Tony Raven has twenty years experience in starting up companies and financing them, as well as, extensive international, commercial, and regulatory experience, particularly in North America and Japan.
In 1985 Tony was instrumental in the formation of Summit Technology, the Boston MA based market leader in laser refractive surgery, which was acquired by Nestle Alcon in 2000 for $893m.
In 1987 he was a co-founder of Sagentia Group plc, a London Stock Exchange listed technical and management consultancy. In 1991 he founded Diomed Inc, the pioneer and world leader in therapeutic medical diode lasers which, after six years as a listed US company, was acquired by Angiodynamics Inc in April 2008. He is currently Director of Research & Innovation Services at Southampton University, Southampton Innovations, Southampton Asset Management and Nanotecture plc.
Tony will be telling us the secrets that he wished he'd known when he started, instead of having to discover them the hard way. The talk will include information on how to be a successful entrepreneur but also how to manage things such as family and personal life, through to raising finance, building a team and surviving the inevitable company crises.
Tony will also be giving us his reasons for why now, despite the economy, is a particularly good time to become an entrepreneur.
These are my Big Fish notes from the session:
Enthusiasm
- Focus
- Sell the idea to yourself – if you can't do that then you've no hope of selling it to others!
- Tell people. You don't need to give away intellectual property to get some incredible feedback. Without this you will waste weeks on an idea that doesn't have legs. When you go out searching for investment, you will already have the answers to difficult questions.
Networking
- Talk to everyone with an ounce of intelligence. Join networking groups, entrepreneurs' networks and tennis clubs… whatever it takes.
- Pitch to everyone, be interesting, make friends and take business cards. People would rather do business with someone they already know.
- Ask them difficult questions, they will ask them back!
Get a Great Team
- Learn to delegate…then follow it up!
- Where possible, don't overlap peoples work – it will cause argument.
- Remember that you probably won't get the roles correct first time.
Product to Market
- Make sure your product is ready for market. If it isn't you'll get shredded in the shark infested water of Venture Capital.
- CASH IS KING - -> get paid for what you do! Start as you mean to go on.
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