39/52: The beginnings of the quiddity search
#CapitalAtRisk
The 2010s was the decade of the Entrepreneur. The 2020s will be the decade of the Investor.
“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…”.
Rudyard Kipling
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When I met Toni
Toni Hopponen came to the first ever meal with 9others (see above photo) but there’s a story about Toni from a few months before that good meal in December 2011 that I wanted to share with you today…
The PowerPoint product
Back in July 2011 Toni was the 28 year old founder of Flockler, a marketing-tech platform that went on to be used by some of the world’s largest brands and organisations1.
Toni and I had been Tweeting and DM’ing back & forth and had arranged to meet in my offices on Orange Street, just behind Leicester Square.
However about an hour before the meeting I messaged Toni and asked if we could change the location to a nice coffee shop as I was meeting someone there before hand (I still remember it was Notes on St Martin’s Lane, a favourite at the time back when there was only one ‘Notes’).
Toni replied, “Sure no probs — see you there”.
The beginnings of studying quiddity?
It was towards the end of our coffee & chat that Toni said he’d only just arrived in London three days before. He’d decided to come to London, rent a flat for three weeks and see if he could find customers and feedback for Flockler.
I say ‘Flockler’ but actually it was a mere idea back then — a PowerPoint.
I was astonished. And very apologetic!
This was 2011 — sure, Azmat launched CityMapper that year but it was still early days for app’s like that and Google Maps.
But Toni was as unflappable — just his fellow Finn’s Mika Häkkinen and Kimi Räikkönen. He said there was no need for an apology or any fuss — he was in London, it was a coffee shop, so he’d simply find it.
The Myssy Grannies
A few months after that first meeting Katie and I started 9others and hosted our first meal. Toni was exactly the kind of person we wanted to come along to that first one — we needed clear, honest and candid, unflappable feedback on this idea we had…
Since then we’ve hosted many, many dinners and a bunch of summer and winter parties and Toni has been to a lot of them.
It was also a great pleasure to be able to write a letter of recommendation for Toni so he could get himself British citizenship. It worked! And in return Toni very kindly gave me a wooly hat hand knitted by the amazing Finnish Myssy Grannies (you can read more about them here — what a terrific idea!).
And 13 years later, Toni still here in London. I told him this morning I was writing this post and he messaged back saying that thanks to me, 9others and a handful of others he was given the confidence that I could do this entrepreneurship thing!
Although I didn’t realise it then, perhaps that meeting was the first time I started noticing the quiddity of people — what Toni did was something to take note of, one of hundreds of little signals that show character.
I’ve only just noticed, looking at the photo below for the first time since I got my hat in 2021, the line on the tag — it reads, “Your passport to the land of the misfits”.
Perfect.
Update: Just had this from Toni…
“Re: 2011. I almost cancelled the trip because of the 2011 riots. My first flat was booked in Hackney for August. They had to cancel but I found a new one. And then you replied on Twitter. Can’t always predict what happens”
In other news
🎤 Laura Harnett, founder of portfolio company Seep will be speaking at the excellent ID8 event at Kindred on Wednesday 20th November. See details and sign up here.
🇮🇹 Last week and this week I did a few hours of mentoring with some Italian startups via a good pal, Luigi Meschini. While I go through VC Lab I’m still keen on some paid-mentoring/other gigs to please get in touch if you’d like my help.
💰 I’ve been meeting with more fund-of-funds and family offices in recent weeks, and will see more in the coming months. They seem to be rather dissatisfied with the usual suspects at the usual panel events. I’ll be hosting some dinners (shock!) for these people so hit reply if you’re at a fund-of-funds or family office and want to get involved.
More from me?
If you like my writing you can get more by buying my book, ‘Find your 9others’. It’s on Amazon here.
And if you’ve already read ‘Find your 9others’ please leave an Amazon review here.
Q&A
🆓 Free subscribers get a short preview and all free public posts. NB: All posts in 2024 will have paid-subscriber-only parts.
💰 Paid subscribers get access to all posts, the angel investor Q&A podcast I did during the 2020 lockdowns, the full archive and can request a video call to ask me anything and talk about the things I don’t share anywhere else.
💰💰💰 Founding Members get all paid benefits plus you get to WhatsApp me unlimited questions for discussion, you get a one hour discussion session once a quarter plus a great lunch in London, on me.
Important: None of these posts are investment advice. If you are thinking about investing you should seek the advice of a suitably qualified independent advisor.
#CapitalAtRisk
And went on to be big and profitable before being sold by Toni.