"The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle"

I started my career at a seed-stage VC, but I’ve worn the entrepreneur hat a few times. I launched a travel business called Savvy Travels and I managed to get the product endorsed by the famous explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes. I remember meeting him at an event and nervously shaking his thumbless hand (it is a great story on how this happened on one of his expeditions - I highly recommend it). He loved the product and was a big driving force in getting the product stocked in a few retailers across the UK. Unfortunately, Covid put an untimely end to the business but it was great to have his testimony plastered all over the product's packaging! 

I first became interested in startups from my Dad. He was an entrepreneur and I think watching firsthand the rollercoaster of emotions he experienced really developed my fascination with startups. This has always been a massive inspiration of mine, and ultimately encouraged me to have my first taste of business whilst at University where I would string the rackets of the University Squash Club. Not only did this provide great beer money for a poor University student, but it also taught me some fundamentals of business. From there, things snowballed as I landed my first role in VC, whilst continuing to build products and businesses on the side. Startups have become something that I very much do outside of work, as I love reading and learning about them, which makes me feel very lucky that I get to work in this industry. 

An entrepreneur I admire is the less well-known Luis von Ahn. Luis is the founder and CEO of DuoLingo, but I am most impressed by his work founding CAPTCHA & reCAPTCHA in his early 20s - I highly recommend the How I Built This podcast for his story. Essentially he was able to create an incredibly profitable business from the very beginning with ZERO employees, whilst solving a giant problem that was affecting how millions of people were using the internet.

I love literally all sports. I have joined the VC squash club community (drop me an email if you want to join) as well as currently trying my best to learn to surf (which is very difficult!), but also enjoy hacking it around a golf course, hitting tennis balls and playing football. 

For people wanting to get into VC investing, I massively recommend doing something entrepreneurial. This can be really small and on the side of a typical day job, but it shows an understanding, determination, and an ambition of being in the startup space. If possible, I also think people angel investing provides great exposure in learning how the mechanics of a deal works which provides a great learning experience.