Gary Fowler and Leon Eisen: 5 Strategic Clusters of Venture Growth

Hey Gary, thank you very much for the amazing introduction. I cannot believe that everything you said is me. So thank you very much.

I did research in quantum computers, on the core quantum computers called quantum laser cooling. When I finished my postdoctoral research, I was about 38 years old. So it looks like to make a career in science, it's a long, long way and it's not worth it. So I decided, and by the way, my professor created his own new company and he invited me to join. And I decided to move to industry, despite the fact I didn't understand anything in industry. I was a scientist. As you know, for any scientist, the goal of the scientist is to... Why did people? First of all, any research is based on grants. To have a lot of grants, you have to show phenomena, you have to prove something, you have to show it. Actually, it's very similar to entrepreneurship, to business. You should create something new, you should publish it, you should defend it, you should go to conferences, you should talk about it. In this case, you can be granted and you get money to continue your research. It's very, very similar to entrepreneurship, but with different goals. Actually, similar thing.

I applied. You apply? Well, that makes sense. Okay, I applied. They checked it, they verified me, and they said, okay, it looks like you're eligible. Might have a card somewhere that I am a fellow.

People approached me, like an investor, and I was looking for investments and participation in some IP. And I decided to make a Pan-African unicorn, Peach on e-commerce and financial companies. It was amazing, one of the best companies I ever met, from Morocco actually, this unicorn Peach. For me, it was an amazing experience. I met so unique African entrepreneurs during the preparation of this unicorn Peach. It was online, I'm going to do it on site as well, maybe in Nigeria or somewhere else. This year we'll see.

Yeah, it's still around. We sell, we continue to innovate. And I cannot tell you today because it's not for... Quantum, right? Not only as a scientist, but then you also talk about strategic clusters of venture growth. So let's talk about what are the five strategic clusters.

I developed the so-called Quantum Business Thinking methodology. This methodology should be applied somewhere, right? So you cannot apply it without understanding how to do it and which cluster of startup development. So I defined five very important clusters where you have to synchronize your startup development. So it includes, for example, something that belongs to opportunity market and to make deals, how to make partnerships, how to fund your project. So this is all about it. We will talk about it later. The third cluster belongs to, I call it, physic ability or effect. So it's all about product and operational excellence. Also I call it drill engineer. So each cluster belongs to some type of employee who can work within this cluster. Because when you hire people, you have people with different mindsets. It could be mindset of drill engineer or analytic guy or visionary. You should know exactly who you hire and which... Company, and I would say in the middle, but somehow in the middle, it's a mindset of leadership. It's most important because the leader defines the company. So all the company, depending on the size, I would say belongs to the leader. Because if you go to lead another company which was prepared for a different leader, you should actually fight with these people because you cannot manage these people in this case. And by the way, there is an amazing book written by... Leadership, everything there, how to lead a company to success. So now we're talking about five such clusters. And interesting, what does it mean for the company? It means that we consider the company, the startup, like a whole product. But think about it, people think about, okay, let's think about marketing, let's think about operations, business processes. But together, for an investor, for an acquirer, for a buyer of this company, this is the product. All people inside, this is the product. I call it whole product. So I have to consider your company like you... Application, it's just a communication device, that's all. It's not the whole product, it's just a feature. But having the whole application together, this is the whole product. And I encourage startups and founders to consider their startups like a whole product. For example, a lot of today's very famous companies which grew very quickly, just imagine a company is growing very quickly. Definitely they don't have time to... They put everything into the growth. It happened. So if you consider your company like a whole product, you consider synchronization of all these five components. And even I built a so-called scorecard that defines, I distribute and I ask my companies I mentor to fill up. And if they have a score of 60 plus, I take this company. If they have a score of 60 minus, I don't take this. So if I can show you, if I write... Five components and you have some benchmark, this ring is a benchmark. And now you can point where you are in all these components. Now nobody gets to 100, but you can build somehow like this and you can estimate actually how your position like a whole product looks like. And then you know exactly where you have to polish it to reach to... You are. And what happens, many entrepreneurs they cannot evaluate themselves. I ask people, what are you doing now? I know they don't have any experience. What are you doing now? Wow, we are working on documentation, pitch, everything to raise capital, right? And I ask, okay, where are you? Could you tell me? Oh, you know, we believe that we do everything is okay. What happens finally? They go to investors and people talk about big numbers. You have to go to 200 investors finally to get funded, because they weren't ready. And they learn... And mission to get them aware that today, in today's crowded market with demand of money over supply of money, it's about free. Never happened something like this. You should learn, you should be the best, because investors do not invest today in the range of qualities of the company. They invest only into the best company. We are ready to pay more, maybe high valuation, but to the top company, and do not accept some average company.

Yes, exactly. So it's again a number game. Because you should be lucky to... Call it not by head, by hands. It's okay, some will survive, some not. But it's like finger to the sky, you know, maybe I will survive. So I offer companies whole product mentorship, not marketing separately from feasibility or viability of the company. Whole mentorship. And I evaluate the company, I identify blind spots, and I help this company to be ready for investment. And if it's okay, I can bring them to our network VC or... Companies through the day I met and they did pitches, 15 minutes pitch, 20 companies. And I can tell you, 99% of the companies start their pitch like this: 'We develop XYZ.' Okay, who cares what you developed? Millions of companies develop something. And then they continue, and I can put any name before what they're talking about.

Yeah, and this they cannot, because it's very difficult for six seconds to say something valuable for 60 seconds. They like to talk 10 minutes about what they're doing and not about actually... Even good companies, really good companies raise capital. I talk to them and I feel, wow, I talk to a dead body, because this company is dead already, no future. Because this guy doesn't understand. I don't know, he found some investors who accepted this. What I feel, he won't make it because he doesn't understand and he doesn't want to learn. And the worst thing happens, they start... Because I like, when I was young, I liked to argue with investors. I didn't understand it. And what I learned, that if an investor says, 'Please elaborate,' two ways: or close the computer and say, 'Okay, thank you, let's meet again next time.' Oh, go back. You know, streamline a sales technique by Wolf of Wall Street, very good book, I recommend to read it. So go back to the beginning, say, 'Okay, if you want to elaborate, let's start from the beginning, because it looks like I missed something,' and do it much better. In reality, people get into details of the business to elaborate. So okay, I get into details, but the investor in his mindset, subconscious mindset, by the way, you didn't mention that I'm on the board of European Consciousness University, so we're working on neuroplasticity and how to deal with AI and how to build relationship with AI. And in their subconscious mind, they already rejected. Just this signal didn't come to their cortex. In their subconscious, they... This is what happens all the time.

Yeah, a lot of times they're just so rigid, they don't want to do anything. Or they develop a product so much and they never take it to the customers. They like to engineer things, over-engineer and over... This is the same rigidness. You know, my Quantum... Uncertainty, and if it worked very well in the '90s and beginning of 2000, today it doesn't work. So I meet entrepreneurs from the '90s, they're totally different. They don't understand what happened today. They would never raise money or start a startup today. And people should be very flexible. I have three types of planning I can tell you. Then what kind of type, or you can guess what kind of type I use. There are three types of planning. The first I call it rigid... But you can validate different paths. You could try this path, another path, but go again. So I want to go to the shop, and I can go this way, can go that way, I can buy and eat ice cream suddenly I decided, but finally I get to this shop. And this is for middle managers. And for a real leader, it should be adapted or dynamic goal setting and dynamic planning, where every day I... To understand everything that ping-pong happens in our world. So I hear this ping-pong and dynamically adjust every day. Even I plan something before, I adjust it based on new information I get. No, that's the winning solution.

They can go to YouTube, just write 'Leon Eisen'. It's my podcast 'Venture Grove with Leon Eisen'. They can go to my LinkedIn, just write 'Leon Eisen'. And they can... Together in different kinds of business ventures.

Thanks, bye-bye. Thank you.