What do you bring to the club?
I bring a different perspective from lots of different experiences. I am passionate about inspiring & empowering people to change the world. People get so overwhelmed by the magnitude of what needs to be done to be more truly inclusive, equitable and diverse, and the easiest things to do is do nothing. I set up 'Purpose Driven Impact' to provide simple solutions and actions you can take in starting to become more inclusive. Simple, no nonsense & non-judgemental training, consultancy, organisational restoration and supporting with strategies for success. I've had a varied career and worked across the UK, USA, Australia & Africa in the commercial sector, professional sport, international development and international sport for development & charity sectors. As former CEO of Special Olympics Great Britain, I led a major transformational change programme culminating in a new strategic plan called “Inclusion in Action” which sets the roadmap for the future of the organisation. I am passionate about inclusion, diversity and belonging and creating inclusive environments which inspire people to be the best they can be. I bring some great stories and expertise to assist with breaking down barriers and helping people to make small changes which will have a huge impact. If nothing else, I bring an Irish Mancunian sense of humour!
What makes you unusual?
I am so uncool, that I am probably cool! I can drive a tractor & a digger, and once assisted a vet with a c-section on a cow (my folks have a farm in Ireland). I played football for Man United ladies in my youth, I was an Irish Dancer before it was cool, I brought the King & Queen of Lesotho to a T20 Cricket Match in Durham and I've been the only female president of a professional football club in an African country!
What do you want from the club?
I want to have some interesting conversations which light a spark. I'd like develop relationships and network with people who also want to change the world. If I can help people to look at creating more inclusive and diverse environments in a different way and inspire people to take action, then I will be happy. As a new business owner with huge ambitions to develop my business, Purpose Driven Impact, I want to be in a position to create paid employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for those who live with an intellectual (learning) disability, and create more environments and platforms where they can share their inspiring and empowering stories. Collaboration, Networking, Storytelling, Inspiring & Empowering.

What do you bring to the club?
I bring two different design solutions to the members of Home Grown ... • -•- • -•- • -•- •• -•- • -•- • -•- •• -•- • -•- • -•- •• -•- • -•- • -•- •• -•- • -•- • -•- • -•- • -•- • -•- •• -•- • -•- • -•- •• -•- • -•- • -•- •• -•- Through Eau Rouge Ltd. I create strategic, targeted and beautifully designed branding for businesses, plus any ongoing graphic design for print. I also design and build gorgeous and modern Squarespace websites. My websites are future-proof - We could start with a simple site designed to appeal to your target audience, and then - if and when it suits the business - add features such as a shop, a blog, a newsletter, or paid-for content in a membership area. I design websites that my clients can totally edit and update themselves, without it getting all too techie, or having to pay to outsource minor changes. • -•- • -•- • -•- •• -•- • -•- • -•- •• -•- • -•- • -•- •• -•- • -•- • -•- •• -•- • -•- • -•- • -•- • -•- • -•- •• -•- • -•- • -•- •• -•- • -•- • -•- •• -•- As Jade Thomas Jewellery, I design one-off pieces of luxury jewellery, featuring diamonds and rare or unusual coloured gemstones. I have a range of ready-to-wear pieces on my website, but I also design bespoke commissions and redesign inherited jewels into new pieces.
What makes you unusual?
With my design business, the answer is that I'm able to step into the mindset of your ideal clients really quickly, in order to create designs that appeal to them. With my jewellery, most of my gems are so traceable that I can tell you the exact day and location they were discovered and show you an image of how each gemstone looked before cutting and polishing. They are truly one-offs and make amazing gifts or a treat to celebrate a success!
What do you want from the club?
Firstly, having a beautiful, safe and central location in which to meet clients or simply use as a base when in London is a fabulous benefit to me and my businesses. It's also an inspiring place to meet business owners and entrepreneurs, and it is so, so much nicer than staying in a random hotel room on my own - I've also made some fab friends here! The staff are wonderful, friendly and I'm so happy to be a member. Whilst we've all been at home the webinars have been inspiring and thought-provoking, but I look forward to staying at HG again when possible.

How to structure a pitch deck that gets the attention of investors

You obviously love your business and you know everything about it so naturally, you pour everything into that pitch deck, but an angel doesn’t want to read paragraphs and paragraphs of text. They want a pitch deck to be skimmable.

Meet Nick Telson, Exited Founder DesignMyNight 2020 , Founder Horseplay Ventures, Angel Investor, host of the top 10 Global Business Podcast – Pitch Deck 🎙️ and one of our very own Home Grown Ambassadors!

As a top 35 Angel Investor in the UK (according to Stride VC) Nick knows a thing or two about what makes a pitch deck irresistibly ‘investable’. We learnt a lot from Nick during his master class for out members which you can watch here but today we thought it would be best to give you Nicks top tips on how to structure your pitch deck.

Make it Skimmable!

“Your pitch deck needs to pique the excitement and the interest of an investor VC or angel so they will then deep dive with you on a phone call or a meeting. The big trap a lot of people fall into is putting everything into a pitch deck.”

At Horseplay Ventures, Nick and his team receive around 50 decks per month, to capture his attention, it’s best not to create a deck that is almost 40 pages long.

“I just don’t read them all, you skim a deck, and you’re looking to see, is this an idea, what’s the team like, and that’s all you really need is skimmable…an angel does not want to read paragraphs and paragraphs of text so that’s the first thing to know.”

Is your pitch deck 15 – 20 pages long? if you’re over that, it’s probably too long.

What’s the problem?

The key to making your pitch deck flow is by following a very simple narrative of a problem.

What’s the problem?
What’s the solution?
What are we solving out there?
Why you?
Why our investment team?
Why now? (Why is this a good time for your business to receive investment?)

It all comes down to four things – Problem – Solution – Why us – Why now

Try to not forget to include your business proposal i.e how are you going to make money.

“You’ll be surprised to know how much that’s missed out on pitch decks! I personally like to see a forecast”

The who’s who.

You need to include who you are as a founder/s of your business and properly introduce your team. Nick says to be “..very self aware of the holes you need to plug. I think that’s extremely important when you’re speaking to an investor”An example of this could be ‘We’re going to need a growth marketing strategist and that’s something we’re going to be hiring after this round’ or ‘I want to hire a CTO because I want to bring our tech in house’.

Graphics / Presentation

First and foremost, take the time to design it nicely.

“If I see a deck that is just white backgrounds with bullet points, if it looks like GCSE level computer science, I think ‘if they don’t have the know-how to make their pitch deck look good’ that would worry me.”

Have you heard of Canva? It’s a free tool with tonnes of decks or templates already that you can then just adapt to your brand colours, so take the time to make it look good.

“If your deck doesn’t have that ‘pzazz’ I would think, do they have the prowess to make their brand sing as well.”

Imagery brings your pitch deck to life, you can use free tools such as Unsplash or Getty or to find images that work for your brand.Without imagery, investors may think your business is bland and boring.

“Honestly, I see so many pitch decks that I open up and it’s just an empty sort of PowerPoint on the slide, I just don’t know if I can be bothered to read this.”

Impressing Angels and VCs to get your funding really isn’t rocket science but can become a lengthy process which takes you as the entrepreneur away from your business for a substantial period of time.

We hope this break down has helped you and for even more tips you can watch the hour long masterclass here

I sleep there, I eat there, I meet friends there, I have business meetings there, I like it, It's my club! Gregg Wallace

It’s always a delight to meet, network and entertain amidst the generally relaxed vibes that radiates throughout Home Grown Gladstone Small

Home Grown is immersed with an overflowing energy, unrivalled facilities yet the club has a certain uniqueness. Luke Reed

What a special delight and home from home! I stay here whenever I come to London and their Scale-up events are on the money. John Courtney

We are all crying out for opportunities to bump into other people, to spark ideas off them that make us happier, more fulfilled and more imaginative: Home Grown is a forum for just this creative serendipity. Tas Tasgal

Home Grown is more to me than just my office in London. It’s a community. It’s a place to network with other business people. But most of all it’s got that super friendly and positive vibe that you just can’t wait to get there each time. Neil Thompson

For people worth meeting

Catherine Dupéré

Lucy Aldis (Shaw)

Josh Pollack

Daniel Glazer

Dr Kate Tomas

Duncan Casemore

Rose Miller

Liall Medina

Freddie Pritchard-Smith

Michelle Carney

jonathan chandler

Peter Hill

Paul Denley

Fiona Glen

John Brown

Justin Byrne

Dayana Nikolova

Matt Dibben

Darren Wareing

James Cooper

Nicole Brule-Walker

Kinson

Simon Hughes

Benji Hassell

Martin Norbury

Jaime Morgan Hitchcock

Jack Murphy

Bertie Heyman

Mike West

Sandip Patel

Feyi Fakoya

Andrew Rear

Louise Swanne

Sonja Sofia Schmidt

Huw Crwys-Williams

Chris Huddleston

Nicolas Croix

Jeff Gosling

Janine Mostyn

Phil Lewis

Ravinder Sandhu

Donnie Bachan

Jonathan-Robert Perry

Mark Gillett

Dominic Warman

S Shridhar

David Kitchener

Steve Schrier

Alexi Pittalis

Pavan Patel

Max Li

Alexandra Groszek

Mary Steadman

Ian Tollett

Victoria Proud

Nicholas Lander

Abri Coetzee

Mickey Wilson

Dr Chris Endersby

David Martin

John G. Courtney

Stefanos Koutsakos

James Dabbs

Elliot Zissman

Ben Treleaven

Lior Koskas

Hannah Titley

Chris White

Duncan Greenfield-Turk

Simon Lancer

Hakan Forsberg

Neale Lewis

Tomas Hvamb

Kamil Choleva

Claire Kirikal

Allyson Stewart-Allen

Barnaby Wynter

Steve Cockell

Tas