Startup lawyer: Trisha Wing, SuLe | Company ownership, IP, co-founder relationships, and more

0:00Welcome to Strategy and Tragedy. If this is your first time tuning in, then welcome. You have absolutely no idea how happy it makes me that you've decided to click on this interview. I'm fully aware of how many podcasts are out there, so it is not lost on me that you're tuning in right now. And if you are tuning back in, then a warm welcome. It is my pleasure to interview my next guest, Trisha Wing, who is the co-founder and CEO of Sule, which is on a mission to help startups with their legal support. I know many startups who need your help. So, Trisha, welcome to Strategy and Tragedy. All right.

0:36So give us a little bit of context on your background. I want to make sure that we give some practical advice, some tips to our entrepreneurial listeners before we dive in more into your own incredible entrepreneurial story. Oh, thank you. We're so glad to be here. It's been nice to be on the show. So I started off my career knowing I wanted to be a lawyer. I always knew that law is a power it's a power that everyone needs to have and not everyone has it and managed to kind of land myself in a top law firm bird and bird realized I was there that I wanted to go even higher so and then went into Auric I was working at Auric and I realized I had this skill that most lawyers don't have I found it really easy to speak to clients I found it really easy to bring in deals and when I was an NQ which is like level zero at a law firm I was bringing in clients to the firm realized I wanted to do this bigger and went out and to build two leads I have today.

1:25That is incredible and we're definitely going to talk about this business development skill that you have, the sales, you're a very natural salesperson and that's obviously such a crucial skill for any entrepreneur so we're going to talk about that too. But first of all what are some of the most common, now that you have Sula, give us the elevator pitch for what Sula is exactly and share some of the most common mistakes that you see early stage founders make. So 75 % of companies in the UK don't get legal support. Yeah that's a fact done by the government and the reason for this is time and money.

1:57People don't have the time to spend all this on legal and they don't have the cost to pay for big law firms. What we're doing is building a platform where you can streamline your access to legal. So any area of law that you need help with, you can do for our platform because people need help with legal. They don't know where to find it or they don't have the money to pay for big law firms. So the cost that you'll spend with us, you'll save 70 % when you pay for an actual law firm. And what do founders actually get through signing up on the platform? Is it pure resources? Is it access to legal advice?

2:26So you get the same quality documents that you would have in working with a law firm because a little secret into the industry is every law firm gets documents from the same place. Okay, you heard it here first, guys. Okay. Interesting. So it all comes from the same source. Yeah. And you get them on Sula. Yeah. And so we build a platform where you can do it yourself. Yeah. And you can access lawyers on demand as well, which is really unique. Most times people go onto an online site. They download some contracts. I mean, nothing to their business. Yeah. and sign it and then realize down the line they need to change it and sometimes it's too late yeah so what we do is we build a place where you know what you need to do what other steps that i have to take to do the right thing you can build the documents through the platform and if you need legal help you can access the lawyer on demand something i want to talk about is the from my own experience and from working with lots of incredible entrepreneurs the whole like getting legal support it feels like a much more of a protectionist reactionary step that you take when you need it right and it's it's almost like not taking out insurance yeah it's just kind of like oh we'll be fine and you kind of go on a hope and a prayer until something does happen um is that one of like is that a common mistake and how how important is it for entrepreneurs to maybe start getting on the front foot with that as opposed to coming and looking for help when it's too late you're hitting on the head there and and the reason for that is because founders don't know what they need to do it's like a minefield no one knows what they have to do to make sure they're not making mistakes down the line okay and that's kind of a real big theme that we see with founders it's like okay i know i need to raise money i don't know how i do it i don't know what i need to do beforehand like it's such a minefield out there and often you would pay a law firm to help you navigate this but no one has 20k to drop down to get access to that and that's that's a big problem especially while you are fundraising to get the cash to do in the first place exactly exactly so is that one of the most common areas that you see founders needing legal advice with the fundraise definitely yeah how do you get investment ready like we do a lot around this you know okay what do you need to do to get investment ready because working at top law firms you see this roadmap you see the expertise that goes into understanding what companies need to get investment ready so we built like a whole checklist on like fully you can and you can navigate it online on our platform what do you need to do to get investment ready okay can you share like top three tips like i'm not expecting the full checklist you can go to sule.com if that's the url we'll pop it in the show notes but if you can give us like some of the most valuable best tips here now so the key three areas that from the legal side that investors care about is ip like your most valuable asset as a tech company usually is your ip that stands for intellectual property by the way in case anyone exactly and intellectual property we'll touch on in a second can you give us examples of ip just in case yeah exactly so stage nike everyone knows like the brand nike the name is is is their brand the tick is um is is a logo just do it as a saying and they will probably have built a platform on application they'll have loads ip in the application how they use it anything that you can anything to make sure company more valuable potentially is ip if you've drafted a article online that's your ip if any software you're building is your ip and the airpods case like when they open and close it like that like magnetic connection like there's so much in ip that's interesting really cool one like the foldable plugs they built that foldable extension on the plug where you fold it and put in your bag there's ip in that wow basically any cool innovation that we're building today is including ip and when you're speaking to investors what they want to know is what is you the valuable asset in your business intellectual your property is is what it says intellectual you can't touch it it's you know it's of the mind it's a creation of the mind and whereas property you know you can feel it it is it is um you can touch it basically um and then the second area is so you have ip what is your most valuable asset in your business and then you have like the ownership of your company so this can fall into do you own the shares in your company we did um a study and 65 percent of companies didn't own the shares because people think when you first start your company go in company's house you create your company you own the company that's not true company's house is a registrar it's newsflash what yeah it's a registrar it's where you go to like publicly display what your company does Wednesday Thursday Friday uh what so because you you're ready but if you're the only director of the company so who owns the shares well yeah but the argument is that I mean there's less risk there yeah it's all a level of risk if you're the only director the only you say you're the shareholder who's going to dispute you yeah if you have multiple shareholders and you haven't done it the right way that's what you need yeah then it's a higher risk so how do you prove ownership of shares in the company well you have to have a share register that's not company's house it should be separate and then you have to have share certificates where you can prove this is i own these shares yeah yeah and then that's when you update the register and stuff like that so actually having ownership of your company is an important one and lots of people don't and then you can extend that further and think about okay who owns the company so your co-founder relationship you know the amount of founders that break up each week we get and we co-found a breakup relationship wow really every week we have one now it's and and any lawyer you speak to will say the same thing and on that note because that's just super interesting what's the most common reason or do they tell you do you find out yes i would say the most common reason is not setting the the terms of relationship up front it's like a marriage right if you haven't had that difficult discussion about what are your values are values aligned are we both expecting the same thing and you both have the same like aligned interests then if you don't have that conversation it goes wrong often given the frequency of seeing co-founder breakups at least weekly at the moment yeah is there any correlation at all to like how they came about forming in the first place so for example i'm coming from is like i'm really fascinated in like co-founder pairings and what I noticed years ago was the best co-founder relationships they either I'm really interested in how they first met so they either first met at uni and like hilariously like freshers week they just like bonded through alcohol in their first week of like of uni when they were 18 um which there is something in that as much as that makes me laugh there's something in that connection that's that bonding that's happened at that point right and what you go through in those uni years and everything else if it's not that it's then you have worked together in another place so of course that's super logical is like we've both actually had this working relationship so that's kind of where I'm coming from a bit with that question is like is there any correlation at all to like how those co-founders met or anything else with that relationship that's led to that breakup so often co-founders will meet we often find they meet in some kind of accelerator you know like yeah this is what i'm thinking yeah and that often can work well now the more co-founders you have the higher the chance someone's going to leave there's just a fact it's just a statistical fact okay and is there a dangerous number do you know no there's not i mean it's i think it's hard to predict and like completely predict it's hard to completely manage but you have to just try your best yeah if there's two of you i think you can better try and manage the breakup it's not happening but when there's three or four there's a chance someone will leave and you just need to better protect yourself beforehand yeah that's kind of the key thing well just on that note sorry i'm getting excited here one of the other amazing interviews um i'm not sure if this is already out if it's coming out i'll mention it anyway is with anna sophie hartfordson who was one of the three co-founders of female invest and today they are now the best funded startup led by an all female team which is incredible they've fundraised a total i think like 24 million dollars like absolutely amazing and we had a quick discussion on that as well because there's three of them and I was kind of like oh it's kind of rare like usually you do get those pairings as you say and I mean obviously for them like it works magnificently this is you know just one particular successful case study but her argument was like you have a bit of that tripod effect and it does kind of help if you there is kind of like you are at loggerheads and there's another person to maybe you know if there's two against one instead of one against one kind of coming up so pros and cons quick one so sorry to interrupt i'm sure that you are on the edge of your seat listening to this interview at least i hope so i'm so aware of all the other podcasts that are already out there so the fact that you've decided to tune in and listen to this one is not lost on me if you can just go that one step further and hit that follow or subscribe button doesn't cost a thing takes two seconds now is your chance to do that it means so much really appreciate your support thank you so much now let's get back to the interview if you there is kind of like you are at loggerheads and there's another person to maybe you know if there's two against one instead of one against one kind of coming up so pros and cons that's very true yeah some of the issues when there's just two of you is what happens when you both just disagree right you know is there's one person override the other yeah are they equal shareholder yeah or is it different yeah um and what's the dynamic there if there's free it does make a more democratic decision making process and actually that's why when you'll grow your company through seed series a you'll have more board members for this is that reason you want to have more people on the board so it's not like always that crosshead yeah yeah it doesn't always need to come from the co-founder does it no it doesn't yeah the other way around as well there's another interesting argument on being a solo founder like i was with my last business i honestly maybe i was lucky but like i was never lonely like we talk a lot about like being lonely when you're and I was like no I had my team and these are and a coach and and you know these other kind of whether it is board advisors um consultants whatever like these other people that can come in and support you doesn't need to be co-founder it's a good point I think everyone and this is this is another VC issue yeah yeah exactly the VC's push you have to have a co-founder exactly if you're not technical you need to get someone technical yeah and it's a real risk yes you mean i mean i've spoken to like thousands of companies over the course of starting this business like thousands yeah and what you see is people come and they say i need to find a co-founder i need to get a co-founder agreement okay but why do you need it's this external pressure that's come from somewhere else pressure and i i would say i would i would not have a co-founder if i didn't mean my co-founder she was like the the right fit she if she was man would be married like this is a fact it's a hundred percent like so I was going to take this opportunity on the co-founder thing we will go back to like the most common mistakes we will get back to the legal advice because that's all such amazing tips you've already started sharing with with the listeners but given we're on the co-founder conversation I was going to ask you about that where you've got a co-founder what's the share split if you don't mind yes I have I have a greater share split than her yeah I think that does make a difference yeah um because when I first started the business I put my whole life savings into the business every penny I have to my name has gone in wow which is why I had to like rent out my apartment and like i risk everything for this business and before i ever took any investor money that was like my commitment yeah i'd already be a product already had revenue so it was a different dynamic does make sense and when you're first starting your company if you're both starting at the same time yeah you're both risking everything together it's a very different conversation um and we have such good mutual respect and so you know there's no there's no conflict in our role you know she knows i'm ceo i know she's head of product and so we both respect each other's experience and expertise and that is really important because i know a lot of people they're fighting for the same position they haven't had that clear conversation saying one person is ceo one person is ceo yeah they haven't had that discussion and they and they overlap on each other's areas and that's where i think it can get dangerous and you know i've done it before where i try to get too involved in a product and i'm like hey this isn't this isn't what i'm i'm best at you know i do best i should hand it over to someone who who knows what they're doing yeah and i think ego comes into that equation as well right so if you can put your ego to one side and this is a really really interesting dynamic actually because i've i've rarely met someone who's taken that plunge themselves and then brought in the co-founder afterwards and been successful at it most crucially so how did you meet your co-founder she's our client oh yeah you said okay yeah yeah so you so it's kind of the work connection here yeah there's a work she really respected like she said i believed in you as a ceo from the moment i met you like she's like i saw you and I was like I want to be led by this person I've always I've always been a leader like sometimes I like try to shy away from it but actually even as my sister said to me you're born to do this like I was born to be a leader and she met me she said I just I trusted you and I wanted to follow you as a leader and that's how our relationship started but it started as friends and then advisory and then she just and then it kind of worked out the right time of her company and then she was leaving and it just all happened like in a really perfect way but we're very different but it's like a very beautiful collaboration so we i'm an extrovert it's funny at parties we're at like at networking events i'll be there just like and then she'll like be in like sitting down like watching me it's like it's like a really funny dynamic proper yin and yang yin and yang yeah and it works beautifully and i'm not shy to talk about her and how amazing she is amazing i love that it's super interesting and you know my opening the first question on the co-founder conversation here around like that share split is always interesting as well right because of that power dynamic yeah even you know I've met some co-founders two of them where even like 51 49 that one percent is that I think psychologically I've definitely met some co-founders where it's like that's always in the back of my mind I know that if we do come up against some sort of disagreement ultimately they but I know that you can be creative with that as well right because you can have documents yeah you have founder consent so we both have to agree to things there's consent but there's also different so you've got like how many shares you own in the company but then you've also got like voting rights yeah so you so there's a difference between share being a shareholder being a director so director is about they govern the day-to-day running of the business so if we're making day-to-day decisions you both have a vote you both decide on what happens however there isn't this overarching shareholder position but if you've got 49 51 then there's not much that can get through without you saying so so it's it's better but hey as soon as you've been on an investor this whole dynamic changes it only it only is so important before you bring on investors so you bring on investors like the dynamic start especially VC investors the dynamic starts to change a lot in terms of like voting rights in terms of any big decisions you make investors in especially as you grow in your funding rounds will want to have um decision and have have kind of all over what you do basically okay get their consent before doing so I think it's really worth spending a bit of time talking about what's normal and what isn't because I've had some incredible entrepreneurs who may be like, they're further along in their journey or they're now serial entrepreneurs, but they reflect on the show here about lessons learned and passing on that wisdom and advice to earlier stage founders and some of them talk about stuff like this.

17:27I love talking about this stuff because I have met so many founders who have just got into a lot of trouble and have been doing parts of their business and as soon as you go down that road, it's quite hard to reverse it. so there's certain decisions you make we'll go into that in a second about once you do make the decisions you can't take it back one thing I would say is anyone looking to fundraise you have to think of your fundraising journey as whatever the tone you set from the beginning sets out the rest of the journey so if you're giving away so much and you're easily negotiated out and things like that the next people coming in it'll just get worse and worse and worse so the starting point is really important that's the first thing to say so if you're doing an angel funding round Angels shouldn't have board seats.

18:11They shouldn't have any special powers over the business. They're angel investors. They usually have SEAS in the UK, which is a really attractive tax relief. And it means that actually the maximum loss, I think if you invest 25K, it's like 8K or something like that if the company goes down. So it's a super attractive investment for them, which is why they don't usually get a lot of rights. So they're just investing into the business. Now, as you go throughout your funding round, still avoid giving board seats because you should only give them really in Series A+. Too many cooks spoil the broth is a true saying and it is accurate.

18:47Without going too technical, there are certain terms that you should just avoid. And these are the legal terms. You just have to know them. And I don't try to say anything otherwise because it's what will be in your term sheet. So if you have a term sheet and it says the investor is asking for something called anti-dilution rights, in the early stages you avoid this because what it basically means is that investor wants to keep their shareholding throughout investment rounds this just affects you as a founder so you see anti-dilution rights speak to a lawyer remove it take it out in the early stages there's another thing called liquidation preferences anything other than a one times non-participating that's how it's written it's just it's the term what was it after one time one times non-participating non-participating preference yes one times non-participating preference anything other than that is like a massive no-go what it means is if like the company doesn't go as planned that investor gets one times their money back or two times or three times now you you see in the news where you have these amazing founders who have built these amazing companies and then you see how much they take they took home and it's like it's so much smaller than anyone would have expected it's because of this this is a big reason why it's the participating preferences and and so yeah just avoid that if you can so break down like how can that situation play out if so instead of the the one times non-participable yeah it's a mouthful but it's just what it's called this is a master class for me as much as it is for any anyone listening in so so is it possible you can have two times three times it could say that so if it does say anything other than one times yeah how does that play out then do they get double triple yes almost their investment So if you exit for 1 million and the investor invested 500 ,000 and they have two times non-participating preference, they get the whole exit proceeds.

20:35So they get the whole amount and you end up with zero in that scenario. There's another one called participating preference. You should avoid that really as well. It's just not market standard. There's some good resources out there that tell you what market standard is. I'll send you the links after you can share with the group. but um hsbc have like this term sheet tracker where it tells you what market standard is and what isn't that's great and so you can if someone's asking for anti-dilution rights you can say this isn't market standard i'm in precede nice do you know what's so incredibly helpful about that trish is like sometimes it's just especially if like you're going through this for the first time and you're feeling a bit out of your depth and on top of that you've got this power dynamic dealing with like there's a lot you've got all of this which can psychologically make anyone feel like they are the smallest person in the room so true and so having specific phrasings i think is so incredibly helpful and having that to pull out of your back pocket yeah so in this year what you just said there of being able to turn around if you do see anything like that to say this isn't market standard that sentence exactly right you can even go in even further and that's why i don't dumb down people terms yes sometimes people rephrase terms and the things are not and so if you're speaking to a VC and you do rephrase them they know that you're not educated on it yeah exactly and that's how they take advantage so I do some master classes and I say to people this is what the document is called this is a terminology yeah I can explain what it means you need to use the terminology because it makes you look like you know what you're doing exactly and people can smell that and that as the added advantage exactly what I was going to say is like one was just kind of like not having a default and being able to kind but then of course actually the the professional terminology as well to kind of get a bit more respect you can smell it I I I've worked with the best lawyers in the city and the one thing you should know about lawyers is they are full of themselves because they're smart people and they get paid a lot of money.

22:29And so when you're on the other side of it, they can smell when someone isn't like that. And the VCs have been around lawyers for so long they're basically like them as well. Right. They know when someone is inexperienced. And so if you start saying things like, this is not a market standard in accordance with the BBCA, they'll be like, they'll be like, okay, sit back. Yeah, they'll be like, okay, she knows what she's doing we can't we can't question her so um yeah oh I'm so thankful you've shared even just that with the listeners I really hope that that helps and I think also just want to underscore for anyone going through a fundraise for the very first time um either in general with with your business the level of importance on that on those terms on your attitude on everything you do not to overload you know too much undue pressure but get that right it really is that first fundraise that really matters because this is awesome especially if you go on the vc hamster wheel i mean you're looking at a timeline of a decade right so whatever you do today really is kind of setting those foundations and the tone as you said for the next however many years 100 and it starts with your term sheet so the really important thing just to kind of to close on the on the funding point your a term sheet everyone i'm sure everyone knows what term sheet is if you don't it's what your your investor will usually provide is it sets out kind of the the rules of what the big documents will be it's like a prequel um term sheets are not legally binding but they're except a few clauses like confidentiality but they have this binding nature which means that if you agree to it you can't then back down it's like saying to your saying to your teacher i'm going to do this and you don't it's like well you said you would and and that's the really important thing of a term sheet people founders usually just sign it because again it's like a scarcity mindset where funding's not going so well everyone's struggling all your friends companies are closing you get one vc who's offering you 500k and you're like i can't and they get founders say to me i can't negotiate because they'll say they have loads of people they're investing this mind is a mindset thing this mindset is is people get taken advantage of one of the things i always say to founders when i'm doing these webinars is you know we are in a really difficult time but if you make like desperate decisions your results will just be they'll end up being very bad for you trish i'm so oh my god everything that you're saying is like music to my ears as well i'm so so happy that you bring up this point too because i think such an important lesson that i've i've definitely had myself and seen through others in entrepreneurship is that perspective and i think that when you are under so much pressure you can't see the wood for the trees you're conscious of your runway of your team if you have hired there's all of these the list goes on and on and on right of the amount of aspects that can put you under that pressure so exactly to your point when you've got that offer on the table take a beat take a moment use our conversation now you listening in as that reminder or try and remember this when you are in that moment take a beat take a step back get a bit of perspective um it's like in sales we're going to talk about sales but it is like in sales what I've also learned the hard way is like when you're put under pressure by a salesperson like never never one of my worst decisions was doing was folding to like a salesperson putting me under pressure it's like no like I know tomorrow isn't guaranteed but like tomorrow is probably going to come around right so it's like you do have 24 hours you do have 40 you do have a weekend like take a beat because again that perspective is the key word that's going to lay those foundations for so many more years to come so I love that on the mindset any other tips on the mindset side of things because obviously that is key yeah so there's there is a difference i noticed between men and women when it comes to this yeah i'm not surprised there really is yeah you know and one of the big things i say i do have this benefit i've always been very confident naturally it's i don't know where it comes from i've always had this benefit and it does make a difference if you even if you just like have like an alternate ego you know become confident like yeah just just you have to be confident because if you go into these meetings and you know someone across the line is about to offer you a million pounds and they can smell it if you don't have it um i would say that's a big thing when you you feel founders are not confident themselves they don't believe in what they're building you know hence why i invest my life savings i believe in this is gonna this is not gonna succeed because i'll make sure it happens that comes through definitely it does come through so i would say mindset is really important in building a business like train your mindset get a coach like read more books understand how you can improve and expand it so you come across stronger who knew a chimwag about legal advice would quickly evolve into like mindset and confidence I'm so here for it I absolutely love that but it is it is super important I'm really glad that you mentioned that the analogy of sharks smelling the blood in the water comes to mind as I'm listening to you there it's like being able to to whiff it out so yeah I love your tip as well even on like the alter ego like even if you just for the sake of the pitch the presentation going into the meeting whatever it is um you know you can kind of turn into a puddle afterwards if you need to but do what you need to in that moment for that hour however long it is to bring that confidence to the table bring a game what's the big difference you see them with the men and women just the confidence or confidence yeah like men don't have to have everything perfect they just do it women have to be perfect before they can move forward i see it all you know one of my all the time big sayings is this is yeah ask for um forgiveness not permission yeah same you know i'm not going to like it's okay if i do this or can i do this oh i'm so sorry i didn't ask you to do that less what can we do about it i feel like we have a lot in common trish a lot in common I completely agree I see that come through all different walks of life as well all the time and I think you know I think it is also important I obviously can't let this topic slide because I feel very passionate about it but it is important and I think what's worth also just discussing for a sec is the individual versus the system so I would love to get your thoughts on on that difference between from your perspective of like seeing the women lack the confidence but how much of that is themselves versus the system because finance legal all of this is so male-dominated it is I have I have like a different view on that because I guess I came from a place where I shouldn't have succeeded everything was against me but I never thought of it like that and so whenever I like I'm around women I say we have to believe we belong there yeah we have to like believe that we're already there yeah you know and anytime you walk into a room people you it's everyone feels like you know an intruder like i don't belong here but we have to believe we should be there yeah um but there is there's a there's a thing with women that we we struggle with that i and i think it's probably like comes from years and years of oppression right where we haven't ever felt like we haven't actually legally belonged there some cases like i'm gonna have to vote and things like that yeah um but i do see this as some change and i think there's like a lot of there's funding issues women lacking funding like if you build a health tech like a Femtech product, you can give it to a VC.

29:42Like a founder that I was speaking to is building this really cool, like Femtech product around like sand and tree towels, things like that, being like pretty organic and just doing really well, like thousands and thousands of users. And the VC investor was like, oh, it's just not a big enough market. Oh, fuck off. And then you just like, okay, well, then you don't, every woman has the same issue, but it's not a big enough market. I just, on that, I have to say this. I was at South by Southwest last week and this won't be coming out for a while. So this is, I know that when it gets released, it's going to feel like ages ago.

30:15But one of the panels that I went along to, um, to watch was with Debbie Raskow, who was one of the co-founders of, um, Albright and, um, incredible like, uh, advocate for like funding women, female founders. And she led the Invest in Women task force with, with the government that's now released. is it like 200 million pounds oh yeah into like the fund of funds for for female um lps and investors to go into women and on the panel she she's also now built she's a serial entrepreneur so she has all these other amazing businesses and one of the businesses she's working on now is menopause related yeah and the difference is eve with this story that you recount like this is debbie rascal like she's a fucking household brand name like she's got such an incredible like impeccable track record she has succeeded i think she said she's got maybe two or three exits under her belt something like that she's like tried and tested proven bulletproof battle tested founder not female founder founder exactly and she got the same comment from an investor was like oh menopause it's a bit niche isn't it and the thing is what came to my story i'm talking a lot this is your interview this is getting me all really worked up is what came to mind is I remember I hosted an International Women's Day panel years ago and I had Dipali Nanjia on the panel she's a female angel investor and she used the example I remember and you know this was like in 2020 this was just before lockdown and I still remember to this day like this just goes to show like five and a half years later she said again with these same similar comments and she asked the audience she was like what about blockchain what about crypto what about deep tech med tech fintech like the list goes on and on and on of all of these fairly niche like deep topics you as like you go away and you do your research you don't go and ask your wife ask your girlfriend so anyway this pisses me off so much but i do i think though as women we it's not it's not fair it's not fair it isn't it's all against us you know every odd is against to us but there's an element of if i walk into a room full of men i stand out yeah yeah and there's an advantage to totally with you i think we have and we have to have this mindset of ways we're not going to be able to move forward um it's not fair for us i'm so with you but one thing i would love to see more is more women supporting women yeah like if if a female founder comes to me and they need help i'm more likely to support them because they're female found and you want to encourage but i would love to see more of that in the industry like more women supporting women I'm 1000 % with you Annie Garrett I was at an event where this woman raised her hand in the Q &A and she went on with this narrative like because I'm a woman in business and whatever her business was she was like I'm often the only woman in the room and it's like and that's a good thing and like how we have to change narratives it's then we have to change narratives and it's like what do you then do with that how helpful is it and the very last thing I'm going to say on this is I did an interview just ago with Emmy Faust of Female Family Rite yeah exactly amazing amazing Amazing.

33:21And she really sort of lit a bulb in my mind as well when she said, yeah, like we know all these stats. We know only 2 % of all UK VC goes to female founders. Even worse for obviously if you come from an ethnic minority, like obviously. But her point was, how helpful is that? And I think to your point on women walking into rooms and feeling that imposter syndrome, it's all of these. Yeah, it's one thing to be aware of how dire the inequality is. But it's another thing how much we're internalizing that. Yeah. This is the big thing. This is the big thing, right? Yeah. This is what I'm getting to is like, if we keep repeating these same stats, how many women are going to be put off going into business or going and trying to fundraise?

34:07What do you say you become? 100%. And so if I'm always saying, oh, I can't public speak. I can't be a good CEO. I'm not going to be a good CEO. I'm not going to be a public speaker. And this is what men are really good at. They just say it even if they're not it. whether you think you can or you can't you're right you're right yeah exactly all right so much longer it could definitely be the whole podcast but let's get it back on track hopefully we haven't lost our male listeners we love you too some of my best best advisors and investors yeah yeah in fact we have more male investors and female investors um and they are yeah thank to our like investors they are incredible so of course you you they are out there you have to find and any and I do always hope that like if there are any male listeners that you're still with us now because I think you need to kind of like get that front row seat into a bit of what this looks like all right so let's get back on the track I need to calm down for the sake for the sake of my blood pressure it was good it's good we've got to have the passion I need to get my blood pressure back down so let's go back to those common founder traps so I wanted to just sort of summarize what you listed out earlier much earlier so you got the ip protection we talked about so whether it's your idea your brand assets your invention something you've created get that protected just just to come on to that so the ip protection so understand what is it that i need to protect you know if you're nike you know brand is a big part of what they do but there'll be a lot innovation in their shoes and their clothes like the designs around that understand what it is that makes your business valuable what i was going to dig into on that i know that this i keep wanting to like deep dive into all these different things was the tension i'm just acutely aware of early stage founders kind of listening to this is the tension point between protecting you getting ip protecting some sort of asset yeah versus like like overlooking that in order to get that product market fit first because i think to your earlier points on like the time and money that would go into seeking that legal advice and the cost whatever the cost is you know like if you're cash strapped there is still cost and time that would go into protecting something yeah if you don't know you might you obviously will think it's super valuable but it's the market that will tell you how valuable it is very good point and not all ip you need to protect straight away okay so But you are right that, you know, if you, for example, you've just created your company name, your company logo, it may not even be when you're going to keep.

36:39You may be changed it. You may not be completely sure. Investors usually decide this for you. So often when you're going to raise money, there's certain things you can't move forward unless you have it. So if, for example, you're building an amazing, you know, bio company where you're finding the cure for cancer, there's certain IP that you can't, you have to have protected. Obviously, you can't ever raise money. Okay, you're going to have to look into that. If you're a software company, you don't usually need to patent your software. It's not usually required. Now, there'll be loads of IP around other things you're creating.

37:15The key thing for you to do, and this isn't so time-consuming and expensive, is to make sure you own it. So there's three things to break down. So you have, what is my IP? What is it that's valuable? Do I own it? And how do I protect it? Those are the three things that I say to the founders. understand what it is do you own it how do you ensure you own it so if you're hiring a bunch of freelancers to do different things in your business if you're hiring a developer in Turkey all consultant freelance contracts are very big in this industry you don't own the IP they do that's what that's what English law says even if like you're the client and you've paid for it and there's been no because they've created it yeah so how do you get around how do you not get around how do you change that they have to contractually assign it to the company not to you as a founder that is often more important at the early stages than some ip protection yeah because if you don't own it then investors say well i would invest in a company you don't own an ip for yeah and so the the typical thing you do is you do ip assignment agreement with those with those people and sometimes people rely on the clauses of in contracts if a lawyer hasn't drafted it if you're not sure i personally wouldn't ever risk ownership of my ip in my company because i believe we're going to be very successful and so i wouldn't risk it so i always do ip assignment agreements with people and you know you actually have made me remember with my last business which was marketing consultancy the agreements that we had drawn up was the client had the ip and i was always like very happy with that because it's like we're here to help you like it's your business you're paying us we're getting that financial gain off the back of it um but yeah watch out for it uh anything else on ip or shall we summarize the other points no yeah okay so this ip was the first one you said there was the the whole kind of share ownership was the second one and then we got onto co-founders and stuff which was super interesting third one third one is around like the investment process i'd say being kind of the top things people kind of get wrong and we've covered a lot of investment stuff but you just summarize when you get a term sheet through the best thing is just get someone to look at it and don't rely on like doing it yourself and the risk is so high legal is all about risk some things are in your business are not that risky it's like okay if i haven't trademark my logo right now I'm not gonna die like the company's gonna be fine some things are more risky so if you go forward a term sheet and you get 500k investment you give away with rights that is way more riskier than other things so I say kind of be careful with um with that yeah yeah okay Trish thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing such valuable advice and practical tips as I said I've definitely been learning and like taking mental notes while I'm listening to you as well I did want to touch at least a little bit more on your own entrepreneurial story because it is so fascinating really talked about first of all you identifying the problem um noting that you had such a such a natural skill when it came to selling business development which we all need um and then one thing i at least one i've got so many things i want to ask you at least one thing with your entrepreneurial journey you did also mention about being a non-technical founder and obviously building a tech sort of startup you mentioned previously before we started recording around something sort of failing on the technical side or kind of outsourcing that how much of that are you okay to share and crucially the key lessons because I know so many others who have fallen into the same trap yeah 100 % um technical side is like my weakest point and that's like a fact um there's a lot of training I have to do myself but it's about finding finding my co-founder changed the whole game I tell us every day like finding someone understands tech language and can communicate with me and the tech team having that kind of mutual communication is was vital for our business so how far into your business journey were you before you brought in your co-founder uh over a year and so so we definitely made mistakes in the beginning like we made mistakes for sure um one of the things is just you know hiring engineers and then ask them to like do what your vision is that that didn't work because engineers are doers they they they can make things beautiful but they need someone to do the painting which they can then like make into reality yeah so you need that communicator between that's usually a product person um also we kind of use lots of agencies in the beginning and like things were ad hoc and you need someone in-house that can learn and iterate and build and speak to customers and you've probably heard it so many times but the number one thing is to learn from your customers and to build as little as possible so every building decision you make needs to be justified from customer feedback and I know this and I just we still haven't got it perfect I think we've got it a lot better than maybe other founders have but definitely made some mistakes in building what I thought was beautiful everyone yeah you do everyone and I think you know there's a lot of like the first business or the first iteration of the business just kind of being like that first pancake and I'm like you've got to itch that scratch you've got to get it out the way a lot of the time and um uh just another interview that does come to mind is I had Thomas Panton come back on the show he was one of the very first guests that I interviewed two years ago and his business failed and so it was a really interesting like post-mortem and that was one of the key things he was and going going deeper on because he's a super smart incredible like shit hot entrepreneur I think he's amazing and what he had the self-awareness to acknowledge was they didn't know he was like deep down inside we knew that and it's one of those things where it's like people listening now might be like yeah okay that makes sense and maybe if you are building a business you're like yeah we're doing that but like are you really are you if you're really really honest with yourself when you're lying in bed at night are you actually building it for your customers are you doing it for yourself a tip i say to founders is a tip that was given to me i can't remember who gave it to me but i'll recycle it yeah is um speak to your your best customers that you have the best you know the best defines by revenue but also by how happy they are and how happy they make you it's like a relationship you have ask them how do you see me how do you see suli and what they say to you is what you are and it's why they came to work with you yeah like you shouldn't be trying to put out to the market like what you believe you are and what you want to be because it's all ego you need to ask your customers like if you could describe me in one sentence what would you describe sully as and what they say to you is then everything should be built around that okay so our best customers describe us in this way this is what we should be running with because they don't care about all those features we built they care about this core product um and that has really changed things definitely yeah because their roles they see the value they see the actual the real value that they're paying for in a certain area of your product so it'll be part of your product apart from your business that they don't care about yeah because it's not why they came for you you might care about it but they don't yeah and so what they what they will say is a part they do care about and why they pay you for it and that's what you should be looking at one of the most famous examples of that apologies if a lot of the like entrepreneurial geeks already know this but that's how slack you knew that one exactly so for those of you who didn't just really quickly started off as a video game yeah and the the developers needed a way to communicate amongst each other and and so slack was born one off the back of this video game um what happened with the tech like i found my co-founder what what actually oh what happened um so very a lot of money goes into like slow development because they they didn't have the instructions for how to do it properly it was just me and the time and money too much a lot of time tech is like the biggest burn for most companies and they were just building it didn't it didn't do what it's supposed to do it was a lot of time and money and there was no want to manage that relationship I couldn't manage I don't understand it deeply enough yeah um and that was the issue but we changed it by hiring new people and um bringing a product person so it's going to ask a little bit about the partner that you do bring in for that again early days if you're outsourcing that that's totally normal especially if you're not technical um which by the way I think non-technical founders they do have that advantage if you're building a tech product as a non-technical founder you might feel like you're on the back foot but the advantage you have is that linked to what we were just saying if you are technical you fall even more into that trap of yeah building what you want build it and they will come so anyway sorry so going back to the partner that you've outsourced it to um how are you how do you like vet that process because i know loads of people do like the offshoring and you know there are some cowboys out there referrals are is referrals yeah your network your network is your network whatever yeah it is you know it really is referrals our best developers come from referrals our best people in the company come from in fact it's all built from referrals i think that's a startup thing in corporates is such such a different it's a different ball game in startups you have to you don't have the time and money to outsource all this stuff you have to be able to vet these people um and you do that through referrals understanding like have you worked with them for what's your experience exactly and our best people come from that yeah sure exactly because that's exactly what i'm thinking where it's like you can they could have like a gorgeous website they can give you the pitch and all the rest of it but when it comes down to it I've just seen that happen many times where it then breaks down and there's another point to mention here okay outside of agencies but if you what if you're kind of hiring like a developer to work for your team you have to think about it you give them a time to to prove if it's not working you just need to change it there's there's no like shame in making changes to your team if it's just not working out like being really clear on front saying that this is we're going to try out this process i mean yeah we did that with most of our people yeah um and most state most we kept on but others we said this isn't the right yeah match it isn't the right match it's not going to work in the long term the longer you leave it the longer you stay in that relationship we know that we know how it ends it doesn't end well yeah and And you just waste more money.

47:00I think for a lot of people, we delay the inevitable. We know it's supposed to happen. We know it has happened. We can't make that decision. That's definitely a common theme on this show as well, where it's like I could have pulled the plug like a month, a few months sooner. Just while we're on the product conversation, just really quickly, I just wanted to get your views. Have you heard of vibe coding with AI now? Yeah. I talked to my product lady about that. She's all over it. Yeah. Yeah. it's it's crazy what we can do yeah i was just in a coffee meeting just now and it was like telling my colleague about like ai and what we can do with it if you're not thinking about how we use ai then you're doing something wrong one of the best decisions i made when i was getting outside coaching is having a look at our businesses doing like a two-week time tracker what is everyone in the team working on and how much time they spend on each other's areas putting that in chat tpt analyzing what are the areas each person's working on okay your work 30 percent is going on this process that's too much that's not giving us massive roi we need to change that process you can then do that using ai that's an amazing tip yeah yeah do two weeks time tracking using like toggle understand what your team's working on understand how long it's taken to do certain things you can then analyze if that's a good return on investment for you if it's not you can change that and this allowed us to then like speed up processes okay we're spending this much time on this okay what can we adopt to make this faster that's a great game changer and this is how you keep like the employees low and the output high keep things lean yeah that's amazing and it's so interesting as well where i ask you the question based more on you know the product and talking about engineers and developers and everything else but of course you've got those ai benefits just with any the operations of any business right so that chat gpt tip you've just given i think is like applicable to like anyone yeah and there's there's there's tools that your dev team can use as well.

48:52Yeah. There are. I would also be cautious if a developer only uses AI. It's very risky. You need to have, it's the same with anything of AI. The person needs to be smart enough and experienced enough in that area. Yeah. Then AI is a tool to speed you up. A hundred percent. You can't fully outsource it. It's like a battery on a bike speeds you up. Yeah. Yeah. Nice analogy. Yeah. I just thought of that now actually. Nice one. Trish, I could ask you so many more questions. The time has flown. I've had so much fun. I hope our listeners are picking up on. I hope, they're getting the third wheel effect yeah they're just like vibing with us just like laughing and chatting unfortunately to wrap things up so traditional closing question one tragedy that's taught you an unforgettable lesson hi i'm the wrong co-founder so before my wonderful co-founder i had a different co-founder oh yeah sorry to end on this note um and i guess i knew from the beginning it wasn't a right fit and what you said earlier is absolutely true we avoided inevitable I was desperate back then and and this is why I say from experience I'm not perfect I've made loads of mistakes and I share them openly with people I was desperate I made a decision and I felt it in my gut I'm a gut person some people are ahead I'm gut I felt it in my gut and I and actually felt so much I couldn't sleep on most nights and you keep it going because you give people the benefit of doubt you don't have to make it work and you're at like a really vulnerable point in your company um but eventually you have to make the right decision um so the hard decision which is often the right one and i did that thankfully you know stars aligned whatever you might call it and i met my co-founder now but i knew it was it was and it's it was an absolutely horrible time it was horrible and that's why when i speak to founders and they come to me that co-founder break i'm like i get it i know how and also there's the whole legal side but there's also i know how you're feeling and it's not a nice thing to go through um for anyone well i'm really sure that you did go through that i know how painful that is and obviously very happy that you've come out the other end and everything's worked out now with hindsight being a wonderful thing looking back on that are there any key lessons you can share with the listeners in terms of like red flags green flags i think it's the same with any relationship by the way how someone presents himself at the beginning is who they are you know you can hope they change they don't and you have to be honest with yourself who is this person what have they presented themselves to you as um like that doesn't change and you can hope and pray and give them benefit without it usually doesn't make a difference so kind of ask questions get their feedback and there's like loads of resources online like the 50 questions you can ask your co-founder yeah and you know see is that compatibility do they have the same values alignments like are they willing to go all in or do they want it as a side project both are okay businesses but one is a different business to the other and you need to be aligned on you need to be aligned on what business you're running are you taking to the moon or are you taking it to the sky like that's really helpful and i think what i would just add to that is it kind of it's the same thing as the the product development, the product market fit we were talking about before, which is wanting to see something that isn't there.

51:49Or even about all of these themes, right? Whether you're fundraising, whether you're trying to get product market fit, whether you're looking for a co-founder, it's, we can so, you know, I think a lot of the time we're not even conscious of it, right? That we want something so badly, we put those wishes or that vision that we have either of that other person or what the product can look like and not really being fully honest and objective about the situation if you're feeling like you're in desperation don't make the decision yeah yeah i think this and i've really learned from this like i don't do that anymore even my co-founder knows like we will never do things in desperation we just won't do it we'll get out of it a different way like if you're feeling desperate in the moment you probably know it's the wrong decision yeah because action desperation is the quickest way to making a bad decision in my experience and opinion yeah um and so now i'm really clear on that like make money don't take money you know these are the kind of rules i adopt in the company i'm not going to go and chase an investment until i know how to make it um i'm not going to make a decision because i really feel like i need them if it's right it works out if you force something to happen it's always going to end bad this is what i've experienced trish you're so wise i love it thank you so much this This has been amazing.

52:59Amazing. Honestly, this has been even better than I expected. You've covered not only really practical, helpful tips. I think everyone, myself included, has learned something new, has taken something away with them, but also going deeper into these other fascinating topics around confidence, mindset. I definitely wasn't expecting all these more fun kind of deeper topics. So thank you so much. Pleasure. Really great to have you. And thank you so much for listening. If you've enjoyed this, you know what to do. Please hit that subscribe or follow button. wherever you're listening to this episodes are weekly so i hope to see you next time thanks so much see you soon