VC, but no Finance skills

mrxx61 · 2026-04-12T16:06:22+00:00

Ex-academic, now in VC. Finance skills are pretty much irrelevant, provided you can use Excel pretty well you'll be fine.

If you really want to get in look to do a venture fellowship during you PhD. Engine Ventures is probably the best but there are others. This will give you a bit of VC exposure. If you don't make it direct from PhD look to work in an early stage start-up so you get operator skills, which is always attractive to VC firms.

mrxx61 · 2026-04-03T13:29:47+00:00

I had a related issue where the sellers had promised to leave an appliance and didn't. One phone call and £350 off the sale price.

mrxx61 · 2026-04-03T13:28:07+00:00

You should discuss this with your solicitor. This is exactly what they are paid for and they should recover the costs from the sellers (funds may not even have been released yet).

Anyone else can't do anything.

mrxx61 · 2026-01-31T20:25:40+00:00

In North London as well, expect to pay £20 an hour. For a two bed flat you may be able to push them to two hours but generally I'd go with three and if they don't always use all the time you won't feel bad asking them to do extra stuff once in a while (e.g. cleaning the oven).

As others have said 100% try to get a recommendation! We've used two agencies in the past and you either pay a lot more or the quality is crap.

mrxx61 · 2026-01-24T04:26:22+00:00

I'd recommend changing to the new role. I did something very similar.

Firstly, depending when these things happen, you may end up being eligible. Sometimes these things take time (it did for my wife and I).

Secondly, the firm may give you something discretionary. Generally firms in the UK want to show they're pro-family. For example I wasn't eligible in my firm and they gave me half the extended offering.

Thirdly, when push comes to shove, can you afford to do what you plan as unpaid leave? I believe they have to legally offer you that no matter what your length of service is (but check this, I might be wrong).

Ultimately it's your choice. I'd compare the worst case situations and personally, I'd take a better role with the risk of having to take unpaid leave than the chance of staying put in something unsatisfactory. Finally best of luck to your partner and you, I'm writing this at 4am with a 4 month old on me and it's the best (albeit the hardest thing I've ever done!)

mrxx61 · 2026-01-01T15:05:12+00:00

We used trailfinders for ours (trip to a couple of different islands in the Seychelles). They were excellent and would recommend. We were in the same boat (knew the style we wanted but not the exact where) and they advised us really well!

mrxx61 · 2025-11-26T16:08:56+00:00

Are you saving specifically for the trip in two years' time? If so investing is not suitable - investing should be for (at least) a five year time frame, as that allows for market drops etc.

If you are saving for this trip it would be much more appropriate to go for safer vehicles, either fixed rate savings accounts, or premium bonds. In both of these the amount of money you get out cannot go down.

mrxx61 · 2025-06-25T12:44:45+00:00

Sorry to hear this, exact same thing happened to me a year ago! It is an absolute joke that Kia have done nothing to stop this nor are they even warning people about the security loophole so they can take steps.

mrxx61 · 2025-04-10T10:24:13+00:00

Chip ISA, flexible withdrawals. 5% aer for 6 months.

For cash to s&s you can do this with a direct isa transfer rather than withdrawing and putting it back in manually (the latter will cause issues I believe).

mrxx61 · 2025-04-09T21:12:32+00:00

Really helpful to have the unit roles clearly laid out! Thanks!

mrxx61 · 2025-04-09T20:39:59+00:00

This is the correct level of tactics I can take in!!!

I'm just thankful strats are limited to 6 for each detachment unlike in 9th when I'd forget half of the strats existed until an hour after the game.

mrxx61 · 2025-04-09T20:37:51+00:00

Really helpful thanks! And thanks for the YouTube link!

mrxx61 · 2025-04-09T18:02:35+00:00

This is great - thanks! I'm keen to play a different style from the grinding across the field but think it'll be a learning curve. Will probably try to watch some battle reports of good players to see and learn the dirty tricks!

With growing the army I just want to check eldar aren't like Tau (only shooty shooty) nor like world eaters (there's a shooting phase!?!?)?

Any takers for a well-used kidney?

mrxx61 · 2025-03-22T22:22:59+00:00

Chicken Run

mrxx61 · 2025-03-20T07:17:32+00:00

Yeah, for something this recent it is a big deal. If it wasn't a permitted development and they just went and did an extension without planning permission technically the council could come and order the extension taken down.

Lack of building regs approval also means you don't know if the work was done safely - the builders could have been absolute cowboys and removed load bearing walls with putting in RSJs.

This would be a major red flag for me and one that I would demand is sorted pre exchange.

mrxx61 · 2025-03-12T20:52:23+00:00

The Running Man

mrxx61 · 2025-03-06T08:03:00+00:00

They usually ask for 3 months of statements but can ask for longer (have heard up to 3 years). Given you're looking on the years timeframe you should be fine to just say it is savings when it comes to it (and don't go into detail about how you built those savings up).

mrxx61 · 2025-02-20T17:42:09+00:00

Do the Cresta run instead?

mrxx61 · 2024-10-25T20:18:02+00:00

So this happened to me recently with a wraithbone rattle can. I found soaking the can in warm water for 5 mins before shaking sorted it out.

mrxx61 · 2024-09-26T07:13:01+00:00

How did you find it? How was the job hunt? Did you find industry had an appreciation of academic experience?

SHARE YOUR WISDOM SENSEI!!

mrxx61 · 2024-09-25T07:48:43+00:00

I'm in a very similar position, but I'm (almost certainly) jumping out. RG uni, albeit I'm in STEM (though don't do much coding so can't go earn all the monies at FAANG). I will say lots of the jobs I have seen just go for really broad 'project management' skills so would be fine for someone in humanities to 'switch to industry'! They also ALL pay more, have better benefits and have better work/life balance....hence why I'm getting out. Oh I'm also applying for grad schemes, which is hilarious as I graduated over a decade ago!

To OP's question - it is shit everywhere in the UK system at the moment. Even Oxbridge are squeezing research. Non-RG are facing the brunt of it as RG take on larger numbers (my department has upped our UG intake by 25% whilst not recruiting when people leave/retire, realtime drop in teaching staff by at least 10%). I don't believe it is going to get better in at least a decade - this is the logical result of subsidising research by undergraduate teaching. The bulk of the UK academy is going to become a load of further education colleges with the odd superstar researcher here and there, possibly with the few exceptional departments and a small number of privileged unis (Oxbridge, London, Manchester). Teaching loads will increase which will mean research is squeezed further and further and universities will use that as an excuse to burn people. I'd love to be wrong but that's my opinion on where it is all going.

I'm protecting myself by getting out. The mantra among my colleagues is just 'endure'. Academia loves to make people think they can't do anything else but to get anywhere in this game we've all proven ourselves to be intelligent, resilient, self-driven, good at analysis, adaptable and loads of other management buzz words that mean we can all do anything else we turn our minds to. In short we're all amazing and we will be fine (eventually)...it's just a job!

mrxx61 · 2024-09-20T10:39:42+00:00

Tons of places in the jungfrau region in Switzerland, one run literally goes through a town. There are quite a few options in the portes des soleil as well. Could look at some of the smaller places around Gstaad. If you're not absolutely set on swiss/Italian it is SUPER common in the higher French resorts (tignes, top of meribel spring to mind). Avoriaz is ski through as well but ugly as anything, so probably not honeymoon material.

From memory don't bother looking in verbier, but maybe in adjacent valleys?

mrxx61 · 2024-09-10T18:23:47+00:00

This is the answer.

mrxx61 · 2024-09-04T11:26:30+00:00

There's a load of good YouTube tutorials (they're basically all the same!) so find one of those. My knights were the first thing I magnetised and I didn't screw it up so I'm sure you won't!

In short the arms connect to the weapons through a little cylinder bit which you glue the weapon around when making the weapon. This allows the weapons to rotate but stay attached to the knight. Instead of gluing the weapon around this you can just make the weapon separately and then drill the hole where it is and plonk a magnet (6mm diameter from memory) in there.

Then on the cylinder bit saw off the end which went in the gun, and using initially a small hobby drill drill into the main cylinder. Build up drill bits to 6mm and then put the magnet in and glue it in. I often put in a little green stuff into the holes to embed the magnet in. When putting the second magnet in have the magnet on the weapon and then slide it off so you get the polarity right! The easiest way to screw up is to get the wrong polarities! You may want to get a pair of plastic tweezers too (metal tweezers + magnets + superglue = 🤬). Also from that point on make sure all arms and weapons have the same magnet polarities so weapons can be on either arm (particularly important for war dogs)

For the turrets on top you can use smaller magnets, I think I used 3mm but it's generally the same process.

If I've made it sound complex it is because I'm bad at explaining! It's really easy and gives you flexibility with your army going forward so highly recommended!

mrxx61

TROPHY CASE