BC’s 20th Anniversary, as viewed by a grad

There’s no better way to celebrate success than to reflect on it and share the important lessons learned. BC partner Dan Cobley led the day, after a much-appreciated continental breakfast courtesy of the amazing events team. The day was filled with a series of learning sessions by our co-founders Manoj Badale and Charles Mindenhall, as well as BC partners, and various CEOs from across the BC portfolio.

Each talk uniquely captured the great, pioneering work happening at BC: giving richer insight into its businesses, its people and the core beliefs at the heart of the business. A major take-home from the day’s event was the need to be agile *new buzzword alert*! Other prominent messages from the day included the importance of never stopping ‘being curious’, and of the value of resilience in the tough environment of venture building.

In his session, Manoj emphasised that change is the only constant in business; whether that be changes in customer needs, changes amongst your competition, or changes in your own technology solutions – and that’s before you even get to changes in personnel! Meanwhile, Dan Cobley highlighted that “if you tell someone a business idea you’ve had and everyone in the room says, “that’s a great idea”, then someone’s probably already done it…instead, you should look for the concepts where people say, “that won’t work” or “it sounds a bit mad!”.

The day ended with Justin Basini’s take on the evolution of ClearScore, an intense but empowering talk sharing lessons learned from 3 years of building the business from concept to nearing exit.

Once the learning and development sessions were over, we all packed into the Hive and iHub for BC Buzz – a celebration of the talent and commitment across all BC businesses, as well as a chance to recollect some of the highs and lows over the past 20 years.

There couldn’t be a better time to come on board as an intern at Blenheim Chalcot. It was powerful to hear the stories behind the businesses: be that inspirational tales of genius solutions, or the honesty and value of lessons learned from past mistakes. A true testament to BC’s strength is not necessarily the significant exits over the years, but instead seeing companies such as Instrumental featured in the Financial Times, or smaller companies launch off the back of an idea from one of the internal team.

BC will continue to be the UK’s leading venture builder: looking for businesses that solve current problems, and businesses where a technology platform can fundamentally change the microeconomics of our industry. As we start our intern journey at BC, we’re not only excited to witness its continued success, but also to contribute towards it!

Author:
Francesca and Suwanja