This week we hear from Helena Murphy, the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Raising Partners. After receiving poor financial advice and having to wind up her first business, Helena experienced stress which greatly impacted her physical health. 

Helena subsequently established Raising Partners to support other early-stage entrepreneurs in raising investment and avoid the pitfalls she had previously encountered. Working with companies in sectors ranging from technology to healthcare, and consumer retail to renewable energy, Raising Partners seeks investment opportunities with companies positively impacting both people and the planet.

Helena’s advice:

• Begin with the very best financial model possible: numbers are the foundation of your business
• Don’t delegate all the finance - understand it yourself.  
• Be aware of the cash flow, look ahead, so that you operate from a position of strength and knowledge rather than trying to catch up when it’s too late
• Your accountant should be someone who not only deals with book-keeping/accounts/VAT/systems etc, but someone who acts as a finance director and can take a strategic look at your company’s progress, who understands the different stages of a company’s growth and can help you take the long view
• Never underestimate common sense
• Also never underestimate your capabilities
• Be firm with your boundaries
• When pricing, put a value on experience as much as on time
• Spend time judging the cultural fit of a client, as this will reflect on your company

If you’d like to contact Helena you can reach her via [email protected] or Twitter.

• Head over to Speakpipe to leave your voice note for future guests too.
• LastPass the password-keeping site that syncs between devices.
• Google Workspace is brilliant for small businesses
• Buzzsprout podcast 'how to' & hosting directory
• Canva has proved invaluable for creating all the social media assets and audio bites.
• For contracts check out Law Depot.

Recorded, edited & published by Juliet Fallowfield, 2021 founder of PR for startups advisory Fallow, Field & Mason. Edited by Renale Mathurin. MUSIC CREDIT Funk Game Loop by Kevin MacLeod.  Link & Licence

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