A wordle of the burning questions from BLN Growth Forum attendees. Good to see so many preoccupied with ‘growth’.
Here are the anonymised questions from some of the participants. There doesn’t seem to be too much preoccupation with the ‘Recession’ word from that sample.
- What are the key skills that a CEO must possess to lead their company from start-up to significant growth?
- How to manage rapid structural change in fast growing business, including the transition from lumpy angel investment to venture capital.
- a better view of how to maximise chances of growth in continuing turbulent financial markets
- No particular burning question, just looking to learn, network and contribute.
- Early stage user acquisition and PMF
- How are other companies in the digital space approaching growth?
- Other than availability of finance, has anything changed in 25 years about building companies?
- How to bridge the valuation gap when moving away from being a “start-up”
- How can UK tech startups compete with US tech startups – for customers and funding?
- Not sure
- How to create startups with potential to grow to a billion $ revenue
- How to raise money for start-ups.
- How do we create strategic value that a potential acquirer will be happy to pay a premium for at Exit
- New models for successful growth in the 2010’s
- Is the ‘low carbon’ economy ever going to be a great opportunity for start-ups
- How can one sell early and disruptive technology to big businesses?
- None
- How can we most effectively combine the creative innovation of the UK with the entrepreneurial, risk taking and more optimistic culture of the States to realise the full potential of of our transformational social search engine?
- General update on market and trends.
- How to position early stage company with long development horizon for pre-revenue exit (float or sale)?
- What advice do the speakers/other participants have for building a succcessful high-growth business?
- How to reinvigorate investor interest; making the jump from angel to VC-level funding.
- Am I doing the right things?
- Do changes in CGT mean I should sell in next three years (I would be over threshold for entrepreneur’s relief) or later to maximise my cash on exit.
- What are the current prospects for raising development capital in the UK?
- Better understanding new investor dynamics given differing opportunities being presented in the market
- Growing an early stage technology business in today’s macro climate.
- Views on exit versus growth in the current market.
- How cohesive is the Cambridge Cluster?
- How to focus on the most promising markets when in a target rich environment.
- What are the next big market opportunities and why?
- Are we missing anything?
- Early stage user acquisition and PMF
- Is there a model that has successfully combined e-commerce and community?
- How do we get the fun back in growing and running businesses in the current and near future economic climate?
- Are investors worth the pain ?
- N/A
- N/A
- What’s the best way to scale a hardware business?
- How to grow a consulting organisation to a global scale?
- Who are the next generation of Cambridge entrepreneurs?
- Where are the key trends that will drive business over the next 24 months.
- Are investors worth the pain ?
- How to best to approach and manage relationships with the large organizations new B2B startups have to deal with.
- Our company is currently looking for investment.
- Other people’s business models.
- We’ve succeeded in growing from start up to a FTSE250 tech company, but how can we continue our growth; what should we be doing/avoiding?
- Explore recent experience of expansion into multiple European companies
- How to get working capital for sales that are 100% export?
- How to grow into non-english speaking territories.
- Managing investor syndicates. There must be a better way.
- What is my company going to face in the next round of growth
- Barriers to growth can kill businesses; what have been the most prevalent in technology and what have CEOs done to sidestep the problems?
- What is the right way for a European company to expand into the US?
- Could we do better?
- Best practice in scaling a business across EMEA in a complex and continually changing marketplace.
- Strategic investors – good or bad?
- avoiding the pitfalls of scaling
- How to take the company to the next level.
- How to grow from $1m turnover to $20m turnover
- How to prepare for scale and not break the business by under- or over-provisioning.
- How to build and fund a business to take advantage of growing consumer demand in emerging markets
- How can a small global business achieve significant growth whilst minimising risk?
- How to put the systems and structures in place to manage rapid growth in different locations? [I know that I represent an unusual organisation for this event, but no one does events for high-growth start-up charities :)]
- To identify innvovative growth companies which require access to the capital markets to fund growth
- What are the companies to watch in Cambridge?
- Professional services: how to differentiate when competitors & clients are focused on price.
- Where have all the innovative risk takers in the VC community gone? This is the key to developing Green Jobs and tackling Climate Change.
- Are VCs all ‘growth capital’ investors now?
- What can I do to improve my business
- What’s the best way to approach the US market?
- Any smart lessons in both handling exponential global growth in a small company and maintaining/driving that growth in an efficient manner
The BLN Growth Forum, in association with BDO, ideaSpace and Silicon Valley Bank is now full. http://growthforum2010.thebln.com