Entrepreneurs First

The people who make EF… EF. 💥 One of our core values is Push Yourself and Other to Greatness - last week, we flew in the team from Paris, London, Bangalore and San Francisco to do just that. Our people are our product and I'm very proud of them. I’m constantly blown away by this group; their relentlessness, their judgment, and the way they push themselves to raise the bar for every founder who comes through Entrepreneurs First. We’re building something special and we’re hiring the next wave of investors to help us do it. DM me if you're interested in joining.

Last week we brought our global team of Talent Investors together from Bangalore, Paris, London and San Francisco. Talent investing - working with individuals before they have a company, a cofounder, an idea and helping them figure out their life’s work - is a craft. Like all crafts there are many different styles and approaches that can be successful. Our team got to see and work with the world’s most experienced talent investors from Entrepreneurs First and our advisory network. We also heard from the likes of Zoe Jervier Hewitt and Zefi H. from Sequoia Capital and Misha Gordon-Rowe at Susa Ventures about how they view talent and the venture market, and the inimitable Adrian Jones on active listening and applying training from the Samaritans to really understand our founders. Underlying all of this was a great sense of privilege and humility at the quality of talent that we get to work with, and the lengths we will go to serve them and push them to greatness. Cc Alice Bentinck, Matt Clifford, Jonathan Reid, Robin Goldberg, Bill Earner, Joe Falter, Tom Carrington Smith  as well as our incredible Partners Jonny Clifford, Isabel Bescos, Joseph Ros, Mike Phillips, Rahul Samat, Elspeth Lawson and Principals - Max Mugnaioni, James Richards, Ali Susskind, Dominik Diak, Sajal Khanna

“Builders, Scientists, Technologists - you are not an asset that can be milked” Matt Clifford gave an exclusive interview with the etn. boys yesterday following his viral speech at Looking For Growth. They talked about backing builders to deliver economic growth in Britain and the benefits of spending time in Silicon Valley. If you’re a founder thinking about starting a company remember: You don’t need a perfect idea. You need an obsession. Starting a company is more like buying an option than a lottery ticket. You’re buying the right to find out whether you could build something big. The upside is huge, and the downside is limited. For talented, ambitious people early in their careers, this option is wildly underpriced. So LFG. Substack article and full interview in comments below cc Ronan Chambers Luke Knight Lawrence Newport

At Entrepreneurs First we back early career talent; this extends to our team as well as founders. This is why today I am excited to launch our Venture Fellowship The two year fellowship is a role designed as an entry point for people at the earliest stages of their career to learn the ropes of venture capital, build out their startup network and get an inside view on what world class company building looks like At the end of the two years, we back the fellows to take their next step by actively helping them secure roles as either a full time investor, a startup operator or a founder Previous EF team alumni have gone on to become Partners at EF (Elspeth Lawson), work in Tier 1 VC (Zefi H.), become startup operators (Mahmoud Serewel, Rishabh Chaudhary), run government agencies (Pippy James) or founded their own companies (Lisa Wehden, Eden Banon-Lagrange, Sahil Tapiawala) See the link in the description for more information on the role and to apply now.

This is definitely proving true…👇

We signed a lease for a new office last week - the space is a lot bigger than we need right now (although we're hoping to fill it over the next 6 months). We loved working with brilliant founders/engineers/hackers while working from the Entrepreneurs First office. That's why we're inviting London's most ambitious builders to come and work alongside us for free :)

There are moments when the future stops feeling distant. This was one of them. We recently welcomed renowned investor Vinod Khosla back to the office in SF for a joint event with Imperial College London. Vinod has built and backed companies that defined entire industries. At our previous Demo Day, Silicon Valley’s most successful futurist made some bold predictions on AI, over months not decades. Watch the full clip. Then ask yourself what it means for the company you’re building.