Daniel Browne

On this episode, I sat down with William Fuller the Co-founder of the Orbis Exchange group. A couple of key things I and Bill discussed: - His personal story from hitting rock bottom to transforming his life - Creating a life you want to wake up for - His competitive nature - Building his own FX company - How an identity can keep you trapped - Self-accountability If you enjoyed this episode or it related to you in any comment below, or drop me a message on Instagram Jsalmon_be Subscribe, like & share this video! Link in bio! Follow me on Instagram: Jsalmon_be Linked in: Jack salmon Tik-tok: @jsalmon_be YouTube: Becomethebestyoupodcast Follow Bill on Linked In: William Fuller / Orbis exchange group Thank you for your support! Be

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PE and VC firms still only have women in 11% of key investing positions. Only 2p out of every 100p invested goes to backing female-led companies. Unlocking the potential of female-led enterprises will contribute about £250 billion to the UK economy. The bottleneck for female entrepreneurs is still access to funding.

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I was trying to find something witty to justify this post - I couldn't, so here it is, I'm just bragging a bit. Whilst all of the political uncertainty has been happening for the last three months we have continued growing YFM Equity Partners, and supporting more Entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. - We have completed 3 new investments Fuuse, Spotless Water and Ohalo. - Had 5 new people join the team: Christina Tymviou, Jack Redwood and Oliver Wheatley joining as Investment Managers, Francesca Barnes as Origination Manager, and Michael Newton as Rev Ops Manager to support our portfolio companies on their growth journey. - A great exit for one of our portfolio - 3 Students starting their summer placements across our Manchester, Leeds and London offices - we work with SEO London https://lnkd.in/dXsVes-Z to find students from under represented backgrounds. - And, perhaps my favourite bit: 5 internal promotions: Jen Townshend and Roshan Puri join the YFM Equity Partners Partnership, Laura Wiggins (née Sisson) moves up to Investment Director, Katie Jade Harrison and Callum Long both promoted to Investment Manager. We cannot ignore the macro uncertainty in the market right now, but we do know that Entrepreneurs are still building great businesses and if you are looking for Capital to help you do that - either to go faster to buyout existing shareholders - then we would be keen to see if we can help.

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More meanderings of an exited founder. Real world consultants part 4.... TL/DR Brin Bucknor for accountability, guidance and a tonne of emotional support. More context?...... If you're a co-founder, you'll understand the relationship between you and your business partner is the rock that foundations are built on. It can also feel like you have another spouse too - in the case of myself and Mirza Fur this is certainly true.... However..... Like any relationship it has it's ups and downs. For myself and Mr Fur, way more ups - but we still had disagreements. We still had moments where we had to "work at our relationship" and moments when we weren't on the same page. We sat down with Brin Bucknor for advice. His brief wasn't necessarily to get us talking, but he recognised pretty quickly that this was the first thing we needed. He delivered a monthly session that sorted this out in quick time. To put it another way and to refer to the previous paragraph, he put us back on the same page. He then held us accountable. This got us both thinking about ways of working. The phrase is work "on the business" not "in the business". Brin definitely achieved this. Simply by regularly questioning us. This doesn't sound complicated? Why didn't we just do it anyhow? Because if you're a leader, a business owner, CEO, Founder or whatever title you like to go by, it feels nigh on impossible to get out of the business. You live and breath it every waking moment, and sometimes in your sleep - more on weird founder dreams later.... A meeting with the goal of discussing personal and business challenges delivered more for me than lavish offsites or strategy days. It was the regular cadence and consistency that really helped. It took myself and Mirza from swimming in different directions, to swimming in the same lane - we refocused, remembered why we set Kingpin up and knuckled down because someone was starting to ask us "why" on pretty much all the important decisions and actions we took. Or at least that's how it was for me (I can't speak for Mirza) I once broke down in tears at this meeting. Everything felt like it was coming on top and I was struggling and I felt I could tell no one. Brin listened, didn't judge and that month let me off some of the things I'd not done. I went in struggling, I came out wanting to take on the world. I'd rationalised it and it enabled me to work smarter. More to the point it cleared my head. He helped me in that few hours more than he knows (well up until this point hopefully he'll read this far down) and for that I'm thankful. If you want a hard metric of what he delivered I doubt me, or Mirza would be able to give you a unit value. Did we continue to grow? Yep. Did we set up new services and offices? Yep. Did we both exit? Yep. Are we still friends and business partners? Yep. What he did do is make all of the above more likely. And for me that is worth way more than any metric we could measure against.

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ROAS can look great on paper… And still destroy your business. How? It doesn’t take into account firstly all other expenses that go into the running of a business. If you have high expenses and a tiny spend, you’re still underwater if ROAS looks good. I.e a modelling problem. It also doesn’t take into account your company ecosystem. ROAS can be low or even negative whilst still driving a positive impact for the business. ROAS is not a leading indicator of success. It can be used as a supplementary metric to measure efficiency in the right context… But definitely not a determining factor of success or failure. #shapersos #marketing #marketingstrategy #digitalmarketing #roas #businessgrowth #businessstrategy

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Yesterday we had our Quarterly Merger meeting at Roundtable - The Private Community of Founders . “Bro I love mergers” “Honestly the value I get from them is insane” “I love being able to see everyone from the community” Normally we have two groups: → Percival → Lancelot Which meet every 2 weeks online to do two things: → Catch up/update us on business → Discuss any challenges, problems etc The merger meetings are where I put all the groups together. This time we broke down 2 main things: → How was the last 3 months of business? What did you learn? What would you change? → What are your plans for the next 3 months? How is it going to look? What do you want to achieve? PLUS I got to show everyone the new and evolved version of RT starting from September. 👀 I genuinely am blown away for what RT has become and I am beyond blessed to have all these genuine experts within it. No one is the smartest person in the room. Everyone can learn from one another & develop. Here’s the Roundtable 2.0 If you want to be apart of Roundtable, pop me a DM as applications are opening from next week 👀 P.s. We was missing around 8 members from this picture as a few people are on holiday or moving house!

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I apologise when I am delivering workshops or seminars as I often use jargon or lingo. There is a whole language in the #equityinvestment world that is a bit alien and probably exclusive to many SME Founders looking in. I try to de-mystify that as much as possible - often helped by experts such as Judy Leung Founder of Sweqlink - the sweat equity talent platform. Judy has a great way to simplify and explain #sweatequity and also how to look at it from the investee or talent angle. Please have a listen to the whole episode ( link in comments) and let us know what you think. #angelinvestment #sustainabledevelopment Cat Ward YADU RAJU KURUP Moira Bennett Andrew Douglas Olly Johnson Olivia Todd Rob Sisson

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How does joining a Peer Advisory Board benefit business owners?   Here’s what members of The Alternative Board in Cambridge have to say… “Joining a TAB board starts as an antidote for imposter syndrome and ends up providing accountability for how you are running your business. The act of stepping back each month to gain a new perspective, helped by the fresh insights and advice of fellow business owners, is a helpful practice that makes you intentional rather than reactive in your work.” Alan Mitchell, Founder & Director of Fluent - a TAB member since October 2023.  ….. “Running a company of any size can often feel isolating, and finding impartial, directional advice can be challenging. The TAB peer board I’m part of has truly transformed this experience. The opportunity to discuss my challenges with a diverse group of business leaders has consistently provided fresh perspectives and alternative solutions. I wouldn’t have made the beneficial decisions I have without the support and innovative thinking from this group. It’s also reassuring to know that, regardless of our business types, we all face similar issues, and the mutual support we share is incredibly positive.” Sebastian Stanley, Co-owner & Managing Director of Complete Fabrication - a TAB member since August 2023. ….. If you'd like to explore the power of peer support with TAB, let's grab a coffee and have chat. [[email protected]]

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So Sian Lumsden and I are hosting a webinar at Harthill Consulting Ltd on November 5th. We'd love you to join us. We're calling it 'Our own Interior Condition'. For us this is an important area of exploration for #coaches. Full disclosure: it's a promo gig - we're hoping that a bunch of people who come along will be so into it that they consider signing up for the 2026 cohort of our Advanced Diploma in Vertically Developmental Coaching. This programme places a strong emphasis on everyone involved - Siân, myself and our programme participants - doing a lot of work on our interior condition during the year we're together. And over the years we've been humbled and inspired by the collective alchemy that emerges when we open our hearts to each other on the journey. BUT - not being overly in love with our own creation - we know, of course, that many of the attendees on November 5th won't be joining us on that programme - and so it's important to us that the webinar will also be a meaningful stand alone thing - unfolding meaning in its own right. Bill O'Brien once said 'The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener' - Otto Scharmer re-stated this as 'The success of our actions as change-makers does not depend on what we do, or how we do it, but on the inner place from which we operate'. Inner Condition. I read somewhere recently that the space between any two humans who are in relationship is littered with projection and transference - and, of course the #coaching relationship is no different. The stuff that litters up our inner being has a habit of bleeding into the space we seek to hold for others. At least that's how it is for me. So our invitation is to come and spend an hour exploring this with us on November 5th. To be honest we're not sure yet what the hour will look like - but we know that whatever is meant to emerge will emerge as we open and become vulnerable together about the highly personal subject of coaching and our inner condition. I've put a link to the booking form below. However I'm not sure if it's a direct link, or if you'll need to cut and paste it into your browser. These matters often mystify me. Either way we'd love to see you there. https://lnkd.in/en79ih9W #coaching #coachdevelopment #innercondition #openhearts Simon Lovegrove Nial O Reilly Sian Lumsden Rebecca Stevens Association for Coaching (AC) Natalie Goni Mac Ling Elaine Donnelly Caitríona Farrell Jayne Morris Caroline Brader-Smith Caroline Groothoff Jill Minne Olivia Margo Lucille Greeff Roger Wadsworth Charlie (Charlotte) Brown Dorian Braun CAROLE PIPER Sue Brown Anstey Thomas Heidi Gutekunst Claire Stewart Tom Hennessy Doris Vega

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The countdown is on... in t minus 3 days (on Thursday evening) three fabulous speakers will assemble at Engine Shed to bust copious myths about the world of equity investment. I've asked them to speak about topics such as: - Is it better to approach angel groups/syndicates or individuals? - What are the factors that inform whether an angel will invest? - How do you know that a fund is actively deploying capital? - How do you tend to find the most successful deals? - What does a successful investment look like for you? This is just a sample of the questions that I have thought of, I'd love to know what investment-related questions you are pondering at the moment so we can tailor the content to suit everyone! A few seats remain so if you'd like to join us, just sign up via the link in the comments. #Bristol #event #funding #investment #businessgrowth

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Stewardship Long tenure, or not Time factors Maintenance of an aim Here’s a thought👇🏼 Amidst the noise of business activity and indeed political activity it is interesting to think about tenure and our relationship with time. In business we know that the average tenure for a FTSE 100 boss is now 65 months or a little less than five and a half years. However, only 18 bosses have been in charge for over a decade and only three have been at the helm for over 20 years. That’s a mere blink of an eye for those with a keen sense of history. Political tenure is shorter still with the average tenure of a British PM running at about 4 years. Just recently there have been a few considerably shorter. So the scope for longevity at the top of the relevant tree is limited. It’s not quite as limited, or as deadly, as those horrendous life expectancies in the WW1 trenches, but long tenure is a luxury most simply don’t enjoy. So what? For two reasons. Firstly for a realisation that if you want to bring change, exert influence or make improvements you need to create and maintain momentum. Leisurely doesn’t move anyone’s dial. Secondly change comes from the risk takers and the do-ers. The window of opportunity is quite narrow, so the change makers have to be prepared to be bold and make informed decisions with imperfect information. In Farringdon Within today we have the Wardmote, where the candidates can be quizzed by the Ward voters and tomorrow is the vote. In other news there is a UK General Election. If you have a vote then be sure to use it. #ThinkLikeAClient #GrumpyOptimist #VentureStudio #Entrepreneur #VoteGoodchild >>>>>>> Footnote: all my content is written daily by me with no additives or tricks. If it interests you please tag the 🔔 in my profile to get it delivered straight to you. Otherwise if you search #GrumpyOptimist you’ll find my library of past posts. Never recycled, always fresh. Produced and promoted by Edward Goodchild, Zendht Ltd, Quantum House, 22-24 Red Lion Court, London EC2R 3EB

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This is linked with your chronotype (find out yours here:https://lnkd.in/ewmtmZff)) in that there will be times of the day when you’re better at deciding on the tasks required and times when you need that prescriptive approach and you can get on with things. My planning time is in the slightly later morning; I’ll plan the day ahead, as well as a weekly and monthly plan as needed. I do also put together a shorter list of urgent things later in the day, and this is something that I can pick up first thing the next day. I’d love to hear about your ways of dealing with decisions, so do drop a comment here 👇🏻 #Decisions #Productivity #Strive4Success #Chronotype

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Are we going to see a rise in Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs) if we get confirmation of a CGT Increase, as Founders look for more efficient exits? To be honest, I think we are probably seeing a rise in EOTs and certainly the understanding and awareness around them already. Selling all or some of your business for market rate, without negotiating and jumping through hoops. Paying no tax at all on your exit. Some pretty good arguments for it I would say. Obviously it isn't just that simple and there are criteria for eligibility and rules you must follow, which is why it is vital you speak to a professional. It does however, appear to be an option that is becoming more appealing as more founders/ owners become aware of the possibilities. Is it right for everyone? Probably not. Could it be right for a lot of founders/ owners looking for an exit event of some kind? Absolutely. With the rumoured changes to CGT almost doubling to 39%, we may well see this becoming more mainstream and businesses actually being built strategically in such a way that the planned and preferred exit event is an EOT. —------------------------------------------------------------------- ♻️ If you think this post could be useful, please like, comment or repost. I’m Ramzi, Founder of Hexagonal CFO - Fractional CFO & Finance Team for your business. I aim to share useful content that promotes financial and business literacy as a way of empowering people, promoting social mobility and financial freedom, whoever you are and whatever background you are from!

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Could young talented workers thrive as non-executive directors (NEDs) in another organisation? It’s an interesting idea that I never thought about until now.   The Financial Times’s piece about sending your top talent to work elsewhere sounds counterintuitive at first. Why would you want your talents to be trained and at the same time give contributions in another company? After a bit of thought about it, what a great idea to increase their experience and expertise that can be brought to good use at your company as well. On their own, it would be extremely difficult to find a company that needs and would consider such young talent to fill NED roles. Traditionally NEDs are seasoned professionals at the end of their career (or semi-retired) that bring their considerable experience and knowledge to offer a company Board a sound and professional opinion on their strategies and decisions. But if you look at it from the perspective of your company’s top management, you can offer some of your talented workers such an opportunity by using your own network and connections. That is an excellent tool that highlights your networking abilities and creates unique cross-organisational opportunities. Instead of permanent moves to another company, you could set up partnership programmes with corporate peers to help each other’s young talent develop their industry skills. And yes, by allowing your own talent to grow, you will stand out from other companies. Younger, rising talents certainly have a lot to offer. By giving them unique opportunities like this, you can help broaden their knowledge base and give them more reason to stay at your company where they know their growth is supported. Pictured below - Me and the Clarks financial administration team in the Philippines office #TalentRetention #Leadership #WorkCulture #TeamBuilding

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I've always been a huge advocate for expanding and upgrading your network. In fact, I've framed most of my businesses around the power of 'network' and 'community'. Recently, we gathered together the Bolt Angels investor network at Royal Ascot - something we do every year to bring people together, make and develop connections and, of course, have fun. As Roger Black says: 'The network is everything...' How much emphasis do you put on networking? Have you expanded and upgraded your network and seen the difference that can make? I'd love to hear your thoughts... #networkingbusiness #community #networkingpower

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WORKSHOP 3PM UK (10AM EasternUS) on Thursday 25 July: Please join to hear about 4 pillars to profitable practice growth📈 without it taking over your life🛌. Specifically you will learn: + A strategic approach to profitable practice growth + The strategies you need to bring in work of the right kind + How to engage your team to free you up for strategy + How to care for yourself and manage time pressure Please DM me here if interested in attending. #LawFirmLeadership #ProfitableGrowthLawFirms

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Our first build on my private business and regions video a few weeks ago 🔽🔽 🚀 🚀 PwC UK #deals #regions #privatebusiness

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We start at 12:00 noon BST ! Our last masterclass of July begins… A 60-minute deep dive into the approach that is helping clients get measurable outcomes when they invest in developing their people. This is an approach you can replicate into your business. It's not rocket science, it does take work, but if you're an HR leader/Department Head/MD/CEO who's: 1. Fed up the guesswork involved in identifying growth opportunities at a team and organisational level. 2. Frustrated with investing in developing your people and not seeing the change you need to achieve your business goals. 3. Knows their business has huge potential but that a vision only gets you so far, you know your people have huge potential you just need to unlock it! What I'm about to share will show you how within 30 days you can have the clarity you need to confidently move forward, understand what you need to do, how to do it and ensure that your efforts drive accountability and measurable outcomes. You can register right here: https://lnkd.in/euCArssu

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