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Clarity

Carina Coleman

London, United Kingdom

Experienced Investment banker turned Entrepreneur and now mentoring high potential start-ups on fundraising. Founded start-up Beautimeter.com, a digital platform that provided personalised beauty product recommendations. Former CEO of skincare brand Elemental Herbology. 20+ years investment banking expertise (M&A and capital raising) across a variety of sectors.

$8.33/min

7 Calls

3 Reviews

about 1 hour
Avg. call

Raising Venture Capital Private Equity Funding Business Coaching Valuation Investment Banking Mergers Corporate Finance Launching Start-ups Beauty

Call me to talk about

Fundraising

Whereas as an investment banker I worked on many "mega deals" during my career in the City covering billion dollar M&A transactions and financings. My greatest personal success as a banker was when I left the City and worked independently for a number of clients to successfully raise over US$200m of equity funding and over $500m of debt facilities. All done without the branding and name of a big investment bank!

Business Coaching

I provide coaching and mentoring services to a variety of start-ups and established business leaders, seeking guidance or just looking for someone to help them structure their thoughts around a particular business issue.

the Beauty Sector

As CEO of a small British skincare brand Elemental Herbology which had a very small senior executive team, I got first hand experience in the areas of beauty retailing, manufacturing and marketing and sales. It was during my time with Elemental Herbology where we had to build our online presence and brand awareness with limited marketing budget, that I got the idea for my new beauty e-commerce business Beautimeter.

Launching Start-Ups

6 months into launching a start-up called Beautimeter, my current business. My previous CEO role was in an early stage venture and I have advised numerous start-ups over the years in fundraising and the challenges they face.

Answers 1
Reviews 3

Answers

Carina Coleman answered

Finding a co-founder for a non-coder/developer isn't easy. At all. How can I find people interested in joining me in my new project?

I am also a solopreneur as well and also in the process of building an MVP so I can sympathise with your perspective. I am also a trained Business Coach (a management skill I gained 6 years ago), and what strikes me from your particular question, is that your main assumption “2 people are always better than one” may actually be coming from your work preferences.
It sounds like you are an analytic thinking extrovert and that you probably work best in an environment where you get feedback from others which helps you to clarify your thinking? Not all people are like this, many developers for instance are introverts and work best when left alone to solve problems. So if this is the case, the solution does not need to be finding a co-founder, but could just involve you creating an eco system around yourself that gives you the “sounding boards” and human interaction it sounds like you need. This could come from joining MeetUps, to finding a business Mentor (in the UK you can access these through the UK Government Growth Accelerator initiative for SMEs), and even finding a shared work space like a TechHub or Google Campus where other entrepreneurs will be around for you to interact with them for free.
You might be nicely surprised to see how well you can develop your idea without finding a co-founder, and instead bring in the skills as employees as and when needed to fill skill gaps you don’t have. The starting point therefore is the simple question “if you had the right people to bounce ideas off and clarify your thinking around your new business concept, do you think you have what it takes to build a business on your own?”

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Entrepreneurship

Founding

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Reviews

Awesome call, thanks Carina!!

Floris Gutker de Geus Source: Clarity

Really helpful and informative call, left with a lot of takeaways for next actions!

Karin Layton Source: Clarity

Excellent, implementable advice.

Kareem Mayan Source: Clarity

Member since November 2013