My core values are integrity and bias to action.
My guiding precept is to trust your colleagues, interact honestly by kindly telling them the truth, assume positive intent in those interactions, and relentlessly get things done.
I keep a list of guiding principles on work, culture, and management here.
I was Chief Business Officer at Wayflyer, the leading e-commerce lender. There I was responsible for Product, Product Design and Operations.
During my time at Wayflyer, we increased underwriting efficiency, launched the business in new countries, and significantly increased the serviceable addressable market via integrations. We lent >$1BN USD.
Before Wayflyer, I spent time at Revolut, running teams in the London HQ (Global Authorisations & Global Expansion).
I helped launch new products, hired roles from executives (eg CEO of Banking) to ops, grew the company to 35,000 customers in a new country, and set the foundation for future country launches like Brazil. These countries now have over 500K users.
I joined Rev when we fit into a one room office in London. I left when there were 3,000+ employees across the globe, including over 50 in APAC, the business I started.
I cofounded Australia and New Zealand’s equity crowdfunding platform. And in a previous life, I was a corporate lawyer.
I'm passionate about fintech, but I've recently also invested in cleantech. If you see a company at the intersection of the two, let me know!
Selected investor (seed investor/ advisor roles: Apron (SME Payments), PaySway (International Payments), Frankie (BaaS), Paysauce (IPO exit, Payroll),Akahu.io (Open Banking), Ziina (CashApp for MENA), Tilt (social meets shopping), Pledge (carbon calculating & offsetting), Safi (recycling), Axis Pay (neobank), Octo (neobank), Custos (KYB & KYC).
Companies I've invested in or advised have raised capital from VCs like: Greycroft, a16z, 20VC, AirTree, Earlybird, DST Global, TQ Ventures, and Lowercarbon Capital. And almost more importantly the companies are now producing revenue and some are profitable. In the last three years my TVPI is about 4.4x, with a DPI of 0.65. I expect it to be more in future.
You can contact me on: will@littlegoatlabs.com, or @willmahonheap on Twitter.
I'm always tinkering with something on the weekends. For example, you can buy my "Gold Kiwi" merch here, and check out a fun AI excel insights generator I built here.
I spent a lot of 2023 trying to buy a bank in a remote country. Now I'm working on something at the intersection of fintech & AI (how do you like those buzzwords).
Why Little Goat Labs?
In the 1960s my Dad, Greg Heap, purchased a plot of land on an isolated island for $1500, Great Barrier Island, off the coast of New Zealand.
He cut a Californian bungalow up into sections, floated it on a barge for 150KM to the island, dropped the house there and named the farm Little Goat Track Ltd.
He sold the property a couple of years later because the island was remote and money was tight. Someone else held it for over 50 years. A missed opportunity.
I've always loved the entrepreneurial spirit of that story, and having visited the land recently, how beautiful that corner of the world is.
It also motivates me to think extremely long term with the people I work with, and on the things we build. That land is incredibly valuable now, but it wasn't always so.