19/06/2023 16:30
Born for tech and business
Once upon a time in Tottenham, North London, creator, thinker, investor and Angel Investing School founder, Andy Ayim, and his brothers used to make the weekly walk to a local business park to indulge in their passion for tech and gaming.
“Since I was young I was obsessed with technology and business, so once a week we’d make the hour round trip to engage with gaming, tech and the internet before we had it in our house.”
And when he wasn’t yielding to the delights of a Nintendo emulator, Andy was feeding his curiosity for business with the Financial Times. Andy’s first taste for business came from indulging in the Financial Times weekend edition that his dad fought for him to have.
“People in Tottenham don’t read the FT so my dad negotiated with our corner shop to order a copy in. Reading this, especially the weekend edition, opened my eyes to the middle-class experience that I didn’t see in Tottenham. I was curious about the connection between technology and business. I read about the likes of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, but felt a disconnect between what was happening in Silicon Valley and my world in Tottenham.”
Fast forward to adulthood and Andy took on the management consulting world, but left after feeling “like a really small cog in a massive wheel.” Andy took his first step into the startup world joining startup consultancy, Elixirr, and enjoyed travelling to different continents with his work. It was in San Francisco that Andy first became involved with VCs.
“I was in Hong Kong, China, South Africa and then San Francisco. I networked with leading VC firms like Sequoia, A16z, Greylock Partners and Lightspeed Ventures. I formed relationships with them and got to understand their portfolio companies. Then I flew in massive companies from Africa and the UK for emerging technology tours in San Francisco and Silicon Valley so they could meet the startups with the solutions to their problems.”
The consultancy was a big hit and remains strong today. It was a benchmark for Andy.
“That exposed me to entrepreneurship, technology and a fast track into venture capital. I was passionate about sharing and teaching this with others, but at that point, I didn’t know how.”
Creating solutions
Andy’s first foray into business ownership began in 2010 with the launch of music platform, Mixtape Madness, not long after his consultant career began. Growing up on a diet of grime and hip-hop, Andy felt the platforms for artists were a disservice to their talent.
“It was 15 years ago, so before Spotify and iTunes, and YouTube wasn’t what it was today. Artists were using MySpace and dodgy sites. The way we built Mixtape Madness was like an MVP (most viable product) where the artists could try out different sounds and tracks. We didn’t know about VC or angel investing; we focused on making money by creating value for the customer.”
Mixtape Madness was a success and today has 1 million subscribers and is the third biggest media outlet in the UK. Despite the company’s success, Andy’s experience of VC highlighted to him the distinct lack of diversity and would take him closer to the space.
“None of the partners were black or brown. I only met one female. This was back in 2015 before the language of EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) was a thing. There was nobody like us on the boards of these companies or as partners. So I started blogging. I wrote stories about famous artists that have gone into the finance space, as I knew this would resonate. People like Nas who co-founded QueensBridge Venture Partners or Chamillionaire who used gamification to build his customer base. It was about spreading awareness. I’d been an entrepreneur, an intrapreneur, but I had no experience being an investor. I think it happened based on serendipity and luck!”
Andy’s next step was a podcast. When he interviewed Arlan Hamilton at Backstage Capital, which was only operating in the US at the time, Andy found a lot of parallels in their lived experience.
“Arlan had raised about $2-3 million in the US at that point. I encouraged her to come to the UK and help her get immersed in the UK VC ecosystem. I introduced her to LPs (limited partners), GPs (general partners) and angel investors. With the help of the Diversity VC and Balderton Capital teams, we put on a packed-out event talking about investing in overlooked founders, in 2018, and people loved the conversation.”
Off the back of the event, Andy was invited to a meeting by Zoe Jervier-Hewitt who was with EQT Ventures at the time, to ask Andy to be the managing director of their accelerator business idea.
“I joined Arlan to build the accelerator and create a blueprint to go to different markets. We raised $2.5 million and then launched in Detroit, then Philadelphia, LA and London. I was managing director of the London arm.”
Atomico was one of the investors and through that relationship, Andy joined their angel programme.
“What I learned was that many of the diverse founders on the Backstage Accelerator program were from working-class backgrounds. They struggled to close their initial funding rounds because they didn’t have access to networks of capital and wealth. They don’t have an ex-Goldman Sachs or ex-McKinsey friend to call on. They also didn’t have access to the entrepreneur network. I started the Angel Investing School to solve that problem.”
“Started from a tweet and now we’re here”
In 2020, Angel Investing School was born. Andy hadn’t made many angel investments at that stage but he wanted to teach others about angel investing and join him on his learning journey. And it started with a simple tweet.
“It started off as a bold idea, I shared it on Twitter and then put together a document that explained everything. I priced it at £300 as I felt that was reasonable for the value I was offering and people trusted me: 17 people paid for it! Every session I asked people for feedback and people loved it, so it gave me the courage and confidence to do it again. It started off as a thought and then it began to get global recognition, I got an interesting opportunity with Google to train 100 black Googlers. From there they set up a Black angel group and so far they’ve invested $2 million into 22 startups.”
Despite this diversity initiative, Andy has never really talked about diversity within Angel Investing School as he markets it to be inclusive. To date, he’s trained around 400 people with around $3 million invested across the network.
Building a network
Investment is a relationship business. Connections are imperative but not everyone is born into a ready-made network giving them a springboard into their chosen career. So Andy, always keen to feed his curiosity, came about his appreciation for connecting with others through life experience.
“I originate from Ghana. My parents sacrificed their lives to come to the UK so their children would have better education and more social capital. In Ghana, the high potential is there but there’s a low level of opportunity. At 21, I went backpacking in South America, and it was an enriching experience for me as I immersed myself in new cultures. I realised there’s more that connects humanity than not. It’s less why, but more why not when connecting with people. I was forming genuine connections.
“This is why I initially flew to San Francisco and went back time and time again, to connect big companies from the UK and Africa to emerging startups from the US. I didn't have an ego, I asked stupid questions and was a sponge for learning. I didn't waste people's time, I took away the learnings and actioned them and I thanked them and told them what I'd gone on to do."
Today, Andy is well-respected and has a large and diverse network. And though there are many he’s grateful to along his journey, there’s a few standouts when asked about mentors.
“In the very beginning, Francis Mainoo translated all the investment language for me. He worked in private equity and introduced me to people in different investment roles. I wish more people could have access to that. I cherish it as it was pivotal to my life outcome.
“They’d hate to be called mentors but Check Warner and Matt Penneycard at Ada Ventures. They’ve been real supporters and friends, even pre-Ada. And other friends I’ve grown through the industry with such as Yvonne Bajela - we went to university together - and Andy Davis. I’ve been fortunate to have good circles around me and that’s always made a big difference in my life.”
The future
“I set intentions at the start of each new year and review six months in. For the second half of this year, I’ve changed it - I want it to be more audacious! I’ve set a goal to train 10,000 new angels by 2027. We want to scale our impact and we know that increasing the number of diverse angel investors means more diverse companies get backed. Angel rounds give entrepreneurs the chance to take that shot.”
When asked about advice for those breaking into this space, Andy is clear about one thing:
“Be yourself - lean into who you are even when you’re uncomfortable. I’m comfortable with being myself now and not adapting myself anymore. I enjoy my work and its impact. It’s tempting when you come from a ‘different’ background that you feel you need to change to assimilate and become part of the culture. Instead, think about how you can change the culture. We need different perspectives as we see risk from a different perspective and spot different opportunities.
“That’s why I invested in the global hair extension and product company Ruka Hair. I grew up nurtured by Black women - my aunties, mum, sister and cousins - so I could empathise with the challenges they faced.”
The next big challenge is the hot topic of AI.
“AI needs to involve all of society to program AI or it will only serve the few. We need to train models based on society to ensure the right boundaries are in place and to ensure ethical AI. We should always be designing for inclusion.”
And finally, Andy is excited about how remote working is democratising access and wealth for people in overlooked countries, looking at Uber as an example.
“Those who are underrepresented now get the best in class training with technology. Uber is employing across three continents, so those people will then go on to start up businesses in their countries and democratise access, value and wealth.”
Plug, Share and Ask - Andy’s choices
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