Home House, 14th November 2001
Julie Meyer, Founder and CEO
It was a special evening for us, and a special place. I've founded 2 companies out of Home House - First Tuesday and Ariadne Capital - meeting with investors, employees, partners, journalists and clients inside of those walls, so it was a natural choice for us to come back to Home House for our First Year Anniversary. In the kind of market and world we live in, it really makes you want to celebrate and claim victory every time you hit a milestone such as one year's existence and rapid growth under our belt.
You have to be absolutely mad to set up a company in this market, or absolutely convinced that you are ahead of the curve, the model for the market, and poised for success. Setting up any business is akin to turning a huge wheel for the first time. At first you think it's going to kill you, and then you find business partners, hopefully the right partners, and you slowly turn it once, and nearly pass out, twice, and then before you know it - signs of momentum begin to appear - that sense of inevitability that you are going to cross the chasm and that sense of validation and traction.
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"Inefficient markets have always created exceptional returns, but you have to be in a position to leverage them" |
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The founders of Ariadne Capital felt that the Unfair Advantage we had was access - through our networks - which enables us to fast track companies into the partners, talent and opportunities that helps them achieve their objectives. Having survived enough near death experiences where people threw capital - too much capital - at a project, we knew that capital could be not only the solution sometimes but also a problem. So we slowed way down, and said, if we're going to build something sustainable for the next 25 years, we need to build the components of a robust platform which has the right team, network, investor DNA, solid business model and success stories, before we go raise our Fund.
On one level what Ariadne Capital does is Arbitrage - Arbitrage between different parts of Europe, between old and new economy, between revolutionary and evolutionary technologies. Inefficient markets have always created exceptional returns, but you have to be in a position to leverage them. We think the inefficiency in Europe IS the opportunity, and we leverage our networks for our portfolio of investments and clients. We fully believe that you have to be running counter cyclical to the market to be out ahead when the market returns: if you wait for the markets to return, the most you'll be at that time is running with the pack.
As someone told me 20 years ago, and it's proven true for me again and again, "never make any decision based on money as an end in itself, always invest in the success of others" - you see the returns and the rewards 10,000 fold.
See you all next year.
