Scouting for Growth Podcast Hits 500k Downloads! ??

I made it! Over 500k downloads of the Scouting for Growth podcast.

I met this magic milestone with my podcast last week, and in just two years and four months.

This makes my podcast one of the top 50 in the UK and one of the top 200 in the USA in the Business and Entrepreneurship categories.

It is a significant milestone that I want to keep up. So, make sure to save the podcast on your preferred podcast channel.

And guess what!

“True and real” is my motto. So, whether a tech venture, an expert or a corporate executive joins me for a chat on the podcast, they do not have much say on the result as I won’t change the narrative.

What does this mean? You get the real, authentic, and unaltered discussion. So, if anyone wants to join me, please keep this in mind!

What is the premise behind the Scouting for Growth podcast?

When I launched the podcast in December 2021, I analyzed the FinTech, InsurTech, HealthTech and WealthTech markets.

From memory, in 2021, FinTech raised $161B in funding. In 2022, FinTech raised $105B in investment funding.

I realized that regardless of the FinTech sub-market, there were over 100,000 startups and scaleups (or growth ventures) at the time. However, only 25% of these received investment funding — for those seeking investment funding — as not all startups want investor support to grow and scale.

So, let’s say that 70%+ of these businesses sought financing support from institutional investors, corporate investors and commercial collaborators.

Today, while we monitor over 2.5 million ventures globally, the numbers I shared above have not changed much.

Through this podcast series, I want to demystify the world of corporate venturing for the masses, including the fields of corporate innovation, corporate collaborations, venture capital investing, and corporate venture building. I want to give intrapreneurs, aspiring investors, and young ventures the strategies, tactics, tools, and techniques to grow and scale their businesses by understanding how corporations and corporate investors think and how unicorns are built.

My first question was, certainly… why are only 25% of ventures receiving investment?

As noted above, in 2021 and 2022, investors were still pouring funding into tech startups compared to recent years. 2023 was not good for FinTech startups, with $60B in investment funding. And CB Insights recently reported that Q1 2024 looked pretty grim, too.

Quarterly funding declined to $7.3B in Q1'24, counter to the 11% rebound in the broader venture market. That said, fintech deals increased by 15% QoQ as investors focus on writing smaller checks. Average deal size YTD in fintech is $11.1M, down 18% vs. $13.6M in full-year 2023.

So, I decided to talk to executive leaders across sectors, investors, corporate venture capitalists, corporate innovators, tech founders, scaling experts and influencers to understand their perspectives on trends but also on what is required to build, grow and scale a business.

My goal was to tap into their expertise and lessons learned to start shaping a more replicable framework for building highly effective corporate-startup adoption-led collaboration and investment programs.

What are the top three podcast downloads?

Still, today, the most downloaded podcast remains my chat with:

• Guillaume Bonnissent who dives into the world of digital underwriting excellence. Guillaume has achieved nearly 9K podcast downloads to date. Imagine if any of those downloads resulted in a call with an interested insurer or partner. Have a guess! I do know that this occurs every single week.

• James Marshall who discusses the future of product-led design and Spinning Fox . This is a superb discussion for those still trying to figure out how to build a digital offer.

• Sara Simeone who provides a highly instructive explanation of the new world of digital technology adoption, from NFTs and Web3 to the Metaverse.

What do those three podcast tells you?

1. The market is working out how to differentiate its underwriting and risk management units in the age of AI.
2. As platformification moves at scale, big and small businesses want to find answers on how to build the most effective digital products and services.
3. Innovation… Innovation – where is the market going with Web3, NFTs, the Metaverse and much more?

What I think you would love to listen to from my expanding catalog.

I am renowned for seeing trends others cannot see and translating those within the context, operating and business models of the companies I work closely with. With current changes within the realm of AI, I think you will enjoy listening to my chats with:

• Alex Taylor from QBE Ventures provides an introductory lens on the world of corporate venture capital in 2024. And this certainly includes Alex's insights on AI.

• Antony Elliott from Zurich Insurance joins me to discuss the Zurich Innovation Championship or #ZIC24.

• ?? Aaron Jones addresses the world of Generative AI and the democratization of video skills. I use Yepic AI for my avatar work. This podcast is a top 10 download.

• Leandro DalleMule from Planck joined me recently to discuss AI within commercial lines insurance underwriting. In just three months, this podcast has had over 2.2K downloads.

• Yannick Even recently joined the podcast to share insights on #GenAI and the #FutureofWork. Then we dove into his work on Generative AI with The Digital Insurer and 微软 . Yannick shared that it is first about people augmentation in the end. So reskilling and upskilling team must be today's priority.

• One of my most fun discussions is with Franklin Manchester, CPCU from 赛仕软件 . Franklin joins me to discuss the essential strategies for protecting your data in 2024. With 3k downloads, this podcast is already on the road to becoming a top download this month.

• Then check out who was on the podcast last week. Yes, Romaney O'Malley the group CFO of fast-growing unicorn bolttech .

What is coming up!

As I shared above, make sure you have the podcast series saved on your preferred podcast channel. I have so many fantastic discussions lined up already for the rest of the year and some exceptional projects on the way.

Indeed, in May, I am thrilled to launch a special podcast series, which I shaped with the Oliver Wyman team.

Steven Abel and Esther Becker from Oliver Wyman as well as Brian McDermott from Victor will join me in evaluating what a truly digitized platform looks like to meet the needs of insurance carriers and tech partners... among others.

Brian will share incredible lessons on ways to build an insurance business at scale.

Over the past few weeks, I have been engaging with factional and scaling experts. As-a-service business models are here, and many of the companies supporting our world have adapted their propositions to offer As-a-Service solutions, particularly when markets are uncertain.

The value of the service lies in thorough and planned execution—no more lengthy PowerPoint presentations. The really best in this world know their craft and get down and dirty in the execution using their many years of expertise. So yes, we are all seeking and wanting to work with true architects—those able to understand every one of those levers of growth and get more than advice on the table.

I believe you will enjoy my upcoming chats with Scott Ritzheimer , the Scale Architect and Beate Chelette Chelette, the Growth Architect… among others.

There are many exciting conversations to discover, so I will let you peruse and pick what interests you most. Think about our dearest Ola Jacob giving us a little lecture on the world of #parametric.

You just need to add my name, Scouting for Growth and the problem you want to see solved into any search engine. If I have already considered this issue, the engine should serve you what you are looking for.

If I have not!

Just DM me, and I will add your request to my long request list. I review these comments regularly and then hunt for the best experts (e.g., not always the most famous one), but I always seek an expert who can answer your question with depth and expertise.

Finally, I want to thank my listeners, who left me reviews on the podcast. I know most of us do not know if our comments are being reviewed. I reviewed each one of them.

For the troll and the naysayer, remember that we live in a world of trial and error. We test our theory live. I made mistakes when I started the podcast, but I can tell you that I refined my approach every single year to find the right balance between perfection and delivery.

This is what is called “Authentic” learning and leading through experimentation.

Enjoy... You can dive into the podcast using the following three links.

And as always... stay curious and keep innovating!

--Want to know more... make sure to register on our website alchemycrew.ventures for our bi-weekly newsletter on corporate venturing, the venturing client model and corporate-startup collaboration.

You can also dive into more insights:

• Read my Medium articles
• Listen to AI-generated snippets from my Medium articles on #BeyondTechFrontier Podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify.
• Download the #ScoutingforGrowth Podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify.