George Morris: Scaling Up Ventures
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to George Morris, a lifelong entrepreneur and business coach who has not only weathered the storms of the entrepreneurial journey but has emerged as a guiding light for others on their path to success.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- My biggest mistake was abdicating responsibility when I should have delegated responsibility. Towards the later stage of one of my companies I was going through a divorce. I thought that everything was good & didnāt see myself as integral in the company anymore, so I turned everything over to my business development lead & the team while I checked out to deal with my personal problems. About 18 months later I didnāt know what decisions had been made & what direction the company had gone. I couldnāt blame them, I was accountable. I should have taken the time to delegate and clarify all the things that needed to be done and check in on people.
- If I come across an owner or CEO thatās frustrated or overwhelmed, I have them create 3 columns: Love, Loathe, Indifferent. I get them to write down everything about their business into these columns and get them to focus on the āindifferent column to figure out how committed they are to do these things to help the organisation and get them to get help for the things they arenāt committed to so they get done.
- Startups tend to want to look for unicorns, the person who is an expert in a particular skillset, hiring for talent rather than fit ā the ability to trust or even have conflict with each other. All these talented individuals butt heads, donāt see eye-to-eye, arenāt committed to the same outcomes. For me itās a bout the team, getting the right people in the right seats and getting things right. This is the first things companies should do.
- I am equally as excited about AI as I am terrified of it. Itās going to impact every single job in the next few years. To what degree, I donāt really know, but if we can get to a point of AGI (artificial general intelligence) that will be game-changing because it will be very human-like. Itās tool that we need to incorporate, bring into our skillset and adapt to it but right now we canāt quite see where itās going to go, in terms of strategy & how itās going to impact our companies. But, it would be remiss of us to ignore it.
BEST MOMENTS
āI go into companies and give them a framework to work with that they adapt & make their own & we build it from there so that they have a system that they can run on.ā
āRichard Branson is very good at figuring out what heās great at, delegating everything else & letting people do what they can go do, he doesnāt seem like a micro-managing leader.ā
āMake sure youāre developing the rich culture in your team & getting the right ethos in your culture.ā
āI use AI to help teams accelerate different elements within their companies.ā
ABOUT THE GUEST
George Morris is a lifelong entrepreneur and business coach, known for his unwavering commitment to helping individuals and organizations reach their full potential. As a single father of two, he embodies the values of dedication and perseverance both in his personal and professional life.
ABOUT THE HOST
There are over 140,000 FinTech ventures out there, including FinTechs, InsurTechs, HealthTechs, and WealthTechs. And the number keeps on changing every month. One statistic remains the same: 25% of these ventures have received investment and support from the financing world. 75% of these businesses still seek financing support from institutional and corporate investors alongside value-creating commercial collaboration opportunities with Global Fortune 500.
Through this podcast series, I would like to demystify the world of corporate venturing, including how corporations collaborate with growth ventures, how venture capitalists and corporate venture capitalists make investment and collaboration choices in ventures and give tech founders and entrepreneurs, the strategies, tactics, tools, and techniques to build, grow and scale their business by understanding how those with financing power think. So, listen in, share and comment as you see fit.
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