Evaldas Girskus

Bedrokk

CEO & Founder

CBRX

GTM Advisor

Dena Startup Lab

GTM Mentor

Equipzilla

Trade Foresight™

SIZZL

Grape ID™

PlaySpark

Off U Go!

Advisory Board Member

Founders Sunday

Founded the global community “Founders Sunday”. 

It serves as a non-profit educational platform and support for founders in all continents of the world (1100 + start-ups/scale-ups) 

The community meets up every Friday at 1 pm CET on zoom for lively discussions related to the founder's journey (#founderscoffee☕️) 

For founders - By Founders 💡 

Co-founders/ founders: Ragnhild, Donnie, Sammy, Gunnvor and Håvard.

Co-Founder

Protecting Founder's Equity by Unlocking Revenue-Growth for Startups | Mitigating Investor Risk through Strategic Portfolio Support | Helped 300+ Founders Build Startups | 3 x Founder | Advisor | Board Member

We help founders turn their vision into reality. 

We are a team of founders and industry experts who understand the challenges startups face, and we'll teach you how to overcome them.

Here's how we can help:

Investors ↴

VC Funds, Family Offices, Syndicates and Angel Investors ↴

→ COMMERCIAL DUE DILLIGENCE 

Minimising VC fund Risk and Maximising Portfolio Value through Strategic Growth Support

Founders ↴

Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A ↴

→ CUSTOMISED GTM STRATEGY 

We do all the heavy lifting for you by putting together a Go-To-Market strategy that focuses on solving your immediate needs.

→ DONE WITH YOU (DWY) EXECUTION 

Teaching you the same thinking process, strategies, and skills that have helped us generate MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN ARR.

→ STARTUP GROWTH ACCELERATION 

Streamlining your startup's growth by avoiding critical mistakes, focusing on the right things, and doubling down on what works.

We helped scale and grow companies such as VireUp, Ethiack, Equipzilla, Next Retreat, Tradeforesight, Sizzl, CBRX, Playspark, and many other startups.

Shoot me a DM if you're building a B2C/B2B SaaS, Marketplace, Mobile App, or AI startup.

Are you ready?

www.bedrokk.com

AngelThink

Do founders and startups always realise their full potential? I support founders and startups to do exactly that. Key insights into how business angels think. Board adviser / growth adviser / NED / Chair / Mentor / Coaching - all available.

Founder

Patientsource Ltd - Electronic Health Record Digital Developer UK & International

Patientsource is a clinically-led company developing electronic patient records with modular add-ons (e-prescribing, bed management, investigations, observations, etc.). I became Executive Chair in October 2019, previously Investor Director (NED) I give the Board strategic direction and support execution of it's development of digital technologies in health care settings (public, private, international).  I offer mentoring, governance, support on exporting, an ambassador role, advice on fundraising, procurement and bid development (e.g. TSB, SBRI). 
http://www.patientsource.co.uk/

Executive Chair, previously Investor Director (NED) - PatientSource Ltd

UJJI 🏆 

Board Advisor

Minderful

Appointed as Board Advisor to support business scaling and fundraising.

LinkExec Ltd - trading as Connectd

I advise the Board of Connectd (trading style of LinkExec) on growth strategies, marketing and development of their education offer. Connectd is rapidly building a community of Founders, Angel Investors and NEDS, all working to a common aim.

Housecheckr Ltd - trading as Brightchecker

Housecheckr develops condition-capture software for properties, for use across a range of markets - letting agencies, landlords (commercial and residential), investor portfolios, residential checks. I'm supporting scaling this startup.

Director - Business Growth and Performance

Active Norfolk

I'm really pleased to join the Board of Active Norfolk - working in partnership to encourage more activity across the population of Norfolk and improve health and wellbeing.

Non Executive Director

Coachpositive Ltd - Director

Connectd - Mentor to startups / founders on Connectd platform (Sept 2022 - to date)
Bid-writing mentor - Growth and Investment (NCC) - (July 2022 - to date)
Creatella Ventures - (Oct 2019 - to date) Mentor and judge for international startups programme. I mentored one of the global top 10 winners in 2019.
Investeast - (Jan 2109-to date) - Investeast is a free investor readiness programme to assist startups and SMEs based in Norfolk and Suffolk to grow. I mentored the Jan 2020 programme joint winner - Needledock Ltd. 
UEA I-teams - Jan-April 2019- - mentor to explore / commercialise spinout ideas at UEA.
Warwick Incubator - Jul-Dec 2018 - Warwick Incubator is the first student led Incubator at a University in the country. It runs an annual programme for 20-30 students to support development of their business ideas. I'm delighted to have been selected as a Mentor to students on the programme. See the details here:
http://warwickincubator.com/

Business Mentor

Coachpositive Ltd

Founder. I work mostly on performance, on growth, on strengths - personal and organisational. Largely I focus on health sector organisations (the NHS and private sector) and work with people (executives, entrepreneurs). 
With around 40 years in the health sector, up to Board level, I am widely experienced, extremely versatile, and well-placed to assist health & care organisations, and individuals within them.
For the NHS I have supported commissioning, system review, strategy development, demand management, cost-saving. I also work with SME boards and entrepreneurs, concentrating on business growth and strategy, performance management and measurement, and business execution. I offer individual mentoring and executive coaching by agreement.

Founder - Consultancy / Executive Coaching / Mentoring / NED / Angel / Entrepreneur

Innovate UK

Appointed as a Assessor for Innovate UK. Supporting development of UK Industrial Strategy.

Assessor

Executive Chair - PatientSource Ltd l Founder - AngelThink l Startup Adviser/Mentor/Coach l Author - 'AngelThink' l Tech Angel.

Are you a startup that wants to scale? To secure investment? I help founders think like angels, to get inside their heads (I'm an angel). That's an essential skill if you want to raise money from them i.e. nearly all companies at pre-seed, seed and series A. Hardly any company succeeds at getting venture capital at the outset. 

I help founders build relationships, tell their story, build their brand and raise money. I advise on all aspects of the investor relationship. I created AngelThink to do this in August 2022, after 12 years of angel startup support experience. My book - AngelThink - published October 2022. 
Paperback here: https://www.browndogbooks.uk/products/angelthink-phil-mcsweeney. 
Kindle here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/AngelThink-founders-guide-business-angels/dp/1839525371/ref=sr_1_1?crid=DANXPMUS0KAQ&keywords=angelthink&qid=1665354662&sprefix=%2Caps%2C52&sr=8-1
Also on Amazon.com and Amazon.In

I'm passionate about supporting founders and startups to grow and scale. I help startups realise their potential. Clear goals, the right team with the right mindset, value-orientation, competitive positioning, growth strategy, disciplined execution. No secret ingredients. I have several long-term relationships with founders. It could be your company. You'll solve more people's problems; you'll get more recognition; you'll achieve more growth. 

I Chair, NED, mentor, coach, advise - whatever is going to work for you. I work with startups and scaleups - preferably tech. 

I became the Executive Chair of PatientSource Ltd in 2020 after 8 years as a NED. We are scaling internationally, building out the team, creating partnerships, winning business and fundraising. I am a NED or Board Adviser for a handful of other companies. 

I’ve mentored award-winning companies - e.g. Needledock, Sharpen, UJJI, Canopey - many other startups, and many founders on the Connectd platform. I advise Connectd on their growth too. I've helped many founders on their raise strategy with angels and VC and had exits too.

I post a lot of informed 'founder support' material on LinkedIn - try the hashtag #AngelThink or #angelthink or #exceptionalentrepreneur and you should find a lot of it. Try my company page AngelThink too and my website www.angelthink.co

I’d love to hear from you if you think I can help. Do contact me through LinkedIn or email:
philjmcs@googlemail.com

Phil McSweeney

Whenever I see the word ‘adviser’ or ‘advisers’ in quote marks in a LinkedIn post I have a wry smile to myself. 😉 
I know what’s coming.

I saw a post a week ago by a founder who’d lost control of his work-life balance, had put on 30lb weight this year and wanted advice about managing overwhelm. 

His post finished with this sentence – 
“Has anyone figured balance out at all yet? If so, how? I only want to hear from people who have actually run a startup, not the Linkedin ‘adviser’ crowd.” 

I kind of think good advice usually comes from experts trained to give good advice - and there are experts who are trained on this, like nutritionists, coaches, etc. 

It’s the putting ‘adviser’ in quotes that makes me smile - because it says the author thinks most of them / us are a waste of space and only founders can help founders. 

I don’t doubt that many founders can share valuable experiences with other founders, but excluding other expertise is a bit like saying ‘I’ve got a brain tumour and I only want someone who has removed their own brain tumour to help me. No, I don’t want a neurosurgeon!’

I have no problem admitting that some adviser business advice is questionable. I hear it first hand and I see it on LinkedIn. Some advisers have no track record or no startup experience; everyone starts somewhere. But what do all good professionals do – they ‘get to strength’ very quickly. 

And…not every founder will build a unicorn, so is their advice good enough? 

I know I’m poking the bear here - deliberately. Always enjoy a debate. What if I said on LinkedIn I’d like some robust business advice – but not from the LinkedIn ‘founder’ crowd, most of whom will fail? 

Happy to see ‘founders’ put in quote marks? 

OK - flood gates open! Don’t choke on your bacon sandwich.

I make startups GROW! Growth Mentor/Coach /Advisory /Tech Angel. Creating exceptional companies with exceptional founders.

This scandal needs sharing as widely as possible. 
The evident bias needs calling out.
Great collection of evidence here. 
We need to understand the psychology behind the bias (or prejudice). 

my #postoftheday

Founder/CEO - Journalist @ Forbes,TechCrunch & BeautyMatter Contributor - Gold House Futures - Venture Partner - Board Member - Advisor - Keynote Speaker - Personalization Expert, Diversity Activist

Last week, an article I published on Forbes  sparked a lot of conversations — and then it suddenly became inaccessible. Today, I’m publishing the full analysis here without any firewalls — because the data, dynamics and pattern are too important to bury. 

Here’s the uncomfortable truth the industry still refuses to acknowledge: In beauty tech and women’s health markets, the male founders still raise the most money. They fit a venture archetype,  but don't build better products. In fact, they often raise more money with "vision decks" and no product. 

Meanwhile, women actually delivering traction, PMF, innovation, and revenue are forced to fight for scraps of capital… or forced out entirely.
The bias is so prevalent. Here are three case studies:

1️⃣ Ami Colé: The brand investors “loved” but wouldn’t fund:
Ami Colé had Sephora distribution, virality, award-winning products, and a founder with category insight no one else could replicate.
It still shut down.

Then SKIMS — valued at $5B — hired founder Diarrha Ndiaye as EVP of Beauty & Fragrance within weeks.
 
A founder that VCs undervalued became an exec of the world’s hottest consumer brand, valued instantly. She didn’t fall — she ASCENDED.

And that tells you everything about how this market rewards competence after the fact.

2️⃣ Revea, a male-led startup AI-powered skin diagnostic and skincare brand raised $9.5M and WENT QUIET, which is very strange for a DTC brand
Today:
- site's ecommerce is disabled
- social channels have been silent for a year
- PitchBook lists it as “out of business”
- Per Linkedin, its Founder & CEO moved on to another role 

3️⃣ The manicure robot race — the cleanest example of all
Four companies tried to build an autonomous manicure robot.
Only one shipped a working device.
Clockwork (acquired by 10Beauty) — founded by Renuka Apte — built the only functioning system:
Live deployments in airports and commercial RE, $3.1M+ ARR visibility, repeat enterprise expansion.
And she did it with the least initial funding.

Yet her competitors, which were all led by male founders:
- Coral raised $4.3M and never built a product
- Nimble raised ~$10M and shipped a malfunctioning device over 1 year late
- 10Beauty raised $38M+ and only launched this month after acquiring Clockwork to “accelerate” its technology per its own press release

Clockwork had the tech, traction, users and deployments, but fundraising remained an uphill battle. 

The wrong founders got the money. And the right founders built the technology anyway.

Here’s the pattern:
Men get funded on confidence. Women get funded on evidence.
Men pitch “potential.” Women must show PMF, clinical data, revenue, retention, and enterprise contracts… before they get funding.

It is a capital allocation bias, and it’s costing billions in failed launches, distressed acquisitions, and shutdowns.
Markets don’t correct bias; they correct performance.
And performance is telling a very different story than the one VCs keep funding.

The Market That Serves Women — And the Money That Still Doesn’t Venture capital has a problem it still refuses to address: in the sectors built for wo

Open article: The Beauty Tech & Women’s Health Funding Bias: How VCs Keeps Funding Male Founder Confidence Over Female Founder Traction by Sindhya Valloppillil • 17 min read

The Beauty Tech & Women’s Health Funding Bias: How VCs Keeps Funding Male Founder Confidence Over Female Founder Traction

A couple of months ago I made an investment in zinguist.
zinguist gets people speaking a new language in 8 weeks, 
from a zero start to speaking for 60 minutes. 
Compared to other language learning methods it’s a sprint. 
It would be Usain Bolt’s preferred method, I’m sure.
Both the B2B and B2C customer benefits just became obvious to me, the competition is poor and I’ve come to have great faith in the founder David Lebor.

So, spare me a minute to talk about #motivation.
Two researchers (Steel and Konig) created a formula for motivation. 
Here’s how they explain it. 
It has four factors that interplay.

Motivation = (Expectancy x Value) / (Delay tendency x Deadline)

🤔 Expectancy: how confident you are that you’ll succeed 

🤔 Value: what you will gain from succeeding 

🤔 Delay tendency: your natural inclination to put things off 

🤔 Deadline: how much time you have to complete the task i.e. how long you can delay starting for

This is interesting, and really illuminates procrastination – because, no matter that we can see great value in learning something, and believe we could do it, we need a push like a deadline to overcome any delay tendency we have. 
There are personality dimensions here too – like confidence, conscientiousness, our attitude to reward, or fear of embarrassment or failure.

I think what’s so clever about zinguist’s learning methods is that they give you are a massive boost in confidence that you will succeed in a much shorter time than you imagined. They allow you to see incredible ‘time-to-value’ to counteract any inherent delay tendency you may have. They’ll help you meet a deadline quickly, if that’s important to you.

In short, they massively stack one side of the motivation equation. They also make it fun!
 
I didn’t write this to sell zinguist to anyone but to demonstrate by example how you might motivate buyers. I just think zinguist have got it. 
That’s why I invested. 

Carolina Bonsignori

“How do you approach angels, Phil?”
Sharp, obvious question from a founder I’m mentoring.
It seems very simple, but it isn’t.
My first thought isn’t HOW, it’s WHEN. And WHY.

So – be absolutely sure you need investment, what you need it for, have a good idea of what you will achieve with it, and a good estimate of how much you’ll need to get to a credible milestone so you can ask again if you need it. Why can’t you bootstrap? Why can’t you bootstrap for longer?

You can start talking to a really select group of angels that you know are in your space as a warming exercise, looking to build rapport and exploring some advisory input, but don’t go bigger until you’ve got some traction. 

That means ideally MVP out there, some customers trialling it, giving you great feedback, product taking shape and a small amount of revenue – and a good understanding of market need, size and competitors. It’s really tough to get just an idea funded in the current climate. 

The other key thing – build a credible team. Find a few people who are committed to building it with you. Not necessarily co-founders but just fans of the idea who’ll put some time in – possibly for a little equity and/or the promise of a paid job when you raise. Please don’t say you were waiting to get investment before you looked at a team. It just sucks! It's too high risk.

That homework is essential to be able to explore HOW – because the simple answer is CONFIDENTLY. 

You’re there to compel them with a great #story. You can’t do that if you haven’t written enough of it. 

#AngelThink #hubblesocial

"At the end of the day, fundraising isn’t about convincing investors.
It’s about proving you can convince customers, teams, and the market.
My takeaway here. 
Fundraising success is about YOU being compelling to investors because they can see that you're winning customers, convincing a team and shaping the market.
That's what brings you to a position of strength to approach investors.

My #postoftheday

Angel Investor | B2B SaaS Investor | Startup Mentor | Fundraising Expert | SaaS Ventures

Being an investor gives you a front-row seat to one of the clearest patterns in the startup world:
The real difference between founders who get funded and founders who don’t.

It’s almost never the idea.
It’s almost never the deck.
It’s almost never the market size.
It’s the founder.

Here’s what I keep seeing in simple contrasts:


🔹 Clarity vs. Complexity

Fundable founders ➜ explain what they do in one breath: what, why, and why now.
Their narrative is simple, sharp, confident.

Non-fundable founders ❌ hide behind complexity.
The less clear the message, the more doubt they create.


🔹 Speed vs. Perfectionism

Fundable founders ➜ move fast.
They test, adjust, learn, and come back stronger.

Non-fundable founders ❌ wait for perfection.
But the market never waits with them.


🔹 Precision vs. Wishful Thinking

Fundable founders ➜ know their numbers, CAC, LTV, margins, cost drivers, growth levers.
Precision builds trust.

Non-fundable founders ❌ talk in dreams without data to anchor them.


🔹 Gravity vs. Isolation

Fundable founders ➜ attract people.
Talent wants to join them, partners want to collaborate, early users want to try what they build.

Non-fundable founders ❌ struggle to generate momentum around themselves.


🔹 Listening vs. Defensiveness

Fundable founders ➜ take feedback without taking it personally.
They can filter advice from noise.

Non-fundable founders ❌ treat every comment like an attack.


At the end of the day, fundraising isn’t about convincing investors.
It’s about proving you can convince customers, teams, and the market.

If you’re a founder, improving fundability isn’t about pretending to be someone else, it’s about sharpening who you already are.

Because investors don’t fund slides.
They fund signals.
And the strongest signal is always the founder. 🚀

Risks by numbers?
Doesn't sit right with me.
Right from your first raise, investors are going to want to see validation - a decent case made for market size, willingness to pay, a solid GTM plan, understanding of competition, execution potential. 
You can't play 'I'll do this risk management at this stage'. Investors won't buy in to that. 
This graph just looks too deceptively simple - and it is.
There's too much competition for you not to have a reasonable gameplan at the beginning. 

#AngleThink

Please STOP chasing funding without a plan.

I see too many founders with big dreams but no fundamentals.

If you want to raise capital, do this at each stage:

1. Pre-Seed: Focus on developing your MVP and proving technical feasibility

2. Seed: Validate product-market fit and establish early traction

3. Series A: Implement a scalable go-to-market strategy and grow your customer base

4. Series B: Expand your addressable market and optimize operations

For example:

→ Conduct user testing to refine your MVP
→ Survey customers to identify key pain points
→ Hire experienced sales leaders to scale revenue
→ Invest in infrastructure to support rapid growth

You will build a fundable startup by methodically decreasing risk at each stage rather than just chasing the next round.

Do that consistently and watch your valuation soar.

If you love my content and want to guarantee you get every one? 

Make sure you hit the 🔔 on my profile page Chris Tottman & LinkedIn will notify you 💙

To have me working on your startup check out my new Book 📚 https://lnkd.in/er6fYA9y

70x Playbooks Covering:

How To Raise Capital 
Pitching To Investors 
Finding Product Market Fit 
Building Hypergrowth 

🎯

What is your homepage for exactly?
Don't make it homepage FRANKENSTEIN! 🧌 

The purpose of a homepage is getting a visitor to take one of 3 actions:

1️⃣ Explore the rest of your site

Getting them into specific use case and persona pages, case studies, or tutorials - to take them further down the funnel.

2️⃣ Try the product

Self serve motions will continue to spread in B2B — Getting a free user to an early “aha moment” can go a long way towards building trust.

3️⃣ Book a demo

Having 30+ minutes of their undivided attention let's you take them really go deep into your differentiated value. 

My #postoftheday

Co-Founder @ Fletch | Positioning & Messaging for B2B Startups

One of the first questions we ask founders when they work with us is this:

👉 “What are you going to use your home page for?”

It’s a simple question — Some would say an obvious question. 

But many startups forget to ask it, and never explicitly make a decision. 

And different team members may be thinking about the home page differently…

👨🏻‍🎤Marketing Leader 
 ↳ “We should tell our brand story”

👨🏿‍💻 Product Leader
 ↳ “We should highlight our roadmap”

👩🏻‍💼 Founders
 ↳ “We should share our vision”

👨🏻‍💼Sales Leader
 ↳ “We should explain our ROI”

The result?

🙈 A homepage that tries to do all these things and doesn’t do any of them well. 

-------------------------------------------------------- 

Ultimately, a web page (and especially the home page)…

☝️ Should have a single purpose. 

For startups, Anthony Pierri 🎸 and I believe that purpose should be getting a visitor to take one of 3 actions:

1️⃣ Explore the rest of your site

Getting them into specific use case and persona pages, case studies, or tutorials.

2️⃣ Try the product

Self serve motions will continue to spread in B2B — Getting a free user to an early “aha moment” can go a long way towards building trust.

3️⃣ Book a demo

Having 30+ minutes of undivided attention leaves room to really go deep into your differentiated value. 

-------------------------------------------------------- 

To get them to take one of these actions…

🚀 You need to talk about your product.
 ↳ What it is
 ↳ Who it’s for
 ↳ When I’d use it

Instead of hiding the product behind your brand, your technology, your vision, or your ROI.

taplio

The Battle

Evaldas Girskus

Phil McSweeney

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScorePhil McSweeney's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Evaldas Girskus

Phil McSweeney

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Phil McSweeney's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScorePhil McSweeney's LinkedIn Performance