Roy Hanif – FounderCEO

Established in 2002 as a Management Consultancy, Inflection Point specializes in Silicon Valley style high-impact startup techniques for; aggressive sale centric business models, rapid product development, trusted piloting, scalable sales and marketing models. Inflection Point specializes in delivering tasks and projects usually spearheaded by FoundersCEO. With 20 years of success in this arena, this has created the gravitas and expertise needed to deliver outcomes which are acceptable to investors and board members.

The FounderCEO, Roy Hanif holds two first class degrees and a Master’s degree from Winchester University, UK, and is a seasoned project and program leader skilled at Practitioner level in Prince2 and a Practitioner level in MSP, is also an Award-Winning Global Leader from Fast Growing Global Tech Bellwethers, a FounderCEO Entrepreneur, and an Angel Investor. Over the past two decades Inflection Point has built a trusted position in the market, a solid network of battle tested executives and unique suppliers.

Inflection Point has an eco-system of over 60 associates who have worked on multiple high impact interim contracts with major companies and startups, and gained the trust of investors. Inflection Point also has diverse public-sector experience having worked with ministers and departmental leaders to deliver high-impact mission critical projects and programs in various departments.

Inflection Point has an in depth understanding and working knowledge of legislative and regulatory requirements, such as the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and European Patent Convention (EPC).

Alice Ågren – Junior Partner

Alice Agren, is the Junior Partner at Inflection Point, she’s Swedish, with a Business Management with Accounting degree from Griffith University in Australia and London South Bank University. Alice has experience in Investment, Accounting and Sales and is working with accelerating early stage revenue and securing funding for startups.

Alice has been helping FounderCEOs secure funding for some time, she summarizes her secrets of success taken from the playbook of KPCB to make their idea more attractive for venture funding. While a variety of quantitative and qualitative factors go into each funding decision, angels and venture capitalists care most about the commitment and passion of the entrepreneur, as it is mostly about investing in people. It is like selling, you need to build a relationship and may need to pitch several times to the same investor.

Business models don’t matter as much at the early stage, as investors recognize that business models can change overtime. Careful attention should be paid towards sales traction and early adopter feedback as it’s important to prove that a startup has momentum and a large global market by showcasing anecdotes of people who have tested the product and love it. A product demo helps visualize an idea, it simply serves to supplement the entrepreneur’s passion for that idea, a homemade video also helps. The most important part of the pitch is the “Why”, the “why” allows investors in the room to understand why the business matters, both to the world and the entrepreneur. Every startup should have a story that articulates the motivation behind the business and the problem it’s trying to solve. Venture investors are not bankers; they want to work with entrepreneurs who believe in what they are doing. Alice calls it the ‘e-harmony factor’, as in startup investing it’s not dating that matter, its committing to marry!

“There’s nothing more powerful than a great idea that has found its time.” Even the best product in the world could fail if the market isn’t yet ready to adopt it at massive scale. So, the entrepreneur has to be really good about explaining why their idea is ripe to succeed right here and now. Practice makes perfect, so everyone should test on a room full of friends and note the pluses and minuses of backing the idea.

Some other questions investors ask themselves include; what are the strengths and weaknesses of the entrepreneur? How strong is the team? What sort of financial return can we expect over a reasonable time horizon? What are the likely exit opportunities – M&A or IPO?