Cutalks By Cutec

This week on CUTalks we are talking to James Hawkins, co-founder of PostHog, an open course product analytics software, which recently went through Y Combinator and has raised a $3M seed round. James shared some tips for budding entrepreneurs who might not have enough experience to start their own business yet. He also shed some light on the different business models of open source companies, taking examples from RedHat, MongoDB and Gitlab. He firmly believes that there seems to be a trend of open source software taking over SAAS system in recent years. He also explained how PostHog pitched their open source business models to various investors. Lastly he shared about their recent seed funding round with Y Combinator and the experience of working with the firm To find out more about CUTEC, visit https://www.cutec.io/ This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Dr Mark Goulston. Mark is an American trained psychiatrist, author of seven books including, "Just Listen" Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone, has contributed to Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Fast Company and hosts the My Wakeup Call podcast. He is also the creator of the field of Surgical Empathy in which people learn to let go of their personal agenda, and instead go to where another person is coming from, and then reveal their most important, critical and urgent needs and desires and then serve those.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Tim Brears, CEO of Evonetix. Evonetix is a synthetic biology company developing a desktop platform for scalable, high-fidelity and rapid gene synthesis. Tim holds a PhD from Cambridge University and has an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Tim recently led a $30M Series B round. Tim introduced synthetic biology and its immense potential in the industry. He also shared about some strategies that his company used in order to differentiate themselves from the larger players. Tim also talked about his experience raising fund from a different continent i.e. the US, while growing the company in Cambridge, UK. Lastly, Tim gave some career advice for PhD students who might want to work outside of academia. To find out more about CUTEC, visit https://www.cutec.io/ This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Marcel Gehrung, CEO and founder of Cyted, a startup using digital diagnostics to revolutionise the early detection of cancer. Marcel has also completed a PhD from the University of Cambridge and is an Enrichment Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute. Marcel talked about the various types of cancers that Cyted has to deal with, and how they picked the target market. He also spoke about his experience being a technical co-founder and gave general advice for people with technical backgrounds on what to watch out for. To find out more about CUTEC, visit https://www.cutec.io/ This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on #CUTalks we are talking to Professor Muhammad Yunus, a social entrepreneur who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution in microfinance and Grameen Bank. He talked about the future of social business and his newest book, A World of Three Zeros. To find out more about CUTEC, visit https://www.cutec.io/ This podcast was produced by Carl Homer, Cambridge TV.

This week on #CUTalks we are talking to Ollie Phillips, former English professional rugby player and now a director at PwC, charity ambassador, motivational speaker, and founder of ‘Optimist Performance’, which helps businesses build a team culture to succeed. Ollie shared some lessons on teamwork, leadership and resilience that he has learned from both his sports and business career. He also talked about how to handle difficult conversations with fellow teammates.

This week on #CUTalks, we are talking to Steve Blank, an 8-time Silicon Valley entrepreneur and creator of the customer development and lean startup method. He teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford, Berkeley and Columbia. Steve is also the author of four books: The Four Steps to the Epiphany, Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost, The Startup Owner's Manual, and Holding a Cat by the Tail.

This week on #CUTalks we are talking to Monique Boddington, currently Interim Deputy Director of Cambridge Judge Launchpad at the Judge Business School. Monique is a teacher and researcher in entrepreneurship, and we look forward to hearing from her about the insights she has gained from working so closely with many startups in Cambridge through the EVER project. These include issues like pivoting strategy, team dynamics, gender and stereotypes in entrepreneurship. She brought up several real-life stories and challenges based on her interaction with startups in Cambridge.

We are talking to Julia Rajnak, founder and Service Designer of Swishi. Julia is a Service and Experiences Designer having previously studied at the Royal College of Art. She is now launching Swishi to revolutionise the circular economy, starting with Switzerland. Julia shares about her experience scaling up the company, and the importance of integrating service design methodology into her strategy.

How has covid-19 affected the Southeast Asian (ASEAN) economy, and how can Southeast Asian countries leverage on the China-US trade war? Who will be the champion? Hear from Gita Wirjawan, Indonesia's Minister of Trade from 2011 to 2014. He is also the Chairman of Ancora Group, an Indonesian business group which he founded in 2008 with interests in real estate, technology, education and natural resources. This is a recording from a live webinar event that took place on 17th July 2020.

This week on #CUTalks we are talking to Carlene Jackson, CEO of Brighton-based tech company Cloud9 Insight. Carlene established her first business aged 17 and then spent nearly two decades in the software industry before going it alone to take advantage of the booming cloud technology sector. Cloud9 Insight is a Microsoft Gold Partner which has provided more than 700 UK businesses with cloud-based CRM software systems. Founded in 2010, the company has 30 staff and is also an award winning provider of training and apprenticeships programmes which it runs through its sister company, Vantage Academy.

This week on CUTalks we are talking to Yasrine Ibnyahya, director of advanced concepts and technologies at Inmarsat. She has done an MBA at the Cambridge Judge Business School. Yasrine talks about her experience being an intrapreneur in the satellite industry and mentor to women in the industry. She also shares her portfolio-based strategy for championing innovative projects within the company to manage risk. Yasrine highlights some of the differences in creating innovation between large companies and startups. She gives advice to aspiring entrepreneurs who are still early in their career.

This week at CUTalks, we are talking to Stephen Lile, co-founder and general partner of Oxbridge Angels, a recently founded early stage fund with a focus on Deep Tech and Life Sciences. The firm is made up of Cambridge EMBA and MBA students, with other investors as Limited Partners. Stephen started his career as an investment banker, became serial entrepreneurs (started 4 companies) and moved to academia upon doing master study at the University of Oxford, EMBA in Judge Business School and now as a PhD student at the University of Cambridge. Stephen shares some of the harsh lessons about entrepreneurship that he has personally experienced, and several tips and tricks on human and financial capital management that every startup founder should master. He emphasises the importance of being resilient as most of the time, the odds of success is against most founders.

What does it take to commence a successful biotechnology start-up? What risks are involved as a private equity investor? How can one manage and offset the risks of cashflow and company control vis-à-vis founders possessing controlling shareholdings? Hear from Dr William H. Janeway, a private equity giant from Warburg Pincus and University of Cambridge, Faculty of Economics lecturer. This is a recording from a live webinar event that took place on 12th June 2020. Content: During this webinar, Bill discussed the economics of innovation as illustrated by the founding of Life Technologies and resolution of the ‘Biotechnology Paradox’. Bill delved into the risks associated with investing as a private equity investor in this industry and the substantial growth in the number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology IPOs in the US. Format: Opening remarks were provided by Bill. Pre-submitted questions from our audience were then asked and further questions submitted via the online platform ‘Menti’ were welcomed on the t

#CUTalks by CUTEC has just launched a new mini-series: Female Founders in the Spotlight. This series has the aim of increasing visibility of female founders of early-stage startups. To launch the series, Shreya Singhal and Thomas Bohné have been talking to Urshita Gautam, co-founder of Revive Innovations. The company is developing a patent-pending adrenaline auto-injector that is half the size of available devices, more discreet and incorporates design features for better performance. Urshita talks about the importance for every company to adopt a user-centric design approach in order to develop products that fulfill the customers’ needs. She provides some practical agile product development advice, especially for companies who are operating in the medical technology space.

#CUTalks by CUTEC has just launched a new mini-series: Female Founders in the Spotlight. This series has the aim of increasing visibility of female founders of early-stage startups. To launch the series, Shreya Singhal and Thomas Bohné have been talking to Lucy Jung, founder and CEO of Charco, a medtech start-up working on a device for people with Parkinson's disease to improve their quality of life. Charco is currently testing a vibrotactile stimulation device, and have received positive feedback from participants about how the product helps improve their movement and coordination. Lucy shares some stories about her early experiences with the startup and some of the challenges that they are currently facing. She also discusses her team’s efforts in helping NHS dealing with Covid-19.

This week we are talking to Daniel Rooke, co-founder, partner and head of legal at StartCodon, the Cambridge healthcare and life sciences accelerator. Daniel speaks about his experience working in both large companies and startups, which aspects are similar and different. He also emphasizes the importance for founders to critically think about what they really want and need when finding accelerators to work with.

Given the current Covid-19 pandemic, everybody is reaching out more to people in their personal and professional networks, and so we thought we would do the same. We have been catching up with founders who we have previously had as guests on the podcast, to find out what they have been up to since our recording with them and how they are being affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The founders featured on this episode are: Alex Murray, Flit Nisarg Mehta, Vector.ai Helene Guillaume, WILD AI

#CUTalks by CUTEC has just launched a new mini-series: Female Founders in the Spotlight. This series has the aim of increasing visibility of female founders of early-stage startups. To launch the series, Shreya Singhal and Thomas Bohné have been talking to Jennifer Jia, founder of Emporsand, a company empowering women through access to sanitation as featured on the BBC. They are repurposing waste cuts of clothing into sanitary towels and making them accessible to women in poverty. We met Jennifer at the EnterpriseTECH and EnterpriseWOMEN at the Judge Business School. Jennifer speaks about the scale of the problem that Emporsand is tackling and the challenges that her company faces in developing a sustainable business model to solve this issue. She also highlights the need for investors and the public in general to appreciate that the lack of sanitation towels are not just problems for women but also the wider society.

#CUTalks by CUTEC has just launched a new mini-series: Female Founders in the Spotlight. This series has the aim of increasing visibility of female founders of early-stage startups. To launch the series, Shreya Singhal and Thomas Bohné have been talking to Nicola Filzmoser, co-founder of Happyr Health, a mobile game based on cognitive behavioral therapy, to help children cope with recurring migraines. We met Nicola at the EnterpriseWOMEN program at the Judge Business School. Nicola is pursuing a Master of Entrepreneurship at Cambridge while working on Happyr full-time. She shares about her personal experience dealing with migraines when she was young and the lack of proper solutions made available to her. Happyr Health have launched a crowdfunding round, initial target of £10k which has been increased to £14k after rapidly reaching their initial target.