The AWS GenAI Data Day 15th October 2024 morning session was catapulted to new heights when Hoxton Ventures Partner Payton Dobbs appeared for the must attend session “Navigating GenAI: Best Practices for Non-Technical Decision Makers & Founders.”
The AWS team put together an invigorating panel able to advise Founders on how to “get to grips with GenAI that is more straightforward for technical builders and decision makers.” Speakers included Danielle Walsh, CEO & Co-founder of Clearly (a climate intelligence platform that has recently raised $4.3 in a seed funding round, known for using data technology to help the transformation of transportation to net zero emissions), Ina Yulo Stuve, Head of UKI Startup Marketing, Amazon Web Services and an energised Payton Dobbs, Partner at Hoxton Ventures.
The session explored how business owners and non-technical founders could take advantage of the benefits of GenAI technology and see success by deploying best practice techniques that address the needs of non-technical decision makers. VC heavy hitter Payton Dobbs encouraged non-technical founders to equip themselves so they can to speak more confidently on technical parameters, and advised attendees on how to find and work with a technical co-founder, giving tips on pitching for investment as a non-technical founder.
STRENGTH OF THE NON-TECHNICAL FOUNDERS
Hoxton Ventures VC Partner Payton Dobbs focused his opening speech on Founders developing essential skills other than build, engineering and mathematics, highlighting that the diversity of skills and life experience were paramount.
“Show me you have expertise at your disposal and that does not have to be another Founder or even a C-suite Executive,” Dobbs declared.
Dobbs furthermore accentuated the importance of Founder expertise for defined problems, insights, build, and the ability of the Founder to assemble teams, identify the team, and ensure team members are ready to join the start up, highlighting the many great non-technical Founders hailing from market defining companies including Pinterest, Airbnb and Steve Jobs at Apple.
VC Payton Dobbs, hailed Founders who are able to show their own insight into a business, that no-one else has seen opportunities for. He championed the cause of Founders who know and understand deeply the customer problem, with clear use cases and declared himself open to new category creation, a major factor in the LatestSale.com Founder’s arsenal.
Ina Yulo Stuve, Head of UKI Startup Marketing, Amazon Web Services presented the notion of “Light space” and highlighted that “Good ideas will be great but not venture scale.” The panel then began to highlight the importance of multi billion dollar enterprises that are of interest to VCs due to their BINARY OUTCOME.
The panel admitted there was a massive gap in the marketplace with VCs backing SMEs to scale but other enterprises without the potential to become $1bn companies not receiving the resources they require.
AWS AND HOXTON VENTURES PANEL DISCUSS THE MOAT EFFECT
Danielle Walsh, CEO & Co-founder of Clearly whose aim is “to give fleet managers transparency over their supply chain emissions, enabling them to achieve net zero goals with higher certainty and lower cost,” spoke of the importance of market share considerations when pitching, earmarking the deployment of benchmark difficulties if Founders have created a new category. In all instances, when pitching it was agreed that Founders would need to be bold, focus on and illustrate untapped potential and a $1bn + opportunity.
The panel also advised against simplistic terms when pitching with founders often making declarations in relation to the total addressable market rather than highlighting the BIG CATEGORY potential, the opportunity, pricing power, defensible MOAT and IP.
LATESTSALE.COM FOUNDER ASKS HOXTON VENTURES VC PAYTON DOBBS ABOUT OUTSOURCING AND IN-HOUSE TEAM RATIOS
LatestSale.com Founder was given the opportunity to present questions to the panel and specifically Hoxton Ventures VC Partner Payton Dobbs. She asked Dobbs about business lifecycle management for team members and outsourcing versus a full employee base as well as her current no CTO status. Dobbs agreed that start ups may have a mixture of employees and outsourced team members with some functions extended further to inhouse roles including that of the CTO upon venture funding to oversee major projects. Dobbs added that “Venture invests in people, at some point a Founder’s team needs to include more than outsourced staff.”
Dobbs continued to earmark other strategies for success such as, “Speed to market- defensibility,” a key LatestSale.com MOAT alongside data, geographical, IT, and technical expertise.
Clearly CEO and Co-founder Danielle Walsh, emphasized the importance of defending against competition and encouraged Founders to build something sustainable if using open source tools for tech development, with domain expertise highlighted as an area of strength.
THE SINGLE PERSON UNICORN
The panel and founders debated the hot topic developers dare not discuss openly as Hoxton Ventures VC Partner Payton Dobbs wondered if we would soon see a new phenomenon: the next single person unicorn, where non-technical teams thrive and coders would no longer be required. Have coders become too good at coding themselves out of their own jobs?