Bill Lewis – Importance of Knowing Product-Market Fit Before Making Any Financial Investment

Bill Lewis is the founder and leader of Linacre Digital Media. He holds a degree in Business Strategy, Leadership, Merger and Acquisition, Operations Strategy, and Globalization from Harvard Business School. Bill started his career as a senior financial analyst at Ford’s Europe division. Throughout his career, he worked for more than a dozen companies, including KPMG, British Airways and was the co-founder in 2012 of Temasys Communications.   Born as a technologist, he has evolved into a consummate leader and boardroom titan. He’s helped many entrepreneurial businesses including some Fortune 200 companies.  In this episode, Bill shares his painful investment story of loss and his takeaways from the experience. You may relate to his story, or have lived one of them, but most importantly learn from it.   "Find a way of getting a hands-on exposure to a new business model and a new business environment before you commit financial investment." -Bill Lewis   What do you want to hear from the My Worst Investment Ever Podcast? Tell us here!   Resources: My Worst Investment Ever Book myworstinvestmentever.com Topics Covered: 00:57 – Bill’s entrepreneurial and investment background 02:44 – Bill describes the circumstances that led him to his worst investment ever 04:08 – Bill shares his worst investment story 05:44 – Qualities of the American company that Bill invested in 06:20 – Type of investment Bill made 07:35 – Why product-market fit is so important 08:10 – Signs of failure and how he knew the business is not working out 09:08 – 3 Takeaways from Bill’s investment experience and his actionable advice 11:39 – Andrew summarizes the critical learning point from Bills experience 13:33 – the Crash of 2008: Chapter 2 of investment failure for Bill 15:28 – Andrew shares the CFA’s standard of ethics Main Takeaways: Lesson 1: Find a way of getting a hands-on exposure to a new business model and a new business environment before you commit financial investment. Lesson 2: If you are going to enter into a commercial agreement with someone who allegedly has the product and the experience, you need to make sure that they have some skin in the game. Lesson 3: Have a committed and loyal staff. Employees are so much more than paid workers – they are ambassadors for your brand and everything that your business stands for. As members of your company, they must be acquainted with the products or services that you offer. You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever