Bill Lewis is the founder and leader of Linacre Digital Media. He holds a degree in Business Strategy, Leadership, Merger and Acquisition, Operations Strategy, and Globalization from Harvard Business School. Bill started his career as a senior financial analyst at Ford’s Europe division. Throughout his career, he worked for more than a dozen companies, including KPMG, British Airways and was the co-founder in 2012 of Temasys Communications.
Born as a technologist, he has evolved into a consummate leader and boardroom titan. He’s helped many entrepreneurial businesses including some Fortune 200 companies.
In this episode, Bill shares his painful investment story of loss and his takeaways from the experience. You may relate to his story, or have lived one of them, but most importantly learn from it.
"Find a way of getting a hands-on exposure to a new business model and a new business environment before you commit financial investment."
-Bill Lewis
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Resources:
Topics Covered:
00:57 – Bill’s entrepreneurial and investment background
02:44 – Bill describes the circumstances that led him to his worst investment ever
04:08 – Bill shares his worst investment story
05:44 – Qualities of the American company that Bill invested in
06:20 – Type of investment Bill made
07:35 – Why product-market fit is so important
08:10 – Signs of failure and how he knew the business is not working out
09:08 – 3 Takeaways from Bill’s investment experience and his actionable advice
11:39 – Andrew summarizes the critical learning point from Bills experience
13:33 – the Crash of 2008: Chapter 2 of investment failure for Bill
15:28 – Andrew shares the CFA’s standard of ethics
Main Takeaways:
- Lesson 1: Find a way of getting a hands-on exposure to a new business model and a new business environment before you commit financial investment.
- Lesson 2: If you are going to enter into a commercial agreement with someone who allegedly has the product and the experience, you need to make sure that they have some skin in the game.
- Lesson 3: Have a committed and loyal staff. Employees are so much more than paid workers – they are ambassadors for your brand and everything that your business stands for. As members of your company, they must be acquainted with the products or services that you offer.
You can also check out Andrew’s books
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