Networking with 9 Others

Matthew Stafford is a Venture Capitalist and founder of the 9others network.He didn’t follow a conventional path into VC. Growing up on a farm in Northumberland the world of investments and start-ups was miles away.After school he got a job at John Lewis, then started his own t-shirt company and then moved into IT with RBS before moving to Bank of New York.He went to university a bit later in life at 27, where he studied computer science at Durham, where he convinced the interviewer that he would work really hard despite only having two very poor A-levels. He felt out of place with the other students; almost 10 years younger and in his words, they were much cleverer. However he worked hard and by the time he graduated in 2006 it was the time of the tech startup, which inspired Matthew and he decided to work for smaller companies to have more of an impact.His journey into VC came in his early 30s after his MBA at Imperial College and he has coined the phrase “pay-as-you-go investor” to describe his approach. He wants to show people that they don’t need millions in the bank, like a Dragon, to get into investing in start-ups and how to make money from it. To date, he has invested in 24 startups, most of which have been sourced from his 9others network and has achieved five exits. These include what3words, Seep, Desmond & Dempsey and exits include FanBytes and NoblyPOS which was acquired by Revolut. He has invested in and negotiated investment transactions from £15k to £50m.His pay-as-you-go model works by saving up some of your own money, investing it across a number of startups, saves up some more, exits or re-invests in the same businesses or new ones to keep his portfolio diverse.His pay as you go model means that he can work full time on this business as well as continuing to run 9others with Katie Lewis, an expert in innovative collaboration for startups.They co-founded 9others, a 5,000+ strong global community of startup founders, in 2011 as a way to connect founders with each other and help to solve problems over a relaxed dinner.It is always you and nine others and he’s protected the community from sponsorship in orderto keep the conversation real and authentic between founders and the problems about what keeps them up at night.Matthew and Katie have written a book called Find Your 9others about their experiences and the 10 questions that every founder should ask themselves with lots of stories from businesses along the [email protected] the 9others Substack here.