In this week's episode we speak to Alex Craven, CEO and Co-founder, founder of The Data City.
Alex tells us about the sale of Bloom Agency, the harsh lessons learnt when selling a business, how and why the business sale went so badly wrong, half a million pounds worth of contracts without trying with his new business, data City and how ADHD and the risks it encouraged affected Alex’s business journey
INTRODUCING ALEX CRAVEN
Alex founded a digital agency and MarTech company in 1999 and sold in 2016, Alex has been pioneering applications of new technology throughout his career and is now CEO of The Data City, a tech start-up that uses machine learning to map the global economy for government and the private sector. Alex is active member of the digital / tech community, regularly speaking at events, judging awards, providing Non-exec advisory services and is also the Chair of web 3 start up ‘Pooldata.io’. Alex is a champion of diversity and inclusion and is passionate about raising awareness around neurodiversity and Entrepreneurship.
Listen to the first half of this interview at https://leedsbusinesspodcast.com/episode/alex-craven
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
[00:00:00] The sale of Bloom Agency
[00:05:15] The key lessons learnt from the sale process and the problems afterwards
[00:09:00] Jaywing and the departure from there
[00:13:50] The launch of Data City
[00:22:00] How to innovate within your business
[00:28:00] How ADHD affected Alex’s whole business journey
KEY TAKEAWAYS & BUSINESS LEARNINGS
Due diligence in the sale process is a two-way process - it is as important for you to check them out as they to check you
The sale price is the first payment. If that isn’t enough don’t do the deal. 90% of earnouts don’t happen
Founders have two problems; the first is a people problem and the second is the time it takes to identify that they have a people problem
BEST MOMENTS
“We shouldn’t have to sold to them, and they shouldn’t have bought us”
“I was met at the door by one of the directors, escorted to his office, escorted to my office and the escorted out. I couldn’t help but laugh”
“I am unemployable”
“I don’t see it as risk, I just see it as an opportunity to get through”
VALUABLE RESOURCES FOR YOU
Website: www.leedsbusinesspodcast.com
Website: https://thedatacity.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-craven-17b1441/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-data-city/
Twitter (personal): https://twitter.com/AlexCraven
Twitter (business): https://twitter.com/TheDataCity
Shout outs: https://wac.rocks/ https://www.roberts-mart.co.uk/ https://claritywealth.co.uk/
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ABOUT YOUR HOST
Phil Fraser went from an accidental kitchen table start up, with no investment, all the way to multi-million pound sale to a PLC 18 years later. He’s travelled the full SME business journey of launch, growth, scale and exit.
As well as hosting the Leeds Business Podcast, Phil now works with ambitious SME-owners as a Business Sounding Board (think somewhere between Business Coach and Business Mentor). In simple terms, he’s ‘a pair of ears and an extra pair eyes’ for SME Owners helping them to be better at what they do. Phil’s mantra is It doesn’t need to be ‘lonely at the top’. He helps Business Owners to be better business owners, by helping with their clarity and focus.
As a Business Sounding Board, he gives SME Owners the time & space to regularly discuss their challenges and opportunities, with no sense of judgement or bias, and in complete confidence. This allows them to explore their options in full, culminating with a list of issues to address/clarify, a clear target in mind, a roadmap to success, and a renewed enthusiasm and confidence for the challenges ahead.
Phil has appeared as a guest on over 60 podcasts, webinars and interviews, from around the whole globe, talking on a variety of business subjects. You can view them all at https://philfraser.co.uk/watch-hear-phil/.
LEEDS BUSINESS PODCAST
Bloom Agency, Jaywing, The Data City, Leeds, Paul Connell, Leeds Business, Business in Leeds, Nous of Fraser, Business Sounding Board, Business Coach, Business Mentor,
Email: phil@leedsbusinesspodcast.com
Mentioned in this episode:
Pre roll November
As November is my birthday month, I've got three special offers for you.
If you can say yes to the following four points, you qualify.
You have to be a business owner, have three to 15 staff, a turnover of between 350, 000 and 3 million, and wanting to develop and improve yourself and how you run your business.
