In recent weeks, I have reflected on the arc of innovation and its acceleration from the Gutenberg Press to the advent of artificial intelligence. There is one common denominator throughout all these innovations: the power of imagination to dare to dream big.
My own journey at wefox going from a dream to a billion-dollar reality encapsulates the essence of ambition and the transformative power of imagination. Intentional imagination is the moment when we can access our deepest “why” and this gives meaning and purpose to what we do. As Friedrich Nietzsche once said: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
The picture above is of me when I was live on air on CNBC announcing that my start-up wefox had just raised $650m in a funding round. I want to tell you the story of how I got to this point.
This is me in 2011 when I raised my very first funding for my first start-up. I was over the moon and never believed I was capable of what I had achieved. I was just a confused kid not knowing what life had in store for me.
Back then I did not have a clue what I was doing, but it still worked out. In the ensuing years, I developed a repeatable approach to fundraising, which I call “The Power of Imagination.”
It all starts with setting yourself high ambitions. For example, my formula was to look at whatever the largest fundraising round was in my industry and stage, and multiply it by a factor of two. In other words, how can I double it?
The largest Series A in insurtech at the time in 2015 was $15m so when I started the fundraising process I aimed for $30m: We raised $30m. The largest Series B was $120m: We raised $240m.
Setting high ambitions is not enough: You need to believe in yourself and your abilities to achieve your aim. For this you need to convince yourself deeply – right to your very being – how you are going to effectively deploy this capital to enter a new stage of growth for your business. What business KPI’s will you be able to achieve? Which new strategic initiatives are you going to invest in? How will these investment impact the future value of your business?
If you believe in your abilities, then the magical part begins: You need to imagine yourself already having achieved your goals. How does it feel? What do others say to you once you’ve achieved your goal? How well will you sleep after all this pressure is off your shoulders? Use all your senses to visualize this perfect state and feel, smell and sense every aspect of that moment as if you were right there in that moment. In this way, you begin to embed the vision into your body because it is important that you start to think, feel and behave in this state of mind. To paraphrase Gandhi: “Be the change you wish to seek.”
Once you are clear in your mind about your desired future state, you need to talk publicly about your ambitions with as many people as possible. You’ve got to burn the boats – go out with no option of returning.
You’ll soon see: if you believe in yourself and have realized your goals, then people will also believe in you, support you and open more doors. If you haven’t done the work and you talk about ambitious goals, people will disregard you as a wishful thinker. This is the point of action when rubber meets the road.
In the end, you need to execute your plan and rest assured: the bigger your ambition, the bigger the challenges you’ll have to endure. The world will try to test you if you really are serious and they’ll try to make you doubt yourself.
This is a photo from 2017 where I was in a lot of pain. Both physically and mentally. It was the period that I call “The Black Summer”. I was getting married and it was supposed to be the best summer of my life. Instead it was terrible. The company was about to go bankrupt, no investor believed in us and I was hopeless. I was responsibe for more than 200 employees, the pressure was so high and I started to lose belief in myself.
I knew I needed to regroup. I focussed and reinstated my belief in myself and my abilities to save the company. I found a way to believe in my goals, dared to dream big, eliminate the self-doubt that I felt through the constant rejections by imagining the outcome, self-confidently talking about my plans and executing at speed to generate momentum. And I continued to build on this momentum.
In the end “The Power of Imagination” has empowered me to raise $1.5bn for my company and in the process created the world’s leading insurtech with $800m in revenues, home to more than 1000 employees, and a valuation of $4.5 billion.
The road to success is not a straight line and there will always be obstacles – but through “The Power of Imagination” that is melded with iron-clad conviction, the path ahead becomes not only bearable, but achievable.
This is true for fundraising and in fact for every other endeavor in life: Whether it is building a happy family or anything else in life that truly matters to you.
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult” ~ Seneca the Younger.
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