CAMentrepreneurs Newsletter #10/24

Richard Lucas

Sep 29, 2024

Introduction

This newsletter contains information about forthcoming events in London, Oxford, Cambridge and elsewhere, and an interview with Ian Foley, of Infrastructure Ventures, who are offering free entrepreneurship courses to CAMentrepreneurs.

CAMentrepreneurs London Entrepreneurship and Sustainability networking

Monday, September 30 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM UK time

Drake & Morgan at King's Cross London,

We will be hosting an event in collaboration with Cambridge Alumni for Sustainability, and Trinity Hall Entrepreneurs Network on 30 September. This will be a themed event around Entrepreneurship and Sustainability

Event details: Entrepreneurship and Sustainability networking event

Hosted by: CAMentrepreneurs, Cambridge Alumni for Sustainability, Trinity Hall Entrepreneurs Network.

CAMentrepreneurs Oxford Autumn Gathering - tickets here

Monday, October 14 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM 46 Woodstock Rd Oxford

Hosted by Jon Hill Linkedin and Richard Lucas Linkedin If you want to help CAMentrepreneurs thrive in Oxford, please let us know via this form.

If you want to make a lightening pitch at this event, please use this form . The number of slots is limited.

Special Guest Elliott Cooper - Ex-Team GB Gymnast, Entrepreneur and stuntman "Are you boring enough to be world class? Lessons for entrepreneurs"

Many thanks to Penningtons Manches Cooper for supporting this event, and to Grassroots Workspace for providing the venue at symbolic cost.

CAMentrepreneurs/London Business School event

23rd October 18:30-21:00 . Event description here and below Tickets here

Interested in pitching? If you're a founder looking for feedback or scouting for talent, don't miss out! apply here

Unleash Your Entrepreneurial Spirit with CamEntrepreneurs!

Ever dreamt of being in a buzzing room with the brightest entrepreneurial minds from London's two top academic institutions?

🌟 Dive into an electrifying atmosphere where established and budding entrepreneurs come alive with innovative ideas and possibilities!

💡 Why Join?
Connect with passionate peers and future founders from LBS and CamEntrepreneurs. Engage in dynamic discussions and gain insights into innovative entrepreneurial ventures. Open doors to potential collaborations as co-founders or team members.

Part 1: Pitching:
Founders: Deliver a punchy elevator pitch and split into groups for discussion and feedback. Non-founders but aspiring entrepreneurs: Showcase your interests and seek advice or potential collaborations.

Part 2: Networking:
Mingle and enjoy a laid-back networking session complemented by refreshing drinks and nibbles.

We appreciate the generosity of the partners of Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP who are contributing to the costs of this event.

CAMentrepreneurs/LSE event

Save the date 20th November, details to follow

Summer Drinks Pitch Festival

Thu, 21st Nov 2024, 5:30 - 8:00 pm AEDT

Tea Gardens Hotel, Bondi, NSW Tickets here

Wharton/CAMentrepreneurs joint event in London

Is planned for the last Monday 29nd or Wed 31st January 2025 depending on venue isuues

Organisational News

Our Swiss Group are looking for support with a venue in Zurich. Please get in touch with me or Raphael if you can help.

Tom Peach co-founder of our Sydney Group, is looking to start an interview series with entrepreneurs which may include a podcast. Get in touch with him if you want to be involved.

Interview with Ian Foley

Please introduce yourself, your most significant major businesses/projects you have been involved in the past, and what you are working on now.

Pleasure to meet you. I am Ian Foley, a Brit that has spent the last 26 years in Silicon Valley building technology companies, as a serial founder and investor. As a founder, I was lucky to work with some smart people and we had good timing, which helped result in the launch and exit of four startups (1x IPO and 3x M&A). As an investor, I helped identify early stage technology, often at the time it was just an idea or a patent, and turn these into companies. One of these I contributed to was Siri, which started as a Dept of Defence project at Stanford Research Institute, that went from concept to ultimately sale to Apple. I am now at Infrastructure Ventures, a R&D Lab and Venture Studio, which helps first time technical founders address the cold start problem of finding their first customer and investor.

Richard: What is the vision for Infrastructure Ventures . What problems is it aiming to solve, and what new does it bring to the entrepreneurship/startup ecosystem?

We believe there is a mismatch between talent and capital. If someone is fortunate to be born in Silicon Valley, they have a far better chance of receiving capital to take their idea from concept to exit than someone born in Belfast, Mexico CIty or Lagos. We think there is a lot of latent entrepreneurial talent, which we call ‘Lost Einsteins,’ that our program can help identify, nurture and then invest in. These are potential founders from all over the world, who might not have the knowledge or the mentor networks to help them land their first customer or secure investment capital. Our training platform, called Eccentric Labs, discovers founders, creates customized training programs based on a founder’s stage in their journey and the fund selectively invests in those companies with the most promise.

Richard: You’ve given talks about entrepreneurship: what messages do you want to communicate that people might not hear elsewhere ?

We focus on technical first time founders, who we often find are like hammers looking for nails. They often revert to building more tech if they do not get customer buy in. We teach the concept of customer-centric company building, which is getting the voice of the customer in early to help guide the product, marketing and sales strategies. This approach takes a lot of the guesswork out of company building.

Richard: There are many entrepreneurship courses: what makes yours different/better ?

Our course is written by founders for founders. We have distilled our experiences into a playbook that we wish we had starting our journeys. I could also talk about some other capabilities, such as our peer learning approach, but ultimately it’s the practical value of our course that graduates keep referring to as their biggest value.

Richard: Apart from you, who else is involved in Infrastructure Ventures, and can you tell us a bit about them, and why you wanted to work together ?

My co-founder is Francisco Ribeiro, who started out in eCommerce running two startups, and then went on to create one of the largest developer communities in Europe. Francisco has a background in finance and is an excellent operator. We have a team of developers in Europe and the United States that manage our operations and also are building new product capabilities. All of us are aligned on the same mission - helping to discover, nurture and invest in Lost Einsteins, with many excited about how we are applying this to find entrepreneurs in the Global South.

Richard: Any venture investing in other ventures needs time to succeed and assess whether you are on track: How do you know if you are succeeding, and what do you measure?

Venture investing has a long tail, so that part of the business is measured in the interim by the number of graduating founders that go onto secure investment or their first customer. We view founders as our #1 customer, we assess our training value to them by receiving a Net Promoter Score at their graduation of each program.

Richard: Can you share a bit about the finances? How much capital do you have to invest, and who are your most significant sources of finance? Are there any prominent entrepreneurs or funds that you want to draw attention to?

We invest from a fund of $20M.

Richard: Moving onto marketing, how do you get the word out so that people who might be interested get to hear about what you are doing and make sure they know your offer exists ?

Our marketing strategy is using insightful content. We run a series of podcasts, contribute or publish industry reports, create videos and then I also publish cartoons on industry topics for a number of publications (e.g. Fortune Magazine).

Richard: What advice would you give someone who is interested in startups and entrepreneurship but hasn’t yet got an idea how to get started?

If this person has no idea, I recommend they start by reading biographies of famous entrepreneurs, particularly their early life story. If they have an idea, they should go and talk to customers to test their hypothesis. When they are ready to be founders, then come and talk to us.

Richard: How can people get in touch with you if they want to ask more questions?

Connect with me on LinkedIn, where you can message me, too.

Richard: What is your offer to the CAMentrepreneurs community?

If you are a technical first time founder, we have a program that can help address the cold start problem of finding your first customer and investor. This program lasts four weeks, takes around 17 hours of your time, has no cost, and you will finish up knowing whether you have a business or a hobby.