How to become a "high agency" founder (and pitch to investors) with Saba Yussouf | Strategy & Tragedy

0:00Saba Yussouf. Hi. Thank you so much for coming on Strategy and Tragedy. My pleasure. As an exit founder and now investor, what is your founder story and transition into investing? You know, I am an investor now, but to be honest, I will always think of myself as being a founder. I always want to be known as a founder. Founder is really where my heart lies. It's where my brain lies. I love the stress. I love the thrill. It's what makes me feel alive. And I started my career at Ernest & Young. After I graduated and taught me a lot of discipline, taught me about international tax. I was up at four in the gym at five.

0:37I learned a lot and I'm happy to have worked in industry, but I was just dying to do my own thing. I was dying to start from the bottom and work my way up in my own industry, my own company. So I left Annecy Young around, I was 24, I think. Yeah, 13 years ago. And I just jumped right in. I started a health food company at the age of 24 called Clever Calories, sold it a few years later for way too cheap. Wow. But I thought I was so amazed that someone wanted to buy my company. I couldn't believe it. I thought I was the coolest person in the world. Amazing. Severely undervalued, but whatever. We move on.

1:20And I just took it from there. I realized that my passion is not in property, which is my family's business, but it really is in STEM technologies. science, technology, engineering and math, where I get to help human health equity. That is really what I care about. So all my founding companies or investments since then have been in helping human health equity, water treatment, disruptive solar treatment, human health, biohacking, skin, everything. That is probably the common denominator in what I do. Well, I was going to ask about how you develop your investment thesis, but I guess you kind of answered that.

1:58I'm so curious, how does this 24 year old coming from a corporate career, not only launch her own business, but build it into something so successful and valuable, which even to your own admission, OK, maybe it was undervalued, but you exited it. That is a humongous success, especially for anyone's first business starting age just 24. So like, how did you go about like figuring it all out from the get go? You know, when people meet me, okay, well, we just met, you probably look at me and think, she looks like she has it all figured out. I definitely don't. I just do it. You just do it. So you just told me about something about myself that I don't really think about.

2:42Oh, you've achieved this, success. I don't even use those words. When I talk to myself, I just think, okay, great. Now what? Okay, how can I make this more efficient? What's the next goal? And you just to what makes you happy and okay that in that first startup I won I've lost since then I don't have the luxury of losses but I have lost so it's it's up and down and I think you have to be thick skinned um to go through it and entrepreneurship is really not for everyone I think if someone had told me at the age of 24 this is what entrepreneurship does to you and feels like I definitely would have stayed in my job 100 % ignorance is definitely bliss right there's definitely a masochistic side to entrepreneurship so like why um why this what was it a supplements business it was a health food brand health food yeah where we exactly where we had these um cake bars that were healthy and back in the day I was starting to get into my fitness and and health and I was taking supplements like creatine l-carnitine when they were just coming onto the market so it's still quite a disruptive product and I found a way I found a manufacturer to insert these supplements into the food.

3:52Then you have to do shelf life testing, you have to do everything, find your packager. And I just made it happen. It was pretty much the first product on the market that contained these metabolism boosting products, supplements that helped your muscles, recovery, all of that into something yummy. And I remember I sent samples to Harvey Nichols. I was 24, didn't know what I was doing. I sent samples to their head office because back then it was so easy. to find contacts on LinkedIn. And I sent samples and they really liked it. And they wanted to exclusively launch with me. They gave me six months exclusivity in every store around the UK.

4:33And I was a little bit proud of myself. I felt a bit cool. That's incredible. And there's another product that I've invested in and we were trying to launch with Harvey Nichols last year. And it was so hard. I couldn't get in touch with anyone. everyone's emails are censored their phone numbers can't reach the head office times have really changed in the e-commerce b2c business it is so interesting you say that because as i'm listening to you something i've definitely cottoned on when i've interviewed other phenomenally successful individuals like yourself is a lot of you do make it sound easy and it gives me a bit of a run from of my money as an interviewer to like scratch beneath the surface and pick away and be like I just you know I know that it's not always that easy or I know that there's more there's more grit there's more to the story than that but what you've just highlighted there is the one of the external factors that we have no control over which is the timing of things so I would love as someone obsessed with sort of headwinds tailwinds and reverse engineering success on like lessons learned from both the wins and the failures.

5:42Let's take this incredible example we've got here. We've got success with Harvey Nicks and your first cake, healthy cake brand. And then you've got the more recent experience. What were, were there any other differences, first of all, other than just timing, different times? Sure. My MOQ 13 years ago from my supplier was something like 200 units of one SKU. And that is an immediate barrier to entry for a lot of founders. 100%. Because one of the questions I was going to ask you was around market validation and mitigating the risk. And this is also something I'm fascinated by in entrepreneurship as well, right?

6:21Is all of the customer discovery and litmus tests and MVPs and all these different things that you can do before having to invest in thousands of units or SKUs to launch a product because it is risky. what level of testing validation what confidence did you have at 24 launching your healthy uh the same confidence that i have now and i don't think you're gonna like my answer but um you just go for it do you know what i do love your answer i would i wouldn't mind one way or the other but i know that you would have liked a scientific answer maybe where you do your litmus tests and you have your data sets and you everything has to be a fair test you know how we're taught in in school but but really it doesn't work do you know the truth is 100 of the guests of the answers i get to that question is the same as really and the only reason why i bring this up is honestly you know if i'm 1000 honest i mentor mba students okay in entrepreneurship and it's a phenomenal program and there is so much emphasis and you know so it's so drilled into me as well to get that market validation to mitigate those risks but the truth is yeah you know and it's very much based on those lean startup principles which is great but the truth is whenever i do ask really really yeah they don't they haven't done it funny because you're trained a certain way like when i was at ernest and young you are trained with these protocols and it was just so unnatural to me that's why i was itching to leave and just do my own thing and no i didn't have i had a basic proof of concept i might have asked a few people but you can never be sure but as a founder I think your your biggest risk is not taking the risk yeah I love that really and I had to learn that the hard way if you want to be you want to hesitate and you want to be too careful you're not a founder I get it I get it I love that you gotta you gotta take the risk was it fortune favors the bold you gotta take risk right so how much of luck would you attribute to your success with that first business I don't believe in luck at all I don't I don't believe in luck in any area of my life wow okay okay sure coincidence but coincidence statistically uh it's very low chance okay yeah why don't you believe in luck i i don't think luck exists i think it's completely manufactured it's a mental stigma i i don't understand the concept of luck that's really fascinating i think good things happen to you sure uh bad things happen to you I just see that as signals in my life.

8:52I don't double down or lean into this concept of luck because I think it can be misleading. I think it can give you false hope for things. I believe in hard work. So connecting it to you saying you do believe in coincidences. Of course. what about when a lot of extremely low probability coincidences coalesce together all at once is that that's not luck that's still just coincidence playing a part in um it's just it's just math uh-huh it's just math that that's all it is yeah people think that math is a subject that you learn in school math is a language as well right math is how we compute life as well as English okay so I think in maths sometimes it helps me think clearer but but no a lot of low probability things happening to you has its own probability for sure I don't want to get too too technical might stray from the subject but that has its own probability of happening to you if you win the lottery I don't think it's like there was just a probability for that and you with a person so using your healthy cake business or what was it called again clever calories with a k yeah okay very kardashian of you i love that clever calories let's use that as an example because like that was a success like by and large i think that particular anecdote that you recount of sending some samples to somebody in to the buyers at harvey nicks and then you know that bit of the story sounds really easy and wonderful and successful just like okay we love this let's do it yeah that was literally what happened they emailed me saying can we order 2000 okay now we want you in all stores and I thought oh entrepreneurship is so easy what is everyone complaining about it's interesting also how much early success with you saying that can really skew your perception if you've been following the show for a while then first of all a great big thank you to you.

10:58I massively appreciate it. But also you may have noticed all these little snippets of videos that are shared on social media. Now, if you're wondering, does Steph have this huge marketing team behind her of editors and social media strategists for all this? I'm going to let you in on a secret. My best weapon is Opus. Now, I have a unique affiliate link in the show notes that you can head straight to to check out. How it works is honestly amazing. It takes longer form content just like this podcast and it automatically goes through the full video and finds the most interesting clips that it will think will perform the best on social media.

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12:11It's interesting also how much early success with you saying that can really skew your perception of how easy your heart how hard it can be because getting that you think exactly that you're like okay this is a piece of cake what's everyone complaining about but the fact that you produce that product at that point in time you hit the buyer's office at the right moment like you also you don't know whatever else was going on in their day or with other suppliers like maybe they just ended a contract with another similar brand all of these other in air quotes lucky coincidences and things that come into play there your response to that is this was all just a mathematical it's just probability I mean let let me ask you a question if I may if you really want to believe in luck right now tell me how would that help you in your entrepreneurial journey what good is going to come of you believing in luck for me that's a wonderful question I love and I love how you turn the tables on me for me so I delivered a whole session on hacking luck which is why I'm really glad that this accidental subject has come up here which is awesome for me it's about how can we stack the odds in our favor so if there are my view is is that there are always going to be things outside of your control and so all we can do is control the controllables and things like external factors such as macro economic environment the timing market shifts other people those things are always going to be outside of your control so with that knowledge in mind I'm a huge believer that you miss 100 % of the shots you don't take and so reverse engineering success and hacking luck is stacking the odds in your favor by taking more of those shots and of course being as strategically as strategic as you can possibly be but executing on that I see where you're going going with this And I actually agree with the logic behind it.

14:08But perhaps I call luck a different thing, which is something that we were talking about, which is being high agency. So if you want to stack the odds in your favor, you have to be high agency about it. Otherwise, you will have a lot of bad luck. OK, you mentioned the magic words here. So let's dive into that. What do you mean by high agency exactly? How do I say it? High agency is really, it's a philosophical strategy, I would say, to alter your reality. And I think I've learned how to be high agency over the years. I was the opposite before. And it allows my brain to run on signals instead of emotions.

14:46So that allows my decision making process to be so much faster, which equals success being so much closer, which you might call like interesting yeah so what does a high agency individual look like how do they operate let's kind of paint a picture of that if I talk about high agency founders which is something probably I'm most familiar with high agency founders are highly competent they're highly focused but they have a lot more time and resources than a low agency person because being high agency is a constant reflection on yourself. It's almost like you have a barometer that you live by that checks you every day.

15:30And you ask yourself, okay, was this high or low agency? Okay, noted. It is your decision tree. So I mean, I'll give you an example. You know, I speak with founders all the time. And someone came up to me yesterday and said, oh, I just don't know. This is so difficult. This is so difficult. That's very low agency to me, a high agency person would say okay this is difficult what is the minimum effort i need to put into this to make it less difficult that is efficiency to get the job done more of a productive mindset productive efficient um solution oriented competent highly competent to me it sounds like the opposite end of um the spectrum with like victim mentality being at that end right excuse mentality exactly and another founder said to me the other day for example they said oh I just don't know if I should fire my CTO I can't decide I can't decide and I said okay tell me what is the cost of you not firing your CTO and when you understand that cost you will know in one second whether you are keeping or firing that CTO next what's the next problem I mean I work with with amazing founders this the skincare brand that I that I backed she was a very high agency founder because she didn't just find solutions for problems.

16:49She actually dissolved the conditions around the problem so that it could never happen again. You know, they just go one step forward, more forward, high agency people. And I think that is actually the difference between successful and unsuccessful founders. So expand on that. So this particular founder has dissolved the problems around. She's mid-seam. She's amazing. She managed to dissolve the situation, the conditions around the problem so that the problem can never arise again. This is something she does on a monthly basis. Don't get me wrong. That is why she impressed me so much. Yeah, she sounds very impressive.

17:26So can you give us a real life example to bring that to life? I mean, oh, yeah, we were trying to figure out what manufacturer to use for the for the skincare brand. And she was facing so many roadblocks and so many issues. and I was watching her, she saw the doors as just glass walls. That's all. And she managed to find a way to appease the manufacturer to give him what he wanted while she also got what she wanted from an ingredients perspective. Optimal negotiation. Another founder would just say, okay, thanks. Bye, next. Let's make some calls. She managed to lower her MOQ by, again, giving them a deal that was so good that they couldn't say no.

18:11So she's owning the situation. She's controlling the situation. And really, she does this on a monthly basis. Love that. That to me is what high agency. Taking accountability. You're being accountable for yourself. No one is going to be accountable for you. Yeah, yeah. And what practical tips can you help founders get to that space? Because I think you mentioned before, like, you weren't in that space. It takes a bit of work to do that. and I know a lot of entrepreneurs that feel that pressure and you're using that example of decision making as well you know decision fatigue is real oh my god yes do I do that constant on a daily basis yeah I get a lot of questions about that actually for example time management yeah um I see a lot of founders and I see a lot of entrepreneurs also promoting stealth mode which is where apparently you work 18 20 hours a day because that's the only way you will succeed and I'm so against it it's I think it's so unfair actually to promote that because your your brain the optimal working bracket is like four hours I think for your frontal lobe so I split up that four hours into 15 minute intervals because you can do anything for 15 minutes it's not that bad so my calendar looks ridiculous because it will be 15 minutes of doing something completely different to what I was doing 15 minutes ago okay and my output is 10x interesting so this actually stands yeah in complete contrast to is it Jack Dorsey's theory of having those like themed days I could never do right okay so this is like his his school of thought is the context switching you ties out your brain even more quickly and so you'll have like Monday's your marketing day Tuesday is your sales day that doesn't work for you so expand on this other so I do I do the complete opposite actually and maybe because everyone's different maybe a founder could test it yeah yeah that's a great one week Jack Dorsey's way yeah one week Sabah's way and see what suits you so you know there's that phrase that um if if you want to get something done give it to a busy person or something I really that is because busy people have to be high agency there's no other way they can survive yeah yeah um so for me it's 15 minutes because in my head you can do anything for 15 minutes yeah and then then you switch to a completely different topic a different job and I noticed that my output was maybe even more than 10x wow actually and your mind is stimulated is there do you have any sort of explanation behind that so like Jack Dorsey's explanation is to avoid the context switching and the mental drain what's your argument on the flip side um to avoid boredom to avoid losing focus yeah that makes sense to avoid drowning and stressing and focusing on the one problem yeah because sometimes i don't fix my problem in 15 minutes but i know at tuesday at 8 15 a.m i'm going to revisit it interesting with a fresh pair of eyes this does make a lot of sense give it a try yeah it's not for everyone so that's something founders ask a lot for you know how to help with time management and they burn out in stealth mode and I think another thing I wouldn't call them red flags but I noticed that founders sometimes they are operating from a place of desperation or a place of lack and it just shouldn't be the case they they say to me you know oh we can't scale until we raise money or we can't do this until we have investment to me that's just a very low agency mindset because in this day and age with all the amazing tools of ai and technology investment is not your oxygen investment is just the jet fuel for the plane that you should already be flying so instead of saying to me oh i can't do this until i have money um tell me what you have done with what you've got You know, you can build an MVP in 48 hours now using a$30 software online.

22:13That is the beauty of the world now. We're in such a great, great time. So I think the victim mindset, it only hurts yourself. And this is no disrespect to other people. I was that person. I was all of the above and I had to train myself out of it. But the good thing about being high agency is that it's not correlated to intelligence. it's really easy to learn can you just pick it up like this it boils down to responsibility for me it's like taking that accountability and it is genuine i know i'm about to say a buzzword but it is genuinely empowering it's one of the most empowering because you are literally taking back that power that control it's like okay what can i do about the situation yeah i want to ask you about the investment and going back to you know founders not needing it nearly yeah we'll talk about all this as well but for my entrepreneurial listeners if there are any fundraising founders out there talk to us a little bit more on your investment thesis what you look for we've covered the high agency founders so i hope that's clear for everyone and beyond that yeah tell us more about what you invest in um like i said i love stem science tech engineering and math and that may sound a bit nerdy but really everything can be stem right if you want it to be if you apply a bit of technology, if you apply a bit of science.

23:31So what I really look for is, firstly, I look for a founder that's likable. And that might seem really basic or trivial, but you'd be surprised. It's important. You'd be surprised. Being likable is something you can't fake. And it's so obvious when someone is trying to fake it. And how can I work with a founder that I don't like and also why should I found a work with an investor that they don't like sure it works both ways yeah that's the first thing I actually look for primarily just in terms of like that partnership right because you're in it for the long game yeah but what also comes to mind beyond that is you backing the jockey so to speak is how they're going to go out there in the world as well right and sell and attract talent that would be the the high agency factor yeah yeah Are you a function of high agency?

24:20And you can really tell immediately. So likeable, high agency. And what is it that you're doing to help human health equity or help the world or find a solution? That's what I'm really interested in. For example, I co-founded a caviar brand in the UAE. It's something so off brand for me, but it just made eating caviar a bit more high agency. so I got my thrill out of the product right still making it happen it's food it's food tech it's launching in a few months but I still got what I wanted out of a very surprising niche product so it doesn't have to be this hard tech app right just something that really is changing how we live work or play there's a component in it yeah okay so you all right so super super clear that Is there a particular stage that you invest in as well, like pre-seed, Series A?

25:16It would be nothing more than Series A. Okay. Yeah. Napkin, pre-seed, seed, rarely Series A. Napkin? Napkin idea, you know, just draw an idea on a napkin. Back of fag packet. Yeah. It's been exciting in the Northeast London as well. Okay. I was like, wait, napkin? This is another like... Yeah, napkin is maybe North London. I don't know. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, napkin ideas. Very early stage then. Yeah, I wouldn't invest later because you want to get in early so you have first right of refusal of the series A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Yeah, exactly. Because otherwise it's not worth a while. It does make sense.

25:52To come in so late. What I just want to link that back to is a comment you made a little bit earlier around one of the high agency factors as well with the funding. so I know that there are certain types of business that you definitely can MVP to your point spend a low amount of money spend whatever you can beg borrow still yeah but then there are other types maybe they just don't fit into your investment thesis but I know there are other types of businesses whether it is the tech investment required or even you know you mentioned your caviar brand for example you know luxury or premium brand positioning requires even just that investment into that solid branding and getting it in the right places so i kind of want to challenge that point as well given that you come in at those early days and you know how much that can unlock for founders i want to kind of challenge that point around actually i think some companies need a certain cash injection to get started do you what's your take on you don't yeah no no i'm i'm i'm always learning as well and maybe you're right um trying to think i'm trying to think so for example my caviar brand it is a luxury brand we negotiated excellent payment terms with the supplier they are the best supplier of caviar probably in the world they supply nobu zuma gaia they are fully sustainable protocols and we negotiated a really good payment plan with them a 30-day payment plan that immediately dropped our barrier to entry nice um and that came from you scratch my back i scratch yours yeah again yeah good negotiation how to negotiate you know they weren't doing me a favor or anything yeah And then packaging, you know, we tried maybe 10 different styles of packaging.

27:32One packaging cost£25. The other was a fraction. But we just made it work. Sales and marketing, I understand what you're saying. Okay, if you're starting an LVMH brand, okay, you're going to need a$10 million marketing budget. Or if you wanted to influence the marketing, it's expensive. These days, my gosh. You know, I got a quote from an influencer agency for$65 ,000. for three influencers doing a post. And I said to myself, this doesn't make sense. Everything has to make sense in this world. And if it doesn't, that is a red flag. Pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot. We're living in a world now where we have the luxury of pivoting because we have so many low-cost options online available to us.

28:16So what are you using with your caveat? So for that, for example, there are other ways to do it. For example, you can gift influencers. Even if 10 % of the influencers post, you will make your money back, right? You can use UGC. UGC is super cheap and you run your own ads based on that UGC that cost you maybe$100. But everything is done with the best and the most luxury way. Speaking of luxury, if you want to use that example, ads, ads work. A friend of mine has a luxury clothing brand. she started off by doing$200 a month of spend on luxury ads to collect her data. There is always a solution.

28:59And if you can't reach out to me or an expert to ask, ask your AI that you're paying£20 a month for. We're really, really in the best, best time. Amazing. There's always a solution. Yeah, I love that. I love that. What other growth leavers are working for you with this caviar brand? do you do UGC, sampling to influencers? Is there anything else? We're launching in a month or two. Sorry, yes. So we will be doing all of the above, but there's no reason why you can't do luxury at low cost. I'll never use the word cheap because cheap insinuates low quality. Yeah. We're a little bit in a time now where, okay, in business school, I always talk about this golden triangle.

29:41I think it's called cheap, fast, good triangle. And we were always taught you can only have two. Yeah. Good and fast, they won't be cheap. good and cheap it won't be fast exactly it's all changed now you can have all three so so don't don't be scared if you're launching a really expensive tech product or something or a million pound car i don't know there's always a way to start and we we have all this available online you know it's all our fingertips we've never had that before yeah yeah and even in the short space or time since you launched your first business, right? How much has changed? I think I've got at least one more question on the investment front.

30:23You also mentioned UAE. I know that you born and bred in London, now live in Dubai. So I'd love to talk to you about that as well. But sticking with the investment sort of chapter, the way that I very first came across you was via Instagram. One of your gorgeous videos that you put out there. And it was a fantastic piece of advice that you put out there for fundraising founders. okay so I would love for you to I'll give you a bit more information set but I'd love for you to repeat what that was on the show and I want to just use that as a bit of background for the listeners but also to show how helpful the content is that you put out there thank you how much you break it down and how clear and simple and digestible like it doesn't need to be you know overwhelming people with terminologies and make people feel feel like they're outside of this closed circle okay so the particular video that I saw was what founders should and shouldn't put in their email subject line when they are fundraising so we need to talk about this on the show what was that yeah so um because I get a lot of emails and I see such junk titles and I think to myself that's just a wasted opportunity for you because I'm not going to open that I'm So sorry, I'm not going to open that.

31:38Talk to me, message me. I've done this. You just got to keep it really simple. You just got to give a few metrics. And it can be even if you haven't launched your product. Location. Tell me where the product or service is located. That's an immediate filter for me. Give me some kind of metric. Do you have an MRR, ARR? Is your MVP built? Anything. And don't be shy to tell me if you think it's less. Don't be shy. You're really helping me with my filtration system. And then tell me a bit about you maybe. Are you an ex something? Are you, did you used to work here? Anything. Again, it's not a show off.

32:16It's just telling me who you are. And when I catch that, and it's just three words, I will open it. And if I don't want to invest, I'll send it to maybe 20 other people that might want to. Nice. And I thoroughly recommend everyone do that. Even applying to accelerators. Yeah. Applying to YC. And even if you don't want to be a part of YC, just apply because a registration form is the best filter. It tells you everything you need to think about your business. Amazing. It's free. So even just the YC application is a fantastic exercise. It's free help from the best accelerator in the world to date.

32:53Yeah, incredible. That is incredible advice. So putting that into action. So, for example, if I were fundraising for my startup and I want to contact Sabah, I'm putting London, 50K MRR. Nice. X, Google. Yeah. I'm going to open it. Okay. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. I don't need to say democratizing access to. Then I'm not going to open it. And I know you wrote that on ChatGPT and I'm not going to open it. oh founders honestly i if you take anything away from this interview that the email subject lines because what i love so much about this you know my background is marketing and branding so from a messaging perspective articulates your core your core value proposition this clarifying process is so important because it's just this like this buzzword soup that everyone switches off to you that is so boring doesn't grab any attention it makes it look like it's been written by chat gpt and it's not telling me anything anything the amount of even you know we're obviously using this as like email subject lines if you're pitching but even on like home pages of web They're like, I don't know what you do.

34:11What do you, I don't understand. Yeah. What you do. And the worst thing you can do for people, and let alone busy investors, is add to that cognitive load for them. You know, it's so interesting that you're saying, I used to do all the above. I used to do all of this. I really had to learn the hard way how to simplify my life. You know, I watch a lot of podcasts and people are always advising founders, be disciplined, be this, do things this way, make your deck like this, have mental strength, don't feel down. But if you look at the common denominator of all of this advice, it's just to be high agency.

34:48I can't stress it enough. It's the one thing that will give you all the above, I promise you. And it really simplifies your life. And as an investor, for example, when I backed Deeper Beauty last year, yes, the founder was incredibly high agency. Let's put her aside for one second. The product, she wasn't entering the skincare market. She was actually exposing the skincare market. She wasn't allowing for an excuse to be made for sunscreen anymore. And the way she communicated that to me was very clear, very simple. I didn't need to know anything else. I've been making excuses for sunscreen my whole life.

35:28You know, I have melanin skin. I'm a woman of color. You have a white cast. You have ashiness. It's greasy. It peels under your makeup. You have so many issues. But even my Caucasian friends that have the whiter skin struggle with sunscreen. Why are we always making excuses for a simple product? Putting up with this. In this day and age, there shouldn't be subpar products. There shouldn't be subpar services. We should get what we pay for. And this is the first time I've seen a sunscreen that actually does everything. Incredible. Do you remember the subtext line of her first email? No, we actually met.

36:00We actually met. I was giving a talk at Google. interesting and she came up to me she was so efficient so kind to me and I never forgot her I couldn't stop thinking about her I saved a number on my phone and I called her maybe two three weeks later and we did did a deal the day after wow yeah I couldn't stop thinking about her and her sunscreen what stood out let's break that down then because we talked about emails but also like approaching investors yeah after it's not easy I've been there it's not Poster syndrome. Sure. But it worked. She just came up to me. I think I was eating. I'm always eating.

36:36And she just came up to me and shook my hand and said, hi, I'm this. I'm from here. And this is what I've done. And this is the unit economics of it. And she gave me so much information. She was ready. She was polished. In the most well thought out, kind way. And I never forgot her. She told me the unit economics of the product in my first chat with her. So she'd already thought about it. Amazing. And now she used to work for Kareem, which is one of the biggest tech companies in the UAE. But I guarantee you that's not what made her high agency. She's been working on herself for years. You can just tell.

37:10And when I mean working on yourself, again, just spend time with yourself. Ask yourself the difficult question. I love that. I love that all roads lead to Rome in this sense, right? This high agency concept. Right. What advice or reassurance can you give founders who maybe are worried that like, yeah I feel like so many people like oh don't want to come across salesy or whatever but like one thing is to your point of like taking that step being brave and approaching a stranger but then coming out with this like cold pitch almost yeah how can somebody kind of overcome those those fears of like I don't just want to come like spout a load of figures at your face yeah I I I think um you should be yourself so if you're the type of person that leads with figures and spouts and has a tendency to to spit on people when they're speaking just be yourself because you know you know when when you try to contrive something and you practice a speech um it really shows so if you're a crazy scientist looking for investment into your technology just just be crazy You will find the right investor for you, but trying to be someone else or a different version of yourself in business, it really does show.

38:24So I don't know if I could answer that question for you because I actually like it when people are just themselves. Some people are really cold, by the way, and they're not nervous. They're just really cold and they're a bit socially inept. But you look past that. As an investor, you don't really care about that. Interesting. You're not listening to that. so we touched on the email tip this investment was made via originally reach like coming up to you in person yeah any other like channels that are effective to get yes by the way because the way you got my attention speaking of mine was a good one we're gonna gatekeep my one was on linkedin and i don't even know how to use linkedin and i get so many messages every day and i saw a voice note on LinkedIn I didn't even know you could send voice notes on LinkedIn and I couldn't wait to listen to it I was like who has made the effort to send me a voice note this is honestly I'm not gatekeeping guys because I love you and I'm gonna share what I can and help you but it's one of the most I was touched it's one of the most effective strategies that I am half tempted to gatekeep I never do gatekeep I do everyone no I know I know I talk to everyone about it all the time and I'm like this is the best but it is it's crazy how but honestly I got that from advice from somebody else who I do look up to and is amazing there was a piece of advice they gave to me and it actually works case in point with you sat right here but those things that's what I'm also interested to hear from you about as well as like for fundraising founders getting people's attention so we've got anything else you want to touch on that yeah I was touched by that it was very personal and I couldn't wait to reply to you you know instant I didn't put my phone away so thank you for that um let me think yeah people think that there's a big gap between founders and investors but that gap is way smaller than you think i i know we live in a world of work from home and technology and social media but i truly think nothing beats face to face and if you live in a major city or even sub-major city there are going to be networking events they sound like a drag but you don't lose anything by going to a networking event maybe two hours of your life and the potential upside is huge yeah i've met incredible people yeah at networking events investors people have met me i mean we've done great things yeah so unassuming networking events i would say don't stop going to them you never know i would 100 agree with that and just to add even more kind of validation and encouragement for listeners as well especially if there's more kind of introverted founders who like it is an effort to kind of pluck up that energy and like the last thing they want to do is like go to a networking event one of my uh fundraising founder friends she's incredible love her to be she's also was a guest on the show as well um she's fundraising at the moment and she's one of the shyest quietest most introverted people she's really had to push herself out of her comfort zone but she was telling me she showed up to this event on paper it just it didn't really seem that much but yeah she's like pulling herself up by her bootstraps pushing herself out of her comfort zone and she got an investment off the back of it wow and it wasn't even anyone that she was specifically like pitching to it was a real happenstance situation where it was almost someone in the side of the conversation where this I think this I think the story was she was actually pitching to somebody else and they were on the sidelines and watching her and listening to her pitch which is funny because i've had i've heard a few more stories like that as well where someone's told someone else about their business not doing it with the fun which is kind of your point on like a polished practice presentation as if somebody's just hearing you speak naturally about something yeah um it can you know it's this reverse psychology almost right can create even more interest and yeah they followed up with her they booked a call and they signed i think a 50k angel deal with her the next day because of that event so it's just like reverse that was authentic yeah that was her probably just being authentic talking to someone else not knowing yeah that another is listening and i think you should just when you're approaching investors just be authentic because investors are not looking at how well you speak or is your hair brushed we really are we're not even looking at your ability by the way we are looking for how you're going to execute this they have the best ideas out there that have failed because of poor execution so that is i think the eq that we're looking for behind the words that makes a lot of sense i really think on that note as well i think i think ideas are overrated yeah i really do you saying about ideas and how you yeah i think i made a video on it oh did you as well that um you know there's no harm in not copying but taking inspiration yeah from other ideas and just executing it better I mean yeah examples of that 100 % 100 % definitely with you on that um so love that I think there is that case for being yourself but also again the kind of the offline the cutting through the noise the getting out there in person um let's move on you how long have you been in Dubai now I want to talk about the uh I want to say about three years okay yeah and I'm so curious to get your perspective on how London versus Dubai, how the two cities compare, especially as it relates to entrepreneurship.

43:45You feel very safe. And that is something that I struggle not only in London, but in other cities as well as a woman and business related as a woman in business, which I don't talk about too often because I don't want to create a separation. You know, I've never felt so respected. Wow. Really. Interesting. Really. Right. And I've dealt with it all. In the past, in Europe, in the States, in the UK. But I have never been so respected. And I look forward to and enjoy working with women and men in the UAE. And it's one of their pillars. They really support women. They want to see women thrive. So that's one pillar that I really appreciate.