Beyond: shorting your rival’s stock for $700m but losing the war, with Founder & CEO Ian Strang
Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter
English - June 07, 2022 06:00 - 57 minutes - ★★★★★ - 20 ratingsEntrepreneurship Business Careers technology web entrepreneurship business leaders advice lifehack startup tech london Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
80% to 90% of startups fail. But what those stats don't tell you is how you can do loads of things right and still fail. This is what happened to Ian Strang and the company he founded, Beyond, who tried to shake up the death industry - offering price comparisons, wills, funerals, probate - those kinds of things. They certainly managed to do that. They landed some blows, but ultimately they lost the war.
This is Ian’s story, told a few months after his company failed.
He and his team came up with some ingenious ideas which led to press, shorting stocks and ultimately the regulation of the death industry itself. But that’s not how things ended.
We talk about:
The demanding childhood which shaped his life
His first startup
Meeting Alan Sugar’s son
Quitting Pollen because it was too much fun
The bizarre circumstance for first pitching Beyond
The problem with monetising death
How to grow through SEO
The April fool’s joke that yielded big publicity
Shorting Dignity for $700m
How to get the CMA on your side
What is a bad advert anyway
Auctioning your company
The reality of being an entrepreneur
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80% to 90% of startups fail. But what those stats don't tell you is how you can do loads of things right and still fail. This is what happened to Ian Strang and the company he founded, Beyond, who tried to shake up the death industry - offering price comparisons, wills, funerals, probate - those kinds of things. They certainly managed to do that. They landed some blows, but ultimately they lost the war.
This is Ian’s story, told a few months after his company failed.
He and his team came up with some ingenious ideas which led to press, shorting stocks and ultimately the regulation of the death industry itself. But that’s not how things ended.
We talk about:
The demanding childhood which shaped his life
His first startup
Meeting Alan Sugar’s son
Quitting Pollen because it was too much fun
The bizarre circumstance for first pitching Beyond
The problem with monetising death
How to grow through SEO
The April fool’s joke that yielded big publicity
Shorting Dignity for $700m
How to get the CMA on your side
What is a bad advert anyway
Auctioning your company
The reality of being an entrepreneur
--
Sponsors
Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders
Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders
Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders
--
Newsletter
Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/
You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes