Billion Dollar Panel with Richard Cawsey

Billion Dollar Panel Series is about sharing the experiences and learning from each other. We bring in exceptional people with relevant and varied experiences and ask them to share stories that will inspire the entrepreneur community.

On Tuesday afternoon we had the pleasure of hearing from Richard Cawsey, Founder and Executive Chairman of Denali Venture Partners. Richard is an expert investor, director and advisor of purpose driven startups and is passionate about building high-performance organisations that serve the needs of their stakeholders.

In case you missed it, here is a recap with our favourite golden nuggets of wisdom from Richard!

For those starting out with an idea

List ALL the stakeholders that you have to serve; draft your value proposition; find a “friendly”, find an “unfriendly”.  Understand where your money flows.  People can be shockingly open if you have the courage to ask for the truth.

The truth about ideas

“Ideas don’t do themselves. It’s execution that matters”

Getting some traction?

Golden rule: “Sold it once – Ok! Sold it twice – interesting! Sold it three times – you have a business!”

For those scaling up

Disciplined action, linked to plans, driving purpose creates high performance.

Finding the right investors

Understand the “why” are they investing.  You want them to be aligned with you.  There are a lot of opportunities for disagreement down the line.

Start raising capital well before you need it! Execution takes twice as long as you think. Don’t waste time and be sure to understand your key investors.

What advice would Richard give to himself?

“I wish I had paid more attention to the fact that execution matters, people are the key to execution and purpose unites.”

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