Last Tuesday, BfE organised a workshop on financing skills, run by Accuracy employees Andrés Rothschild and Antoine Massot. Xuan Yi and Tim Yiu from our Finance Advisory Team share their impressions of the workshop.

Xuan Yi, Finance Advisory Team, Associate

The workshop was informative yet accessible, perfect for people with limited knowledge of finance, like me. The Accuracy team was great at explaining things in a simple and concise manner, and took extra care to ground the workshop in the context of startups, which was especially helpful for people in BfE.

One of the most important insights was a comment about the desirability of different funding channels from the firm’s point of view. For SocialFarm, the startup I’m currently working with, the targeted funding channel would be an angel investor, and the Accuracy team gave some advice on how to compare different angel investors beyond superficial traits such as skills and expertise; for example, they explained the dynamics of having “wealthy” angel investors during the startup’s early stage, as they will continue to contribute funds, and thus a close relationship will be needed for future negotiations.

The workshop further helped me understand the valuation methods used by angel investors and venture capitalists, and although the Finance Advisory Team does not use such methods itself, it will allow us to better serve the startups that sign up to our programme as we now have a better grasp of what angel investors are most concerned with. 

This training session definitely gave me a more well-rounded understanding of financial analysis for startups, and I look forward to applying the skills I have learnt to help our social entrepreneurs!

Tim Yiu, Finance Advisory Team, Director

I remember attending another Accuracy-run workshop when I first joined BfE in 2017. Back then, I was bewildered by the finance jargon and terms, as the workshop aimed to cover a lot of ground in a short time span. Now, after some more finance-related experience, I have come to fully appreciate the efforts of the Accuracy Team. They explained finance in a fun, intuitive way, and this dynamic method of financial education is part of what our Finance Advisory Team seeks to employ in some of our engagements. 

Often, the startups we support operate within national legal frameworks that do not place much emphasis on financial reporting and accounting. As such, some entrepreneurs understandably prefer not to spend their limited time on regular bookkeeping, limiting the information they can readily provide to our Team. Through the provision of financial education, we hope to communicate to entrepreneurs the importance of good bookkeeping for better understanding their own progress and for pitching to investors.  

While the sophisticated analysis methods taught by Accuracy may not be applicable for all of our startups, the mindset of breaking down a business quantitatively and understanding what makes it attractive to investors, is something that has been greatly useful during my time with BfE.