Scouting for Growth Podcast Por Sabine VdL arte de portada

Scouting for Growth

Scouting for Growth

De: Sabine VdL
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There are over 140,000 FinTech ventures out there, including FinTechs, InsurTechs, HealthTechs, and WealthTechs. And the number keeps on changing every month. One statistic remains the same: 25% of these ventures have received investment and support from the financing world. 75% of these businesses still seek financing support from institutional and corporate investors alongside value-creating commercial collaboration opportunities with Global Fortune 500.

Through this podcast series, I would like to demystify the world of corporate venturing, including how corporations collaborate with growth ventures, how venture capitalists and corporate venture capitalists make investment and collaboration choices in ventures and give tech founders and entrepreneurs, the strategies, tactics, tools, and techniques to build, grow and scale their business by understanding how those with financing power think.

So, listen in, share and comment as you see fit.

2025 Sabine VdL Economía Gestión y Liderazgo Liderazgo
Episodios
  • James Birch: Ki Insurance’s Algorithmic Underwriting Revolution

    James Birch: Ki Insurance’s Algorithmic Underwriting Revolution
    Jun 11 2025
    On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to James Birch, Director of Strategic Technology Solutions at Ki Insurance—the first fully algorithmic syndicate in the history of Lloyd’s of London. In today’s conversation, we’ll explore: James’s journey from VC to algorithmic-underwriting pioneer, what a “director of strategic technology solutions” actually does day-to-day inside a digital syndicate, the partnerships, cloud architecture and data streams that let Ki quote in seconds, the biggest trends shaping Algorithmic Underwriting 2.0—and what they mean for brokers, capacity partners and the wider market, and practical take-aways for anyone who wants to thrive as the next wave of automation rolls through speciality insurance KEY TAKEAWAYS Ki is a growth stage business, not an incumbent, we’re trying to fight our way to win business and ultimately to grow. We have to do something different from everyone else to try to position ourselves differently and find competitive advantage where we can. That’s something I’ve carried over from the VC space.We started out looking at what the digital model of the traditional model, where was the toil in the value chain and the broker’s work plan process and how can we simplifying it and make it more efficient using digital capabilities that we saw in the VC space, in FinTech and other financial service industries. Lloyds of London is a heavily regulated market so we need to abide by any of the regulations that any carrier or underwriter do in that market. Our approach from day 1 was to engage with the regulator early, explain what we’re trying to do, be transparent, open and honest about where the gaps are if we’d not got to a certain level of maturity, don’t overstate the algorithm. We take regulation very seriously, which has helped because Lloyds has been highly supportive of us and our growth and have allowed us to grow as the market has grown.The main cost-save of the algorithmic underwriting for brokers is they don’t have to have loads of brokers running around the Lloyds of London building to find 2% on a slip or something, the broker negotiates with the lead underwriter, come onto the Ki platform for the follow, and then spend their time on new business and client opportunities. BEST MOMENTS ‘Any business should evolve as the market evolves and the marketing dynamics changes, you’ve got to react to those and be thinking 2-5 years ahead.’ ‘We still trip up on ourselves, even now, because we sometimes try to over-complicate things.’ ‘Speak to the customer, hear their problems, understand what’s not working for them, try to make it a simple transaction for them, and then they’ll use your products.’ ‘I’m a big advocate of the partner model because if you get 2, 3, or 4 like-minded companies as partners you can build something great together because you’re all strategically aligned.’ ABOUT THE GUEST James Birch is the Director of Strategic Technology Solutions at Ki Insurance, the market-leading algorithmic syndicate that’s redefining how Lloyd’s of London does business. Blending a venture-capital mindset with hands-on operating rigor, James has spent the past decade helping innovative companies move from bright idea to breakout scale. Passionate about demystifying insurance for the next generation, James is a sought-after speaker on topics such as data-driven risk selection, the future of algorithmic capacity and what it really takes to scale a regulated tech business. Whether mentoring founders or road-testing the latest ML models with his engineers, he’s driven by one simple goal: use technology to make risk transfer faster, fairer and radically more efficient. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
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    52 m
  • Mark Stern: Transforming Customer Journeys with Physical-Digital Experience Design for Growth

    Mark Stern: Transforming Customer Journeys with Physical-Digital Experience Design for Growth
    Jun 4 2025
    On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Mark Stern, founder and CEO of Custom Box Agency, an award-winning boutique specializing in bringing digital offers to life through innovative offline ‘box experiences.’ Today, he’ll share how he made the leap from corporate to startup life, offer practical tips for integrating physical touchpoints into a digital world, and discuss the secret sauce behind building high-impact customer journeys. I can’t wait to dive into his wealth of knowledge. KEY TAKEAWAYS When I mixed physical and digital together with my publication called ‘Entrepreneur Elements’ I people started posting unboxing videos, which a digital-only product can do. Everyone who received the product became an ambassador and lots of organic traffic was being created as a result.During Covid the virtual event game became bloody red, in terms of competition, because everyone became a virtual event expert overnight. But the boxes, and how we were approaching this to get results faster, was an unknown, exciting realm which I went 100% in on and the business skyrocketed from zero to a million in the first year just by pivoting and focussing on this opportunity.What we include inside our boxes is a welcome note, a getting started guide – which, for me is the most powerful sales pieces to orient people on the journey that they’re about to start and see your universe, a journey map – a visual depiction of the recipe that’s going to get you the result, then all the tools and resources.This isn’t SWAG (Stuff Without A Goal), think of it a product development and who we can truly get into your programme and give people the incentive structure to want to take one step at a time. I love data, so I can engineer feedback loops to say, once you’ve hit a certain milestone, how can I get you to provide me with the information I need so 1, I can celebrate you, but 2, it also gives me good intel to make the product you’re making better. BEST MOMENTS ‘In the online space done beats perfect. I approach the standards of the online realm in a corporate way; the client’s either ready or not ready at all.’ ‘If you have a digital product, you have to compliment it with something physical because physical can tap into other modalities and senses that digital can’t.’ ‘It’s not about you, it’s truly about your customers and their needs.’ ‘Boxes can be a tool to take what you’re already talking about/teaching, or the service you’re providing and making it easier for people to have the breakthrough in the tangible way the a digital-only product just can’t.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Mark Stern is an accomplished serial entrepreneur and the visionary behind Custom Box Agency, an award-winning experience design firm headquartered in Austin, Texas. Leveraging his background as a top-ranked strategy consultant at Deloitte, Mark has guided major retail and lifestyle brands through transformative growth initiatives. He holds an MBA from Duke University and has been recognized as a Forbes Next 1,000 Entrepreneur, as well as featured in Joey Coleman’s bestselling book Never Lose an Employee Again.Mark’s passion for merging the physical with the digital underpins his signature approach of crafting “offline-meets-online” experiences. By moving beyond standard swag and focusing on strategic box campaigns, Mark’s team has successfully launched 100+ direct mail initiatives—boosting conversions, slashing churn, and extending customer lifetime value. As a mentor at SXSW, sought-after keynote speaker, and champion for innovative entrepreneurship, Mark remains dedicated to helping businesses of all sizes adopt experience design as a powerful lever for growth. Email ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
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    51 m
  • Colin Hirdman: LinkedIn Growth Hacks, AI and Ethical Automation (Ethical Automation)

    Colin Hirdman: LinkedIn Growth Hacks, AI and Ethical Automation (Ethical Automation)
    May 29 2025
    On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Colin Hirdman, the antidote to automated mediocrity. As a lifelong entrepreneur and co-founder of Monkey Island Ventures, he has spent two decades scaling SaaS tools, digital agencies, and now Rainmaker – a ‘white-glove’ service that ethically automates LinkedIn outreach to turn connections into revenue. Colin discusses Rainmaker’s ‘Authentic Engine’ framework: 10-30% connection rates, campaigns tailored to micro-audiences, and why human-driven strategies still dominate AI in B2B growth. As well as why he targets 25 people/day — and how even solo founders can replicate this, the ‘criminal justice grad’ who turned entrepreneur, accidently and sold his first startup days after college, and LinkedIn’s automation guardrails: What’s ‘ethical’ vs. what gets you banned. KEY TAKEAWAYS I’ve done a lot of growth hacking through email and LinkedIn, but I got better results through LinkedIn and ended up building out a software and process for myself. Rainmaker was born through me making it available to other businesses. But, you don’t need me or rainmaker to do any of the things we discuss on this podcast, you can do it manually.You have to be authentic on LinkedIn, both as yourself as well as the brands you represent. You should also have an educational mindset – no one wants to be sold to on LinkedIn, but almost everyone is willing to be educated – and an experimentation mindset, trying different features and functions of LinkedIn, stack the things that work and set aside the things that don’t. Understand the pains an barriers that you prospects are trying to overcome and know what it is that you can teach them.Growth hacks: LinkedIn Events – if you have a direct competitor, industry or organisation putting on a LinkedIn Event that your business solves for, if you attend that event you can see everyone else who attended that event and create a prospects list. Use people who are big in your area as proxies – use people’s open connections to see all first connections to her, second connections to you and is in your area, and begin connecting to themBuilding out your first connections is critical. I reach out to 15 people per day Monday-Friday during normal working hours. That gives you 500 people per month, which is below LinkedIn’s limits. Typically, you’ll get a 20% connection rate. Within 30 days of sending an invite, and they haven’t connected, withdraw the invite. It’s good hygiene, but after 3 weeks you can reach out to them again. Everything you do after that only gets better and has bigger possibilities as your audience grows. BEST MOMENTS ‘There’s lots of opportunity to engage with you prospects on LinkedIn in ways that are valuable for relationship building and set you up as a thought leader.’‘People undervalue the value of being a first connection, when you’re a first connection you can see all kids of information about them, direct message them, and use other features and functions to engage with them.’‘I typically build my audience through Sales Navigator – a tool within LinkedIn that allows you to hone in on audiences..’‘If you’re using automation that is in any way inauthentic it won’t work, you wouldn’t immediately set up a meeting with someone you just met, I wish people would stop, it’s lazy.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Colin Hirdman is a lifelong entrepreneur, startup advocate, and visionary behind Rainmaker, a platform revolutionizing LinkedIn’s growth strategies through its "Authentic Engine." As co-founder of Monkey Island Ventures, a venture studio launched in 2007 with childhood friends, Colin has spent nearly two decades fostering tech innovation and scaling ventures like SaaS tools, digital marketing agencies, and software development firms. His passion lies in unlocking the power of authentic relationship-building—evidenced by Rainmaker’s mission to help founders, coaches, and sales teams expand their networks, generate leads, and close deals ethically on LinkedIn. A Minnesota native, Colin’s journey began with selling his first startup (launched just days after college) and evolved into mentoring entrepreneurs through actionable strategies like LinkedIn automation, audience targeting via Sales Navigator, and educational outreach. His philosophy blends authenticity, experimentation, and a focus on solving audience pain points—principles he shares as a board member of MNblockchain and a sought-after voice in B2B growth. When not advising startups or hosting LinkedIn livestreams, Colin champions the entrepreneurial spirit, proving that even a criminal justice graduate-turned-accidental-founder can redefine 21st-century scaling. Catch his insights on turning connections into revenue—no bots or spam required. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing ...
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    48 m
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