‘Other investment companies work on the basis of one in ten. They make ten investments, knowing that one of them is going to be a hit, two of them are going to be OK, three of them are going to be rubbish and four of them are going to go bust...’
Dan Wagner
‘What is very important is that if you’ve got great people, you let them get on and do what they do best and provide the support structure under them’
Sháá Wasmund
‘I’d like to feel that Brightstation Ventures are different for some key reasons; the ability to make something happen without any investment committee. We are two entrepreneurs who can make decisions about investments without any third parties. We’re like business angels but with very deep pockets’
Dan Wagner
‘We are controlled mavericks. We’re not simply going to say “That’s a great idea, let’s do it”. We don’t want to work on anything we can’t have a material input in’
Sháá Wasmund
‘We will monetise our investments when we feel that it is right. In some cases we may never monetise them. We may continue to retain them as profitable go-forward businesses’
Dan Wagner
‘And we’ll say four out of five of ours
are going to work. There’s always going to
be something you can’t control but that one may
morph into something different but even more
successful. That’s definitely an entrepreneurial
skill to be able to understand that’
Sháá Wasmund
‘Working with Shiny happened in just days. Sháá said, “You’ve got to see these guys and if we can get a deal, let's get a deal.” We closed the deal within two days. We met them and in the first hour in the first meeting, we said, “We think you’re great; we’d really like to work with you; we’d like to invest in you; let’s talk about a deal.” And within two days the deal was signed and done. It’s an illustration of the entrepreneurial approach we have’
Dan Wagner
‘Other people invest money
and then sit back or look over their shoulders,
but not in an active way. They will meet once a month at
a board meeting and say, “This is what we think you should
be doing” without ever having run a business before. Dan
and I have both had the good and bad experiences of
business and actually, you need both to understand
and nurture people’
Sháá Wasmund
