Recently, Lorne Noble, Simple Startup’s founder spoke with Galvanize coworking about how startups can set themselves up for success with their financial strategy. You can read a sneak peek of the Q&A below and then head to Galvanize’s blog for the full article.
Q&A with Galvanize Mentor, Lorne Noble
Galvanize coworking campuses are home to a wide variety of entrepreneurs, start-ups, and established companies. Part of our mission is to provide opportunities for our members to connect with mentors who are experts in a variety of fields and have a diverse set of viewpoints and backgrounds. We connected with Galvanize Mentor Lorne Noble, who is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Simple Startup, Career Mentor Me, HelpMore, and MyHealthier Body. He has an expansive skill set of financial experience and works with startups every day to help set companies up for success.
After founding three companies, what inspired you to found another startup? Was there a financial catalyst in these previous startups that sparked the idea for Simple Startup?
My background is as a financial analyst, and typically people think this means I am super detail-oriented (which I am). Initially, this rubbed me the wrong way because I wanted to be known as a front of the house person – a fun guy, not the number cruncher hiding in a closet. As a result, I suppressed my true skill set and tried to be someone I’m not, which you can imagine didn’t work out super well. Anyone else done this?
So, during the 2009 financial collapse, I began to question my role in corporate London, which led me to attend business School (IE Business School in Madrid, Spain), where I became hooked on entrepreneurship. My passion for entrepreneurship led me to launch three different technology platforms:
- Career Mentor Me, which combines technology, self-exploration, and project management to essentially solve what is otherwise called the “quarter-life crisis.”
- HelpMore, born from an “aha” moment observing London’s homeless, is a technology platform designed to streamline giving to the less fortunate while at the same time providing a marketing channel for local retailers.
- MyHealthierBody aggregated grocery store produce with home delivery services and America’s best-sold fitness training programs to provide not only a more convenient consumer experience but also a more loyal and more frequent grocery store customer.
To make a long story short, I found that with each company I started I always gravitated to what I knew best and enjoyed most – the analytics of the company – which made me realize that I should start a company where the analytical piece is the core of the business offering. Sounds like inception, right? That’s how Simple Startup came about.
What does Simple Startup do to help companies plan for a successful future? What is the biggest success story of one of your clients?
If I were to boil down what we do into four things, I would say:
- We take the weight off your shoulders so you can focus on growing your business.
- We build the systems, tools, and infrastructure for your future growth.
- We deliver investor-ready financials that are not just for your investor’s benefit.
- We help you understand your fundraising roadmap.
With that said, I think what we do can’t fully be explained by our core service offerings; it’s really what these services do in support of our client’s goals that open up a more successful future.
We recently wrote a case study about a client of ours that is a good example of this, where we helped develop a solid accounting foundation that restored faith in their numbers. Beyond that, this newfound visibility allowed them to further optimize their business model and implement revolutionizing change including growing their revenue tenfold from $40K to $500K per month, ultimately getting them on the radar of other companies for a major corporate acquisition.
To read the full interview visit Galvanize.com for the original article.
