Why successful Invested Investor Simon Blakey feels he is sometimes a relationship therapist!

In its latest podcast, serial entrepreneur and investor Peter Cowley, who is also the founder of Invested Investor, interviewed Simon Blakey.

Serial investor Blakey shares his first rate tips from two decades of Angel Investing!

CAMBRIDGE, 12-Apr-2018 — /EuropaWire/ — The Invested Investor is a publishing project that aims to increase the success rate for entrepreneurs and early investors by sharing the journeys of founders and investors and learning from their experiences. In its latest podcast, serial entrepreneur and investor Peter Cowley, who is also the founder of Invested Investor, interviewed Simon Blakey, who has been a full-time and hands-on business angel investor for early-stage businesses since 2000. He’s invested in 28 companies over 69 funding rounds and achieved 8 profitable exits to date, including Bybox – taken from seed funding to a >£100M exit with no further equity financing. Simon works with his brother Michael under the Avonmore Developments umbrella (www.avonmoredevelopments.com) where he’s in charge of Avonmore’s deal negotiations and ongoing support of the UK early-stage investments.

When asked by Cowley about any lessons learned from his years of experience as an investor, Blakey replied, ‘I learn more from failures than successes. I invested in a company where I was the sole funder, and that was a mistake! There is more value investing with a syndicate of angels, I discovered only later’

‘You also have maximum leverage before you put the money in. I once told a startup with two founders that for me to invest, one of them has to be a CEO’, he explained further about what he has learned over the years.

What are the challenges of being an investor, asked Cowley. ‘The role of an angel investor is to add value, to help the entrepreneur or founders, but when co- founders don’t get along, you sometimes feel you are a relationship therapist. Sometimes it is braver not to do a deal, than to do a deal,’ replied Blakey.

Cowley asked if there is any further advice for future early investors, Blakey responded, ‘Networking.. Networking and deal sourcing is a key attribute for an angel investor’.

Invested Investor is a social enterprise aimed at helping investors and entrepreneurs to create a greater number of successful start-ups, as Cowley believes that by sharing lessons learned, the entrepreneurs will make less mistakes. A first book, titled The Invested Investor, will be released in autumn 2018.

Listen to the whole podcast on The Invested Investor’s website, www.investedinvestor.com.

NOTES:

About Invested Investor: The Invested Investor aims to improve the journeys of start-ups by educating angels and entrepreneurs to make fewer mistakes, work better together and produce more successful exits. We want to make angels more comfortable to invest their time, emotion and expertise into start-ups, and help entrepreneurs with how they should start to talk to investors and then build an honest relationship with them. For more information, see www.investedinvestor.com or email contactus@investedinvestor.com.