The Lowdown #16

👋🏾 Hi friends!

And here we go, one last edition from me before I sign off completely for the rest of the year.

Whatever you are doing during the festive period, I hope you are able to get some down time and spend the holidays with people that give you energy - be they loved ones, family, friends or someone else altogether!

I will be sipping a 0 alcohol beer and enjoying some traditional Tuscan fare on Monday and I’ll be toasting what has been a rollercoaster of a year for me - from running out of cash in the startup I launched in 2021 to doubling down on my CFO consultancy, meeting great people along the way and working with some amazing startups, 2023 is definitely a year I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Wishing you all the best for the New Year, and for now, thanks for having signed up and tuned in to this ever evolving newsletter that has kept me just a little bit… Off Balance 💪 🙏 

(ignore the beard, I don’t think I’m going to be fooling anyone as Santa this year 😂 )

This week on Nothing Ventured, I spoke to Matthew Stafford, Co-Founder of 9Others and early stage investor.

Here’s what you can expect:

➡️ Why founders and entrepreneurs need a safe place to share.

➡️ Purposefully building a business that doesn’t scale.

➡️ Why Matthew doesn’t invest in first time pitches from founders he is meeting for the first time.

➡️ Building relationships with no expectations.

Check it out!

Last year I wrote a series of posts listing 100 lessons I’ve learned from almost 20 years as a CEO, CFO and more recently founder, it was one of those things I just wanted to get out there and I posted it as I was about to get on a plane and head off to Zanzibar with 40 odd of my nearest and dearest.

Little was I to know that it would go absolutely crazy hitting a combined 1m impressions and thousands of likes and hundreds of comments and shares.

Next year I will be reskinning the format of Off Balance to dig into those lessons in more detail and am excited to get writing.

So I thought it would be fitting this year to write another bunch of lessons one year on, so in today’s Lowdown, you’re going to get…

🧑‍🏫 50 lessons from 12 more months as a CEO, Founder and CFO

Also, if you have any feedback, or if there’s something you’re desperate to see me include, just reply to this mail or ping me online - I’m very open to conversations.

If you like what I’m putting out, do give me a follow on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

(If you are trying to connect with me on LinkedIn, maybe read this post I wrote and make sure to start your request with “Lowdown” and, more importantly, tell me why you’d like to connect 💪🏾)

Don’t forget to like, rate and subscribe to Nothing Ventured on Apple, Spotify or YouTube, it really helps more people see what we’re doing - you can find links to these (and more including my Office Hours) right here!

Now let’s get into it.