#46: Ollie Purdue - Partner at Antler - Lessons From The Rise and Fall of Loot

Ollie Purdue is a 27-year-old partner at Antler which is an atypical global early-stage VC. Antler takes in exceptional individuals, have them form teams, and build companies during a 3-month grueling process. Upon completion, Antler invests in a handful of them, and they are on their way to make 180 investments this year alone.As a 20-year-old solo-founder, Ollie started Loot, a challenger bank that raised £12M over many funding rounds and had 250,000 users. After 5 years, with many things going sideways simultaneously as we will discuss, Loot eventually had to close down. Upon much reflection, Ollie has learned many great lessons about the world of startups that he conveys to other founders at Antler. Topics: Why you must think 5 years ahead as a founder.The funding tactics that work with angles that do not work with VCs.The future of challenger banks.The negative bias of an accelerator and how Antler separates itself.How to screen for the qualitative characteristics of a great founder.Links: Website: https://www.antler.co/LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/olliepurdueTwitter: https://twitter.com/Olliepurdue?s=20Books Mentioned: Shoe Dog by Phil Knight https://amzn.to/2HSMHB7Lifespan by David Sinclair https://amzn.to/3kTjsNePodcast mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGLL77wYxe8