20 VC 097: Betting Big on Consumer Fintech with Matthew Bradley, Investor @ Forward Partners

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The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2015

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matthew is an Investor at Forward Partners: a super-early stage London VC. Forward Partners invests in solo-founders, idea stage and seed stage eCommerce, marketplace and related software businesses providing them with funding, office space and the support of an expert in-house engineering, product and growth team. Before becoming a VC, Matthew had varying degrees of success (!) with retail and security tech start-ups. He began his career in Sales, Structuring and Trading at investment banks. He holds a BA in Economics and Politics and an MBA from SDA Bocconi. A huge thank you to Mattermark for all the data discussed in today's show and you can find them here!

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In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Matt make his way into the world of VC? What would he advise someone wanting to get into the industry?

2.) How does Forward Partners differentiate themselves in such a sea of seed funds? What is unique about their model?

3.) What are the key activities that entrepreneurs can do to build a successful business, ready for Series A? What would Matt advise someone who has an idea but no technical skills?

4.) What are the nuances and complexities of the early stage funding environment? How do Forward approach and overcome them? Are there any common misconceptions?

5.) What are the similarities and differences between the US and the UK with regards to start-up attractiveness? Where would Matt choose to found his startup if he were a founder?

6.) Considering YC’s recent intake, where does Matt see growth areas in consumer facing startups?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Matthew's Fave Book: Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master & Margarita

Matthew's Fave Newsletter: Mattermark Daily, The Equity Kicker, First Round Review

Matthew's Most Recent Investment: Live Better With

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Matthew on Twitter here!

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm welcome to the 20-minute VC. I am your host, Harry Stebbings, and if you listen to Monday's
0:05.6	episode with Darmesh, you will know that this week we are featuring the Incredible Forward
0:10.4	Partners, a London fund specialising in e-commerce. Some of their portfolio companies include
0:16.3	Taxi-Hailing app Halo, one of the most promising fintech startups from the last decade coming out of Europe in the form of Zopa,
0:24.2	and appear here, started by Ross Bailey, who was only 19 at the time of creating the incredible company.
0:31.0	From Ford today, I'm so thrilled to welcome a good friend and fellow Mahito enthusiast, Matthew Bradley.
0:37.0	Now, Matt's background is in trading,
0:39.2	structuring and sales at Barclays Capital and Lloyd's for five years where he developed a deep
0:44.6	understanding of risk before doing an MBA at Bacconi. But don't hold any of that against him.
0:49.8	He's still an absolutely fantastic chap despite the investment banking. And he's such an awesome investor and an individual in London's ecosystem
0:57.6	and a real pleasure to have Matt on the show today.
1:00.6	And I'd like to thank Mattermark, who've provided all the data and analytics for the show today.
1:05.6	You can check them out at www.mattermark.com.
1:09.0	And for anyone looking for more startup resources and articles, then head over to
1:14.7	AtThinker on Twitter for more great resources. But before we jump into the show today, would you
1:21.3	like more of your website visitors to convert into a sale, sign up or referral. That sound like a familiar problem.
1:28.9	If so, you do need Loyalty Bay.
1:31.3	Their SaaS conversion optimiser tool increases any conversion metric
1:35.5	by offering potential customers a choice of personalised rewards,
1:39.9	incentivising them to convert.
1:42.2	And Will Roberts, Loyalty Bay CEO, has also written an amazing ebook, which you can download for free,
1:48.9	all about how you can increase your conversion rates, and you can find the download at
	...

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