Last week I was fortunate to be invited to a field trial with the two co-founders and another member from our commercial team so we could test our products and capture some marketing materials (which was my role). I travelled down with the CEO of the company, which was the first time I was properly able to chat with them one to one.

We compared notes on our time at the respective universities we went to, along with post-uni life and running a company. One of the biggest takeaways for me was how closely related the team you have behind you in a startup relates to the success of a venture - you can have 100s of people, but if they're not bought into the culture or the vision of the company, you'll be stuck peddling up hill. The company lives and dies with the team, so recruiting early on can make or break the success of a startup. This was something noted by my CEO as something they found to be the steepest learning curve.

Another thing which was interesting from a startup perspective was the importance of getting SEIS/EIS ready as early as possible. I did some googling, and this seems to be a logical thing to look at. Google definition incoming:

To get investment from the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), your UK company must be early-stage (under 3 years), have fewer than 25 employees, and have gross assets under £350,000. You must obtain HMRC Advance Assurance to prove eligibility to investors, then issue new, full-risk ordinary shares.

Something less startup related, but likely to be a good life lesson, is that university is split into three things, much like a triangle. Each corner can be different person to person, but as an example, you could have Work, Social Life, Sport. To do well, you must focus on two of the three. This is not something that ends at university, and is good food for thought for life beyond university.