One of the beauties of being an investor and advisor to companies is the inside look you get at the way they work and the technology they use or build.
In the last two weeks I spent some truly educational time with my friends at Fact360 and with a totally different business, Gould Barbers.
Fact360 have a great piece of true Artificial Intelligence software that can take data in the form of emails, social messages, telephone calls (which it transcribes, then uses) and pretty much any other form of data you can name. Then using network analysis, it is being used to look at fraud and e-discovery work in insurance and legal cases. It also does an awesome job of evaluating the health and culture of an organisation, offering a state of “wellness” analysis of any business and monitoring it over time. Both applications use very clever machine learning based upon work first done in Bletchley Park during World War two.
Seeing the product being used to examine all the data in the Enron case, while being guided by one of their partner clients, who showed us how the software could be used to reveal the problems, the frauds the insider dealing, and the way whistle blowers were treated. As well as revealing who really knew what, and then hearing the transcripts of the telephone calls between the guilty was quite staggering. This is one of my investments that I will be keeping for a long time. They have the capability to be massive in my opinion and it’s a pleasure to be a board advisor for them.
Gould barbers on the other hand are a highly successful barbering brand. With thirty-five shops across the UK, (which makes them the biggest independent chain), mostly inside Tesco stores, where guys and the kids stop to get their haircuts while their partners shop, may appear a little sexist, but it’s clearly a winning formula. It is a family business and I get to meet and advise one of the two brothers who own it. They clearly delight their clients and their relationship with Tesco is exceptional. I won’t reveal any of the details about what is of course a private company, but they have formed a super relationship with one of the biggest retailers in the world that is certainly working for both parties.
Getting to understand the dynamics and the key performance indicators of a barbering business whilst helping to advise them on their business strategy and growth path is a real delight, and its often done over a couple of poached eggs on toast in a local restaurant in early morning catch up meetings.
I write about this because I am going to be speaking at the Association of Business Mentors annual conference in London later in March this year. In terms of the two businesses I spoke about earlier I am something of a business mentor. Having been attached to both for a few years now I do help and suggest ways the businesses can grow and flourish, but I also consider the owners of both friends that I do mentor in a personal manner too. I don’t get paid directly for either appointment, but I get a lot back from doing it. I always learn a lot myself when I am doing things like this, and I get to see cool things before many others do, or they are part of a mainstream market.
There are many people like me in the world, many who are far more successful and could pass on their knowledge and expertise to others who are following them. I think it’s important that you “give back” where you can and although with some companies I charge fees, many others do get free advice and mentoring on a long term but casual basis.
This is a request that fellow entrepreneurs do make themselves available to talk to the next generations of inventors, entrepreneurs and simply crazy people who are trying to make their fortunes whilst providing something of use.
In closing I had also better say that my hair cut is not done by the guys at Gould’s barbers, in case you don’t see me as a reference client for their services. Some poor unfortunate who runs her own business as well, and has cut my hair for many years gets the displeasure of spending half an hour with me every four weeks talking about my latest ideas at a thousand miles an hour.