The Angel Investor: How a £10K mistake led to teaching 500+ angels | Andy Ayim MBE (Replay)

0:00It's a really important question I think because no one wants to have the hard conversation around is it time to kill my baby. You could always be at the edge of a breakthrough. Like it's not only okay to fail, but actually harness the lessons that you take during the pain here to lead you on to whatever you're going to next. And it's a multiplier effect to this fast learning journey that you go on when you're starting a business. Sometimes you get desperate. Like I've been trying to raise for six months or nine months and I haven't had anyone and finally I get an offer. Like the cash from the wrong sources can be detrimental to your business.

0:28You don't want people like that on your cap table. Entrepreneurs can come from anywhere, that we can solve innovations that benefits the whole world essentially, rather than just a narrow set of people. Swallow your pride, stuff up the embarrassment of asking silly questions. Join the Engine Investing School to learn and debunk some things. We don't learn financial interests in school. Sometimes young people going along this journey because they've heard of these outlying stories of Mark Zuckerberg in college, and they don't realise that the average age of an entrepreneur is about 43. The biggest mistake I think I made in my life.

0:58If you are just tuning in to this episode, then the chances are that you're just as excited as I am to hear from our next guest. Andy Ium, MBE, is the founder of Angel Investing School, which has trained over 500 angels who have invested$5 million globally, including the Black Angel Group spun out of Google's Black Network, which has invested over$3.5 million in over 30 startups. startups. Andy himself has personally invested in 17 startups, including Farmland, Patch, and Unplugged, with 70 % led by diverse founders. Andy, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to be here. So I am so curious to hear how this black kid from Tottenham went to Windsor Castle via Silicon Valley.

1:47We're going to cover all of this and more. But first of all, why angel investing, just to kick things off? A great question. So I guess 15 years ago, I started my first startup. And like a lot of people, you're eager. You have an idea. I was scratching my own itch. I loved UK hip-hop and grime music. So my brother and a few friends and I created a business called Mixtape Madness. And this is pre-Sportify, pre-iTunes. So I'm kind of staring my age here. But we wanted to create a central location online where you could consume this music that we loved. and we had no clue about this world of angel and VC investment.

2:23So we had one situation where we got approached by a senior manager at PwC, the accountancy firm, and they wanted to invest into our business. And it was all of these defenses that just went up. Like, I don't want to give any equity away from my business. Why would I do that? That's crazy. Not knowing actually is a way in which early stage startups get funded. So for us going through that journey, is like there's so many people that are not aware of this opportunity to get funded and build your business and what type of businesses are right for gaining funding and going along those journeys then the second experience I had was in 2015 I invested more money than I could afford to lose into a startup I really didn't understand and I just thought to myself I need to connect to a network of people that are doing this already so I can learn from them and avoid making these silly mistakes that I've made and that really inspired me to democratize access to learning this education Ah, amazing.

3:15Andy, very, very well deserved. Like MBE, we'll hear all about that as well and the awards and accolades. But just with you mentioning having over-invested in that first startup and learning from your mistakes, I've heard you say that angel investing is one of the fastest ways to lose money. And actually, there's more than just the financial returns that you could possibly make from angel investing. So what are some of the other benefits for anyone who might be considering dabbling in that space? It's a great question. So that's something Americans do, isn't it? It's a great question. So I think the first thing, it comes down to understanding your why.

3:51And at an intrinsic level, what motivates you to want to support entrepreneurs? So recently, there's been an opportunity for some people to invest into open AI on something called secondaries. We can get into what that means later. And you can see people getting excited because of all the buzz of AI and, oh wow open ai or not understanding what's going to happen to their money not understanding the process of investing just seeing a brand that they have an affiliation with they would love to get behind they think they do right but when you speak to an experienced angel investor what you notice is there's actually an intrinsic motivation it might be because they love me and fascinating people it might be because they have deep expertise in a certain industry like i've worked 20 years in financial services so i know a thing or two that can help out fintech founder right or it might be certain experiences like go-to-market strategy because they've worked internationally in the US and across Africa.

4:45So these people have edges and they want to use their experience and expertise in new and interesting ways. And angel investing is one of those few ways where you can have your feet close to the fire, advise and support an entrepreneur and have a front row seat in someone building a business from scratch, often overlapping with a cause or problem in the world that you want to see solved. Amazing. And I love hearing you talk about the breathing space that angel investment can provide to those early stage startups and I know that there is this natural tendency on the founder side of things to just you know they want the cash so they want to stay alive they need that runway can you expand a little bit more on what you meant by the breathing space that angel investing provides and some successful case studies as to how some startups have successfully pivoted thanks to having that cash injection absolutely so let's talk about a brand name that everybody knows, Instagram, right?

5:38Instagram started as an idea called Bourbon, restaurant listing app, okay? And on the Masters of Skills podcast, Reid Hoffman interviews the founder of Instagram, Kevin Systrom. And Kevin says in that podcast that he went to Stanford. He doesn't know why, but this angel put a hundred thousand dollars into his business. Because of that network access he had in Stanford, he was able to access that capital. He had a conversation with his wife and it's his wife who said double down on the images, which turned that bourbon and pivoted into Instagram. Now, if he doesn't have that angel investment up front, he doesn't have the runway.

6:14Therefore, the time and the mental capacity to have the space to think about pivoting the business and getting it to where it needs to be. In the market today, we see that a lot of startups are going through the same process of how can I get, for example, into a path of profitability? For them, that's the pivot. How can I become profitable because it's such a hard fundraising environment? But sadly, some don't have the runway to be able to give them the time to even get there. So that's where angel investment is such a privilege, actually, because it buys you time to experiment and figure out if you can get to product market fit, get to profitability, get to the product that really is sticky with customers and works.

6:50So it allows you to afford you that time to get there. That nicely leads into identifying gaps in the market as well, because especially at those very early stages in business, it's seemingly impossible to differentiate between is that, you know, are we just too ahead of the curve? Is this too innovative? Is this just not, you know, the right time or is there genuinely not not the market need for this? so I guess with that you know linked to the angel investment to extend that runway I guess what would be your thoughts on when to call it a day basically as an angel investor either yeah I guess just in terms of like the business in general yeah just you know whether it's on the investor side that as the founder it's you know it's just kind of how long you know because you talk about like resilience you've got to keep going and you've got the luxury of breathing space to have that runway and test pivot and but then how how keep how long do you keep running at that before you're like actually you know it's a really important question I think in this climate because I think no one wants to hear or have the hard conversation around like is it time to kill well it's essentially my baby is it time to kill this startup but the honest reality is I think there's a lot of social pressures that we put on ourselves like I've got this title called an entrepreneur or founder I've put everything on social media about what I'm doing and this brand that I'm building there's a lot of shame and guilt around the fact that I'm saying that I need to close up shop but I think what founding need to realize is that actually by closing up shop it doesn't mean that it wasn't it wasn't a valuable experience I've learned all of these lessons I've built this incredible network I've now gained all of this experience that one day is going to lead me into my next things and there's a multiplier effect to this fast learning journey that you go on when you're starting a business and i think it's something that i really um honor about the us versus the uk the uk we've got this culture where failure is demonized whereas in the us failure is seen as part of a journey onto success it's a means to an end which is the truth for all of us we've all failed at things you know i lost that race you know i didn't make it as a footballer i didn't get that job that i applied to but it's part of the iterative journey of getting better and continuous improvement and i think it's something culturally in the uk we need to do a lot better at marketing like it's not only okay to fail but actually harness the lessons that you take during failure to lead you on to whatever you go on to next this is a career accelerating opportunity regardless when you go into a career getting employed or start a new business i love that you mentioned the us there because i definitely want to come back to that obviously i know that you worked in silicon valley with the likes of anderson horowitz aquoya capital and i definitely feel very frustrated with the uk as a player in the global market so we'll just put a pin in that for a second come back to that but just sticking with this piece around you know success failure I guess before you've even reached the point of okay like this is we're flogging a dead horse here is do you have you ever had any experiences of the signals that lead up to like even before you say okay it's time to time to shut up shop right because I just think in the space in which we operate, which is early stage tech, it's something that you can't ever cleanly A, B test, right?

10:07You never, you just got to go and try it and test it out. But I speak to so many founders who are pushing the envelope, who are being innovative. And, you know, it comes when we look at the marketplace and the gaps that you can spot in the market. If we look at competitors, for example, it's so nuanced and so difficult to understand whether there are few competitors in a space for a reason or whether this is truly a gap in the market. And I guess, again, just kind of linked to angel investment providing you with that runway, I guess it boils down to how long do you keep going at something until, because you could always be at the edge of a breakthrough, right?

10:51like oh just another day just another we'll talk about resilience and just keep going but it's like another six months another 12 months yeah so I'm always very thoughtful in thinking when you ask the questions that I answer in the in the way that feels right and I want to give an example from the public markets so with public market trading right I could look at a stock like Apple or Microsoft or any of these companies that I like like Coca-Cola and I could trade that stock and put something called a stop loss that says that I'm willing to lose no more than 500 pounds and then pull me out of this trade.

11:27When you start off as an entrepreneur, you need to have that similar kind of mindset. I'm an independent researcher. I want to put six months or a certain time frame on what I'm doing. And in that point, if I fail to raise, if I fail to get revenue for this idea, I'm going to put a stop loss and I'm going to take in my learnings. What went well? What didn't go so well? What can I do differently? and I'm going to make a decision. Am I going to do things differently or is it time to quit? And actually every six months is helpful to have that kind of retrospective inner work that you do in yourself to really understand, is it worth doubling down on this journey?

12:00Am I taking steps in the right direction or is this not working out? And if it's not working out, what lessons can I extract to then take me into the next thing? So I'm very much of that opinion. I can see you smiling as I think it resonates around having the mentality of an independent researcher rather than assume they have an entrepreneur from day one. I am smiling so much because that's an even better answer than I could have hoped for. And exactly the reason I love having you on this show at the moment. I love that. And I think it does link also to what you touched on on that shame and identity piece, because your business as a startup founder has become so intrinsically linked to your identity, whether it is just online or, you know, you can't help as much as we say, you know, your business isn't yourself.

12:42You have to divorce. It's like the reality is it's so intertwined. and so I love with part of what you say there with that independent researcher mindset is it's a hypothesis you know applying some of that scientific method and even the language and the words that we use around it this is my time frame this is and I think it's also you know linked to that as well what I always wonder about is the distinction between having a really strong vision as an entrepreneur, which is also a non-negotiable, again, versus superimposing that vision onto a market that doesn't necessarily want or isn't ready for what you have to offer them.

13:23Do you mind if I double click on what you're saying? Please do, go for it. I'm a bit annoying like that. Go for it. No, I love it. So I love this quote by Jeff Bezos that says, you write your vision in ink and your strategy in pencil because there's many different streams that can lead to the ocean. but I think before that quote there's something missing and it's about you doing that inside work around like your identity why you're doing this and why it matters so I'm a big believer in distance traveled when speaking to founders and what I mean by that is I'm that annoying investor that asks you where did you grow up how many siblings did you have where did you go to school who were your friends what were some pivotal experiences that you went through in life what's some adversity that you overwent and I'm really looking for breadcrumbs that helps me to identify why you're well positioned to solve this problem.

14:10Oh, I can see in that story that was grit. I can see in that story that was curiosity. I can see in that story that was resilience. I'm not going to ask you like in an interview, but through peeling back your story like layers of an onion, I really get to understand that this founder is well positioned to solve this problem. I think not enough angel investors do that, and it's sometimes too transactional. I want to get into this hot deal, and I've got FOMO if I don't get into this deal X, Y, Z. Rather than, actually, I want to do life work with this person, and hopefully know them for the next 10, 15, 20 years, regardless how this turns out.

14:40So part of this investment is actually an investment into a relationship. And I think founders themselves don't do that introspective. So then go on journeys sometimes prematurely before they've even asked themselves, like, who am I? Why am I here? Is this really the right problem for me to solve? And there's a famous book, not famous book, but there's a book by an author called David Brooks, and he's a New York Times columnist, and it's called Second Mountain. And it talks about this concept in life of where you go up your first mountain, which is all about yourself. I want to get a promotion.

15:08I want to get paid more. I want to work for this big brand. Then you go through this humble descent of getting to the foot of the mountain. It's like, where am I? I'm in the wilderness now. Don't know what I'm going to do next. Some people face this in COVID. Like, I'm spending so much time at home. I look at what I've missed. All of my hobbies, getting fit. I want more of this lifestyle. What am I going to do for work going forward? Right, and then you start ascending a second mountain, which is really foggy. Numerous paths to ascend to the peak. I don't know how it's going to work out, but it's all about being in servitude to something bigger than yourself.

15:36It's less about being selfish now. It's more about serving humanity. And I think to really grasp entrepreneurship at that mission-led level, you need to be a second mountain person. It's not sometimes the right thing to do on that first mountain. If anything, sometimes it's a first mountain experience that you need to fill out to get to where you really need to get to, right? Mixtape Madness was almost on my first mountain. And then actually I had a humble descent when I left the business, even though I was really doing well, my brother still runs it today. And now actually Angel Investor, schools are part of my second mountain i love that and you know i wonder whether people are wrongly attracted into entrepreneurship you know for the wrong reasons and you know you listen to you know episode zero which by the way listeners if you haven't already go back and start the very beginning because that contextualizes the purpose and the mission of this podcast which is stripping back that glamorization and the realities of it so that you don't you know go into it for those reasons what I'm also really curious about is part of what you teach at angel investing school do you share wisdom around that I guess softer piece of it with getting to know the founder as well as the financials it's actually the first class the first class is all about founder empathy and we do this exercise I'm not going to give away on this podcast but it's all about the power displacement that often exists when an investor meets a founder yeah and the founder is meant to feel inferior and the superior one is the investor and when we reframe it through that exercise you realize that it's the reverse and actually the founder are lucky and gracious enough to allow us to come along this journey with them and they're the one taking all the risk and they're the one creating all of the value and actually we're a chain leader supporter and helper who's staying out of the way because you need to create a business but are available if you need an ear to listen or someone to make an introduction or to support you with some expertise that we have to really reframe the relationship so that when they're going into their first discussion with founders they're coming from a very humanistic point standpoint right it's one human connected to another around unlocking potential to solve a world problem and I always like to ask this question of even to myself let alone the founder of in 10 years we succeed at scale what really changes in the world and I remember one of my portfolio companies unplugged when I asked Hector the founder that question and I didn't ask him that question actually I asked myself that question when I spoke to him and I thought he's providing these digital detox experiences in these cabins that are dotted across the country so you can unplug away from technology your phone the laptop net net in 10 years of you succeed at scale is that positive for the world absolutely absolutely because we're all too plugged into technology and not enough of us spend time to be still quiet and reflect so to have that experience I think it should be a b2b experience for all businesses I think it's something even school should be considering as well amazing and I guess yeah it really resonates it's that whole power dynamic um it was actually an amazing founder um the um the co-founder of spoke the mental health through music app she was the first person to to say to me about how you know money is money like capital is capital a pound from someone pound drop that if you've got an idea if you're building a business like that has a level of uniqueness and speciality to that that doesn't you know compare to you know somebody's money so I thought that was a really interesting kind of re reframing of it I hadn't come across before so I mentioned very briefly touched on you know the UK the US kind of thing you spent some time out in Silicon Valley I already said you know I definitely feel frustrated with the UK's you know tech exports at a global level i think obviously we've got an amazing flourishing economy we're sat here in london as well you know we're in a top amazing city and yet we open our phones and what are the main apps that are on there we are literally flanked by the two biggest superpowers the us and china what do you think you did touch on this in terms of culture and marketing um but do you have any more thoughts on you know what's got in the way of the uk i guess on more of that geographical perspective?

19:56What's got in the way of us being more of a global player? I always think about it on three levels. One thing the UK has got right is around tax relief. So in the UK, we've got a very unique tax relief policy around encouraging early stage investment called the SEIS and EIS scheme, the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme and the Enterprise Investment Scheme. Put simply, it means that you can gain tax relief from up to 50 % when investing into startups. So if I invest£20 ,000, I can get up to£10 ,000 back off my income tax. That's unique to the UK and that allows my money to go further. It's a very, very important stimulus that we have here.

20:38When I look at the US, there's three levels of difference for me. Talent, culture and environment. When I look at the environment, it's fostering innovation because of what I mentioned, that American dream, that philosophy of anyone can go from nothing to something. that failure is a part of the success journey, that hunger to start new businesses and feel like is a bridge to opportunity, right? When I look at the culture, like when you look at a lot of the talent that have come out of the US to become entrepreneurs or become VC investors, like a lot of the VC investors, I think 50 % was the statistic I read were ex-entrepreneurs, ex-operators, have founder empathy because they've been on that journey.

21:16The downside sometimes of gone on that journey is you have your biases or when I went through that this is what I did rather than just listening to that person's problem and giving them a present present them options or asking the right questions for them to arrive at an answer the other thing with that journey is a lot of them come from like a sales background commercial backgrounds so they have a high aptitude to taking risks that's why we see a lot of consumer plays there the Googles Facebooks Snapchats because of that that that ability to take greater risk where in the UK a lot of people came from financial services backgrounds, investment banking.

21:48So they're used to taking calculated risks of spreadsheets. So therefore, more predictable B2B software feels more comfortable because we've got predictability, we can model it in an Excel document. So therefore, B2B across Europe is more prevalent. It's rare for us to have a Spotify or a consumer play. So we really need to change our perspective in order to change that risk appetite. The other thing is scaling, and this is why I say talent, scaling across the US is one geography that's very significant and has very deep pockets. Scaling across Europe is very complex from different jurisdictions, different policies from a legal perspective, different languages, different cultures.

22:25So it's not as easy for me to grow to New York, to San Francisco, as it is for me to go from London to even Estonia, right? Like that is a very difficult journey to go on to scale across Europe like they can across the US. When we look at even the angel investors, I think US has, it was 350 ,000 angels, Europe has 330 ,000 across the whole region. So we can see that the US is a lot more mature in early stage investment and creating the ecosystem of universities supplying talent, VC supplying capital, founders coming out of corporates, out of different experiences, is galvanizing support that especially across the west coast is still very dominant around San Francisco and California I think a third of US deals it's what happens over on the west coast yeah it makes complete sense and you know that risk-taking appetite is definitely one of the things we need more we need more dreamers on this side of the pond but I haven't actually considered as you say kind of the vast differences between countries within Europe which geographically is a smaller space but so much more so many more differences even just languages jurisdictions and all the rest is not the same as state by state.

23:34Amazing. And so with some of that calculated risk in mind, nicely segues onto the next question. I know that you talk about the importance of due diligence on both sides of the fence. So both as an investor to the founder and founder to the investor, do you have any like top tips or I guess any red flags for either party to look out for if they're in the midst of a deal at the moment how long do we have isn't it top three top three stories to help so um you know i was speaking to a founder recently that i was supporting and um they signed a set of terms with some really bad terms on them and they had terms that are it's language that the average person wouldn't understand yeah anti-dilution clauses which actually really means that as an investor when that person's investing into that business regardless who invest in the future they can never get diluted down they'll always hold on to that level of equity which puts off any any sophisticated investor which means it hard for that founder to fundraise in the future now if i'm that founder i've signed something that i didn't truly understand and now it's impacted my ability to fundraise going forward terrible the other founder flag red flag is um when trans when trying to raise sometimes you can get desperate like i've been trying to raise for six months or nine months and i haven't had anyone and finally i get an offer and I just want to take that off the cash I just need the cash right but the cash from the wrong sources can be detrimental to your business I've had certain investors that have been very marginal in terms of how much they've invested but out for so much admin requirements you know I need to do reporting for this source of money that I've got I've got questions that I'm asking every week or every month and before you know it that person become an admin burden and I'm spending more time with them than I am on my tool you don't want people like that on your cap table right so sometimes for founders you need to be courageous to know that i believe in the value of what i'm building i don't need to give away equity cheaply if i truly believe in the future value of what i'm building i'd rather say no to the wrong money than to take money on that becomes a burden that impacts my ability to grow my business in the future i've seen sadly that happen time and time again and for investors you know in the last two three years before this year there's a lot of these rounds where it was like on a friday you hear about this stop and on a monday it's closing and some people feel anxiety around I'm gonna miss out on this great deal that deal just wasn't meant for you and that's okay go through your process stay disciplined in your process of your process I've sometimes spent time for 12 months with a founder just supporting them or staying in contact being a friend sometimes being in here to listen and then 12 months later there's an opportunity to invest now I wasn't trying to be transactional over those 12 months I was just being given to the ecosystem but sometimes that pays back in terms of because of the experience we've had together I want you on my cap table I want someone like you to work with now that I've spoken to a lot of frogs a lot of angels that I'm not so keen on I now can identify the type of angels that I want along this journey and it's always great when I get that feedback and I receive people that come around in like 12 months time and there's others that I never get to invest in but I still support I think that's the way a healthy ecosystem works it's not just give and take that I'm not given for a transaction just to get something back but I'm given because I truly believe at this core level around this work that we're doing in this ecosystem for entrepreneurs and so that entrepreneurs can come from anywhere that we can solve innovations that benefits the whole world essentially rather than just a narrow set of people who are coming up with ideas and also benefiting from the ideas being invested in.

27:07I know that as a day as your day job is kind of in investing but I feel like on a more kind of personal level it does seem like you do play the long game and you do naturally have that appreciation for longer term thinking and I think just to to double click to use your term I like that on on what you say there I think it is it's so it's so refreshing and so important to reiterate that to the founders as well you know I think the investors are like okay I'm in it for 10 years 15 years you know I'm aware that it's going to take that time to get those returns but for the founders as well as you say it's like if you make a misstep you don't understand a clause you're in it for the long haul as well you're going to be working with those people for the next decade if your business is still you know and they're going to be they're going to be you know maybe some of your team members come and go but those investors are going to be there with you by your side throughout that whole time so by your side right you never know right so you know i'd say maybe to that is like you know swallow your pride stuck up the embarrassment of asking like silly questions join the angel investing school to learn and debunk some things but you know if you don't understand something or you're not sure or your gut instinct just you know pay attention to those things for the risk looking in you know looking silly or whatever because it will definitely pay off in the long run and the story i like to always share is like my first investment like i mentioned at the beginning i invested more than i could afford to lose into an idea that i just didn't understand.

28:37And the Angel Investing School is so much more cheaper than making a 10k investment investing a startup that you just don't understand. Right. And for us, I don't even see my daily job as investing. I see it as really unlocking access to opportunity and unlocking potential. So our slogan at the Angel Investing School is really to unlock opportunity around who gives and gets investment. Because we believe that everyone should be able to become entrepreneurs, but equally everyone should be able to become investors. And it's like this marketplace that we're trying to open up through the knowledge which is the biggest gap now what we've seen over the last 20 years in my lifetime is the advancement of technology at a rapid rate outstripping business change so as a result it's become easier and easier to lose money in crypto in public markets in trading in investing in equity crowdfunding when i don't understand we've got a blog right from one of our angels who said that they invested 500 pounds into city mapper city mapper gets acquired and they get 300 pounds back what happened there i thought if an acquisition happens I always make money that's the education gap that we're plugging yeah it's quite a vast one we don't learn financial literacy as a lesson in school right so who's going to teach to us unless we have access to an uncle or auntie that can teach us this stuff yeah that's what we can plug such a significant long tail gap in society and this is definitely edging into kind of conspiracy territory but I would love to get your thoughts on the fact that you know as I've started learning some of the basics it really is not as complex as I think the powers to be want you want to make make it out to be I think there are even just the basics of personal finance the fact that you know if you put your money into a savings account that's got 0.6 percent interest and the rate of inflation is you know 10 percent you're effectively losing you know it's just like those there's basics that I think that really could be taught at secondary school without any problem whatsoever and I think you talk a lot about language and debunking these terms and these myths it really isn't that complex it's not that rocket so you know there are a lot of basics that could easily be taught on a much you know wider wider level do you do you have any thoughts on the whole kind of you know is there a reason why that stuff is made out to be more complex and opaque than it actually is I think when you think of like systems of privilege and oppression in society and I'm not going to get too deep with it even though I've just mentioned something very deep like people are wealthy in certain positions of power protect their power in certain ways right so if I am funding a political party and that party gets into power guess what there's certain things that I'm lobbying for that are going to make it, maybe like Brexit, right?

31:21When we look at the UK, the 33 wealthiest families represent 50 % of the wealth in this country. That's disgusting, that concentration of power, right? So it's in certain people's interest that language is a barrier to access so that actually they can maintain their wealth. Whereas there's other people who are more philanthropic and recognise that actually if we can empower more people, if we can support more people, actually is a greater good for the planet and for society. And I'm on that side of the fence, right? But it's always going to be like that. And language is actually a barrier to entry, not just in finance, right, but in the medical industry and healthcare.

32:00Also a barrier when you think about the legal industry and law. All of these industries use language as a barrier. And when you translate what these things mean, you learn that. It's really simple. Like, why didn't you just say that in the first place? Right. Right? It's part of what we need to break down and change, I think, going forward. Why hang on to these Latin terms like pari passu, just speak English. Exactly. And actually explain what it is and say what it is so that a five-year-old can understand. And that's what we're trying to get really good at. Quick fun fact. Did you know that the annual spend on outsourcing and hiring agencies is$900 billion?

32:35This year alone. That's why I'm so proud to collaborate with 50pros.com, a new and fast-growing platform that connects highly vetted agencies with companies looking for their next marketing partner. If you've ever had to source your own agency before, then you'll know unless you've had a good referral, it can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. That's why with 50pros.com, they provide you with a curated, vetted, no-noise directory of only the top 50 firms within 50 categories. head to the link in the show notes 50pros.com and I really hope this helps you get it right with your next marketing partner all right let's get back to the show all right one more question just while we're sticking on the whole kind of angel investing theme and then I've got a few other kind of topics to dive into but we touched on the importance of due diligence and some of the mistakes you know you shared some stories there that highlight some of the issues for people to look out for i guess more from your angel investing perspective you know personally taking a bit of a step back do you see any commonalities across it was like 17 startups you've invested in obviously you know many more founders do any kind of commonalities keep reoccurring do you spot any patterns trends that you think oh don't you know shortcut you don't need to keep making these mistakes over and over what could you share on this podcast with some of our founders there's a few and one is sometimes you're leaving a job you don't like to start a business and be your own boss when the answer might be I just need to get a job that I like and a team that I love right if if I'm at a purist state and I'm a problem solver I shouldn't care whether I'm the entrepreneur or whether I go and get a job as long as this mission line is solving that problem of value-aligned team I'm gonna be really unpopular for sharing that but I at my core feel like as from a purist perspective, that's the truth.

34:28Another curse sometimes is knowledge. Sometimes when you know too much, it causes inaction. It causes procrastination because I know too much. It's like, oh, if I do that, that's going to happen. If I do that, and you end up not experimenting and trying things out. Sometimes it also becomes very hard to coach you and support you because you know too much. Oh, yeah, I've been in architecture for 15 years. Now I know this problem. I'm like, it's quite a niche problem. It's quite small because all these architecture firms are only two or three people. It's hard to coach you and take you along that journey because you just know too much.

35:02Another is sometimes young people going along this journey because they've heard of these outlier stories of Mark Zuckerberg in college. And they don't realize that the average age of an entrepreneur is about 43. When actually that young person should reframe their mind sometimes and say, actually, in school, I was paying to learn at university. Now I've got an opportunity to get paid to learn. Let me go on these journeys with these companies and learn. Right. Because if I spend 10 years in an industry, I might spot really interesting problems, form a really interesting network, find a co-founder that way, and actually go and start a business.

35:32So I think sometimes we've got to play the long game and be more patient because starting a business or even creating wealth or being financially free is all like a means to an end. Once I attain that thing, I start asking myself the right questions. What do I really want? What really matters to me? What is the problem that I really want to solve now that I can afford to and I've got the time and the headspace? So sometimes we can actually shortcut that and say that we don't need the wealth to be financially free to think that way I can optimise for that now. And that's why I think a lot about family life.

36:04You know, like why am I going to wait till I'm retired before I spend meaningful time with my kids and my wife when I can optimise for that today by just going to less events, working from home more and switching off completely on the evenings and weekends. I can do that now. it means we're going to grow slower Andy it means that I don't mind yeah I think the human experience is all about shared relationships I don't think any of us were born to be lonely so I'm going to create spaces and environments where I can share meaningful relationships and to do that for me I need to understand your distance traveled and understand your origin story and peel back the onion so that we can connect at a deep level to make it so much more easier when we transact oh yeah we're doing a deal yeah yeah that's all right but let's talk about this other stuff that house your daughter.

36:44When you get that real level of empathy and connection with someone, it just takes the relationship to a different place. And what you'll realise is across any career as an entrepreneur or in your career, we're all in the relationship building business. And a social catapult opens doors to opportunities and opens doors to how we collaborate and solve problems. So if you get really good at relationship building, again, something for some reason that's not taught in schools, it can open doors to opportunities regardless of your education. regardless of your qualification, regardless of your race or background.

37:15I think that's a missing trick now in society, especially in the Western world where you move so quick and it'll take enough time to slow down before moving fast. Truth bomb after truth bomb with you, Andy. I absolutely resonate with everything you say there. And I think just to recap a little bit so that we can really kind of clarify that for our listeners, I think one part of it is, you know, move away from that. when I get this X equals Y kind of thing is, well, actually you're putting so much onto a future state, onto something that doesn't exist yet, whether that's starting your own business, your own company, whatever it is, there's a future state that you're really kind of placing your bets on.

37:56You can do that today. You can start thinking about how to start optimizing, prioritize the relationship building, play the long game. Were there any other points that I missed in that kind of... Okay, I'm sorry. I mean, there was a lot. There was a lot of goodness in there. All right, amazing. Well, as much as we can continue down the investment kind of path, I'm going to switch gears a little bit because I'm really interested to actually get to know you a little bit more and peel away at the layers of the onion. So I'm going to start off this kind of next sort of gear change with a quote. It sucks to lose.

38:28It sucks to fail. It sucks to lose a loved one. But it really sucks if you don't learn from that experience. Do you remember saying that quote, Andy? I have no idea where I said that quote, but I agree and it resonated. I was already coming, right? You agree with that? Whoever said that is a wise man. I thought it was actually one of your quotes. I was like, yeah, it would be a Stephanie quote. I cannot take the credit for that. That is, in fact, your quote, Andy. Can you guess what you were referring to with that quote? Losing a loved one. Yeah, definitely losing a loved one. I was referring to the loss of my dad.