094: Riding Unicorns | James Pringle

James Pringle runs a venture capital fund and heads up one of the UK’s largest angel investor networks (over 500 members) proactively looking for ambitious and disruptive entrepreneurs to invest in. The reality is that without entrepreneurial founders, investors have nothing.

The start-up environment may lack resources, but it has an abundance of resourcefulness and large established organisations are always seeking employees with an entrepreneurial spirit and founder’s mindset.

James talks about the energy, passion, commitment, vision and resilience demonstrated by the start up community. Failure means data, learning, adventure and progress to a founder as opposed to a setback. He explains ‘Founder Market Fit’ which refers to an acute ability to understand the problem that is being solved by someone who has the experience and understanding in the space they are operating. This is combined with oodles of curiosity and great ‘listening systems’ to understand the customer needs in an ever-changing landscape. Bloom and Wild are a great example after their research of red roses for Valentine’s Day boosted sales, by not selling them! James also explains ‘Product Market Fit’ which is when the product or service is working efficiently and now the world needs to know about it.

The 4th Industrial Revolution has been described as ‘change at the speed of thought’ and modern-day founders understand they can become global in the blink of an eye. As organisations grow, their walls become thicker and so their listening abilities diminish.

Founders take time to create momentum and confidence so that those around them truly believe that anything is possible. Don’t miss this episode.