The Problem with How Most People Think About Startup Investing
For most of the last decade, investing in early-stage companies was a privilege reserved for a very specific type of person: wealthy, well-connected, and almost certainly based in a major tech hub. The minimum cheque sizes were enormous, the deals were passed around private networks, and the whole thing felt deliberately inaccessible.
Equity crowdfunding changed that. Regulation CF in the US and the FCA-regulated platforms in the UK opened the door to ordinary investors — people like me — to back the companies we believe in for as little as £100 or $100. The barrier to entry collapsed almost overnight.
But here's the thing: the information gap didn't collapse with it. The platforms made it possible to invest. They didn't make it easy to invest well.
Why I'm Doing This in Public
I'm a sports business executive. I spend my professional life thinking about revenue strategy, commercial partnerships, and how organisations grow. I'm comfortable with financial modelling and deal evaluation. But when I first started looking at equity crowdfunding, I was genuinely surprised by how little quality, independent analysis existed for retail investors.
Most of the content out there falls into one of two camps: either it's promotional material from the platforms themselves, or it's breathless hype from people who've never actually lost money on an investment.
I wanted something different. I wanted a record of what it actually looks like to build a portfolio from scratch — the due diligence process, the decisions, the wins, and the write-offs. So I started Small Batch Capital.
The "Small Batch" Philosophy
The name is deliberate. In the world of craft spirits, "small batch" means something specific: fewer products, made with more care, by people who are deeply invested in the quality of what they produce. It's the opposite of mass production.
That's the approach I'm trying to bring to startup investing. I'm not trying to spray capital across hundreds of deals and hope for a statistical outcome. I'm making small, carefully considered bets on companies I've genuinely researched, in sectors I understand, at valuations that make sense.
Every investment I make gets a one-page thesis. Every write-off gets an honest post-mortem. The portfolio is tracked and published. The methodology is open.
What You'll Find Here
This site is a craft investing journal. You'll find deal memos, portfolio updates, platform reviews, and educational content about equity crowdfunding. I'll share what I'm learning as I learn it.
A note on what this is not: I am not a licensed financial adviser. Nothing I publish here is investment advice. Startup investing is highly speculative and involves a significant risk of losing your entire investment. Please do your own research before committing any capital.
That said — I hope this journal is useful to you. Let's figure this out together.