What are you most proud of so far?
I’m proud that I’ve been able to build a fantastic product and service for our customers, despite being new to the information security/auditing market – really leveraging my knowledge of the kind of experience tech companies want from providers (fast-moving, helpful, great communication skills) in a historically slow-moving and grey space. It’s satisfying to see all the customer feedback backing up what were trying to do.
That said, weirdly in many ways I’m more proud of what I achieved in my first business, Wriggle, which failed, than what I’m doing so far with Tempo. That journey and the learning experience was irreplaceable. The business and its fundamentals were super challenging (double-sided marketplace, hyper-local B to C in a struggling sector) – and despite that, our team achieved masses, even if it ultimately didn’t work out.
By contrast, Tempo is motoring along with all the fundamentals pointing in the right direction. I feel like I’ve had to do a lot less to achieve what we’re doing, apart from point it in right direction and harness all my learnings from my previous business. It’s definitely a lesson for me as a founder on the importance of market selection and timing.
Bristol has quietly become one of the UK’s most interesting tech cities — what’s your experience of building here versus what people assume it’s like?
Bristol’s a fantastic place to build a business – and I owe the city a huge amount for my entrepreneurial journey.
I specifically chose to move to Bristol to setup Wriggle back in 2014 – I’d been at Uni here and it seemed like a great place to launch and trial a restaurant platform – lots of great restaurants, a big population but not unmanageably large like London, and of course, a great place to live. We started out in the Engine Shed in 2014, just as it opened, and I met lots of likeminded early stage founders, some of whom have become my closest friends. You can’t replace having that kind of network as you’re building. We also ended up raising much of our investment within the city – from the Bristol Private Equity Club angel group, so it was very Bristol-led generally!
I’m less engaged in the startup scene in Bristol these days – Tempo is fully remote and I’ve got a young family – but I’d certainly recommend Bristol to any founder, in terms of the access to a tech network/resources, talent, and quality of life rolled together!
What’s your advice for other startup founders?
Looking back, I founded my first business without real insight into a “problem” that needed to be solved – and it lacked clarity as a result. Whereas with Tempo I saw a specific problem, however niche, and solved it – and it’s doing all the better for that.
So I guess my learning from this is – solve a genuine problem, and the secondary advice: the best route to founding is to go and get a job in a specific market (almost any market – but growth markets make your life easier!), since that’s where you’ll get real insight into how people work and see a problem to solve.
Without that sort of experience, your ideation will be too general and you won’t have a unique insight into a problem to solve.