Collaborative Fund’s Post

🍋 Rewinding Our Summer'24 Company Offsite 🍋 Two weeks ago, we brought together our entire team of over 50 lemoneers from 17 nationalities for our biannual offsite in Brandenburg. We spent four days reflecting on the past, focusing on the present, and getting excited about the future. Our activities were centred around our six principles: 🌟 Customer first & Deliver high quality outcomes: We worked through our product roadmap and our company goals, ensuring we are all pushing in the same direction to build the best product and provide the best experience for our partners. 🤝 Be a team player: From the lemon.olympics and scrambled legs morning runs to joint BBQs, bonfires, tennis matches, and just time to connect, we shared lots of laughs, nerdy brokerage insights, and even some sore muscles. 💡 Lead with empathy & No failure, only feedback: We engaged in company-wide discussions, celebrating our strengths, identifying areas for growth, and outlining clear steps to further develop our culture and set everyone up for success. ... all of it, of course, guided by our mission and sixth principle: Grow investing opportunities! (FYI: If you want to join our mission of building brokerage-as-a-service infrastructure for the next 100 million European investors, we're #hiring across many roles. Check out our open positions! Link in the comments 👇) #berlin #fintech #startups

In today's rapidly evolving world, the concept of a traditional career path has become increasingly obsolete. People are no longer confined to a single job or industry for their entire lives. Instead, many individuals are embracing what is known as a "portfolio lifestyle," where they pursue multiple interests and ventures simultaneously. This newfound freedom has been made possible, in large part, by the advent of technology and the opportunities it presents. One such opportunity is the ability to generate tech equity through initial public offerings (IPOs), which can then be used to replace a traditional paycheck and enable a portfolio lifestyle. In this episode of Tech Careers and Money Talk, host Christopher Nelson is joined by Pascal Wagner, a former venture capital investor who now helps accredited investors invest in passive income producing real estate. We discussed the importance of diversification in building and preserving wealth, as well as the journey of transitioning from tech investing to income investing.

Someone in my team asked me last week “Why are you still doing so much founder stuff?” The question really made me think. The irony is, when running Motley, I spent so long feeling uncomfortable with my founder identity. I felt I didn’t have the usual founder characteristics. I liked process. Ideas that were infeasible made me anxious; a blank piece of paper made me sweat. And just as I learnt there were many ways to be a founder, I suddenly wasn’t one. Motley shut its virtual doors last year; I was wandering in the jobs wilderness and a founder no more. Now I am employed, in an exciting new role, in a (gasp) corporate (albeit with a strong start up energy). And yet… I have just spent the weekend with the most glorious community of Foundrs (without the e, because why have a start up with vowels) and have never felt more at home. The brainchild of Dan Murray-Serter 🧠 and .Rob O'Donovan, masterfully led by AJ, Foundrs has inspired and improved me over the last five years. Why do I do it? 🚀It helps me be better at my job. Spending time with other founders opens my mind to new perspectives. I can learn from the most forward thinking minds in technology, science and commerce. And can reflect on my strengths and my blind spots. ⏩ I can now pay it forward. As a founder, I received endless help from other founders with no expectations in return. Now I can be a bit helpful myself. Share the copious mistakes we made - and lessons we learnt - so that a few fewer mistakes can be made by others. And, in my new role in the corporate world, I can give a unique insight for founders pitching their business into that world. 💖It brings me joy. I get to spend magical time with some extremely excellent people. Who are scaling businesses, closing businesses, starting new ones or doing something totally different. People I met early in the journey (Billie, Chris, Peter, Andy, Sophie, Phoebe Gormley, Daniel, 🥝 Rachel Carrell, founder of Koru Kids and of course Cecily Motley ) and those I met for the first time - too many to name… All in all, a roundabout way of saying the answer I told my colleague: Once a founder, always a founder.

Many of my close friends and industry peers don’t know what I do as the founder of RockWater. So here’s my “about me”… I also explain my origin story, has some ups and downs! —- We do financial and strategy advisory for media, commerce, tech. From M&A and fundraising to consumer research and go-to-market planning. i.e. think of us like an investment bank and management consultancy for the creator economy! 🤷♂️ WHY ROCKWATER - Blue chip, global clients. 85% rehire rate - Experience as operator / investor / advisor - 20 yr veteran of media / commerce/ creator economy 📈 WHAT WE DO - Buy / sell-side M&A, capital raising - Market research and intelligence - Go to market planning 💪 OUR CLIENTS - Startup to post IPO - 14 countries across NA, EUR, Latam, Asia, MENA - YouTube, Paramount, Team Coco, Portal A, FilmNation, XL Media, Whistle Sports, Atmosphere, Revry - 70 lifetime projects 🤳 MY STORY I grew up 1 hr outside NYC in a Wall Street community. My career plan was always finance. So in 2005 my career started as a banker. Turns out, I focused on M&A for content distributors. Cable, telcos, and then increasingly OTT for video and music. I burned out, faced conflict with leadership, and needed a career change. So in 2010 I went to biz school. I was an avid social media user, and worked for Pritzker Group. They made early bets in digital video via the Google Original Channels Program. That connect led me to joining Big Frame as COO in 2012. A year later I hired my old banker boss to sell us to AwesomenessTV. There I learned what it took to go from scrappy content startup to a billion-dollar modern studio. But here’s what got me to launch RockWater... I heard 2 things often while at Awesomeness: (1) you’re collaborative to work with, and don’t bring sharp elbows like the rest of Hollywood (2) you focus on generating profit, and sustainable biz models. Amazingly, that was rare in the early digital days! So with those words of encouragement, I founded RockWater Industries. Goal = build a modern advisory shop to help operators and investors build better. Focus in media x creator economy. ...and nearly 70 client projects later, I'm still doing that today! 🏚 WHAT ELSE? - I invest in rental real estate properties in Omaha and Savannah - My heart lives in the ocean and mountains. Surf, snowboarding, backcountry, and hiking. —- DM me if you’re a founder or exec and this story resonates. #media #creatoreconomy | RockWater Industries

I am thrilled to announce the launch of my new venture, Leave Your Mark! After years of wanting to take this leap, I am excited to (finally) share this new chapter with all of you. Leave Your Mark was born out of a deep passion for creating a people first culture starting with finding the right talent. Having been a recruiter since 2004, many have heard me tell the story of Arthur Young my stepdad, owning Search South. I saw the “fire in the belly” as he would say - to love what you do, knowing that relationships are everything. Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, it is a calling I could no longer ignore.  It is the very reason I was drawn to startups – the opportunity to innovate, create, and build great teams from the ground up. It all starts with having the right people working towards a common purpose.  Tori Lennon hired me at Healthways in 2010 all through a “War Eagle” linked in connection. We never would have dreamed we would be working together again! We bring our life experiences of recruiting, healthcare, Auburn University alums, raising our families in Nashville to do our calling – People First, Collective Success.  Last but not least, THANK YOU to the support of amazing colleagues, mentors, friends and family. I am truly grateful for each and every one of you. Here’s how you can get involved: 1)    Follow Leave Your Mark on LinkedIn for updates on our journey. 2)    Visit our website – www.goleaveyourmark.com to learn more about what we do. 3)    Share this post with your network to help us spread the word.

I've had the incredible privilege of investing in some of the most exciting tech companies to come out of New York City in the past few years. I'm especially proud of the AI companies I've backed, even before it was considered trendy. But for every hit there’s been plenty of misses. 3 things I wish I knew before I became a VC: 1. It's not just about the technology - it's about the people. The founders and the team are everything. 2. Failure is a part of the game. Not every investment will be a home run, and that's okay. 3. Relationships matter more than anything. Building trust within the ecosystem is key. Looking back, there were times when I focused too much on the product and not enough on the people behind it. There were times when I took failure personally, instead of seeing it as a learning opportunity. And there were times when I neglected the importance of relationships. But that's the thing about life - you're always learning, always growing. And I'm grateful for the lessons I've learned along the way.

VCs have always preferred 2 co-founders but data is showing that solo founders are 2.6 times as likely "to own an ongoing, for-profit venture" than teams of three or more co-founders, and 2.5 times as likely as teams of 2 co-founders.

I am no longer a w2 employee, it's been 6 months since I've made the leap to full-time entrepreneurship 🎉! It all started with a single bus ride in 2019. Traveling into work at 6 am, staring at the NYC skyline, I told myself - this cannot be and WILL NOT be my end. I wanted time back. Time back to spend time with family, work on my own projects 👩💻, and make a larger impact on society. I researched "how to leave a 9-5 job". I stumbled on passive income 💸. I decided on real estate as a vehicle to achieve financial freedom. The next five years were a whirlwind. I became super frugal. I purchased my first investment property 🏡. I created a YouTube channel to document my real estate journey. I took on more responsibility at my day job. I even moved to FL ☀️! The unexpected support fueled my confidence. The unwavering support from friends and family, the Tech in Real Estate community teaching me new concepts, and my professional colleagues challenging me to be a better problem solver, programmer, and communicator — all of it empowered me to say 'yes' when Liam proposed Coffee Clozers... Our vision is to help any American with a little bit of savings to get started in their financial freedom journey with real estate 🤝. We are three co-founders all technical with different view points and experiences that has shaped the uniqueness ✨ of our product. A product built for the working professional (like I was!) to get started in real estate to build wealth over time. We encourage anyone who's read this far to check out and share Coffee Clozers - https://bit.ly/3EJRAa5! My hope is that our product impacts thousands of others to achieve financial freedom too 😊. P.S. Little did intern-me in 2014 know what was coming! (That's me in the throwback pic, by the way.) Excited to see where this crazy ride takes me next!

It's not just about launching a business; it's about creating a family. Feeling like a proud dad, that's what happens every time I watch my crew come together to produce magic for our projects. It's a moment that's as much theirs as it is mine. But here's the twist – we're not stopping there. 👇 Here's what's NEW and EXCITING 👇 1. We've embarked on a new (complimentary) venture: KrewFinder 2. For my Filipino friends, pre-registration is now open at krewfinder.io. 3. For businesses searching for unparalleled creative talent and wanting the freedom to lead directly, reach out. 📩 Let's chat at [email protected] or drop me a direct message. Why am I doing this? Because collaboration, culture, and community drive success. Imagine this: — A platform where talent meets opportunity. — A community thriving on mutual respect and growth. — A chance to be part of something that values more than just transactions. Let's make it happen. 💫 Coming soon. P.S. Your support lights up this journey. Let's build not just a business but a legacy. 🌟

Busy old start to the week for the Isotope network. Themes this week so far are ⬇️ Hiring 🤼 I don't know what's in the water in 2024 but hiring seems to be on the lips for so many of our clients since the turn of the year. We've got 6 clients welcoming new hires into their agencies this week. & these range from startups that opened their doors at the start of 2023 & those that opened their doors way back in 2014 - showing there's always merit in paddling your own canoe when it comes to growing your agency. Momentum 🌊 The first 0-9 months of your startup journey are tough; restrictions, new norms, cash flow are but some of the challenges you face when venturing out into your own agency - oh & you've also got to start getting your head around the additional obligations you now have as a business owner. I know it sounds cliche but we had SO many positive conversations with our clients who are in that 0-9 month window last week; all of whom are now reaping the rewards of some hard startup months. You'll always remember your first 🫱🏻🫲🏻 Simply put - a client whos agency we kickstarted the launch of back at the start of Feb-24, has made their first placement (invoiced this morning). Business strategy meetings 📈 Usually becoming prevalent between months 6-18, we have our first business strategy meetings with clients this coming week. They're always great opportunities to sit down together & build upon the countless communications them & the team have had since starting out together. Yes emails are great, phone calls are powerful & TEAMs call over dodgy wifi can serve a purpose but those face-to-face meetings can't be beaten. Agree? New client launches 🚀 Some really interesting new client conversations this week; all of which have been (quite literally) years in the making - we're sitting down with a couple of recruiters this week (across engineering, IT, med-devices, education & more) who are all feeling like this is the right time for them to kick start the launch of their own agencies. If I didn't think alliteration was corny & I didn't think Basketball was a less exciting version of Netball, I'd call it March Madness. #recruitmentstartup #recruitmentinvestment #recruitmentbusinesssupport #recruitmentbusinesssetup #businesstips #recruitmentstartuptips