Bronwyn Le Grice on why she doesn’t chase unicorns — and thinks founders shouldn’t either

As the recent winner of the Victorian Pearcey Award, and founder of digital health accelerator ANDhealth, Bronwyn Le Grice is an expert on innovation and how to grow SMEs into scalable, sound businesses.

After all, outside of her digital health experience she co-founded and grew ‘AirBnB for pets’ company PetHomeStay alongside her partner Tom Le Grice.

Coming from a business due-diligence background, she tells SmartCompany Plus that when she set up ANDhealth in 2017 and was asked about the sustainability plan, she responded, “I don’t know if there is one. It might not work. If it doesn’t work it shouldn’t exist.”

It did work. A six-month project turned into a five-year CEO role.

ANDHealth’s non-profit model has already supported 450 emerging digital health companies, 10 of which joined its pilot ANDHealth+ program to (at the time of writing) raise a total $70 million in funding. That’s led to the creation of 300 jobs, with different technologies reaching 200,000 patients.

As a self-described contrarian in the VC space, Le Grice argues that thousands of non-viable startups absorb an awful amount of early stage capital, and that chasing quantity over quality doesn’t give the best results.

Instead, her preference is with working with founders who have proven they can achieve something, and helping them to scale it and grow, rather than encouraging more people to start new businesses.

In an interview with SmartCompany Plus, Le Grice discusses why she doesn’t chase unicorns, her unifying principle in supporting staff, how to evaluate third-parties you work with, and why she asks if founders want to be rich or famous.

The following responses have been edited for clarity and length.

What are your tips for SMEs that are looking to grow, that already have a strong foundation or idea?

You need to do your due diligence on the people you work with.

Treat any advisor, accelerator, incubator, or person that says they can raise capital for you the same.

See if they have a track record of doing it, or if you’re part of their learning curve. Even professional services, lawyers, accountants, get a reference and treat them like an employee.

When you don’t have many staff, they are almost your team, so build your A team.

We’re always continuously learning, but if it’s the first time they’ve done it, do you want to be in their pilot program?

[Le Grice laughs and points out that she thanks the 10 companies part of ANDHealth’s pilot program]

If you’re looking for a program to help you scale, you need to do your due-diligence. It’s going to take a lot of time and effort and they’re going to use your brand in their marketing.

Work out which programs you will get maximum value from. That’s not always equal to dollars.

You need to look for a good cultural fit, and not just the most cash if there is cash involved.

Why Le Grice asks if founders want to be rich or famous

Investors want people that are seeking to be rich, they don’t want people that want to be famous.

There’s a big focus on valuation in the current dialogue, and that everyone’s going to be a unicorn and fly off into the sunset with sparkles and rainbows.

But you can be really wealthy by selling a company for $100 million. If you’re investing in someone that wants to be rich, you get rich with them. If they want to be famous, you pay for their marketing.

And you focus on being rich by focusing on value.

Valuation is a subjective measure, and is set by what a third party ascribes your value to be. It can be affected by global economic conditions, or another company in your industry collapsing in a world of pain.

You focus on your evidence, your customer acquisition, human talent, retention rates of staff and customers. If you focus on value, valuation will come.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t negotiate a good valuation when you’re raising capital — but if you’re living and breathing it, you’re spending too much energy on things that aren’t under your control.

What are the best and worst pieces of business advice you’ve ever received?

Worst:

“You would do better if you wore less makeup, and maybe got some glasses and didn’t take such care with your personal appearance. People would take you more seriously.”

Basically, don’t present yourself as attractively as you do and you’ll do better. That was 20 years ago, but it was said.

It wasn’t unusual in my early career for people to say that to me. It wasn’t someone I reported to, it was a colleague who was older than me.

I ignored it, because I didn’t want to go to work every day feeling like crap about myself.

Best:

The best wasn’t actually business advice.

I have a friend who is a professional athlete, who had periods in the media where they loved him, and where they hated him. But he never changed his way of dealing with them.

After a particularly rambunctious media session I asked him how he deals with it.

He said I’m just myself, because it’s exhausting to not be authentic. If I’m not authentic all the time, one day when I’m tired I’ll be authentic and it will freak people out.

It’s always stayed with me that being authentic and being yourself is important.

What sets apart the best pitch decks from the rest?

There’s a trend at the moment where people are spending enormous amounts of money on amazingly designed decks. I don’t care if it’s written on the back of a napkin, just tell me where the data is and make sure you can substantiate it.

Really stylish infographics with one word on each slide look great, but when you leave the room and I’ve seen 10 other companies and have to write you up for my investment committee, I have no idea what you do.

The best pitches I see are ugly, with lots of data and really good references. Every claim in the deck is substantiated with a legitimate reference and they aren’t embellished.

The other thing investors hate are decks on black or dark blue backgrounds. Lots will write notes on it, either on an iPad or printed out, and you can’t do that on a dark background.

That means you can’t write notes and share it with your colleagues, which is what teams do. Not everyone can sit in on a presentation.

How do you know when it’s time to fire an employee?

If they’re not communicating and not delivering their outcomes in a remote-first environment, there’s a problem. You work with them to see what the problem is.

If there’s no path forward to getting the outcomes and the communication, it’s time to leave.

With ANDHealth, we’re tiny and growing. It’s not always the right place for people because you have to be flexible about where your job starts and ends.

If you need a compartmentalised, tidy job, startups aren’t great.

Often it’s about open and honest conversations. If we’re not happy with them, they’re generally not happy either.

Sometimes the win-win is that this is not a good place for you right now, you’re not happy, and we’re not happy. The longer this goes on, the more unhappy everyone will get.

I don’t know anyone that has been fired who pathologically loved their job.

On supporting staff and tuning out

Having empathy and looking after people is really important.

We’re having a one week relax and recharge in the first week of November, with no leave needing to be taken. I’m contemplating turning the email off at the server so that people are properly disconnected.

It’s almost biblical — if you treat people how you would like to be treated it’s amazing what they will do for an organisation.

If you recognise they must be tired because you’re tired after almost 200 days of lockdown, it’s a lot easier to motivate people.