JANUARY 2021
The four most important things I’ve learnt from running three businesses at the same time - serial founder, Dan Murray-Serter I’ve co-founded three very different businesses that I’m running right now Heights, Infamous Media & Foundrs: 1. Heights, a brain health and performance company - a venture funded startup, which is where I work full time from Monday Friday. Since we launched in January we’ve hired 10 employees - all remotely. 2. Infamous Media, the producers of the UK’s most popular entrepreneurial podcast, Secret Leaders. A completely creative endeavour that I work on at weekends, which for me counts as ‘active rest and recovery’ to the working week. 3. Foundrs, an invite-only community of over 300 of the UK’s top entrepreneurs who share similar beliefs. The journey began 7 years ago and is my way of giving back to the community. It’s an on-going learning process but the four key things I’ve learnt are hiring with honesty, prioritisation, identifying personal values and the importance of clarity. Hiring with honesty During the hiring process at Infamous Media for our Head of Podcasts role, which Will Stolerman now heads up - both myself and producer Rich Martell made it very clear that Heights gets 99% of my time. It’s important to provide clarity and honesty - not only when you’re hiring but for all your employees. For me, I look for my employees to grow and lead - which is why I look for autonomy, good decision-making skills, and trusting individuals . I learnt a lot about delegation and trust through the experience of building Foundrs. Prioritisation in business I use a time tracker to see where I’m spending most of my time so I can work out whether I’m being productive (or not). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, written by Stephen Covey, introduced me to ‘ The Eisenhower Matrix ’ - which helps Business Digest 17
me to decide and prioritize my tasks based on urgency and importance whilst sorting out less urgent and less important tasks. I try to make sure as much as my work as possible stays in the “Urgent Not Important” quadrant. Identify your personal values I think the most important thing you can do as a founder is to spend time identifying your personal values, and from there your company values. This enables you to hire correctly and build a company culture where people thrive. I value mental health, humility, purposing potential with purpose and initiative - all of these values are at the core of all my three companies. My advice for founders would be to spend time figuring out your personal values, and from there, your company values in order to hire correctly. I’ve learnt from my mistakes but one thing I’ll say is don’t rush the growth process - by aligning with your values you can create a company and a culture that not only allows employees to thrive, but most importantly perform at their best. I won’t lie and say it’s been easy to learn what my values are, it’s taken me years.
