Why 2021 is going to be a bumper year

The countdown to 2021 is on! There’s 2 weeks left of the year and I’m excited ??

2021 is going to be a bumper year and it’s a great time to be in business… or start one. 

There will be loads of key opportunities ready for the taking and there’s a huge appetite for capital raising. In fact, according to the Economist, there was more capital raised in 2020 than any other year ??

Ticker Ventures episode 2

Michael Burford, Founder of Urban Pulse, is taking on this opportunity and gearing up to raise capital next year. I spoke to him on episode 2 of #TickerVentures about some of the options. Despite the ready flow of money available, it’s super key to understand what comes with raising capital.

What are the pros and cons of going IPO? And how does it compare to private equity?

IPO considerations: There’s disclosure, reporting and ongoing costs. You also need to think about management and executive leadership.

The key question you need to ask yourself about IPOs: in your market, can you be potentially the monopoly? Can you be the ultimate answer for the thing that you are doing? 

If you need to change course a lot and you need to adjust and adapt then potentially a private company with other investors in it might be a better place to go. Because changing the story and updating the market with new directions is really expensive, takes a lot of work, it’s really hard, you need to do a lot of communication and alignment. 

Whereas investors want to follow along.

You need to be clear on what would you do with the money? Why do you need it?

Crowdfunding

The hottest way to raise capital right now is crowdfunding. Are they like unregulated IPOs? Maybe. Investors put money in and they get a small amount of disclosure. If you've got something solid, that's where I'd turn.

NOTE: THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE. Before making any commitment of a legal or financial nature you should seek advice from a qualified and registered legal practitioner or financial or investment adviser.

Business coaching

I’ve been advising businesses and mentoring for a long time, and now I’ve started taking on business coaching to a select few people.

I sat down with Christie Whitehill this week, an incredible entrepreneur who has a common problem many entrepreneurs face. She’s ready to take things to the next level in business but isn’t sure which direction to take.

My top tip: leave space for big ideas. Most of the time it’s about saying NO to everything else.

How do I do this?

• I block out time in my calendar to stop and pause every day to think and research ideas
• I go for 10km runs 
• And I work on myself with a life coach

Investing in yourself is so key to developing a growth mindset and you can do this every single day for free by starting good habits and learning from videos and podcasts.

If you’re keen for some coaching, hit me up in the comments below or a DM ??

Podcast of the week: Interactive Minds podcast with Louisa Dahl

This is an epic chat with Louisa Dahl on Interactive Minds podcast.

I talked about the power of believing in your crew. And I tell them all the time if you're not failing you're not trying hard enough.

?? Key tip on failing: keep the experiments small, learn a small scale version of it. Fail fast but in a small way.

We also talked about the economy of attention is getting ruthlessly competitive. In the past, you’d buy a TV ad and you've built a brand. Now, you need to figure out how you're relevant. Then focus on one channel and get really good at it. The bar is so much higher on the internet now.

The key skills you need are: code, design, copywriting. These are the minimum you need to play the game.

And we talked about vision. I think the vision is so important when you're building a business. As a leader, you need to be able to very carefully and very detailed, describe what the future will look like. you need to be a time traveler. ??

For more clips of this interview check out my instagram

Or check out the full episode here.

PS…

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