A first-time founder who just launched a new food hall startup shares 5 tips for starting a business during a crisis
, many hugely successful tech founders have historically launched their startups in the wake of an economic downturn. Prominent tech companies like Spotify, Uber, and Airbnb all emerged in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis.While at the British food delivery startup, Warne helped the firm grow to become a unicorn startup valued at more than $2 billion. Just before Warne quit, Amazon bought a 16% stake in Deliveroo for $575 million in 2019.
On July 4, Warne and his 50-person team opened the doors to its first venue, Shelter Hall in Brighton. He plans to launch in Bristol next, with a number of other UK cities in the pipeline. 1. Don't be the founder who obsesses over everything"You have to give autonomy to people to scale things with you ... Allow them to be creative and to test things and to learn quickly and to develop off the back of what they learn," he says.
"I'm trying to allow a degree of autonomy, a degree of people feeling as though this is theirs as much as it is mine, as much as it is our investors. That can be one of the most rewarding things for somebody working in a business," he says. An important part of making any business work is finding partners who share your vision.
"For us, sustainability is really important," says Warne. "Our business at Shelter Hall is 98% built with re-used materials, so we wanted to partner with an investor that shared the vision around that." This, he says, is why he chose Brighton-based VC firm Brighton Ventures, which focuses on sustainable investment.
This is why Warne chose hospitality VC firm Imbiba as his headline investor. "They have operational expertise in-house, which I felt I needed if I was to foray into a business that in parts at least is a hospitality business," he says.Having an alternative background can also have its advantages, says Warne, allowing "you [to] bring perhaps a different perspective to the industry.
This has been particularly important with COVID-19 because of all the logistical challenges posed by social distancing measures.
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