Week 19 - Entrepreneur at Zinc - VB7

We are 2 ? weeks away from submitting our Investment Memo (deadline is on the 14.03) and 3 weeks away from the Investment Committee (w/c 18.03). If we pass the Investment committee, we will get a small investment from Zinc (￡70,000) and will be able to stay in the Zinc program, going into the ‘Accelerate’ phase of the program.?

As we are time limited (and poor), Gal Moore is focusing on the tech and co-developing the MVP with our fantastic partner, and I am focusing on digging deeper on our competitive edge, the TAM, the customer acquisition plan, and some part of the investment memo. It feels nice to be able to divide to conquer as this period may feel at times overwhelming - such a long list to do!?

Very important to prioritise. Our priority is to continue to learn from patients, healthcare professionals and pharma & CROs.?

However, if you've been following this newsletter, there are many ways you can help and I will list below where we need support, perspective and food for thoughts - for our investment memo likely w/c 4.03, and for our pitch deck, from next week.

Investment Memo - How you can help (from w/c 4.03)

This 7 pages document covers our problem, evidence that the problem exists, our solution to the problem and the product vision.?

It will need to cover also our commercial model:?

• Direct and indirect competitors and our differentiator, TAM and unit of value, pricing hypothesis and how it’s been tested
• GTM and customer acquisition plan: Ted Fernandez Irelyn Friel I would love your thoughts here!
• Our High-level 5-year financial forecast including underlying assumptions with evidence - David Mathewson Imran Akhoun and maybe Nicholas Schneider - la creme de la creme - would love your support here

Of course it will need to cover the Team - why we are the right team to tackle this problem and our advisors.

(Side note)

As I write this, I read the post from Rubén D. about a study from Endeavor.

'Unicorn founders did not go to business school, nor did they work at McKinsey. Instead, they were less career-oriented global citizens who typically worked in a startup before they became founders.On average, they had 10 years of work experience prior to founding, mostly within product & engineering, and they almost always lived, worked or studied abroad.Super insightful research by Endeavor'

I realise perhaps Gal Moore and I should talk a bit more about the fact we lived in different countries - for myself, U.S, UK and France, that we have a decade of experience, having worked for start ups (2 exits and 1 IPO) with our combined experience

The only thing that bothers me about this analysis is that I did go to business school for a MBA in marketing from 法国高等商业经济管理学院 (INSEEC) but this was HARD to make it happen. This analysis is missing some layers about under-represented groups.

I saved up money while working as a receptionist at the Energy Stock Exchange Powernext Energy and solutions LLP EPEX SPOT EEX. I met amazing colleagues there, big shoutout as some of you are following this newsletter.

Then, I had to take a student loan with the french government as guarantor because I did not have anyone to back me up. I worked part time at WPP Kantar Media working late shift until midnight and commuting 3h per day to be able to get to La Defense, Paris back home in Aubervilliers (93). (Shoutout to my old colleagues from there)

This also means for all the School group work projects we had to do, I had to work in advance juggling paying the bills and doing my MBA. It also means that when I worked at CANAL+ Group for my MBA internship, I also kept working at Kantar Media, working 7 days a week for 6 months. I could not offered to resign from my permanent job at Kantar but still needed to validate my MBA credits with an internship.

So what this study is missing layers and perspective on under-represented group. I wish Gary Izunwa could shed some lights on under-represented founders and unicorn companies!

(Side note - rant over)

Still on the investment memo, we need to demonstrate

• The impact we want to make with our solution and our theory of change - any social impact investors who could feedback on ours?
• And the risks and mitigations that we are working on. As you know healthcare is a highly regulated space, so we are working through this (and not only)

We have to send our Investment Memo by the 14.03 so would love to catch up before that - likely w/c 4.03

Pitch Deck? - How you can help (from next week)

Next Wednesday morning, we have our 10min Mock Pitch - to practise ahead of the Investment committee. This means that we will have a more advanced Pitch deck to share around to get your feedback on before our Investment Committee (w/c 18.03).?

I would love in particular some help on the following:

• Storytelling: Watch for my email/dm soon: Malik Ducard Cédric Petitpas Rob Gabel Karan Pinto David Janner-Klausner (he/him) and Jim Newton I would love your support

Overall, any help and feedback would be appreciated - thinking of the Zinc gang Tatseng Chiam Dr. Hannah Forbes ?? and Alfredo Belfiori Janet Martin if happy to give feedback?

We are also really committed in making an impact and a difference for under-represented/under-served groups so would love to have your perspective Catherine Park from Colorintech Dr. Elsa Zekeng and any professionals working to make a difference to reduce health inequalities.?

And of course, the friends of the company - David Pribil Valerie Soo, Ph.D. Laurie Ainley

Any investors or angels who could give us some perspective??

Shoutouts

• To Loredana Sundberg Cerrato and Simon Hudson from the Microsoft for Startups - for the support, and the perspective on our business model and competitive edge
• North Central London Cancer Alliance for the exchange and the chat thank you Maria Fomina Afsana Bhuiya Anna Cavanagh, @sharon fernandes, Amanda, Yasemin Hirst
• Our wonderful partner - putting the collaboration at the heart of our exchange and helping us shape our MPV.?
• My support Circle Joss Rogers Veronika Bridgman Guy Naor Tara Mahboub
• Rosie Webster for a very (needed) product vision workshop - this was gold
• Bernadette Behnke for her value prop workshop and ongoing support
• Jürgen Vleminckx for the chat on healthtech valuation and food for thoughts on commercial business
• Govin Murugachandran for helping me navigate private dentists in the UK - finally getting my tooth infection sorted (soon)
• Dr. Zhong Wei Khor for the chat and thoughts on the business model, looking forward to chatting more (and also for helping our cohort on the health side!)

What else is happening in my cohort?

Today meet Ultra BiOmics

Just as precision medicine has revolutionised oncology and reproductive health, Ultra BiOmics are now poised to make significant strides in combating metabolic diseases. Metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, liver disease and cardiovascular diseases are increasing in all populations with 1 million adults in England living with undiagnosed type 2 diabetes, 5.1 million people living with pre-diabetes and less than 7% of the US adult population are metabolically healthy.??

Poor metabolic health costs your business, look out for their metabolic calculator launching next week to calculate the costs to your organisation.? If you are living with metabolic disease they would love to hear what help you need from your employer.??

Follow them for more insight ===> Ultra BiOmics

or connect?through their website ==> www.ultrabiomics.com

They are also looking to talk to organisation with over 1000 employers to understand their pain points and what they are currently doing to address them. So feel free to reach to Lisa Rickers Phil Wakefield and Asam Rafi if you can help them!

That’s my take on these last two weeks but feel free to read some other wonderful cohort member’s summary:

• Donna Egan here?with Zonder
• Guy Naor here with his co-founder Gopal J. working on Bygones Building transformative, modular solutions for carbon-reductive energy and materials.
• Lisa Rickers here with her co-founders Asam Rafi and Phil Wakefield working on Ultra BiOmics Your co-pilot for metabolic health
• Louise Thomas with William Hicks working on Air Aware Labs, Empowering every individual with access to clean air?
• Pavandeep Rai Ph.D here working with Dr Karim Sandid on Kuma Health Building the future of autoimmune diseases care.
• Veronika Bridgman here?
• Natalia Baltazar here
• Josh Piddock here
• Also check our friends Emily Pilsworth and Niamh Gohil with The Stream working on helping asset managers/asset owners with tracking, managing and reporting their ESG integration and improving transparency. They are fundraising and are looking for angel investors.?

The list is growing each week!

Thank you for reading my newsletter, don’t hesitate to share any comments, questions, suggestions of resources to help me in my journey or even experts to follow on LinkedIn! Don’t forget to subscribe and share with your network to receive my weekly newsletter - that’s the best way to offer support and join me on my entrepreneurial journey to tackle environmental threats to our health.

If you are an investor seeking opportunities in the entrepreneurial landscape, climate tech, or are an advocate for women in tech or BIPOC, I encourage you to connect with me. Let's collaborate to drive transformative change in the fields of environment, technology, and the promotion of underrepresented groups.