Last Friday, I had the pleasure of a day off from emails and deadlines and spent my time instead at the Anthill Capital Raising, Acquisitions & Exit Masterclass run by Domenic Caruso. Time outs have been rare in recent times but this one was well worth it.
At RapidMap, the last few years have seen the company split into three distinct divisions, all tackling different aspects of the spatial technology market. The vision is for these divisions to become separate businesses when the moment is right.
Of course, we’re doing this with an eye to the marketplace and attending this course helped crystallize our thinking on how we could show the strategic value of those three businesses.
From within, it’s so hard to see yourself objectively. By listening to Domenic run through a series of real-life examples, we had the chance to see a whole series of parallels with our own situation and to imagine things from the investor’s point of view. Quite useful for stripping away idle fancies and emotional attachments.
The four things that stick in my mind, that we’re about to start doing better, are:
- Aiming to fill the gap in someone else’s strategy – We already know our strategic position in the marketplace but the trick is to flip it around and look at it from another’s perspective.
- When building up the value of a company, with a specific end in mind, being transparent about the goal that you are shooting for and sharing the potential reward is a very effective way of getting the whole team batting for you. Domenic gave us some good examples to work from here.
- Take as many of the risks out of the business as you can – investors hate risk and love things like recurring income.
- A bit of research on public information (customers, revenue and profits) may be all you need to start the conversation about the strategic value of your business/product with the big guys.
None of these are huge changes – just a different perspective and an emphasis on the things that will get the best results. A very good return on one day of reflection I think.
Sally Casey is General Manager of the Iconyx Division of RapidMap
