Ep1: Bill Lewis – Importance of Knowing Product-Market Fit Before Making Any Financial Investment

Andrew Stotz — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 23:45:00 +0000

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Guest profile

Bill Lewis is the founder and leader of Linacre Digital Media. He holds a degree in Business Strategy, Leadership and Merger, Acquisition and Operations Strategy and Globalization from Harvard Business School. He started his career as a Senior Financial Analyst at Forbes Europe Division. Throughout his career, he worked for more than a dozen companies including KPMG, British Airways and was the co-founder of Temasys Communications. Born as a technologist he has evolved into a leader and boardroom titan. He has 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

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.

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