Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: So yeah, I think Scotland is a great place to start a business, but also what I see for a lot of those founders is that, yeah, they're Scotland based, but their mindset's not Scotland. They've been to Silicon Valley, they've been down to London. It's a great place to have a family, work in tech and grow. If you're maybe 20, then maybe you are going to Dubai or wherever, San Francisco or the States and that's where you'd want to do it. But for some of those mature founders that have family, then it is one of the best place to start a business.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Hi, I'm Shona. Welcome to another episode of Ideas to Impact podcast. I'm the business acceleration team lead at Codebase and I'm here today interviewing Andrew, who is one of our entrepreneurs in residence and previously founder of a company called CareSourcer. So we'll be digging a bit into the story of that and what you do now and what you see for the Scottish tech ecosystem.
So starting with the basics, can you describe what you do today in your own words and where you've come from to get there?
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Yes. So current role is now in code base as an entrepreneur in residence and a lot of my daily activity is kind of reaching out and speaking to founders and seeing how we can help accelerate their business and them themselves personally on their journey to whatever they're looking to try to achieve their business, which a lot of it is, they're trying to build global businesses with big impacts.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: I think that underplays some of the stuff that you do to actually help them. Just chatting to founders and seeing how you can help them. What sort of things does that include on a day to day basis, like what types of companies, what stage are they at and what do you do that helps helps them access that?
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a lot of it I do feel is, well, the companies start there first. A lot of them are at the kind of pre seed to seed stage that are kind of then going forward to like series A.
So they are at kind of like revenue generating at low levels, maybe up to 25, 30 grand a month, kind of, that kind of seems to be the sweet spot where a lot of there's a, there's a bit of a transition there for the founder where they're starting to become a bit more of an established business. They need to scale quicker, they're starting to then think about future raises and it's those types of situations and challenges that they're looking for advice and support on. We do actually get quite a lot of solo founders that kind of reach out because it does feel like they then got someone to bounce off their thinking as well as consoling.
It's quite a lonely space out there. Even if you've got a co founder, it's very easy to feel like it's you against the world and the company and what's people's perceptions. There's a lot of that imposter syndrome that can definitely creep into you as a founder and yeah, I think that kind of channel where they can reach out and we can kick that around and chew in those things as well as go into deep in strategy and properly talk about the business and how they can progress those things forward. Yeah. And the feedback I get from those founders, it's that relationship that it feels like a kind of trusted source where they can actually just like reach out and be honest with someone that might not say to an investor or a board member or struggle to think, well, what would my team actually say if I did say this to them and try to just kind of half the battle is like they say, when a problem shared is a problem half, then that probably does come true for a lot of the founders that we do work with.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: So it's like phone a friend, phone a friend, phone a co founder.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Phone a founder.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the new service title that we've come up with.
So you've had a number of different hats though, before you joined Code Base as Entrepreneur in Residence. Can you just walk us through what that journey looked like and how you got to the point where you can now support other founders on that journey? Like, what have you done in the past?
[00:03:36] Speaker A: May need to stop me at this because once I get going, I can get going.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: But don't start at school, I guess start later than that.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: Yeah. So shortly after school I went to uni, did the graduating thing, all that travel. But then when I came back, my dad actually was major done from banking and my brother has additional needs and we've got family members as well that have like future support. So care was like a thing that was close to us and my dad looked at setting up a care franchise and I basically was the third employee in there. You know, he had a branch nurse that gave that credibility support and. And we launched a care at home business that delivered care to people's own homes in Edinburgh.
And yeah, I kind of did a bit of a graduate scheme myself there where I did a bit of compliance recruitment, but it was like the ops and the logistic Bit that I liked where we had these caterers and we had all these potential clients and then mapping them and kind of coordinating how that all came about was the problem solving area that I quite liked.
And then quite quickly after we started that. My mum worked in compliance and audit for the Ministry of Defence and she came into the business as well. So it was like a proper, proper family business, proper family based business. My dad did like the finance and accounting side and then I did like the ops and logistics. My mum did the compliance and audit and she loved it. Like it was taking it to the care inspector, you know, like that was small fry for her from her previous background. But regardless of all that, the dynamics really worked. Like we had quite clear boundaries within there that we didn't really over encroach with and yet it really worked for us. So we managed to get the highest grades in Scotland for like four consecutive years. And then that led to lots of private business like coming in to the business and then that's how Care Sourcer was kind of like simmering around. Because what was transpiring was that people were really struggling to find care, especially for care at home. Because where your office is is not where you deliver care. So it's like a care home. You do know where that's the physical building. That's local to me.
So what came about was that people were calling like 15, 20 different providers to try find someone that could actually help their loved one get care. And it's a very emotive conversation to have.
And they were going over it multiple, multiple, multiple times. And I was like this had to be a better way to do it. And in my naivety I was like I'm just gonna go and create a website. And then.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: Well, naivety is one of the best things you can have I think to yeah. And I love that this was start a new business.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: I was in my 20s, I know don't let the gray fool you, but I was a bit more like that naivety really of like I just wanted to go out and do that. And unblinkered was probably like looking at the situation I'm now would I've done that same decision without that. And I'm not sure, you know, like I've got a young family, the risks are different.
You're not as that naivete's not there and the stakes are higher. But at that stage it definitely was just something that I was super interested in and wanted to go after.
And then I went purely on gut instinct on this. So like there's a lot of good practice which I now know, which I would like to give to the founders. But one of the best things I did early was actually just go to a design, an agency, like a web app agency, but just for the designs. I just wanted to get like really light designs. I think I paid like 500 pound to get my vision of what this was going to look like and to explain it. It was about like trust the trader initially where you would upload the care that you would need. It would then be shared with all the regulated providers. They would then log in and they'd be able to offer their support. So rather than calling the 15 different providers, you did one task of uploading the job in about 5, 10 minutes that would take to complete that and then you'd have a real time list of people that could actually help with the prices. And that's what I kind of contextualized in these mock drawings that I went done and then I just went out and spoke to providers initially. So like my competitors that were in there and I went round five, I'm like here, this is what I'm looking to do. And one of them was actually then Andrew Parframer that then became my co founder. We can go into that in a minute but we actually pre sold to those five off the designs and basically got like 25 grand off them to be to have a proprietary patch and then I used that money to then go in and build the product. But naturally then I was getting validation from my customers before I even built anything. I validated the concept quite quickly which again was just good gut instinct I guess that helped me get to that stage.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: So then you were self founder at the start and then had a co founder join as you've sort of mentioned early on. What sort of stage was that that the co founder.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: So it was pre launch. So what with the wireframes and this is where I always say like kudos to AP for this because Andrew Parfray, Andrew Parfrey AP yeah, we have to, we're both Andrew so we have to abbreviate and it's better than little and large.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: Depends how you use those words.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: And yeah, so I wasn't in the tech sector so I was non technical at all. And terms like co founder was not something that we were overly aware of. And he probably now was like I wish was co founder now because he actually invested to then launch the business which so we seen it more as like business partners but as we got more in the tech system it was definitely More co founders. And in hindsight he probably should have just got his equity for coming on the mission and the journey. But I managed to get some money out of him, so we'll take that.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: You could pay to do it by your co founder?
[00:09:19] Speaker A: Yeah, he got paid to go through the torture. He paid to go through the torture, yeah.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: That's an interesting way to do it. That's a smart way to do it.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: That again, just got instinct. But yeah, at the same time we didn't because we were competitors as well. Right. You know, it was an unusual dynamic, but our upbringings, our kind of personality types were very similar. You know, like we got on well and like the care business was a very difficult business to run. It's fairly stressful.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: And you found a home for the business recently?
How long ago?
How long ago Was that?
[00:09:55] Speaker A: So Caresoft got acquired in April 23, so the assets got acquired.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: And when did you look like? When did you start? When did you go to the design agency and ask them to.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: 2016, 2015. So we launched in May 2016 in our event space in Code Base. We brought a whole bunch of care providers to the event space to tell them this is something different, this is what we're launching. It's going to be a tech business in the space. And Ollie did the preamble of what codebase was at that time.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: So Ollie, who's Codebase legend, still at Code Base today, one of the founding community members.
So you've been an operator in the care home or the care delivery space, Care operations, A founder and maybe co founder, although it sounds like there was a slightly different relationship there and then.
And so that was a seven year stretch by the sounds of it. And then investor as well. Have you done the full cycle?
[00:10:51] Speaker A: I've not done. I've not done actually direct investment into companies yet.
It is something I would want to do, but I didn't know I was going to be good at it.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Well, that's why it's a betting game, isn't it? If 95% of startups fail, then you've got to just overcome that.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm with a young family, so I invested my money, but predominantly invested in property, so I'm a bit of a cop out. But as that appreciates, hopefully then I do want to deploy it back into the ecosystem. As in checks, you'd want to be in the right space. You make the investment that the founder feels no pressure or you feel like you don't want to give them any undue pressure as well. So I think that's fair.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: Would you back yourself as an investor?
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Obviously, the early you go, the higher the risk and the probabilities are much more difficult. But there's something in, I think, founder mentality, tenacity, and that read on that person, that's really who you're writing the check for. Like, are they.
Have they got a point to prove? Are they going to go out to do it? What's their motives?
Are they going to run through the brick wall to make this a success? Because that's what gets kind of is required, you know, like, you have to think for the next decade of your life, you're going to start a business, it's going to be focused on that. Do they feel passionate enough about that space, that problem, that they're going to stick it through those highs and lows? Because it's not no story. Even the best success stories have always had the ups and lows, but everybody just focuses on the good bits, not the bad bits.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that TechCrunch article that says the business has been acquired hides a load of challenges and lows in there, apart.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: From some of these AI ones in like six months. It can't go that wrong, can it? So they must be suffering.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: So how is your. Do you still identify as a founder? Like, how has your identity shifted over time? Where would you. Where would you put that?
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I kind of like to refer to myself at that stage as a recovering founder was probably where I was at, but very close to relapse.
I think that kind of founder instinct never, never really leaves you to some degree. I'm definitely like an ideas person and I do like to be creative and I do like business informing business. As I said, I've got a property business, so I've still got like a founder element in that. But, yeah, probably I'm looking to go again, you know, like, in terms of, like, different things. I've had enough time to decompress and take all those, those learnings. It feels like there'd be a good way to kind of put that back in where I'm at.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So thinking about that then, like the learnings that you had through that journey that you now use to guide founders to either avoid mistakes or do the double down on the good things.
What were some of the biggest lessons, turning points in your journey with CareSourcer pivots? Like, feedback that you either did or didn't respond to. Like, trends that you were seeing? Like, what were those big ones that you take away from it now?
[00:13:49] Speaker A: Yeah, the there's probably a lot like that would go in there. Like that kind of got instinct of selling early I think is really important. If you can start to get that traction and validation from customers that people are prepared to pay for it, then that's really important. We raised quite a significant amount of money. Like we had a 500 grand like seed round which was quite a good sweet spot for us. We then managed to get to like a team of about 10 to 12. We're in quite a small room. I really like that size of the business because you are naturally quite focused because there was only so much you could actually do of the people that you've got. And the communication cycle as your business starts to scale to like 30, 40, 50 people, communication becomes more key internal in terms of like internal comms. But when there's just 12 and 15 of you in a room, you can hear everything that's going on and it's very easy to be aligned and you're just executing well with good velocity. So quite quickly when we were at that stage we were doing some really good work. We raised eight and a half million as a series A. So it's a very significant amount of money.
And with that though comes pressure to gain more traction. But also other opportunities arise and then it's far easier for you to get like spread thinly again and the focus starts to go one big thing behind say probably I would like to have took that money but then stayed that team of 12 for longer.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: So Lena, take the same amount of money or not take it use deploy the same amount of money but in a different way.
[00:15:26] Speaker A: Yeah, like when that money came in, we probably.
Whenever you get a lot of money, I think there's always like a good bit of to wait for a better period and not just go spend it straight away. The natural instant is to get running. But depends like if you're a proper. We probably raised a little bit pretty pmf.
So that put more pressure on us because we were starting to scale team and other opportunities when we still had some unfinished business that we had to get right over there. So yeah, that money would have been well spent in resource later if we had PMF and we could properly go and scale. So we probably raised a bit too much too early for us.
And that's what caused like a few like complications like teething problems kind of issues. It's hard.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And then I guess the problems multiply because the team is bigger and the amount at stake is bigger and then it all feels bigger.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: Yeah. And then it comes as like your leadership team, internal comms and internal management and people management becomes a bigger thing. And again, it's diluting away from, you know, like staying that lean and really focused on getting to product market fit. To know that I like to refer to the business as the dog pulling on the lead, as the business properly pulling you, that's a sign of product market fit. That's a sign of we need to put more capital in because we're ready to go.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Did you feel pressure to spend it then and was that pressure from you or from the investors?
[00:16:56] Speaker A: I don't think there was any self pressure to spend it as such. I think there was an element of there's pressure to scale revenue when you get to that stage, because you've got evaluation that's there that you need to grow into. You need to make sure that you're growing that business on that same velocity.
So we tried multiple different or we were in multiple different channels to increase the probability that revenue was going to be the upside. So we had care at home, we had care homes, we had nhs, we potentially had local authorities.
They all have unique products and nuances. It's not like A1, the core product worked for them all. But the acquisition and the nurturing and the client management and everything else that comes with it, that gets overlooked by a lot of people, needs investment and time and bottom. And then that's where it started to get spread.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: So there's like a regulated industry that you're selling the solution into.
How do you navigate that as a startup where you don't have a. Well, you had a big enough team but you don't have like all the expertise maybe in house to navigate the regulation. Maybe your mum's not in as your compliance officer at that point, but how do you manage operating in a regulated space as a startup who's nimble and sort of making it up as you go?
[00:18:11] Speaker A: Yeah, that's may not be able to answer that. Great. Because we ourselves were care providers like myself and ap. We both had care businesses that's highly regulated and we'd worked with NHS and local authorities in those businesses. So when we were at caresource, we kind of knew the nuances of how to work the management and contracts and how we could kind of get into that space to work with those bigger stakeholders. But yeah, the likes of Codebase, where we've got Medtech cohorts, where there is access to NHS innovation teams, innovation hubs, that is a good starting point for a lot of early stage companies to Get.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: So it's getting direct access to the people who can teach you that stuff.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And a lot of what I don't necessarily think this is a positive because we're going to NHS and MedTech is that there's a bit of a proven path in the uk where NHS and Trust, like pilots, they like you to go in and explore it and do more research and validate the kind of product and the offer can you deliver what you say you can deliver.
So that's very good because NHS has a brand, it's a very respected brand globally. And so if you do the good work and do a good case study and proper research in that type of way. But maturing that into then commercial agreements is just very difficult in the UK because it's so. It's under so much stress, especially financially.
So then it's probably then you're looking to go broader fields.
Dubai, uae, the States, they're far more like commercialized products. And because you've got NHS branding and kind of kudos, that just helps with that sales cycle going through there. But yeah, innovating and health tech and med tech in the UK, I do think is quite a difficult one.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: And had you started that expansion into other countries before?
[00:20:02] Speaker A: No, I kind of wish that. Probably a bit of a regret or wish that we had because I remember, you know, Chris McGee, current health like we both had the same investors and they were probably like six months in front of us in terms of like the journey. So we both won Scottish Edge but like six months behind. We both won an SBIR NHS contract but like six months behind and then both raised from investors roughly in that kind of same time period.
They, I think they caught on quite quickly that their product was far more akin to America and they were going down that pilot route again. And then chess in the UK and their sales obviously kicked on. But we, for whatever reason we didn't feel we were that quite ready to go out to that market yet. There were still, and I do think this is a bit of a problem where innovation in the UK to some degree we've previously talked about, you know, when you look at Israel and Estonia, like their tech communities are naturally then born to scale quickly that come out of that and they see global scale quite quickly. But the UK is just a big enough market where there's enough here to kind of get some traction and see it going through, but it's not as commercially savvy as business and investment isn't fast flowing as some of those other ecosystems. And that's where like getting out to the States earlier would definitely be on my radar. And we know that from a lot of the Silicon Valley trips and people that are going out there, when they come back, the mindset's different.
They see the barrier far less that we potentially just sit here and be like, America feels so far away or daunting.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: It's just the next country over, isn't it?
[00:21:40] Speaker A: Next country over.
5 hour flight to somebots.
So it's not actually too daunting. And yeah, I actually spoke to a founder of one of Scotland's billion dollar companies earlier this week and their business was basically solely in America and he was kind of saying we need to get over this barrier of like getting out there, like it's far more accessible than what you think.
If that's what you want and what's right for your business and where the majority of your customers are being, then just, you've got to get out there.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: Do you think it's even more challenging, mindset wise, in Scotland? Like you said that the UK is sort of a big enough market that that can create pretty big business and we know it can because we've got companies that have done it.
But if you're in Scotland, do you then also feel like you start with Scotland, then you expand to the UK and then you go out and that delays it? Is that what you see from some of the founder mindset or is that.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Not a. Yeah, I probably see.
I don't even think it's a mindset thing. I think it's a little bit of local access.
These are my local customers. These people are down the road. That's naturally who you're going to do your face to face with first and your conversations and those loops. We quickly went down to London.
That was a big market for us and it worked quite well for us. In London, both our investors had a touch point and in London that we could then use. And again that had the ripplings of what I would imagine America would be like in terms of faster scale. Whenever we went down, we felt that we could significantly move the business further forward far quicker than when we were just here.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: So one of your tips then, is it to Scotland founders is to have that corridor to London open early on and to have that corridor to the US open as early as possible. Find a way to make it happen.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I kind of think London's a given.
You've got to get down there. I said this recently when we were down there at an event, I booked flights there. It was I think 70 pound return.
I know it's not the most eco, but I can get down there and back up and move things significantly forward in a day. In a day, Yeah.
[00:23:53] Speaker B: I mean that 6am flight to Stansted from Edinburgh is not fun. You know, it works.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: 6:20, I want it.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: I think that's. I was on a panel last week that was talking about this, like, do you need to be based in London? And I said no, you don't need to be based in London but you need to be there.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: And that doesn't mean you need to live there, but that's, that's the gateway. That's the biggest opportunity we've got, is to be connected in. It's the biggest ecosystem in the uk. It's got all the things you need.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Europe, Dean, Hub, you know, all the countries that basically fly into there, the access to talent and some of the network I've got there from now, like even founders that have been like BCD like raises there then have that ripple effect of all their networks as well. So it's just definitely trying to get into that ecosystem and the probability of success I just think is higher because it's, it's easier to get those inroads and those connections and introductions to the non negotiable. That non negotiable. Got to get to London. No excuse. There is no excuse. There is definitely no.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: I'm with you. Yeah. And so the journey that you went on, you're sort of talking about like building the business, the eight and a half million. And then we've referenced very briefly that there was an acquisition in 2023. Can you describe what that process looked like, what that endpoint was for you and then what your transition of the business into that acquirer looked like as well?
[00:25:11] Speaker A: It's probably best to give a bit of pre context which would help with that. So during all that was Covid, which was a bit of a disaster for us as a business. So our main commercial model was.
And then Covid obviously hit a lot of care homes and there's a lot of deaths within care homes. So placing someone in a care setting, they basically went proper into lockdown as well. Doors were shut and there was no admissions happening. And for us we just didn't know as a business we're probably burning about 200 grand a month. You know, it was quite a significant burn. So we had no idea how long that was going to go on for. And yeah, we had to furlough some team to kind of see how long that was. Going to potentially play out for.
And our team were excellent. Like, loads of them had previous Skyscanner or Fangio jobs, so it made sense that a lot of them would go and find work elsewhere for other startups and other companies that were on the upside of COVID because there was lots of winners and losers within all that space.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: I worked for a travel tech company, so we were not doing so well.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's amazing how that can impact your business. Again, you can't plan for that. It's completely unforeseen. Yeah. So the team was predominantly furloughed and that was kind of like left with our core, like care matching team and care expert team.
And we kind of pivoted a little within there and a little bit of opportunist because during COVID predominantly that caring problem or the son or daughters normally who would help find the care, the main touch point those people had was with their work because they were all remote and they were dialing in and it was quite isolated.
So we actually seen this opportunity to sell this as an employee benefit to employers and a couple of large corporates actually took us up on that and then we rolled it out to firstly their employees, but then they went to go on and then roll it out to like eight and a half million customers in the UK that were then able to access where we called it like care Concierge was the concept that would be. And it would be basically, if your loved one was looking for care, we would help assess what funding type you would be. If there was any benefits that you didn't have, we'd come up with like help them work with their care, plan what type of outcomes they were looking for. Shortlist either care at home or care home providers, arrange viewings, negotiate on care fees, like all those type of a complete package. We would just do that for everyone.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: That'S responding to the market and the customer demands and just offering them what they are asking for.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And we kind of did that a little bit on hybrid. So it was quite. The team did a lot of the work, but when we used like our product to shortlist the arrange viewings and do the bookings and eventually kind of digitized the care plan a little bit as well so that we could bring that forward.
And then we were just delivering that and the business was kind of like ticking along. We're quite a small team.
And then we actually got inbound from two separate companies within literally space of like two weeks.
And I don't know if there was something Going on in, like the London VC world, where these companies were vying, being like, what about this? Could we kind of like speak to this company and see if this could get over the line? We did a little bit of like, they've offered us what could you do? And then managed to come up to a deal that would mean that the team would be a core part of this business going forward.
And then they were also looking to like, amplify what we were delivering and again roll it out to corporates at a large scale. And that's what we ended up going with.
And yeah, the transition, the team was fairly small, so it wasn't too bad. I think there was a little bit of, should it change to the brand of the acquirer or should it remain as, like, caresourcer? How are we going to navigate that with our website assets and all the kind of stuff that we're delivering there? So we eventually landed on, like, the website would stay as Care source or mainly because the care provider community, we had good brand recall with them and they kind of knew us as a trusted partner within there. But for the employee benefit side and going to employers, they went under the new brand, which was Care Hero with a.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: With a K. With a K.
The care was with a K, not the hero. Yeah.
And so. So does Care Sourcer as a website still exist?
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Still there, yeah, still there.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: That's a cool legacy to have.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, there was the.
What's interesting now is something like Care concierge is now like a uk. It's like a proper brat. Like, it's a thing now that we've created a real bit of the sector and I think looking at some of the stats, it was nearly like 50% of working adults get this as a benefit now in the uk. Like it's from other competitors and other services and then picking that up and then deploying it into the sector. So we were definitely onto something and it's good that that legacy kind of remains. And I'd like to think that we've left, like the main thing you want to do as a founder, especially in the care space, is just kind of leave it better than how I started with it. And I think we've definitely done that credit to the team.
Those care experts, they were definitely a really key.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Are they still in the business as well?
[00:30:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I think some of. Some of them are and some of them aren't. You know, like, it's always different. You know, we were really close and really tight knit and then that can kind of get lost A little bit. Once you move, the culture will definitely change. But.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: And do you see the acquisition and where it is now as a success in terms of what you were setting out to achieve? Is that success now?
[00:30:48] Speaker A: I think it's not ultimately what we wanted to deliver, but I think given the circumstances and everything that arose during all that time, we probably did do the best that we could do with the cards that we were dealt and have to accept that. I think there's a little bit of me burning in terms of like, unfinished business and that kind of go again factor that pulls you back to be again. All. Like, most your learnings aren't done with the wins, they're done with the losses or the hard times. And we had our fair share of them. So, like, I feel like there's a good element of how can I take those learnings and put that back into potentially another venture and see where that goes?
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like, could I do knowing what I know now, which is not naive? Like, that's the naive version is you do it all wrong the first time and could I prove that I can do it even more successfully next time?
[00:31:37] Speaker A: And the baseline's completely different. Completely different. Yeah, it's. Yeah, I think about. Think about that quite a bit.
That's definitely the justification to my partner.
[00:31:49] Speaker B: But last time you hated it.
In terms of the transition, then, what was your role in moving Care Source into Care Hero and how long did you manage that for?
[00:32:00] Speaker A: Yeah, so I started as head of Transformation.
[00:32:03] Speaker B: Did you.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: It was the title that.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: I think we have that role here.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we do.
The other person in the UK with the.
With the title and yeah, the. The first three months was definitely integration and like, that's not gonna lie. It's pretty. It was pretty boring.
With a tech business, you've got all these subscriptions and different accounts and everything like that. And there was duplication. So whether we're trying to merge that and streamline that and passwords weren't up to date and all that kind of like really admin boring stuff, but important that you kind of get it all done and over the line. And we did manage to majority get that done in the three months.
And then from there the business that acquired us, we're quite good at giving me a bit of ownership in terms of the website and still progressing some of that forward and trying to scale that in its form to more care homes and to also then add another product line to like the care home service. So then I started to deliver that.
But yeah, I Did it for.
Actually just did mornings for a year and a bit and then it was just getting to the time for me where been in the care sector for quite a while now, it felt quite the same. I wasn't really developing or learning or challenging myself. I was kind of going through the motions a bit and I just felt it was the right time. And to be fair, I think their founders as well would say that was probably the right time as well. And yes though last week I jumped on a call and they were kind of asking me questions about some of the legacy stuff that was there. So yeah, that door is always open. I do speak to the founder quite, quite regular.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: So yeah, I think I'd class that as a success.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: That's a success.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I would definitely say so in terms of getting to that success point, if you were to give take away two lessons from it, like one being one thing you wouldn't do again and would definitely change and then one thing that you think you would repeat again because it gave you the biggest chance of success, what would they be?
[00:34:08] Speaker A: Yeah, the one thing I, I would definitely suggest would be if I was to look back at myself and to the founders that are now supporting through this stuff, the ones that engage the most, the ones that they're like sponges or an eagerness to learn.
That's when I was kind of engaging with cobase and the Stevens and they, I would go to them with a question, they would say you should think about this, this or this or actually it's this is what you probably should be going down that path. I actioned that like toot sweet, like got it done executing, then went back for more feedback. I was really keen to learn from people that had been there, done it, that had more experience.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: And you were hot desking in the code base?
[00:34:51] Speaker A: I was hot desking down.
[00:34:52] Speaker B: So you were around people all day? Yeah, that's what spitballing, asking them questions.
[00:34:56] Speaker A: That'S what's important for me. So when I had the other business I did the mornings.
The office was in George street there and then I would walk over in the afternoon I would sit in the co working and it was like two young lads, can't remember their names now actually, but they were two man band in terms of like an agency where they were building stuff and I was just listening and asking them, putting them off, asking them questions and then leading into introductions to other people. Because care is like a tech for good.
People were really keen to hear what it was doing, how could they contribute? It definitely had A pull factor. And I leaned into that. And yeah, I'd go meet people that worked for Fangio and Sky and Scanner for a beer and just chuck questions at them and probe them and try learn as much as I could and then quickly turn that around and say, how can I take from what they've said into implementation so that I can then go back to them and say, here, look, this is what I've achieved since the last time we've caught up. And it just helps starts to build that momentum.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: And investors like that too because they see that you actually make progress.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: Yeah, really, really can't emphasize it enough in terms of immerse yourself.
It's that kind of build, measure, learn, but it's like speak. Yeah, execute, get the feedback back again.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: I guess what you said differently earlier was around the not taking that money and spending it on team and building really quickly.
[00:36:20] Speaker A: Yeah. The thing I'm probably more cautious of is I'd caveat this because like if you're. The cold start problem is real.
When you've got a job, you're trying to get a business off the ground. It's brutal. It's so hard.
And sometimes if you're able to take, if someone's willing, friend, fools and family are willing to put that money in early, take it to get it up off the ground and get it going. Because that's the hardest bit to get that momentum going. But once you start to get some of that momentum, you're starting to see sales coming through.
You should really then at that stage be thinking, what's the type of business that I want to have? Is it global? Am I wanting VC money?
Is that the route I want to go down? And then actually thinking about how much money do you need to make that a success?
And sometimes it is a large chunk of money gives you that buffer of Runway, which is totally fine. But keep the team, if the terms fall in your favor, keep the team small, work and execute and let the business push rather than you try and pull it.
[00:37:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that links nicely to like seeing what the opportunities are at this time. So I was in startup building from 2015 to 2020. 2021, now on the periphery a bit more. And that was a different time and you were a bit further forwards. But we see ourselves in a completely different space now where teams are much leaner because they have the tools that enable them to be much leaner. You don't have to build the tech and dev team. Right. Like from like front load the tech team basically because You've got the tools to help you do that early bit. So what are you seeing now that's. That feels like it's a foresight that maybe now is really relevant. And what are you seeing that's exciting coming from the businesses in Scotland that you're now engaging with?
That is the new and different way of doing it that you weren't able to do?
[00:38:09] Speaker A: Yeah, the, the AI agent businesses are definitely.
This isn't a smoke and mirror thing. That's real deal. Like what was it said? It's not, it's not a game changer, it's literally a world changer and it might not be good because it's going to be so disruptive and how this goes forward. And the businesses that I've supported recently, the three probably that I think have the most potential, are all AI agent businesses where they're using agents to do tasks that were manually done by individuals.
And yeah, they're all getting good funding, they're all getting good investment, they're all getting good traction in sales and it's an iterative thing, you know, it's only getting stronger and stronger and better and better and more accurate and it truly is going to disrupt so many businesses out there. And we've even seen to a degree the wordsmith race that's just kind of come in where they are using some of this technology to do what people were doing and faster, more efficient, more accurate. You know, it's quite frightening.
[00:39:15] Speaker B: And do you think that being based in Scotland, so you're referencing some companies that are, we know, sort of making really strong progress and like above what we see have seen maybe coming out of Scotland the last few years.
Do you think that being based in Scotland has a unique advantage that we're able to now capitalize on? And what advantage is that?
[00:39:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I think if you look at like Code Base and Techscaler, there's not really a better place to be able to start where there's so much support to come through. And yeah, there's kind of like some businesses will benefit from more support than others, but it's that community aspect that's been starting to build. We've started to see lots of businesses get success.
We've had, you know, FanDuel, we've had Skyscanner, we've had current health, even free agent to some degree. Those people have then come back into the ecosystem. We've managed to retain some of that talent. We've not had a lot of them found their own businesses, although there is a few that have but those employees are now key people in some of the scale ups that we're seeing that have been there, done that and are increasing the probability of success.
So, yeah, I think Scotland is a great place to start a business, but also what I see for a lot of those founders is that, yeah, they're Scotland based, but their mindset's not Scotland.
They've been to Silicon Valley, they've been down to London. I think a couple of them actually worked in London for a tech company and now live up here, are working on their business. So it's a great place to have a family, work in tech and grow. That's. Grow a great business, you know, and we've got to appreciate where that is. Right. And if you're maybe 20, then maybe you are going to Dubai or wherever, San Francisco or the States and that's where you'd want to do it. But for some of those mature founders that have family, then it is one of the best place to start a business.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: And you mentioned Ross from Wordsmith. Well, you mentioned Wordsmith. I've just mentioned Ross, who's done that, where he's worked in Travel Perk and Skyscanner, I think, and then gone on to found his own business.
What other founders or startups are you. Can you mention any that you're really excited by and, and in Scotland at the moment?
[00:41:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I wheel these ones out all the time though, so it's kind of. But it's repetitive. They are the ones that definitely, I feel, have the, the highest potential. And we've had Ask Vinnie, I think like some of the stuff that they've been doing.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: Rory's been on a previous podcast, Rory's.
[00:41:50] Speaker A: Been on previous podcast.
And then we've got the Use Neuron guys who co founded and were part of our programs and went to Silicon Valley trips, really what they're doing. And Port Day, they're still quite early, but again, this is this early stage mindset, how they're going about solving their problem, speaking to customers, iterating really fast. They're lean and keen.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: As I say, Alex is following your motto of definitely of keeping the team lean until you get that big opportunity.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: And they're doing, they're achieving so much with just the two of them. It's phenomenal. And I can just see that. I think they'll start to kick on. And then I should give a shout to Danae Val.
She worked at caresourcer for a time and it's good to see, you know, like even the fallout of caresolshire we tried to be as transparent as we could with all the learnings that we could do and share it with the team. And we had Jamie from Bypass, who then got acquired by Love Electric recently and I think Ari as well was another one that started her own business.
So, yeah, starting to see that ripple effect on a smaller scale, which is. Which is great.
[00:42:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I definitely think we're feeling it. Like the technation report came out last week showing Scotland as like the second fastest growing tech ecosystem outside of London for the uk.
So there's some really strong.
[00:43:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And buck the trend on seed investments as well, which again is where a lot of our kind of effort and focus has been. We're seeing that kind of pre seed to seed and seeing that uptake is really positive and hopefully in time and like they come in. It takes time to build these and build a business and get that traction. Wouldn't surprise me. In 18 months, two years, we start to see a few more Series A coming through and hopefully that's above average for the trend and will show. The work and effort that we're doing is starting to show, I think.
[00:43:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I've got my eye on a few. I'm keen to see what happens in the next year for sure.
And so what's next for me? For you? Like, what have you got on the horizon? You said you've always got ideas, you've always got things that you're up to.
[00:43:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So first and foremost, ERI code base.
[00:43:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:52] Speaker A: But yeah, we're looking to launch a new startup. It should be in the next coming weeks. It's called hosl.
It is vintage for Golf is probably the best way to explain it.
There's something in me that obviously we've had previously a marketplace with CareSourcer, so there's more self talk to marketplaces.
[00:44:12] Speaker B: My background's in marketplaces and it's not where I would naturally go next.
[00:44:15] Speaker A: It's obviously how my mind works and the things I would like to solve as well as. Like, there's a lot of.
There's just a natural few couple of good headwinds in that space that I've kind of identified and I can quite clearly see like what you were saying if you were starting now.
We didn't do this at caresore, so we're definitely going to do it now, early because this was a huge bit of our success and that's pretty much SEO for some degree. You know, it's a bit of a longer tail, but once you get it, it's really hard to unpick and we found out at caresocial that we managed to get basically number one or number two for a lot of the regions for searching for care in the UK And I can see quite a similar path in that space.
[00:44:55] Speaker B: Although that's changed now with AI driven search results on things like Google you do have to have a different way that you're platform is read by the Internet to.
[00:45:05] Speaker A: Yeah. So touch points of content. And again this is probably goes down to know your customer and think about is that customer going to change their behavior to find their products. So are they still going to go to Google and look for a secondhand golf driver or are they going to ask ChatGPT secondhand golf driver And I wasn't so sure because I've chewed on it and I don't think that behavior will change as much but doesn't both be led by what the customers are doing and what we can see in the data.
[00:45:33] Speaker B: That's like your one takeaway tip for everyone.
[00:45:35] Speaker A: Then get to the. Yeah. In a current world that is a disruptor. Right. Like what's going to happen with Chat GPT? We can. I use that just as much as I use Google now in terms of like search but only for certain things. A lot of it's in a work capacity is actually what I use more Chat GPT personal I don't use it.
[00:45:52] Speaker B: As much but I use it more for analysis. So. So like here's a thing and here's a thing. Can you see if they are the. Are they the right.
[00:46:00] Speaker A: Your personal life?
[00:46:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
Like here's a thing and does this thing also show all of those things? Like do they overlap? Can you critique it for me? Yeah, it's more like a critique. Critique the two documents for me and show me where the gaps are and then it means you can better for me it's about I want chatgpt to coach me. I don't want it to do my thinking.
[00:46:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:22] Speaker B: So I use it in a slightly different way.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: I like this is maybe for founders. I like insights into other similar products.
So I'm like for me in the mode that was looking at like hosel and stuff like that Reverb is the exact same play but for music.
So we've got secondhand music stuff and I just kind of like Chuck so many questions and to understand what does it know about reverb that saves me scrolling all the different pages to understand.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: Yeah I hadn't used it in that. It's a new one for me for ChatGPT and then finally where can people find you? How can they chat to you and learn more about what you're getting up to, both in terms of your EIR role at Code Base, but also in HOSL.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: Yeah, so I'm quite active on LinkedIn. That's obviously one, but codebase is probably my main touch point. So if you're part of programs or part of cohorts, then please just reach out to program managers and say, could one of the eris come chat or want to speak to Andrew?
[00:47:20] Speaker B: That's awesome. Thank you, Andrew, for all your time today, all your tips for sharing your story, and I look forward to seeing what you're doing with HOSL moving forwards.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: Nice. Thanks very much. Thanks for having me.
