Mark McDermott

We’ve raised €1.5Bn across our studio ventures 🎉 I realised: Funding is a function of future clarity. When we work with founders, we ask them to go 5-10 years into the future. Get concrete. Not just a vision, but a plan you can walk through, step by step. - What’s your CPA? And over time? - What channels are driving your growth? - What needs to be true in the market for this to work? - What does the team look like now, in 6 months, 2 years etc? - What will you do if something big changes? (New tech, new rules, new rivals?) The more detail, the easier it is for investors to see what you see. When you pitch with this level of clarity, you don’t sound like someone asking for money. You sound like the CEO of a unicorn, inviting people to join your story before the world catches up. You start to embody that future leader. Investors feel it. They respond to it. Founders, if you’re pitching, ask yourself: Can you describe your business in 2030 in extreme detail?

168

9 Comments

2 years today since we launched StackOptimise ⚙️ This is the best decision we ever made ⬇️ Investing in personal brand. For a business like ours - operating in a saturated space, offering a commoditised service - brand is a super powerful differentiator. So Felix and I decided, from the get-go, to post on LinkedIn everyday. We've only missed a handful of days. And it's paid dividends: 1️⃣ Every deal we've closed has been meaningfully influenced by our LinkedIn presence, either to generate or nurture the lead. 2️⃣ We’re constantly flooded with inbound job applications. 3️⃣ Vendors & partners treat you differently when you’ve got influence. 4️⃣ We promote the tools in our stack for free usage, thus minimising our costs. A trade that only works if your brand holds weight. 5️⃣ Team members gain visibility into both the bigger vision and our day-to-day, driving employee retention. I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve spoken to who’ve either started, or plan to start, their own business - and I always say the same thing: Invest in your personal brand now. It compounds faster than almost anything else. And literally makes every part of the journey - hiring, partnerships, sales, retention - exponentially easier. ---- Here's our Ultimate Guide to Explode on LinkedIn in 2025: https://lnkd.in/eiv6Aktz

80

35 Comments

“The UK has the best talent in the world, but we sometimes lack ambition”   Grateful for Neil Buchanan @ Lodestar Space (‘bodyguards for satellites’) inspiring and educating our emerging founders spinning out from UK Atomic Energy Authority (thank you) > If you’re pre-idea and pre-cofounder you’ll benefit from doing the Entrepreneurs First programme (if you can get on). The speed of learning and environment truly accelerate founders > Unlocking early adopter demand: LinkedIn outreach, speak to people with common interests, build networks, keep the cadence of outreach, running a customer discovery process (‘mom test’ - Rob Fitzpatrick ) > Sizing the opportunity: top down look for $10BNs to $100BNs market problems and then look bottom up with an eye to the future. Bottom up is always the sobering one and should be your north star - never lie to your team, investors and worst of all: yourself.  > Engaging VCs often: reduce the risk as much as possible (team, market, tech) show how you’re hiring to fit a few key gaps can be fine > Founders need to be confident to be selective with the investors they partner with. Being mindful if you’re taking investment from a key player in an industry (is it for their ultimate M&A activity, is it going to impact your sales). Ideally you’re ambitious and don’t want an early exit but also investment from a defence prime if you’re dual use can unlock channels > Building for dual use or defence? Prioritise USA GTM in the short term. > Finding non-dilutive sources of cash: run a process to identify relevant organisations, keep an open mind / keep it wide to keep options open. Keeping burn low you can achieve a lot prior to dilutive capital > Don’t get distracted by the shiny numbers of a big raise - it's needed for strong talent acquisition & credibility boosting but the best talent will resonate with the high impact mission & tech dev to get there - the rest of your time for focus on where it needs to be: customers and sales > Geopolitics impacting decisions on which markets to target, hiring decisions, who to have on the cap table ▪️If you’re an investor / founder and you’d like to do a lunchtime Q&A to educate and inspire our emerging founders please DM

60

4 Comments

Unlimited Leave - Can It Boost Productivity and Cut Costs? It sounds like a Silicon Valley perk. But unlimited paid time off is quietly spreading to smaller businesses too. Why? Advocates say it: 📊 Cuts admin by removing the need to track multiple leave types 💸 Avoids big payouts for unused days when staff depart 🎯 Offsets pressure to raise base salaries The paradox? Employees often take less time off than under “use it or lose it” schemes. The key, say those who’ve implemented it successfully, is structure: – Tie eligibility to tenure or performance – Keep manager approval in place to prevent abuse It’s a perk that works when paired with trust and clarity. And in Thailand, one company is taking it a step further - offering “Tinder Leave”: paid time off to look for love. ✅ Perks can save costs as well as boost culture ✅ Flexibility is only as strong as the rules behind it ✅ Time off is a productivity tool, not a luxury 👇 Would you take more or less time off if your company offered unlimited leave? 🔗 Full Guardian story: https://lnkd.in/gmPbqXzs 🔗 Tinder Leave story in the Straits Times: https://lnkd.in/gzTA2sZA ******* Repost this to help your network & follow me Adam Graham for more content like this.

131

110 Comments

Nick Chapsas and his software training platform, Dometrain, are a good example of why “the world needs MoR”. In 2023 Nick decided to build on his hugely successful, 360,000+ follower YouTube, channel where he taught new skills to software engineers, by launching a very sophisticated SaaS-based educational resource. Nick built his massive following by offering practical learning that mirrors real-world development environments. He explains it like this: “We believe in a very specific type of teaching… which is the ‘paired programming’ experience. We want to give the experience that you join a company, you sit next to a senior engineer, and that engineer teaches you how to do things." Today the site boasts around 100 high-quality training courses covering everything from .NET and Cloud to career progression, Dometrain. But as Dometrain evolved its pricing strategy - and grew internationally - they started to run into roadblocks. → He started to discover that they were losing 50% of sales through “false fraud flags” - that’s a lot of revenue! → As he scaled globally, the complex burden of international sales tax became overwhelming for him and his team. Nick found himself buried in admin hassle instead of concentrating on expanding the business. At Paddle, we believe that the challenges of global growth, finding new customers and generating more revenue belong to founders and entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, as the world’s leading Merchant of Record (MoR) (the seller of record for SaaS transactions) all the risk, compliance and accountability belong to us. Making the change to Paddle meant Nick had more flexibility, more control, and more time to focus on his core product. Solving Nick’s problems in this way perfectly illustrates what we’re doing here at Paddle, and the results - like 50% fewer billing support requests - speak for themselves. 

60

1 Comment

We’re thrilled to share a landmark moment for us at Haylo: we have acquired Plessey Semiconductors Ltd, the UK’s leader in microLED display technology. For me, as a co-founder of Haylo, this isn’t just another deal, it’s a bold step towards shaping the future of AR/VR, optical computing, and AI-powered devices, industries set to be worth around £600bn by 2034. Over the next five years, we will: - Invest over £100m to scale from low-volume manufacturing to high-volume global production - Create and protect highly skilled jobs in Plymouth and the wider region - Build the hardware foundation for the next era of immersive, intelligent computing MicroLEDs will power the next generation of devices, from ultra-efficient AR/VR displays to optical processors that make AI faster, cooler, and far more sustainable. With Plessey’s end-to-end capabilities, world-class team, and deep IP portfolio, we’re ready to turn microLED breakthroughs into mass-market reality. This is a proud moment for me personally, for our brilliant team, our partners, and for the future of computing. And the journey is only just beginning. https://lnkd.in/ev7Hczth

208

30 Comments

Most founders don’t hire the wrong exec on purpose. They just don’t realise it until they’re back doing the job themselves. I’ve placed CROs, COOs, and Country Leaders for founders across Australia and the US. I’ve also replaced the ones who were brought in too early—or for the wrong reasons. In this short piece, I share what I’ve learned helping founders get it right the first time: – Why polish beats proof in early interviews – Why “Head of Growth” often means “everything but sales” – Why inbound candidates are rarely the answer Startups don’t die from lack of capital. They die from the wrong exec hire. #startups #executivesearch #founders #saas #growthhiring 👉 Read the full post:

25

6 Comments