{"id":1792,"date":"2018-02-01T00:42:01","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T00:42:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dgen.net\/blog\/?page_id=1792"},"modified":"2026-03-30T17:13:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T17:13:14","slug":"founder-startup-and-investor-support","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/services\/founder-startup-and-investor-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Founder, startup and investor support"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2619 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/dgen-startups-1024x387.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"332\" height=\"141\"><\/figure><\/h5>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">About you<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>If you are a founder or CEO, or looking to support one in your portfolio, to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">build a strong and investable business case for the business, its clients and potential investors;<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">create the right culture and conditions for multidisciplinary innovation;<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">navigate how to create, plan, deliver and scale the business;<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>explore constraints&nbsp; (e.g. tech vs legal vs commercial) to identify sources of value;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">get the most out of leaderships, boards and delivery teams;<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">connect with tech, business, government and investor communities across sectors;<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>structure strategic development across product, sales, marketing, operations, and finance;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">work out which 95 things to not do, and how to focus on the 5 things you should;<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>continuously develop, test and iterate on progress based on user needs;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>We can bring our experience to your challenges, and help navigate the ups and downs of delivering the thing you are passionate about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">About us<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>Dgen&#8217;s founder, Gavin Starks, has 20+ years experience creating dozens of companies, employing 100\u2019s of people, and delivering $100M\u2019s in measurable impact. He Chaired the development of the UK Open Banking Standard, was CEO of the Open Data Institute and has led teams of 250+ across sectors spanning the web, data, science, finance, policy, and media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/overview\/constellation-team\/\">Dgen Constellation<\/a>,&nbsp;we also have dozens of experts who can help you: from finance to development, marketing to HR, research to investment, who can work on an as-needs basis to help fledgeling ideas develop, funded businesses grow and successful companies scale.&nbsp; We are looking to learn and combine experiences to help deliver complex, large-scale impact-based projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are currently helping&nbsp;<strong>startups<\/strong> (finance, environment),&nbsp;<strong>larger businesses<\/strong> (fintech, environment, media), <strong>charities<\/strong> (environment, arts) and <strong>governments<\/strong>&nbsp;(banking, finance, climate) to develop their innovation strategies. We can engage as a non-executive director, advisor or mentor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How it works<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>Ideally, you&#8217;ll be based in London so we can meet face-to-face, although much of our work is on international projects (across Europe, North America, and Asia) so online+travel are options. We&#8217;ll start with a (free) chat to see if it&#8217;s worth exploring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Early-stage startups<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>Usually, things work best if we have weekly or fortnightly meetings for 1-2 hours to help focus on what&#8217;s important. We are compensated via an ongoing monthly fee plus options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Later-stage startups<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>As Advisor, Non-executive or Chair, we will work with the Founder\/CEO (and executive management as needed) to develop, constructively challenge and assist the business in the provision of support and advice, including but not limited to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><b>Executive function<\/b>: supporting communication with the board, investors, and clients<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Business plan<\/b>: development of written outputs that define outcomes, timings and how goals will be achieved<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Business strategy<\/b>: development of the vision, market positioning, and scale<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Delivery tactics<\/b>: development of the roadmap to execution<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Fundraising<\/strong>: direct development of, and participation in, pitches<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Commercial models<\/b>: exploring commercial models (e.g. open vs SaaS vs IP-based, for-profit, non-profit blends)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Culture development<\/b>: how to develop internally- and externally-facing team cultures that will support the business as it grows<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Organisational structure<\/b>: modelling skills, timing, contractual form, costs<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Hiring and people<\/b> <b>management<\/b>: defining processes and procedures<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Resourcing<\/b>: analysing the resource needs to support the business<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Product development<\/b>: understanding user-centric design and its relationship with product marketing<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Data development<\/b>: supporting the shaping of your data roadmap<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Finance<\/b>: financial modelling aligned with the strategy and resource needs<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Sales<\/b>: sales modelling, pricing, segmentation, prioritisation, process<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Marketing<\/b>: market sizing, segmentation, campaign approaches,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>PR<\/b>: how to proactively manage external communications<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Content<\/b>: developing the internally- and externally-facing assets required to support the strategy<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Monitoring<\/b>: assistance in the definition and monitoring of quarterly goals, and holding the team to account on delivery.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n<\/li>\n<p><!-- \/wp:post-content --><\/ol>\n<p><!-- \/wp:list --><\/p>\n<p><!-- wp:paragraph --><\/p>\n<p>Email Gavin at gavin@dgen.net or ping via&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/linkedin.com\/in\/gavinstarks\">LinkedIn<\/a> if of interest.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/wp:paragraph --><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About you If you are a founder or CEO, or looking to support one in your portfolio, to: We can bring our experience to your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2619,"parent":1715,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1792","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/PfJFK3-sU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1792"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7832,"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1792\/revisions\/7832"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}