Resisting Recession: The VC View? 'Keep talking to customers' with Steve Lemon

Episode description

In the first of a six-part mini-series, Dom Hawes speaks to Steve Lemon, partner at UK venture capital firm Volution about how marketers can help their businesses resist recession.

TL;DR The VC view is that businesses must continue investing in their growth engine: marketing.

Key takeaways

Economic labels like recession and inflation may no longer fit the situation now, making it difficult for businesses to navigate the market.
The fundraising environment is a potential leading indicator of the UK economy and businesses too. We’re seeing conservative decision-making and increased difficulty in raising funds. This will slow growth.
It’s important to maintain marketing efforts during tough times to maintain momentum, build the brand, and drive business growth.
Businesses should refocus on their value proposition, reminding themselves and their customers of the problem they're solving.
Marketing, sales, and product teams should work together closely to understand and address customer needs, segment audiences, and adapt their propositions accordingly.

About the Guest

Steve Lemon is a Partner at Volution.vc, co-founder of Currencycloud ($1bn exit to Visa). He’s an entrepreneurial and highly experienced fintech leader.

His leadership style is to hire smart people, align them behind common goals and get out of their way. Such a style can be transformational. It’s a mash-up of servant leadership combined with cross functional, collaborative ways of working and it creates massive team engagement - which leads to great outcomes for the end user and ultimately increases shareholder value. Steve has also been a Mentor for Techstars since 2017.

About the Host

Dominic Hawes is CEO of Selbey Anderson. He's been in the marketing business for over 25 years and has worked in agency, in-house and in early stage VC. He is a strategy specialist and an experienced M&A practitioner in small cap transactions. Dom started his professional career after six years as a commissioned officer in the British Army and 18 months as an analysts assistant at a well known management consultancy.

About Selbey Anderson

Selbey Anderson is the marketing agency group that helps businesses in complex markets win the future. With deep sector expertise in financial services, tech, pharma, biotech and industry, Selbey Anderson's clients are united by the complexity of marketing in regulated, heavily legislated or intermediated markets.

Resources

Linkedin: Steve Lemon I Dom Hawes

Twitter: Steve Lemon

Websites: Volution I Selbey Anderson

Subscribe: Marketing Difference

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy