Strategy & Organisational Change Digital Innovation & Entrepreneurship
ENTREPRENURIAL MINDSET Better way Five ways to build an entrepreneurial culture
by James Hayton
get their money back first in all scenarios. This can be a challenge when trying to align the interests of founders and investors. As companies grow, these share structures can become complex, and the notion of fairness can be compromised. Relationships are key to managing such situations. 6 Fundraising, syndication and scaling Relationships with other VC funds are important. All VCs are searching for the next big thing and, while it is a competitive industry, it is also collaborative. VCs quite often share deals with rivals so both can participate, which helps to spread risk. This is known as syndication. Good relations with other investors can help start-ups to scale and enable easy onboarding of different expertise (such as technical or geographical knowledge), which provides different
views and experience. For example, bringing American VCs on board when investing in the US can accelerate growth. VC investors tend to be highly specialised. They often have a background in a technical field as a CEO of successful start-ups, rather than as sharp-trading financial engineers. This was my own experience. I started out as an academic research scientist who was fascinated by the question of how to turn scientific advances into a business, before completing an MBA and spending 20 successful years working in VC, specialising in biotechnology and life science start-ups. It is also reflected in our student intake. Those enrolling on the undergraduate venture capital module come from a variety of disciplines including computer science, law, physics, engineering,
and biotechnology, as well as from economics and business. By channelling my experience of backing early-stage companies, I aim to provide students with a greater degree of practical application and industry insight. Once they complete the module, they invariably view that photograph of Gordon Gekko in my office in a very different light. They realise that VC is not all about science, balance sheets, and information. It is about people and the soft skills required to build companies around interesting innovations. Understanding that can be priceless.
TO THE CORE
1. An entrepreneurial culture is not just for start-ups. Firms that are willing to innovate and take risks are more likely to survive and grow. 2. Pursue opportunities that match your company’s core skills, but don’t wait for the right ideas to appear. Use tools like hackathons and crows-nesting to produce them. 3. Explore and test ideas quickly and be prepared to kill off ideas that don’t work. Lean start-up techniques can help to keep costs down. 4. Ensure employees feel listened
to and remove any stigma associated with failure to encourage them to innovate.
Be empowered by the executive education programme Finance for Non-Finance Leaders .
Sustainable Development Goals
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