Scaling Ambition

Alex Appelbe is the Co-Founder of Metis Labs a company providing general intelligence for industrial systems by using deep reinforcement learning to build the factory brain. Alex and his co-founder Bashir were on EF8 and they started Metis Labs by saving energy in processing factories - helping one of the largest beverage manufacturers in the world to reduce energy consumption in each of their locations.

Alex is a mechanical engineer with a Master's in Industrial Systems from Cambridge University and built 10 years of experience in the manufacturing sector before joining EF. In this conversation we dive into Alex's personal story, everything he's learned about finding product market fit, hiring and funding in the process of building Metis Labs and what he's learned about himself along the way.

Alesis Novik is a Co-Founder of AimBrain, AimBrain, a Biometric Identity as-a-Service platform for global financial institutions. Alesis and his co-founder Andrius were on EF3 and what they're doing in simple terms is effectively replacing standard passwords and pins with voice, facial and behavioural recognition systems that can be used in isolation or in combination with each other. Alesis gained a Master's degree in Artificial Intelligence from the Edinburgh and completed three years of PhD work before dropping out to start AimBrain and join EF. In this conversation we dive into Alesis' personal story, everything he's learned about finding product market fit, hiring and funding in the process of building AimBrain and what he's learned about himself along the way.

Ed Miller is the Co-Founder of Scape, which is building the location infrastructure for city-scale augmented reality & location-based services. Ed and his co-founder Huub were on EF7 and their mapping and location technology allows devices to understand their position in the world, with incredible accuracy and efficiency, which is why they've been able to make such rapid progress since starting up. Ed has been working in the field of interactive imagery (VR, AR & 360 video) for the past 8 years. He started his first VR company whilst studying Philosophy & Psychology at university and produced interactive content for the likes of BBC, Vogue and the NHS. In this conversation we dive into Ed's personal story, everything he's learned about finding product market fit, hiring and funding in the process of building Scape and what he's learned about himself along the way.

Mostafa El Sayed, Co-Founder of Automata, which is working to make robotics affordable and accessible by installing it in the workplace.

Mostafa and his co-founder Suryansh were on EF4 and their first product, Eva is a bench top robot arm that can be set up in minutes, costs a fraction of other industrial arms, and can be used in a range of industries including metals, pharmaceuticals and electronics manufacturing. Mostafa didn't have a have a history in robotics before starting Automata and trained as an architect, working for Zaha Hadid, the designer of the London Olympics Aquatics Centre, before pivoting onto the startup path. In this conversation we dive into Mostafa's personal story, everything he's learned about finding product market fit, hiring and funding in the process of building Automata and what he's learned about himself along the way.

Noor Shaker, Co-Founder of GTN, a company that uses quantum physics and machine learning to search the huge space of potential drug molecules and discover drugs that were previously hidden from view. This means GTN can discover better drugs, more quickly, at half the cost. Noor and her co-founder Vid met on EF8 and after combining their expertise in machine learning and quantum physics respectively to found GTN, they've made rapid progress, recently closing a big funding round. Noor was Professor in Machine Learning and AI at Aalborg University in Copenhagen before she joined EF and has ten years of academic experience in the field, producing more than 50 papers with 1000 citations and an entire book on generative networks. In this conversation we dive into Noor's personal story, everything she's learned about finding product market fit and funding in the process of building GTN and what she's learned about herself along the way.

Theo Saville is the Co-Founder of Cloud NC, whose mission is to make the CNC milling machines used in many manufacturing processes one click devices that can produce a part easily and efficiently, effectively halving their cost. Theo and his co-founder Chris met on EF5 and have gone from strength to strength since founding the company, expanding their team and raising funding to develop their technology further. Theo studied Engineering at Warwick and gained a masters in manufacturing,  working in a range of fields including 3D printing research and freelance engineering before joining EF. In this conversation we dive into Theo's personal story, everything he's learned about finding product market fit, hiring and funding in the process of building Cloud NC and what he's learned about himself along the way.

In today's episode I kick off the podcast by speaking to EF Co-Founder Matt Clifford. Matt Co-Founded EF with Alice Bentinck back in 2011 and since then EF has gone from strength to strength, building hundreds of companies worth over $400m including Magic Pony Technology, Tractable and StackHut. After starting London, EF has now set up additional programmes in Singapore and Berlin and recently raising funding from LinkedIn Co-Founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman to continue scaling the EF mission globally.

In this episode Matt and I discuss: - Why the risk of starting a company isn't as big as you think and the two kinds of risk that prospective founders often confuse - How the world has moved from writing cheques to writing code and why technology entrepreneurship is the best career path for ambitious people - How EF has formalised its offering to serve the different parts of the startup path – from helping you find a co founder to getting you funded

This was a fascinating a conversation as always with Matt and you'll definitely get a sense of some of the driving ideas behind EF and insights into the current state of tech entrepreneurship.