In April, EnterpriseWOMEN‘s Money Talks event was virtually held to respond to the current needs. I signed up to the event as I wanted to hear the lessons learnt and tips from individuals who have experienced first-hand or worked with founders on key financial aspects, to understand how to accelerate my business. I was also curious about the insights and thought processes of the great line up of speakers. During the three-hour event, a quote “every business should make the world better” said by Anya Navidski. Founding Partner of Voulez Capital, particularly stuck in my mind. Although I am striving to work towards building a business that can generate greater value back to the public, it wasn’t until I heard the sentence succinctly said, wrote it down, then underlined it many times in my notebook.
So what does “building a business to make the world better” mean?
From the event, we were able to gain an insight of Voulez Capital’s values. Building a business to make the world better, from the venture capital’s point of view, is doing more with less by finding the most effective solution to focus available resources. Anya Navidski, Voulez Capital’s founding partner, also highlighted the importance of working with investors who share your same core values. For example, when you are picking an investor, you want to ask yourself ‘who would I want to be stuck in a trench with?’ because founding a company is no easy feat and you want to be supported by people who are willing to be stuck in the trench with when the times get tough.
I come from an architect’s background and worked on high-end residential, retail and hospitality schemes. I enjoyed working on high-value architecture projects and the opportunity to work with the best craftsmen to deliver the schemes. At the same time, I also strongly believe that good architecture is all about the well-being of people. At the very core of architecture is providing shelter – from danger, weather conditions, and today, our homes also serve as a shelter from the coronavirus. Time and time again, we read about buildings built at low cost yet without quality architecture at all. Thus my work on Pitch Your Concepts, a pitch submission online platform for property owners, SME developers, and architects that removes the barrier to access quality architecture. Quality architecture comes from compatible client and architect working together to produce work that both parties are happy with in terms of cost, timeline, and quality.
The event ended with an expert panel session led by Dr Ghina Halabi, who launched EnterpriseWOMEN and stimulated timely questions from panellists including a Chief Technology Officer to an Investment Manager to share their insights on scaling up, suggestions on resources to view during this pandemic, and more.
At Pitch Your Concepts, our vision is to transform the architecture and property industry by creating innovative new ways to automate, digitise, collaborate, and generate opportunities for the industry to deliver greater value back to the public. During Pitch Your Concepts’ soft launch in 2019, the platform was shortlisted at the Mayor’s Entrepreneur Award, organised by the Mayor of London. We are still working towards making the world better, email Yvonne if you would like to have a chat.
You can learn more about EnterpriseWOMEN and the upcoming events on the CJBS website >
Yvonne Chua
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