Looking like an Entrepreneur.

There is a look - the look of the entrepreneur. It is hard to define - a crystal-clear and steely-strong look, that comes with a calmness and a fathomless confidence. It's not bravado, it's not ego - it is the antithesis of both. But when you see it, it is worth recognising. 

I have just spent sometime meeting clients in London. After day two it suddenly struck me, as I was flicking back through the meetings flahbacks,  that all of these people had a similarity - they had that look. It is one I remember encountering first back in 1985 when I ventured out into the world of start ups. But I didnt recognise it then. It's unmistakable but hard to define and it cannot be simulated. I suppose my best attempt would be to describe it as like the perfectly still rock pool. Clear, calm, deep and powerful. Even after the wind removes the image, the calmness returns time and time again. It is immutable.

This is something you cannot recognise unless you meet someone face to face. Video doesnt carry it. A group meeting doesnt always reveal it. Eye to eye, one on one, close contact, is the only way. It bears no relation to physical looks, although it is clearly present in demeanour and presentation. It strikes you within a minute of meeting - or it is not present. Without that look, the chances of a start up succeeding on a scale that makes an investment worthwhile, is pure chance, with the odds stacked against it.

To make sense of this where we are now in the altfi world, you have to realise that most ECF investment is raised without any attempt to see if this look exists. When the wind blows and the look is disturbed - it doesnt return and your investment is lost.

When Crowdcube for example use referrals as a major source of new campaigns - handing over around 2% of their stated 7% commission to the referer, you can see why the platform is so chockablock with rubbish. People who work at CC, in senior management roles, are not experienced enough to know the look. How could they be, when they have had just a couple of 16 month jobs with the likes of Virgin Start Up. Misusing the Branson look is not helpful. Yet Virgin Start Up are one of CC's main referers. You can see the problem.

We can do so much better.

Vibe Tickets goes under but bobs up again whilst Crowdcube shareholders have been left to drown.

Addenedum - 

Before reading this you should know that the founder Luke Lang has now agreed to give all Crowdcube investors free shares in Vibe Tickets, to the value of the ones they have lost in Thevibe. This is a bold move. We wait to see when these shares are issued and transferred. Of course there is still the matter of o/s creditors but we will have to wait and see what happens there. The query over the change in name has also been addressed - it now shows all ten of his companies uder the same name. We like to think that it was our pressure that has resulted in this offer - an offer which was not on the table when we wrote this piece.  

Evening all. TheVibe, run by Luke Anthony Massie,  raised £608k on Crowdcube in late 2016. Now we are told the company has gone into administration. But odder still, a newco Vibe Tickets Ltd, with sole owner and director being one Luke Massie, was formed in December 2017. It now appears in the footer as the owner of the ticket exchange website although the T&C still refers to TheVibe Ltd. Confusing eh?

I suppose the first Q is why would you use a different form of your name at CH? If you look Luke up under the Thevibe Ltd page, he has no other directorships. Cant CH and Gov see that this is just asking for trouble? He hasnt broken any laws but he certainly wouldnt get the Medal of Honesty, even under Trump's administration.

Crowdcube SHs own shares in TheVibe Ltd. Massie owns all the shares in Vibe Tickets. So what is going on?

We messaged Luke on Sunday to ask him what was up - this was his response on Sunday at 2pm -

Rob, Thanks for your message. I’m glad you’ve got in touch. I’ve wanted to communicate fully with everyone concerned after recent events but I’ve had to follow legal advice to protect all parties involved moving forward. Please believe me when I say it’s not in my nature to sit back while people look for answers and I am doing all I can behind the scenes to get permission to speak publicly and explain the situation. If you can bear with me for the next 24 hours I will be in touch directly, whether I have permission or not, to explain my position. I’m confident you will understand why and how we’ve reached the point we’re currently in. I apologise sincerely for not being able to be more pro-active with our communication. I’d hoped this would work out differently but, despite all the will in the world, I’ve just not managed it. I’ll be in touch again soon. Luke

What he hoped to achieve on a Barbadian style Bank Holiday weekend, is hard to fathom. Also you have to remember that the letter from the Administrator had already been received by SHs - so what is so secret?

Well now we know; he didnt message us but a SH did. 

Behind the scenes Luke has been cobbling together a phoenix. He claims the business got into trouble because backers didnt come through with £1.6m, although he later says these backers are still available to the newco. Apparently his shareholder agreement - the one he created, doesn't allow him, the major shareholder, to issue new shares without the consent of all the other SHs. That's odd. 

The whole thing reeks to me. 

In his email to SHs he says of the future - 

What's next?

My immediate focus now turns to ensuring that there is a smooth transition period for our colleagues, suppliers and all involved with Vibe. Once everything and everyone is safely across, my attention can return to approaching those supportive investors I have in raising capital to support the new vehicle. There are tens of thousands of users that rely on Vibe each month and millions more consumers out there I know Vibe can help. I am not willing to give up on this fight.

The mission has only just begun, what we set out to do has only just started to be realised, I am excited at this next chapter.

Yet even though he has bought the assets of Vibe for a price above other SHs, who also bid, he didnt have enough money to put into the existing business - £150k would have cleared immediate debts is what he says. This is all looking very dodgy. He makes no promises about Vibe SHs being given a part of the newco but does say all creditors will be paid off and that there will be some spare cash to pay back to SHs. You can deduce from this that he is paying more than £150k; stated above as the debt. So of course then the Q is why didnt he put this into the original Vibe? The answer is obvious - a falling out with his major SHs (see below)  -   which it would seem, has been ongoing for sometime as he set up the new Vibe in December 2017, when he hatched this plan - ? 

TheVibe has had some great press, talk of multi million pound deals litter the internet and in January this year Luke was featured in the Forbes Top 30 under 30 List of exceptional entrepreneurs. As you can imagine this information was supplied by Luke himself on the company blog. The Crowdcube pitch was filled with jam....tomorrow. Richard Branson as always makes an appearance with Luke in the pitch. The Virgin Start Up and Virgin Media brand is seriously tainted - wake up Ricardo. Come out of retirement and see the sort of cr1p you are promoting.

Not many months ago, Vibe received endorsements from tech entrepreneurs Scott Fletcher and Matt Newing in the form of a further £750k investment. At that time Vibe told Insider Media that they had offers on the table to complete this £2m round - see here. Things were lined up to go stratospheric. This is in fact where the wheels came off.

When the last round funded a few months back, the valuation was on the rise, up from £5.5m on Crowdcube. So this is yet another example of how flawed the Beauhurst CAGR valuation measure is. The real value of Vibe would now appear to be near to zero. But on Beauhurst's measure Crowdcube would be claiming investors have increased their asset value in the company.

It really must be very frustrating for investors to put their money into a business like this and to end up here. Thanks to a lot of hard work one imagines, Vibe has received great PR. For anyone looking at it from a close distance, it and Luke Massie seemed to be blazing a trail. Shareholders then receive a letter from Cowgill Holloway, which tells them their company has gone into administration. Nothing from the company and nothing from Crowdcube. Meanwhile Luke the founder is busy forcing through what is his vision of the future and coming out with the newco and all the old co's assets.

Where did all that money go?

As Luke points out in his SH email, he was advised by his lawyers that he had to stop thinking of his SHs and start thinking of his creditors. So CC SHs really had no chance. Isnt it time this situation was reviewed if we are going to successfully grow ordinary people's access to equity stakes in SMEs? Maybe if more people realised that the tab for this mess is being picked up not by the investors and not by the founders but by your taxes, we might get some action?

Luke you didnt think this all through. Your name is now a target. Good luck trying to tap your investors again.

George Edwards - an example of how the internet age has created a moral vacuum.

George Edwards invented Gas Sense. Well he invented the idea of inventing Gas Sense. All the other stuff is just fantasy.

If you google search George Edwards and Richard Branson you get quite a few pics of the great Dick with the pupil. Dick flew George to the US as a Virgin startup winner. You begin to believe the PR - this guy really is something. Other pictures show him conferencing with Martha Lane Fox - under a Virgin banner of One to Watch - https://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/young-entrepreneurs-watch-george-edwards. Well in someways Virgin were right - just not in the sense they intended.

George invented a gadget for telling people how much LPG was left in their bottle. He then went to Kickstarter, where he raised £15k. This was 3 years ago.

As recently as 2016 he got this PR in a rag - https://thetab.com/uk/2016/07/07/i-skipped-uni-im-make-first-million-7013

Despite many promises and talk of big business being interested - a deal for many thousands of units with a major US distributor surfaced at one stage, George and his company have delivered nothing. It was all made up or so it would seem.

This astounding lack of any moral code or any decency seems to be the acceptable face of our world today. Off the back of this apparent scam, George has been able to appear as the public face of young British inventors. He was quite famous for a while.

Now George's company Gas Sense Solutions is due to file accounts. Why he has kept the company open is anyone's guess - maybe easier to let it close organically than admit the theft of £15k.

We have tried to contact him many times to hear his side of the story. He never responds. The little bit of business sense he has picked up he uses to prolong the fantasy  - 'we have meetings with our suppliers' or 'We are talking positively to backers'  - you get the idea. It always comes to nothing.

Its a sad fact that this guy, educated at a decent public school, believes it to be his right to take people's money and then deliver nothing for it. The crime is even worse when you consider how he has manipulated the facts to further his own prestige. Virgin are either stupid, gullible or dont give a damn. Whichever one, they need to wake up.

His website is still open for orders although they out of stock! One to watch indeed.