John Henderson is Principal at White Star Capital, a VC firm helping exceptional entrepreneurs build great technology companies, with a presence in Europe and North America. Prior to White Star, John was Head of Business Development and Operations at Summly, playing a crucial role in the build up to their acquisition by Yahoo in May 2013. John has also spent time at Facebook working in strategy and business development and was a strategy consultant at The Boston Consulting Group.   Items (and incredible people!) Mentioned in Today's Show: Ben Horowitz: The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers (THE TWENTY MINUTE VC BOOK CLUB: WEEK ONE) The Innovators by Walter Isaacson Shakil Khan, Christian Hernandez, Nick D'Aloisio, Frank Meehan Bloglovin Nuzzel PandoDaily TechCrunch  What you will learn in today's episode: How John got into the technology industry and later made his transition into the world of Venture Capital? As Head of Business Development and Operations at Summly, what was it like for John working with Nick D'Aloisio? How did his role change in the buildup to the acquisition by Yahoo? What does John think about Summary's evolution into Yahoo News Digest? What has been the biggest difference between John's life as a entrepreneur compared to his life as a VC? Does John believe it is crucial for startups to find a well-suited VC for their startup? What does John advise startup founders to do or ask to ensure that a VC is the right match for them and their company? Having made angel investments of his own, does John approach these personal investments in a different manner to his professional investments?  What advice John would give to anyone contemplating angel investing? The episode then finishes with a quick fire round where we hear John's thoughts on the future of bitcoin, John's personal news reading preferences and his most recent investment and why he said yes?  

Tom Britton is Co-Founder and CTO of Syndicate Room, an equity crowdfunding platform that allows it's members to co-invest alongside professional investors. To date Syndicate Room have raised an incredible £20m for 30 companies. Prior to Co-Founding Syndicate Room, Tom was a professional football player playing in a number of countries including the US and UK. Items Mentioned in Today's Show: Nesta Report: Crowdfunding Page 52 Crowdcube Ego Airplanes Inn Style Salty by Simon West In today's episode you will learn: 1.) How Tom got into the technology industry and then moved into the very early concept at the time of, equity crowdfunding? 2.)How does SynidcateRoom operate and does their process differs from the likes of Crowdcube? 3.) How much of the £19m was invested by people on the Syndicate Room network rather than the anchor angels?  4.) Does Tom believe with the rise of crowdfunding in recent years, the crowd are a competing finance model to the traditional VC model?  5.) Having witnessed numerous successful campaigns to date, what does Tom believe are the recipes for a successful crowdfunding campaign? 6.) For startups contemplating raising funds for their business, what are the largest benefits of raising seed capital through SyndicateRoom? 7.) CrowdCube is the No 1 equity crowdfunding site in the UK, how does SyndicateRoom treat this competitive threat?   The episode will then finish with a quick fire round where we hear Tom's plans for the next 5 years, the hardest obstacles Tom has faced in building Syndicate Room and the 3 companies that Syndicate Room has funded that Tom is most excited about?