The Structural Decisions That Determine Whether Your Business Scales or Stalls: Emma Sinclair MBE

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What actually determines whether a business scales or stalls? Emma Sinclair MBE on becoming the youngest person ever to float a company on the London Stock Exchange, why 98.2% of venture capital never reaches women, and how to raise money when the institutions won’t back you!

Emma Sinclair MBE is a serial entrepreneur and technology founder who took a company public at 29, making her the youngest person ever to do so on the London Stock Exchange. She is the co-founder of a global B2B software company serving some of the world’s largest employers, has raised around £25m to date, and has just launched Be My Angel, a campaign to turn ordinary savers into angel investors.

She explains:

• Why the structure you raise money through shapes everything your business can become
• Why only 1.8% of venture capital goes to women, and why the fix has to come from the bottom up
• Why crowdfunding isn’t just for consumer brands, and how any small business can use it

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:01:13 Taking A Company Public At 29
• 00:02:18 The Game That Taught Her Money
• 00:03:40 Trading Student Loans At University
• 00:06:00 Why Learning Business Is Easier Than Ever
• 00:07:27 Working From 16 And Where The Work Ethic Came From
• 00:08:16 Why Her Family Believed In Owning Something
• 00:10:17 What A Cash Shell Actually Is
• 00:11:39 When 20% Of The Funding Disappeared Overnight
• 00:12:19 The Jobs That Built Her Resilience
• 00:13:29 Writing 12 Letters To 12 Banks
• 00:15:41 Why Rejection Makes Better Business Owners
• 00:17:12 Does Work Ethic Decide Success?
• 00:18:09 The Cost Of Working All The Time
• 00:19:32 The Reality Of Female Entrepreneurship
• 00:20:47 Why Only 1.8% Of Funding Reaches Women
• 00:22:37 Launching Be My Angel
• 00:24:45 Why She’s Crowdfunding Part Of Her Raise
• 00:25:48 Crowdfunding Explained Simply
• 00:26:41 Why Women Invest Differently To Men
• 00:28:53 How Small Businesses Can Use The Crowd
• 00:31:21 Why Every Founder Needs A Tribe
• 00:33:27 The Highs And Lows Nobody Sees
• 00:34:43 Outro

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The following is a verbatim copy of the episode transcript and as such may contain grammatical errors.

 Today’s episode of Business Growth Secrets is where I take you into the room with Emma Sinclair, one of the youngest people ever to take a company public. She’s had an incredible business career that’s earned her an MBE and has an awesome story. Let’s jump into this business story today with Emma Sinclair MBE.

Hi, everybody. Wow. I’ve been instructed to speak into this like a rapper. And I’m not sure whether I’m gonna be asked to rap, but I really have to say heads-up as not part of my, uh- … as not part of what I’m gonna be able to offer today. Well, well look, you know, I was just giving a, a big intro there. You’ve achieved some, some amazing things.

I’ve took that straight off The Telegraph, actually. That’s true. That picture is a little while ago. Oh, how weird. I’m wearing the same top. I just- I just wanna confirm I’ve actually owned more than one item of clothing. Well, as if by magic, yes. I wanted to make sure people could recognize me- … so I wore, I wore the same thing today.

Which is, which is brilliant. And, and look, I think that achieved some amazing things. I’m really, really looking forward to this conversation. I didn’t wanna give too much about what we … away, about what we just spoke about, ’cause I think you’ve got a really important message actually today around female entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship in Brit- Britain, and so much more.

But you took a pu- a company public at 29, which is incredible. Shall we give a big round of applause for that, right? Huge, huge success. Thank you. What got you to that point, Emma? How did we build towards taking a… W- why were you youngest person ever to take a company public? How did we get there? What was that journey like?

First of all, I can tell I’m gonna feel very good about myself by the time I leave. So thank you for having me today. I’m having a very long day already, a long Monday, so thank you. I mean, look, when people hear that that have never met me, um, if, if it was the other way around, I would… and I’m not saying I am, I’m just saying I would think, “Oh, she must, I don’t know, been a big whiz kid, done something amazing about economics at university.”

Um, just for the avoidance of doubt, it’s none of those things. Um, uh, not, not that I didn’t pay attention in school-ish and get some good grades, but the, the, the actual reason that I started my professional entrepreneurship journey on the stock exchange is merely because it was actually all I knew or all I understood at that point as to how you raise money.

Um, my, my dad… I, I c- I’m the first in my family to go to university. My family come from Eastern Europe. Um, I’m… you know, my, my father worked very hard to give me the opportunities that I have, and on the way to school every day from the age of four, my dad and I used to play a game. Well, we used to play lots of games, right?

We played what’s the capital city and how many red cars can you see, and all the games, if anyone has kids they need to keep busy, tend to play. Um, but we also used to play guess the share price. Um, this is 1000% true, and sometimes people think I’m joking, but it’s a hun- it really is totally true. And my dad bought, you know, a couple of hundred pounds worth of shares, some of the privatisations in the ’90s and, um, s- companies that actually don’t exist today, and he had a couple of shares.

And on the way to school in the morning, we would get… we’d have a copy of the paper that got dropped off in the house, because back in the day, that’s how you got that. And, um, uh, my early memories of my school journey are opening up the Financial Times and it being really big and flopping in my face and taking about 10 minutes to just get the paper open.

And I think, clearly, this is just how my dad kept me busy for 35 minutes on the way to school every day. Um, but the long story short, it kind of transpired into I got to university, and it was the first year that they offered student loans. So I took out my student loans and traded them on the stock market.

Um- I had, I had two and a half grand in a bank account I didn’t know about that my grandparents and my family always put things like birthday money and all that sort of stuff, like, through the course of my life. And I went into Barclays Bank, uh, in the third, in the third week of university, having just had my student loan, and was told Oh, yes, of course, if you’re over 18 with your passport, you can access that.

So I had that too. So actually the way I got started in life was playing that with my dad, trading student loans at university, and getting internships in my first year to large city institutions I’d read about in the newspaper ’cause I sent them a copy of my trading sheet from, uh, from my trading in my first year of college.

So t- that gives… That’s a long story short, but it gives a tiny bit of context. I just was like, “Well, the, the stock market is how you do stuff.” And it wasn’t an ivory tower ’cause it’s a thing that I just did with my dad every day. Um, so when I first thought about, um, setting up a cash shell, aggregating some businesses, acquiring some stuff, I’m like, how, how might one do that?

Well, obviously one floats a company on the stock exchange. When I look back now at the chutzpah, uh, that I had, you know, I think if I had been better informed, I definitely wouldn’t have done it, but I just thought that was the way you do it, so I did. I mean, pretty incredible and actually really good lesson for, for children actually, isn’t it?

You know? If anyone does this with their children and loses money, I’m taking no responsibility for it. So do not get me in trouble. It’s not financial advice, right? Correct. But I think the… What a, a great lesson to be able to, um, educate your children about financial and financial Financial Times and things like that.

I mean, who finds reading the Financial Times now difficult? Well, you w- you wouldn’t read the FT now, right? Yeah. I mean, reading the FT then was probably the same as going on your iPhone now and picking out an app that you quite like- Yeah … to use for learning something about finance or business or whatever else it was, right?

My dad used to say to me… I don’t know whether anyone does or did ever read the FT, but on the back page, there’s something called the Lex column. And my dad used to say to me, “This is the gossip column about companies.” So, you know, my mum would read some crappy thing at the airport with, I don’t know, Hello!

Magazine or something or other, and my dad would be like, “Well, that’s the gossip pages for businesses.” Right. So I mean, you know, in many ways, that’s just kind of what there was. I’m obviously far younger than I look. Um, but back in the day, that was, you know, that was really the place in the morning that you could get that information.

We didn’t have an iPhone. We didn’t have- No … we didn’t have a car phone. Um, so I think now there’s infinitesimally more ways to digest this. And these days, you know, I look with my daughter, who really likes, uh, Roblox, and they IPO’d recently, and she obviously wants to spend all her money on crappy, fluffy toys, which obviously she has plenty of, but I’m like, “There’s only so many you need.”

So now I can show her how to buy, you know, five bucks worth of stock without it costing 50 pounds in fees and stuff. So actually, the world today is infinitely m- it’s infinitely easier to educate yourself, I think, to get advice, to find your crowd, um, to learn how to do things. But, you know, when I first set up my business, it, it wasn’t even that long ago, but there weren’t really the…

It wasn’t the same information, sites, apps. I mean, you know, anybody… I, I know, uh, lots of people here either have their own business, thinking about setting one up, or have been doing it for a while. You know, the dearth of information you can get now at your fingertips is incredible. Yeah, it is incredible.

Absolutely. So, so in terms of you then taking that and turning it into a business, what were the steps from having that early stuff to actually going out and building a business for you, Emma? How did it, how did it transpire from there? Um, well, look, over the years, I’ve learned to tell a long story short.

Um, so long story short, I watched my dad build a business. Um, I mean, my, my father always told us that we kind of, you know, had to- He, he really believed in, in learning to teach us to kind of… Teaching us that we should roll our sleeves up. So I mean, I had a job from 16 at our local Boots, and then for an extra 20p an hour, went to McDonald’s.

Um, got to university. I read that on your Wikipedia, right? S- uh, is it? I, uh, to be honest, I, I don’t know, but yeah, probably is on there. Um, um, and then there was an extra 40p when I worked for All Bar One. Um, so, you know, I mean, I’ve, I’ve always worked. Um, and I’ve always, I think, really been attracted to the concept of entrepreneurship.

My family came here from… My father’s side of the family came here from Ukraine. And my grandpa, my great-grandpa always used to say to my grandpa and to my dad, “So these things get passed down to you, that if you work for someone else, you’re always a week away from being fired.” And, you know, that, that particularly resonated for my family because they were, you know, they were per- from a very persecuted group and, and, and running from hate.

So obviously, being a bit of independence made that a little bit safer, uh, back in the day. But I think the kind of concept of entrepreneurship was just always around in our house and, you know, if your dad reads you the FT at the age of four and he’s talking about share prices, business is just, business was just what we talk about at our sort of family table.

I mean, when we all get together, that’s what we all talk about. M- my dad is 80, and he took over a small cash shell 10 days ago ’cause he’s decided he’d like to do it one more time. So I mean, you can imagine the kind of family that I have exposure to. He just took over a small…? Small listed vehicle. Oh, really?

Right, yeah. Called, yeah, Moor Group or something. Yeah. Smallest cash shell on AIM. He’s decided he’d like to do it again. And I’m like, that’s actually probably just gives people a sense of what I’ve grown up with. My dad is always like, “Keep your mind busy. Have a really good go. If you work hard, good things will come to you.”

You know, know when to stop if good things aren’t happening. Um, so, I, I mean, you know, how did I get here is a really big question, but I’ve been working really hard for a very, very long time. Um, and I guess every time I do something or kind of cash in a business for the next one, it gets a bit bigger and better, and bigger and better.

And now, obviously, the, the… Well, not obviously, sorry. The software company that I run now is, you know, we’re, we’re global, we’ve got customers all over the world. And, um, you know, if you’d said that to me when I was starting my journey years ago, that some of the things that I’d done, some of the people I would’ve met, would’ve been what happened, I, I wouldn’t have believed you.

But, um, but I don’t know. It all started with reading the share prices and, and learning to earn a living, and my dad saying, “If you want a car, then I’ll get you a third-hand car, but you’ve g- I’ll double what you earn at McDonald’s.” So, you know, I’ve got a real work ethic, I guess. Absolutely. And that first business, what was…

Give it a big round of applause. That’s very nice. Thank you. What a nice bunch of people. I’ve had a very long weekend and a very long day. Yeah. So, this is very well-received. Thank you. I know clearly I’m gonna be asked for a lot of favors on the way out as a result. The, the first business you started, the first one that you took public at 29, what was that business?

So, actually, what I did was I took over a cash shell, which is for, for those that don’t know, is effectively like buying a box that you can put companies into, but it happens to be on the stock market. When… Now, raising money is something I’m infinitesimally more familiar with, but when I first, um, decided that…

So I started my professional life, so post McDonald’s, post All Bar One, post waitressing, post call centering, post all those sorts of things. Um, my first proper job was, uh, in an investment bank doing mergers and acquisitions. So lo- lots that I learned there. Very, very different skills. And, and when I was, um, heading in for my first business, the only way I knew that I could go and buy companies and pay for it, as far as I was concerned, was I needed to have something on the stock exchange so that people who bought shares could buy shares in my company, so that I’d have enough cash in the company to buy businesses.

I mean, literally as simple as that. I mean, I… I- it’s easy to paraphrase a story 10, 20, or 30 years later. But really, that was essentially the concept, and it’d be no different now. So- I went about looking for a cash shell. That, I mean, that, that is, I, that w- I was like, “Well, that’s what I need to do.” So that’s essentially, as a short story, is what I did.

Wasn’t quite as easy as that. Found some bad ones, found some badly behaved people, had some mixed experiences, raised the money to take over a cash shell the night before. About 20% of the funding never came through, so I had to find, you know, hundreds of thousands by the next day, which was not something at the best of times anyone really wants to find themselves with.

So, um, we haven’t got all day here, but just for the avoidance of doubt, it was an absolute nightmare, and there were hundreds of obstacles and hurdles, but, um, you know, it did happen. Yeah. That was business number one. What was interesting that you said that you worked in a call center first. How long did you do that for?

I have done so many jobs at different stages of my career to earn extra money. Um, I did that, and I, I’ve, I’ve had… I’m sure like lots of people here, I had day jobs and then night jobs sometimes because, um, I wanted to earn more money or- You know, I mean, my first, um, year of uni– my first– last year of school, I worked at McDonald’s.

My first year of uni, I worked in All Bar One principally. My first summer holidays of my first year of university, when everyone was working in fairly crappy jobs, I decided a couple of months before summer started that I just didn’t wanna work in McDonald’s or in a bar. And I’d been reading… So a-along with reading, d-doing guess the share price and, uh, trading shares, I must also admit to having been quite a bad student at university.

Um, I wasn’t terribly good at attending, but I have, um… By the way, I have many failings, many things I’m terrible at, but, um, I’m going to just sweep all of those under the carpet and talk about all the things I’m good at today. Um, and, um, I’ve got a really good memory, so generally if I read a book or hear something, I generally remember it pretty quickly.

So I didn’t do much attending. So every day at university, I didn’t really get up very early. Met my friends for lunch at the student union, read the FT. Was the only person that bought the FT from the student union newsagent. The newsagent used to get it for me. And then I played Street Fighter for most of the afternoon, which if anyone knows that or has kids that plays computer games.

So that was essentially my, um, that was essentially it. But I was reading the FT every day, so I wrote twelve letters to twelve banks to ask them for an internship in my first year of summer. And I remember going to the university career service, who I’ve had many– I had many bad experiences with, I can remember.

Um, and one of them was I remember asking them, you know, for some advice about how I could get an internship in the City of London in finance. And they said, “Well, you definitely can’t do that till you’ve got a degree.” Now, I mean, I was much shyer, much more reserved when I was younger. I was not what you see before you now, but I, I don’t think no ever really worked terribly well for me then.

So I just wrote twelve letters to ten banks, and I attached my trading sheets. Now, I’d only been trading a small number of shares ’cause I didn’t have a lot of money, but I was trading things like Pizza Express, which I knew– which at the time was traded, and I knew really well ’cause I’m allergic to milk and eggs.

And they actually, if anyone here has an allergy, you may know they’re really good at handling allergies. So all my life, if I’m going out with my friends or when I was at university, when I didn’t have any money and, you know, a fancy night out was Pizza Express, I knew every Pizza Express in the country ’cause that’s where I’d been eating for years.

So for example, that was like one of my major holdings. So I sent my CV, my trading sheet- And a cover letter to, like, 12 heads of banks I’d read about in the newspaper. So the way I kind of got started from a city perspective was I got offered jobs that summer. So that was really how I got started. Um, and you know, they offered 350…

I always remember, £350 a week to work, and all my friends were, like, interrailing and all this stuff, or working in, you know, baling hay in their local village or something. And I was like- … I really honestly thought I had made the big time at that point. So I mean, I, I started my city career essentially then.

But in between all of that, when you’re at college or I studied abroad, you know, I had to earn a living. So I had call centers, I worked in the Virgin Megastore in Paris stacking CDs, you name it. Um, and I always say, and I say to my kids that, you know, that’s the stuff that probably explains the resilience I have as an entrepreneur.

That’s why I asked the question, because of the resilience that can be built- Yeah … in a call center. When you get told to- Yeah … go away constantly all day long, I think it’s actually a good thing for a business owner to actually have been through that level of rejection to toughen them up, right? Look, we are all a product of our experiences.

Mm. That was a product of that experience for me, and I am very persistent and very resilient, and that certainly did help. The other things that helped in those times, though, was all the people… A little bit like today, you know, for me, the best thing about those experiences or even now, I was saying to your colleague before I came in, you know, the best things for me are having gangs of people that understand what I’m going through.

You know, I’ve got WhatsApp groups of female founders that are building global SaaS companies. We all totally get it, and we can all explain that. And again, at the call center, you know, I met, I met people I’m still friends with that were sending… An amazing lady who’s currently building wells across Kenya, but at the time lived here and was sending money back home, so she worked nights while she was studying.

So actually, I met amazing people. I’m still in touch with some of the people from McDonald’s that I work with. Um, and yeah, I mean, look, we, we all come to wherever we are. So not, not exactly a profound statement. We all come to the experiences that we, the, where we are from the experience that we’ve had.

Um, and I guess I just don’t mind rolling my sleeves up. But that has downsides, you know? Sometimes- No, I, I think that’s a- … I’m not the best at divesting things … a really key point. How much do you think the work ethic plays a part in business success? And obviously we’ve got lots of business owners in the room, uh, lots of business owners at different…

We’ve got some really success- people who are crash- crashing it. We’ve got people that are starting out, people in the middle. We’ve got lots of different things. How much would you say work ethic plays a part in the success of the business? No one size fits all. I’m like, I’m, I’m, um, there’s times to stereotype and times not to.

Sometimes you ride a wave, sometimes you’re really lucky, you know. So I don’t know that there’s any recipe. Mm. But I do know that if you work really hard and you’ve got something good going on, then you’re gonna do better than the person next to you that doesn’t work as hard. Or rather, that’s how I’ve carried myself.

I will say that that’s not necessarily the right way to approach it, because I am often completely exhausted. Um, don’t spend enough time with my family, and a bunch of other stuff. So I don’t know that that’s even necessarily the right way. Mm. Um, it’s just the way that I’ve done things, and all I can do today is speak about myself and my journey.

Um, I work really hard all of the time. Yeah. Um, but then again, it’s, it’s normal to me. I, I tell you a f- a few years ago, um, I went… I dropped my dad off at home on a Sunday afternoon, and he said to me, “I, um, I’m, I’m gonna go write a paper.” It’s like a Sunday, right, and he likes a bit of golf. And I, and it suddenly, that was the moment where everything twigged about the way that I work, ’cause that’s…

I mean, it’s completely normal f- I said to my dad, “Don’t, take some time off. Have a bit of a break. You know, watch some telly.” He’s like, “No, no, I’ve got work to do.” And I realized actually, so there’s the, the kind of what surrounds me is that. That is how my family works, so that is how I work. Yeah. But as I say, it’s not necessarily the right way, and as I get older, I often think to myself- Could you have done it differently?

Yeah … are there better ways to do it? Mm. Um, what does success mean? And like, what am I racing towards? So I just wanna temper what I do with flagging that if other people don’t necessarily do that or don’t believe in working all hours of the day, then quite frankly, you’re probably infinitesimally more sensible than me-

and should be up here talking to me about how to work. Great stuff. Um, and what we’ve got launching for y- what you’ve got launching over the next few days, you said big Daily Mail spread. I think there’s some really important info about female entrepreneurship. And obviously, having been a very successful female entrepreneur, somebody that has very young, taken companies public, um, had some amazing results, you’ve got some really good stuff to share around that.

And obviously we’ve got a lot of female entrepreneurs. Where are my female entrepreneurs? I see that. Hey. Loads of them in the room, right? Sorry, boys. Well, look, I’m, I’m accustomed to speaking to rooms full of lots of women, to be honest with you, apart from my close friends, ’cause it’s generally not the place that I find myself.

Um, yeah, I mean, happy to share a little bit about what I’m doing, which might, at the very least, resonate with, um… And resonate with the men, too, because, um, the issue for, th- there’s a lot of issues around female funding, female entrepreneurship, and female equity, which are not a woman problem. You’ve got sisters, mothers, children, grandchildren, you name it.

Um, so I- I- I’ve lived a life where I’ve raised quite a lot of money in different ways, right? Stock market, private. Um, I now have a company that’s kind of, um, we’ve raised not the hugest, well, depends what huge is, but in the context of a, a, a sort of S- B2B tech company, we’ve raised about 25 million, some from funds, some- You can have some of that.

Comes at a price, everybody. Everything comes at a price. Mm. Um, so, um, I’m sure, I don’t know anything about… Has anyone here raised any money for their business? Is anyone here planning on raising any money for their business? Yeah. So look, wherever we are in the world and whatever we all do, we all need some financing.

I mean, raising money for your business, frankly, is asking your mom, your dad, your brother or some overdraft as far as I’m concerned. So that’s the beginning of a raising money journey, and it’s not always the right way to do things. But I run a software company where we service huge companies, and we have massive costs to do so.

So I certainly… To cashflow my business on an annual basis is very expensive, and I certainly from day one couldn’t do that myself. Um, but a, a lived experience for female entrepreneurs is, is, um, is that 1.8% of the money that goes to ve- that goes from venture capital into businesses in the world goes to women.

So 98.2% of money from financial institutions like venture capital goes, um, into male-led business and mixed teams, and 1.8%. It’s gone up from 1.2%, and lots of people are pleased about that, and I find that very irritating. Um, paces of change are often glacial. I think that might be sort of even… Whatever, whatever’s less than glacial might be what that statistic is.

Um, so amongst my friends who are growing businesses, some are raising money, raising, uh, software companies. Typically, they’re raising money from venture capital, from angels. Um, lots of us don’t feel disadvantaged or like we can’t walk into a room, but if a man is forty-eight times more likely to raise money, and that has been the case year on year on year on year, I have to admit to myself that I’m walking into a room disadvantaged.

The odds are stacked against me before I start, and for every other woman. Um, I’ve been watching this for a long time, and, um, the top-down change hasn’t really come. Whether it’s for a business like mine or for anything anyone does here, there have been task forces and government movements and k- signing up to codes of conduct, and it’s really, uh, everyone’s really clear what the problem is.

There just hasn’t been a solution. And I, every couple of years, get a bit, a bit cross about something, and in a moment of madness because I’ve got too much to do anyway, decide to just have a go at doing something to try and change what’s going on. Um, so, um, I did something last, about two years ago, um, focused on, on refugees when the Ukrainian war broke out that was to do with getting jobs, and I thought, “I’m not ever doing anything like that again because I’ve got a day job and a family.”

Anyway, this morning, um, I launched something called Be My Angel. Essentially, the only way that I believe that funding is gonna get solved, particularly for women, is ground up, bottom up. It’s clearly not getting solved top down. Um, I have a disproportionate amount of angel investors in my business, so that’s individuals.

So do a lot of the women I know. Um, and I think people often think that angel investment is a bit Dragon’s Den. You’ve gotta have hundreds of thousands or millions, put huge checks in, and that’s how you can fund a business. But it’s actually not the case at all. Anyone can kind of be an angel investor.

Um, and, you know, in my business, in order to get 50/50 male/female gender balance on my shareholder base, which I’ve done, I’ve had to get crowds of women together, and then one man writes a check quite often, ’cause women don’t invest like men even if they’ve got the money. So the Be My Angel campaign that I’ve launched is really to activate normal people to become angel investors.

Um, and it’s why for this week and the next five weeks I’m talking to audiences that are outside what I do all day long because what I wanna highlight is, number one, you might be thinking of raising some money at some point, and number two, probably everyone here puts a tiny little bit away for a pension or a tiny little bit away for savings or a little tiny bit in the stock market or a bit with an IFA, and none of that gets to female founders.

So pension fund money doesn’t get to female founders. The funds that you’ll invest in won’t reach female founders. And incidentally, women on a lower cash base typically make more revenue and exit for more money. So we’re a really great investment generally speaking. So effectively, the campaign, along with lots of other people- The stats are women typically that are invested in produce outsize returns.

Is that the stats? Correct. Wow. Yeah. Okay. I mean- And that is right … there’s, like, there’s, there’s stats everywhere. I mean, if anyone need… I’ve got stats coming out of my ears about women out-performing. Um, so essentially I want everyone to think about that, ’cause either you might wanna do that with a little bit of your cash, maybe you’ve got a daughter that you p- put a bit of savings aside.

You know, crowdfunding is typically something that’s done for B2C businesses, things that reach retailers, a bank, something everybody knows, a pizza restaurant. It’s just not something that B2Bs or corporate businesses typically do. We’re all advised not to do it. It’s not of stature. I’ve got a business that’s of scale, not sort of a tiny startup.

It’s very on me to do something like that, but I figure if I can do a slice of my fundraise as a crowdfund, anybody else can. So I’m starting it off by I am doing a slice of my next big institutional round as a crowdfund on Crowdcube. I’m partnering with them. One woman a month is going to do a part of their raise for the next year on Crowdcube.

We all have track records- Do you wanna explain Crowdcube for- I will do. That’d be great. Yeah. Well, does anyone, does anyone here not know what crowdfunding is? And please put your hand up and don’t feel embarrassed. Thank you. So crowdfunding is, is, the old school concept is if you were living in a town or a village and you really needed everyone to chip in for something, or i- crowdfunding is if you’re in the office and someone’s leaving and you say, “We’re gonna buy them all a pot of chocolate, could everyone put a pound in?”

That’s basically the principle of crowdfunding. Lots of consumer-facing companies, challenger banks, pizza brands, I’m just thinking what I’ve seen recently, um, effectively try and raise money from the crowd. So instead of going to a venture capital or private equity or IPO-ing a company ’cause it doesn’t make sense, they say to themselves, “I’m making something I believe people want.

Maybe I can go and get people in increments of 10 pounds, 100 pounds, 1,000 pounds to invest in my company,” as opposed to typically if people angel invest directly in my company, check sizes are usually about 100,000 pounds or more. So crowdfunding is ess- is essentially rumbling the crowd and saying, “Do you want a tiny stake in my business?

No problem. You can do it for as small as 10 pounds, as, or 100 pounds or 1,000 pounds.” Now, why am I doing that when it’s not really gonna make a dent in the kind of fundraise that I need to do in the summer? I really wanna activate people who’ve not thought about doing this before to do it. Typically, also, women Are minority angel investors, and it’s not about the money they have, it’s because women typically keep their money in real estate or in the bank.

Whereas men typically invest it more prolifically. So my thought process is, if I can get people to do £10, £100, £1,000, because m- you know, my business is credible, we’ve got really good contracts. Well, you know, we’re not a sort of startup that has no business, and I’ve done this before. If I can activate people to do their, even their first angel investment that’s small, if it’s £100 this year, maybe they’ll do £1,000 in someone else next year, and £10,000 in 10 years in someone else.

So effectively, I know that women need to find more pools of capital, and it’s not coming from up here. So it needs to come from down here. Now, the journey may help people here because, for example, I run a global B2B tech company, right? And, um, that’s one type of thing. But what happens if you’re doing…

Well, I, I was using an example yesterday. What happens if you’re doing something, a local shop in Brighton, and you wanna… You need some money for the rent, you’ve got a really great business idea, lots of people want to support you, but it’s all in small amounts. You know, you really wanna get people to club together.

So it’s a little bit community-based. Yeah. So, um, so yeah. So essentially, I am doing that. Very unconventional given I’ve IPO’d a company to do a small crowd fund. But I’m hoping that what I can do is get people to think to themselves, “Hmm, I’d like to have a little tiny bit of Emma Sinclair’s effort to build an empire.”

And that maybe that gets them thinking, “Okay, now I can be an investor. Oh, I’m receiving updates. Oh, that’s interesting. I can see it growing. Maybe I’ll put 5% of my pension into this. Maybe I’ll put my pocket money in this. Maybe I’ll put my Starbucks money for six months into this. Maybe I’ll put what I’d usually bet on the Grand National.”

You know, it doesn’t have to be huge chunks. So effectively, I’m hoping that… I like a big challenge. I’m hoping that over time, and lots of people are getting on board to help me with this, that we can be the first place to really solve the female funding challenge by activating everybody to think about doing this.

Um, I like a big, hairy, audacious goal. I’m not really sure when it’s gonna get to, but about 5,000 people have signed up already, and lots of people are gonna start doing breakfasts and events and… You know, you never know. You might have a Be My Angel event in a year where there’s a pitch competition for a bunch of people ra- wanting to raise money.

Yeah, I love it. And I, I think that the, you know, one of the reasons really wanted you to, to, to be here, Emma, is because this is a way that small business doesn’t think- A lot of the times small businesses can’t go and get that premises, you know? Or, “Oh, you know what? I don’t know how I could raise that money,” or you know, “I can’t go and do that thing,” or, “I can’t expand my team.”

Where actually, if you went out, you spread the message, you crowdfund it, you can solve most financial challenges. And isn’t it funny- Maybe. Yeah. Maybe, right? The point is maybe- Probably, yeah … right? Maybe you’ve got 100 friends that you can ask for- Yeah … £100, and maybe that’s a good way to get started. Maybe you’ve got 100 friends you can ask for £100,000, right?

There’s no limit. But, you know, so, so the, the point being, it’s just like, it’s a concept that generally people don’t really do, or people do if they’ve got a massive retail brand. And I’m like, “Actually, I know tons of people. Why can’t I do a slice of my round that way?” The other thing to think about is, you know, years ago, all the tech companies and high growth companies used to IPO.

They used to go on the stock exchange, you used to be able to buy shares in them. Now, generally speaking, you can’t invest in any of those things unless you’re invested in a very complex fund that basically, unless anyone here is ultra high net worth, no one will have access to. So I also believe there’s some democracy in saying, “Well, let’s have a little piece of the pie of these businesses.”

So, um, you know, it’s, it is tied to my day job I’m doing that. It is part of a larger fundraise I’m doing to raise money for my business this year. But also I’m like, if I can do it, um, if I can reach audiences I wouldn’t usually, the Express, the Mail, the whole bunch of, uh, people I wouldn’t usually go to to talk about my business, then, um, then hopefully good things will come from it.

No, but I think it’s a, a fantastic concept and, um, and something that, you know, there’s so many people in this room that do need extra money to build their businesses and take it onto the next level. And they can absolutely do that, couldn’t they, right? And also- Sometimes, like, like Emma says, getting involved for the first time, you know, doing it and understanding how it works, going through that process with somebody else, like you said, heightens your awareness and- It might teach you something about your own business too.

Yeah, absolutely. Right? I’m like, I’ve been receiving updates about shares and st- stocks that I own for years. I don’t know, maybe I’ve learnt something from it. It’s probably helped me write my investor updates, because I’ve read about 20,000 now. Mm. I’ve been doing it since I was four. Um, but you know, I think there’s a lot to be learnt, but it’s also about how you invest your hard-earned money.

Um, a- and almost like being part of a club. Yeah. I, I think, um, which again is part of clearly what’s happening here, right? I’m presuming a really great part of today is the lunch wherever or afterwards wherever we … Well, not for the food- … before anybody starts complaining about what you ate. Um, but, um, you know, it’s just getting to chat to other people that are going through the same thing.

Yeah. I mean, you need a gang. I’ve got a tribe. I mean, I- I, I’d love that … I need, I need a tribe. I’m presuming everyone else does here. 100%, right? We’re talking about that today, right? Community. And actually it’s really interesting that this is another thing if you have community. It’s another way that you can leverage community as well, right?

Um, it’s interesting that you just said that, especially as a bigger business. How important do you see community in business at the moment in terms of where things are going? How, how do you sort of see that where you are in, at, in the level that you’re at? Well, I don’t know what we’re gonna call my level, but I’m, again, I’m gonna feel really good when I leave here.

Um, thank you. And look, I certainly, I’ve got lots of friends that are building midsize and big businesses. Um, and I’m sure we’ve all got friends that are doing all things at all levels. Um, I do think that there’s a type of entrepreneur I know who thinks and does things differently, where we really care about where we spend our money.

Um, if we raise money, we don’t hire tons of people only to fire 80% of them if there’s a downturn. Where we care about the people who are our customers and our clients. Um, so speaking for myself, I, um- Yeah, I have lots of highs, and then I also have lots of lows, bad days, things that go wrong, problems, you name it.

And aside from my family, it is my tribe who high-five me, lift me up, make an introduction, try and sort me out. You know, “I need to reach X or Y, can you help?” Um, so for me, an absolutely enormous part. But, um, you know, a- and people work differently. But my… I’ve got in particular a couple of sort of, I was gonna say gangs, but that sounds pretty-

sounds like we wander around town causing trouble, although to be honest, there is some truth in that too, as you can probably tell from my slightly sneaky sense of humor. But, um, you know, those are the people that really carry me a lot of the time and keep me going. Because there are so many times where, you know, if you’ve raised money, what I said to you, everything comes at a price.

If you’ve raised money, if you’ve got, you know, very public goals, or if you’ve got huge clients that are, um, you know, put a lot of burden on you when you, you know, have a relatively small business, you need people to tell you to keep going. So for me, my friends that do that are absolutely crucial. Um, and I’m sure that’s the same for lots of people here.

You know, my, my husband, um, he often says that when I, when we exit this business, he’s gonna write a book called Living With a Manic Depressive. But, uh, w- if you care to get him to explain on that, he’d say, you know, there are some times when I’m like, “Come on,” really killing it, and there are some times where I’m just like so hard.

You know, we’ve had COVID, we’ve had a pandemic, we’ve had a war, we’ve had a recession. We’ve had all kinds of things that happen on a regular basis that are beyond the day job are really, really stressful. So, you know, he lives through lots of, of, of sort of times that I’m feeling really challenged, and lots of times where I’m like, “Come on.”

Um, and um, and you know, so, so family are really crucial to me in that regard.

Hey, I hope you enjoyed today’s episode of Business Growth Secrets. I love hearing directly from you as business owners and entrepreneurs what your favorite episodes of Business Growth Secrets are. Sometimes we have guests on like Emma and Sarah Willingham and Zara Davies and all these epic Dragons business success stories.

Sometimes it’s me working with business owners live or just giving education. And I always love to hear your thoughts and your challenges. If you wanna go over to Instagram @adamstockcoach and send me a message and tell me what you love about the podcast, I’ll be sure to share that message with others to help your social media profiles grow, but also take your feedback on board.

I wanna thank you again for following the podcast, and I look forward to spending time and meeting you in person soon.