If you’re looking for quick and simple solutions to the many challenges entrepreneurs face…
I wear two hats: a fintech entrepreneur and an angel investor…
“There are three categories where you will get funding very easily”: “if you are a Rockstar product manager or serial entrepreneur” “If you have worked in the City for a long time and can…
As a value investor most of your time is spent reading about companies…
Stock market volatility caused by geopolitical tensions, uncertainty over interest rates and structural issues in developing markets…
In 2014, I launched CityFALCON from my bedroom, raised £200K in seed funding, hired a few people, and started to build a scalable product…
Summary 196 IPOs with $34.5bn raised in 2015 on the major…
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What is Spread Betting? Spread betting is betting whether the price of an asset will rise or fall. It’s that simple, and that wonderfully…
Summary Twitter still provides unique offerings over other social networks. While the MAU and revenue growth have been declining, 300m+ MAUs is already a strong base, and 30-40% revenue growth is respectable. Twitter has declined 40% over the last year…
We’re only a few days into 2016, and there is so much to look forward to. But the passing calendar year also gives a chance to reflect. If you’re like us here at CityFALCON, one thing you might have spent…
Introduction The stock market is one of the most valuable components of the market economy. It can create a lot of opportunity, but it can be difficult to understand. There’s so much jargon and expertise involved, just thinking about can… Continue Reading →
I’m not an expert on the markets, nor do I have a PhD or some quantitative research to support my arguments. But here are some of my experiences from investing in the stock markets for the last 15 years. There…
Please sign the petition here if you agree with the points highlighted below. This petition is based on my experience as an entrepreneur for last 2 years running CityFALCON and also based on discussions with other entrepreneurs. We hope that…
In a start-up with limited resources, detailed specs for your developers are a luxury. At the same time, without proper specs, developers may not build what’s actually useful for our customers. To solve this problem, we decided to try something out,… Continue Reading →
We can’t overstate how proud we are that CityFALCON won the Next Big Idea in FinTech competition. For the honour, we got to travel to Ontario to get acquainted with the FinTech ecosystem there and learn more about startup culture… Continue Reading →
Unfortunately many people in the start-up space do not understand the difference between PRODUCT and SERVICE start-ups. User/revenue traction, i.e. “how many users do you have or how much revenue…
During the London Fintech Week last week, I had the opportunity to discuss this topic on a panel along with UCL professor Donald Lawrence and John Booth of Midpoint. Also, I have had long discussions on this subject with Niall… Continue Reading →
For service businesses where you can target customers from month 1 and even start making revenue, funding can be less important. But for ‘product’ businesses where-in you have to build for 2, 3, 6 months before you can start making… Continue Reading →
12 August 2015 – the date I and my team can never forget. In the midst of the painful fundraising process, we realised that we had an opportunity to differentiate, get validation for what we are doing and strengthen relationship… Continue Reading →
If you as an entrepreneur are running a service business or you belong to any of the categories mentioned in “Abundance of start-up funding in the UK but not necessarily for YOU”, you probably have not faced any serious issues with… Continue Reading →
Disclaimer: We provide information for investors and traders, but this should not be constituted as investment advice. Also, losses can exceed deposits when dealing with leveraged products. Please consult an investment advisor before making any decisions. Investing for long term… Continue Reading →
Before I ventured out to launch my start-up, every morning when reading about start-ups raising 1, 2 or 10 million pounds, I was positive that there was abundance of liquidity in the market. Further, with equity, bonds, property markets at… Continue Reading →
At CityFALCON, we believe in hiring the best people irrespective of their location. Over the last 18 months, we have used eLance to work with several freelancers including developers, designers, business analysts and copywriters. We currently have people in Ukraine,… Continue Reading →
We entrepreneurs are risk takers. We leave the comfort of our corporate jobs and take a leap of faith to start our own businesses. But some aspects of running a start-up have not changed, and at times, investors, service providers… Continue Reading →
HMRC (HM Revenue and Customs) and the UK government have provided much better incentives for start-ups than in most other countries – SEIS, EIS, R&D Credit, Entrepreneur’s relief, etc. We at CityFALCON have taken advantage of most of these benefits, and… Continue Reading →
One of our advisors at CityFALCON called me and asked me why I’m not looking to join Microsoft Ventures accelerator. I didn’t know much about the program, but my first reaction was that it may be a distraction. I was… Continue Reading →
I had highlighted the benefits of starting a business in the UK in an earlier article – 11 UK start-up benefits that may make you wonder why you are still in a corporate job. A couple of the aspects of… Continue Reading →
Summary Due to the crisis in the Ukraine and subsequent devaluation of the Russian Ruble, Yandex is quoting at $18, less than half of its all time-high of $44 in 2014. The company’s position in Russia remains strong with a… Continue Reading →
Learning to code, as I did in three months before setting up CityFALCON, can be an extremely daunting prospect. But I fully believe that the effort that I have put into it has been entirely worthwhile, and that there have… Continue Reading →
Elon Musk tweets about a new product line, and Tesla’s shares jump 4%, adding $1.3 billion to Tesla’s market cap. A trader profits from a tweet which indicates a potential acquisition by Intel. April Fools day’s tweet by Tesla with… Continue Reading →
While raising funds, I was asked these questions countless times: 1) Will you raise more money and dilute my stake in the company? 2) You said you wanted to raise £150k and now have raised £200k. You have already diluted… Continue Reading →
Governments around the world have realised that start-ups are critical to socio-economic progress. The UK Government is no exception to this rule. Thus, there are a wealth of start-up benefits provided by UK Government and other organisations which will collectively… Continue Reading →
“It’s impossible to fail when your goal is to try and make an effort to improve the World“ – Eric McAfee The concept of success can be extremely diverse. Some entrepreneurs end up as billionaires, while others are just happy… Continue Reading →
One of the first lessons that we learned at CityFALCON was that it is essential to stay as lean as possible during the fundraising stage. This enables you to keep fundraising to a bare minimum, and ensure that you will… Continue Reading →
During CityFALCON’s first year of trading, we were fortunate enough to secure £200K worth of funding from a series of high profile angel investors. Every one of these people have our undying gratitude, as without them, we could not have… Continue Reading →
Coding may seem like a daunting prospect for the uninitiated. Most people would doubtless think it is impossible to learn to code competently in only three months. While I can understand this conclusion, I know for a fact that it… Continue Reading →
Let me be clear – the purpose of this post is not to criticise anyone but to be honest and transparent, and to give some food for thought to stakeholders. I’m lucky to have some great people that work with… Continue Reading →
Founding a start-up is a big undertaking, and one that also necessitates a lot of risk. Unfortunately, in the competitive world in which we live, and particularly in the sometimes perilous economic state of the world at the moment, many… Continue Reading →
Most retail outlets, especially supermarkets, offer popular items such as milk, bread, etc. at extremely low prices and make higher margins through the long tail – branded biscuits, toiletries, etc. These are often referred to as ‘loss leaders’. Other businesses… Continue Reading →
“Work like there is someone working twenty-four hours a day to take it all away from you.” – Mark Cuban What we managed to achieve It has been a year since we first launched CityFALCON, and it would be fair… Continue Reading →
Summary Twitter’s user growth has been declining, but it still has a strong base of 250+ million active users to monetise. Ad revenue per 1,000 impressions is one of the key metrics to watch out for, and as the company… Continue Reading →
INTRODUCTION You understand the need to invest your money, but don’t have the time, inclination or patience to read, understand and execute. Most of you would have at some point asked someone who you think is good at finance and… Continue Reading →
Summary Historical performance of Apple and Microsoft shows why investors need to look beyond the Price/Earnings ratio. You would have made more money investing in Apple when it was trading at a P/E multiple of 100+ than when it was… Continue Reading →
Summary Tech companies post their IPOs have gone through 4 phases: Euphoria, Pessimism, Optimism, and Realism. Twitter is in the ‘pessimism’ phase, and price trend when compared to post-IPO performance of Facebook and LinkedIn shows upside pTecotential. Even though Twitter’s… Continue Reading →
INTRODUCTION Once you have decided ‘where’ to invest your funds, it’s also important to think about ‘how’ to invest them. There are several instruments that you could use to maximise your returns with or without increasing exposure and risk. We… Continue Reading →
My dad retired in 2000 with a salary that today would not be able to buy you many dinners in Mumbai. Had he left his money in the bank without investing it in mutual funds, stocks and fixed deposits, we… Continue Reading →
“Our biggest regrets are not for the things we have done but for the things we haven’t done” ― Chad Michael Murray Every time, my ‘dream job’ had turned into just another job 1 to 2 years in; every year, my definition… Continue Reading →
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