Baltic Ventures February Newsletter

Hello there,

Tech makes it easy and rewarding to work from anywhere. But as human beings, a sense of place can also be very important. Striking the right balance with your team’s location can be crucial for startup founders these days.

In today’s edition of the Baltic Ventures newsletter, let’s explore the benefits of working anywhere.. And of putting down roots.?

– Martin SFP Bryant

How to make the most of a distributed team

The days of new startups defaulting to working together in the same office are long gone. That option is still there and works well for many teams, but it’s now perfectly normal for an early-stage startup to bring together team members from across the country, or the world.

Baltic Ventures accelerator alum Gaia Learning is a great example of this approach, with a team spread across England, Scotland and as far as Sri Lanka, as well as partner schools around the world.

A distributed team means founders can hire the best people wherever they might be, instead of the best who happen to be local. But it brings with it challenges, not least keeping everyone motivated and on the same page. Communication–maybe even over-communication–is key to making sure the whole team is aligned.?

But how you do that is important. Gaia Learning founder and CTO Kirstin Coughtrie says the company has settled on Slack for team communication. While a WhatsApp group might be fine for a very small team, it’s terrible for work life balance and sharing of documents and data, it can be very difficult if messages can come in at all times of day and night.?

“We started on WhatsApp and that was too much. You could never switch off. Slack lets us have snooze periods, where you don't have pinging communications. Boundaries are important,” Kirstin says.

Distributed working can create opportunities to be more flexible around different team members’ preferences. For example, Kirstin says she sometimes best focuses on work late at night. But she’s mindful of colleagues feeling compelled to reply to her while brushing their teeth before bed, or whatever they might be doing then.

“My email signature says ‘I'm working at a time that suits me. Please don't feel obliged to reply unless it's a time that works with you.’”

Beyond ad-hoc, asynchronous messaging, Kirstin says routine can be beneficial. Each team meets for a 15-minute stand-up video call each day, to benefit from seeing each other’s faces and create a more human connection than a few lines of text can achieve.

Other things can create a bonding effect too. Team members all get Gaia Learning hoodies, which Kirstin says helps them “feel connected by those physical things you can touch and immerse yourself in.”

Special events like an online Christmas party can also help with team bonding, Kirstin says (be careful if you’re organising a Secret Santa though; that can be very tricky on an international scale, as I once found out !)

But despite the benefits of a distributed team, nothing beats getting together face to face. The Gaia Learning team gets together in person when they can. And Kirstin says building a strong bond online can make meeting someone in person for the first time feel like catching up with an old friend.

“One of the educators we worked with for about three years, I only ever talked to online. And then we met in London, and he said ‘This is the first time we've met’. And I was like ‘No, it's not really.’ It was the first time in real life but it didn't feel like that at all.”

Words on everyone’s lips

San Francisco

As we’ve found out above, distributed teams can be a massive boon for some companies, but having everyone in the same place can reap massive dividends.

Nowhere has that been more true for the tech industry in recent decades than San Francisco. Its position as the city to move to (or at least visit as often as you could) in US tech seemed rock solid.?

But the turmoil of the pandemic lockdowns a few years ago led to other locations like Austin, Texas and Miami, Florida attracting people away with promises of investment, cheaper talent, and lower taxes.

San Francisco has held on though, and as the Wall Street Journal reported this week, many investors and operators are returning to the city. It helps that? the A.I. boom has created the latest tech goldrush, centred on the city:

“The reality is that the brainpower is here” in San Francisco, said Max Gazor, a general partner at the venture firm CRV and board member at Airtable. “It’s especially true for AI, given the light speed at which these companies have innovated.”?

Of course, we all know that focusing too hard on what’s happening in San Francisco and Silicon Valley means it’s easy to forget that great startups can be built anywhere. But with the US still very much a key centre of investment, talent, and customers, it’s worth being aware of the dynamic.?

And if you’re in the A.I. space, a well-planned trip to San Francisco could be incredible for the strength and depth of your network right now.

You need to know…

Lynn Haime, CEO at Baltic Creative

Staying with our theme of a sense of place, Lynn Haime is right at the centre of Liverpool’s development as a really attractive place to build a tech or creative business.

Baltic Creative is at the forefront of the transformation of Liverpool's Baltic Triangle into the inspiring place it is today. It manages and lets around 120,000 square feet of business and creative spaces spread across six buildings.

“Because we're a Community Interest Company, our whole purpose of being is to look after the creative and digital sector,” explains Lynn.

“We work to generate profit, but all that profit is reinvested into the spaces or the sector generally. So we provide business support, as well as the physical space.”

Expanding its activities further, Baltic Creative is preparing an event focused on the digital and technology sectors. Called Bloom, it will take place on 8 May at Camp & Furnace.

“People can come and chat about some of the key issues in that sector. We are hoping the audience will reach Manchester, Leeds, and anyone who wants to come and see us to find out a little bit more about what goes on in Liverpool and how we can all join up and make some more noise.”

One of Baltic Creative’s tenants is none other than Baltic Ventures. But it’s more than just a landlord-tenant relationship, Lynn says:

“Our support for Baltic Ventures is very much long-term, and that applies to the cohorts that are coming out of that space as well, in the hope that they find the community such a strong draw for them that they'll end up graduating from Baltic Ventures and wanting to stay and put roots down here, so they can welcomed into our community directly as well.”

Scouse word of the month

Chocka: Packed, very busy

e.g.,: “Since the Baltic Ventures accelerator 2023 cohort finished the programme, their diaries have been chocka with investor meetings"

Sit down with Claire....

Earlier this month, Baltic Venture's CEO Claire Lewis sat down with the Start Up & Scale Up Podcast to discuss?Navigating the Impact of Tech on Society and Early Startup Acceleration.?

So grab a coffee, sit back and dive into the evolving landscape of mission-driven workplaces, the role of tech in society, and navigating investor expectations ??

UKBAA membership for investors unable to self-certify

No doubt you will have heard about the new changes to self-certification rules for angel investors and what this could mean to the diversity of new angel investors in the UK and the impact on under represented founders.

While the UK government is working with organisations such as the?UK Business Angels Association ?and?The Startup Coalition ?to find a long term solution we are now in a situation where many people who are interested in angel investing aren't able to investAt?Baltic Ventures ?we've partnered with the?UK Business Angels Association ?on their new programme for people who are interested in becoming angel investors but who can't self certify under the new rules.

The programme provides 6 months of membership that allows you to certify as a?#sophisticatedinvestor ?and as?part of the UKBAA membership individual investors will receive:·????

• ?Free access to an online angel training course????
• Access to the UKBAA 'Centre of Excellence' resource hub?
• Weekly newsletters
• ?Invitations to our educational events

Find out more