 50 to 250 people in a very short period of time.
- Empowerment and delegation are a force multiplier for any leader, but especially the CEO.
- Separate yourself from your business and look down on it with an impassionate eye.
- Identify your skills gaps and bring in “Pillar People”
In-depth article: https://notion.vc/resources/the-tell-tale-signs-a-start-up-is-ready-to-grow-up/
Dennis Fois, CEO, NewVoiceMedia, reflects on the challenges of leading a scale up through fast growth, the importance of vulnerability and permission to fail and why radical simplification and execution are the difference between winning and losing at scale.
Highlights: - Why CEO’s must abstract themselves from the problems they are trying to solve - If you build a great team, you must let them shape the vision - On bastardising McKinsey’s Three Horizons! - Stand back from your ideas - the moment you find yourself defending an idea too hard start to question yourself. - In a world of no absolutes it is vital people can develop ideas without fear of failure. - Why Dennis learned to love the SFD - the shitty first draft! - Why radical simplification and execution are the differences between winning and losing at scale.
In-depth article: http://notion.vc/resources/radical-simplification-and-the-beauty-of-execution-with-dennis-fois/
In discussion with Stephen Chandler, Managing Partner at Notion we reflect on on the biggest lessons he’s learned through the start up, grow up and scale up journey, as a co-founder at MessageLabs and as an investor in more than 50 B2B SaaS companies. Batch 2, episode 0.
- Why the start-up founder is part Pathfinder, part Viking.
- Using time and capital efficiently are the most important factors in the early stages.
- Why and how capabilities and leadership teams change as the business moves from startup to grow up.
- Why the grow up phase is the real hard yards.
- Why founders need self awareness to grow and evolve
- The founder journey - from viking to company builder to conductor.
- A great and inspirational team, addressing a large and exciting market opportunity, this is what I look for in my investments.
More: http://notion.vc/resources/the-entrepreneurial-journey-from-inception-to-real-scale/
Stephen and Paul discuss the road taken and the major lessons learnt with the first batch of guests on the Pain of Scale podcast. How do we build iconic companies? More: http://notion.vc/resources/the-pain-of-scale-2018-retrospective/
The art and science of exiteering, or the exit built from the start as a mindset, to prepare for it and to avoid its pitfalls, with Ian Mibourn, General Partner and CFO at Notion. Hosted by Stephen Millard and Paul Papadimitriou for Notion. More: http://notion.vc/resources/playing-the-long-game/
How fundraising changes through the life and expansion of a startup, what stays the same, what differs significantly, with Bethany Ayers, Founder at Multiply Group and Chief Revenue Officer at Peak. Hosted by Stephen Millard and Paul Papadimitriou for Notion. More on the blog post: https://notion.vc/insights/raising-venture-capital-to-grow-your-saas-machine/
Being both quick and patient when expanding into Asia, with Susie Hugues, Director of Communications APAC at Appier and former Allison+Partners Vice President in Singapore, London and San Francisco. Hosted by Stephen Millard and Paul Papadimitriou. Read the related blog post, with more information: https://notion.vc/insights/asia-fast-moving-exciting-and-beguiling-and-possibly-the-next-big-destination-for-european-tech-founders/
How price should be the exchange rate of your value, with Patrick Campbell, CEO of ProfitWell (formerly Price Intelligently). Read the related blog post, with more information: https://notion.vc/insights/exploring-pricing-as-the-exchange-rate-for-value-with-patrick-campbell/
Ramping up the Product Machine over the growth and scale of a startup, with Carlos Gonzales-Cadenas, Chief Product and Technology Officer at GoCardless. Hosted by Stephen Millard and Paul Papadimitriou for Notion. Read the related blog post, with more information: https://notion.vc/insights/building-the-product-machine-with-carlos-gonzalez-cadenas/
Building a growth engine with high performing teams, with Jacco Van der Koolj. Read the related blog post, with more information: https://notion.vc/insights/talking-revenue-growth-and-the-science-of-sales-with-jacco-vanderkooj-of-winning-by-design/
Category leading thinking and execution, the essence of successful companies, with Dave Peterson, co-founder at PlayBigger. Read the related blog post, with more information: https://notion.vc/insights/category-thinking-with-dave-peterson-author-of-play-bigger/
The people challenge of scale, how to build high performing teams when growing fast, the key challenge that startups face, with Maureen Taylor. Read the related blog post, with more information: https://notion.vc/insights/building-tech-companies-when-artists-meet-operators/
Growing healthy leaders and health as the competitive advantage for organizations, with Mike Snelling. Read the related blog post, with more information: https://notion.vc/insights/growing-companies-with-mike-snelling/
At Notion, we aim at creating the conditions for extraordinary success. In our new podcast series, we discuss all the steps necessary to build category-leading startups. Dive in here: https://notion.vc/insights/introducing-the-pain-of-scale-podcast-series/
Dan Steinman is General Manager EMEA at Gainsight and Author of Customer Success: The Book. We discuss about what makes Customer Success today.
Abbie Pugh is a Partner at Multiple. We discuss why fitness is a great metaphor for considering culture, and how to hone a vision and develop a company's culture.
Abbie Pugh is a Partner at Multiple. We discuss why fitness is a great metaphor for considering culture, and how to hone a vision and develop a company's culture.
Taylor Wescoatt helps startups refine their process and get ‘Product Thinking’ going in their minds at the earliest opportunity. He's EIR at SeedCamp and invests in tech via ConcreteVC.
Second part of our interview with Jeff Wellstead, Talent & Innovation Accelerator and Future of Work Consultant focusing on digital transformation & adoption within the talent and human resources function.
Jeff Wellstead is a Talent & Innovation Accelerator and Future of Work Consultant for small businesses in the emerging, fast growth high-tech sector, as well as mature businesses under taking digital transformation. His primary focus is on digital transformation & adoption within the talent and human resources function.
Chrys Chrysanthou, Principal at Notion Capital, on the future of venture capital in the era of machine learning.
Max Tatton-Brown, Founder and Managing Director at Augur, on why best PR strategies are unsexy, private and very very valuable
Paul Jackson, Managing Director at Castle, on productisation.
- Why products are about value delivery, not technology
- The 3 pillars of product
- How to avoid Stack Fallacy
Chrys Chrysanthou, Principal at Notion Capital, on why he invested in SmartUp. We discuss employee knowledge creation and sharing for a fast changing and demanding global workforce.
Tom Castley, sales leader and SaaS expert, on building high performing sales team. We discuss about hiring for potential and coach-ability, the reality of on-boarding and quota, and the sustainability of quota setting and incentives.
Stephen Millard joined in January 2016 to lead Notion’s platform strategy.
Stephen joined from Eccomplished, a retail tech advisory and strategic partner to Notion Capital. As CEO and Founder, he worked exclusively within the early stage retail technology sector, developing investment and growth strategies for companies including Amplience, Aurora Commerce, Brightpearl, Demandware, Detego, eCommera, Intelligent Reach and RichRelevance.
He was previously Oracle European Marketing Director and MessageLabs Global Marketing VP.
Chris Tottman, partner at Notion Capital, on why he invested in Unbabel, the translation layer for the internet.
Jos White, partner at Notion Capital, on team, product and market, the cornerstones of startup success.
In this episode, Paul Burmester, Strategic Advisor, Angel Investor & Mentor, on strategically designing a startup with the exit in mind.
In this episode, Dan Glazer, Partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, on raising transatlantic funding and setting up a US expansion the right way. (Pardon us for the few sound glitches throughout)
In this episode, Bethany Ayers, Director or Sales at Cloud.IQ, on putting together a pitch deck to raise money for a startup.
In this episode, Richard Nockolds, Consultant in Organisational Buying Behaviour, on selecting and scaling the right sales channel mix.
In this episode, Scott Allison, Chairman and CEO at Allison & Partners, on crafting a story that builds momentum for an organization.
In this episode, Dimitar Stanimiroff, Founder at Heresy, on using an agile framework to building and scaling a sales organization.
In this episode, Jon Bradford, Startup Next Lead at Techstars, on the future of innovation through accelerators and corporate ventures.
In this episode, Martin Palethorpe, Executive Coach and Founder at Pragma Group, on amplifying healthy high-performing people and organizations.
In this episode, Ahmed Medhat, Data Scientist at Facebook and Advisor at Duedil, on surfacing business and relationship context through data.
In this episode, Sofia Quintero, Founder and CEO at NomNom, on building a growth culture experience.
In this episode, Fergus Gloster, Founder at Thomond Technology, on creating a SasS sales engine that is built to last.
In this episode, David Shearer, VP of Marketing at Elevaate, on designing a brand strategy that scales within a startup environment.
In this episode, Matt Clifford, Co-founder and CEO at Entrepreneur First, on prioritizing technical talent to build the companies of the future.
In this episode, Micha Hernandez, Founder and CEO at Wercker, on the evolution of software containers technology to build, deploy and iterate faster.
Russell has been working in digital for over a decade with data analytics at the heart of his career. Working with businesses from startup to FTSE100 he has guided teams to improve their marketing performance through data led insight.
Following positions in-house, agency and consultancy side he now leads a team as CEO in building a marketing attribution platform. CUBED Attribution is supporting a new view of digital data to enable brands understand how consumers truly interact with their marketing activity both on and offline.
In this episode, Patrick Campbell, co-founder and CEO at Price Intelligently, on how pricing and understanding the customer are two faces of the same coin.
Patrick is the Co-founder and CEO of Price Intelligently, the team and software behind some of the biggest and best SaaS pricing strategy out there from companies like New Relic and Autodesk to Wistia and Litmus. PI is also the maker of ProfitWell, which is free SaaS financial metrics for your billing system.
In this episode, Keith Wallington, Entrepreneur in Residence at Seedcamp and startup strategy advisor, on aptly sequencing the scale and growth of SaaS businesses.
Keith has led strategy and execution in digital and technology businesses since the 1990’s: his experience in driving digital business models spans Retail Banking, Telecommunications, Online Live Broadcasting, Software and Software as a Service (SaaS): he has led digital business strategy initiatives for businesses including Microsoft, Standard Bank, Omnicom/TBWA, Truphone and Mimecast.
From 2008 to 2014 Keith spent 6 years at global email management provider, Mimecast: here he assumed a number of C Level roles, including COO, spanning most of the business from Marketing to Customer Experience to Technical Operations as he championed scalable, efficient growth. With Mimecast now the largest Cloud based email archiving service globally, Keith refocussed his attention in late 2014 to seek out and support businesses in the early stages of significant growth.
In this episode, David Goldberg, founder and CEO of Founders Pledge, on helping entrepreneurs successfully embed social impact in their businesses.
Having run the gauntlet of finance, start-up, and academia, David started Founders Pledge to make it absurdly easy for entrepreneurs to do good in their work and lives.
In this episode, Hampus Jakobsson, co-founder and CEO at Brisk.io, shares his insights on the saas sales process and some of the key challenges that early stage startups face.
Prior to Brisk Hampus founded The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) a mobile UI company that shipped on 500+ million devices, TAT was acquired by RIM/Blackberry in 2010. At RIM, Hampus was M&A Director for EMEA before leaving in 2012 to found Brisk.
Hampus is passionate about entrepreneurship and is a very active angel investor in Scandinavia with 50+ investments to date.
In this episode, Chris Tottman, Partner at Notion Capital, on taking everything he learnt as a entrepreneur to invest in founders in Europe.
Before co-founding Notion, Chris was at MessageLabs Group from 1999 as one of its first employees and held a number of executive level roles including Chief Commercial Officer and Senior VP of HR prior to their $700m exit to Symantec in 2008.