20 VC 040: The Required Qualities To Be A Great Founder, with Scott Taylor, CEO @ miDrive
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 ā¢ 637 Ratings
šļø 28 May 2015
ā±ļø 18 minutes
šļø Recording | iTunes | RSS
š§¾ļø Download transcript
Summary
Scott Taylor is the CEO @Ā miDrive, a startup focussed on reinventing the learner driving experience. Scott is also an advisor to leading London based VC firmĀ EC1 Capital. If that wasn't enough he is a mentor atĀ Richard Branson's Virgin Startup ProgramĀ and an investor inĀ CoupangĀ andĀ Mavrx.Ā Prior to miDrive, he was Chief Product Officer at Livedrive, one of Europe's leading cloud storage providers, assisting with its sale to j2 Global.
Items Mentioned in Today's Show:
- TreeHouse: Learn Web Design, Web DevelopmentĀ
- LifeCake Acquisition
- FestivalFriends App
- Crowdcube: Online Investing, Equity Crowdfunding
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Ben Horowitz
- Into The Woods: John Yorke
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) Where it all began for Scott and how he made his move into technology and venture?
2.) Having founded several successful companies, what Scott believes the qualities required to be a good founder are?
3.) The hardest part for Scott in building companies and how he overcome them?
4.) What is Scott's role at EC1, what is he looking for in companies at EC1 and how does that differ from his own angel investments?
5.) At Virgin Start Up, what is the process like to attain funding?
6.) What are Scott's views on early stage funding? Does he agree with the friends and family round?
7.)What would you suggest to entrepreneurs looking to gain external capital?
The episode will then finish with a quick fire round.Ā Where we hear Scott's thoughts on:
Next 5 years for Scott?Ā Asian tech market?Ā Favourite book and why?Ā Most recent investment and why he said yes?
You can followĀ Harry,Ā ScottĀ andĀ The Twenty Minute VCĀ on Twitter
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the 20 minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings. Now boy do we have a special guest for you today. |
| 0:07.2 | He is the CEO at MyDrive, a startup focused on reinventing the learner driving experience. He is also an advisor to leading London-based VC firm EC1 Capital and a mentor for Richard Branson's Virgin Startup Programme. If that wasn't enough, |
| 0:24.1 | he's an investor in Ku-Pang and Mavericks. Ladies and gentlemen, it is the incredible Scott Taylor. |
| 0:30.4 | Three, two, one, zero. You have now arrived at your destination. |
| 0:39.3 | Scott, welcome to the 20 minute VC. |
| 0:41.5 | It's an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. |
| 0:44.0 | Thanks for having me. |
| 0:45.2 | Now, you've enjoyed an incredible career, |
| 0:47.7 | but can you start from the beginning |
| 0:48.9 | until I swear it all began |
| 0:50.2 | and how you made your move into technology? |
| 0:53.6 | Sure. I think I've always sort of had an entrepreneurial |
| 0:57.0 | trade. This was sort of going back right the way back to primary school in Northern Ireland |
| 1:01.7 | whenever I was cooking and selling coffee to my friends. And I think I started my first online startup |
| 1:07.9 | when I was sort of age 15. so it wasn't too long after that. |
| 1:11.5 | What was that? |
| 1:12.5 | That was the property hut, which was basically an early sort of gum tree or maybe gum tree |
| 1:18.7 | was existed at the time. |
| 1:20.4 | It was just sort of, we wanted to take estate agents out of the property market. |
| 1:23.7 | We wanted people to sell their properties themselves for a flat fee. And yeah, it grew |
| 1:30.0 | from strength to strength, but then I moved to Australia with my parents. So maybe a young, |
| 1:36.8 | thinking that we could take over the world, quickly expanded it to be UK and Australia. But then, |
... |
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