The publication
Notes on buying, building and backing private companies. For readers who want to understand what sits beneath the headline.
Founder stories
Before the books and the software, Mohamed El Hadri was an engineering student in Perpignan with a car, a web form and a problem every student in the city shared. This is the story of Plansam, as he told it to us.
Buying a business
A value is not a fact waiting to be found. It is the answer to a question, and professional valuers ask three different questions to get one. Here is how to use all three before you put a figure in writing.
Buying a business
Most listings tell you what the seller wants you to see. Here is how to find what matters, and when to walk away before you waste a week.
Angel investing
Angel investing is not a television show. It is a slow, patient way of backing young companies with your own money, and most of the work happens before and after the cheque.
Due diligence
You cannot check everything. You can check the things that sink deals. A working checklist for buying a small business, in the order that saves the most time.
Buying a business
Few buyers pay the whole price in cash on day one. Most deals are a stack of four or five sources. Here is each one, what it costs and what it asks of you.
Angel investing
The UK gives generous tax relief to people who back young companies. What the two main schemes offer an investor, what they ask in return, and the mistake they tempt people into.
Market notes
"Three times earnings" sounds like arithmetic. It is a compressed opinion about risk. How to unpack a multiple and tell a cheap business from a merely low-priced one.