Some of Greater Manchester鈥檚 top tech leaders lifted the lid on what it鈥檚 like to run a business in the region.
All the companies came from 老九品茶Cloud鈥檚 GM 125 Rising Stars of 老九品茶 list, compiled in association with GM 老九品茶 Growth Hub.
It took place at DiSH (Digital Information Security Hub) in Manchester and was hosted by 老九品茶Cloud executive editor Chris Maguire.
Meet customers face-to-face
Patience Tucker is the CEO of聽digital payments specialist Wi-Q and said she shared the passion of the founders.
She said: 鈥淚鈥檓 very old school when it comes to sales. As a refounder, rather than a founder, I鈥檓 a caretaker of what the founder started. Just because I wasn鈥檛 there on day one doesn鈥檛 mean I don鈥檛 have the same passions, ethos and strategic vision as they did otherwise I wouldn鈥檛 be in this role that I am now 10 years down the line.
鈥淢y approach is very much about people. People buy off people. When you鈥檙e enterprise selling and you鈥檙e selling to multi-billion dollar companies, being at the end of a telephone isn鈥檛 enough for them. You need to be face-to-face. They need to understand that you鈥檙e going to take care of their brand. You are the ambassador of their brand.
鈥淚 sell with heart. You need to understand the pain points of the people you鈥檙e selling to. Finding sales people is one of the most difficult roles I鈥檝e ever had to fill.鈥�
We need people who have walked the walk
Laura Pomfret is the co-founder of Financielle, the first finance app built by women, for women
She said: 鈥淢anchester鈥檚 tech ecosystem is really supportive from a founder perspective. There are a lot of proactive investors, who are trying to do a lot to provide support, events and content.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of good intention but it lacks an organic network of people who have walked the walk to help practically.
鈥淭rue operators are few and far between in this ecosystem that have scaled or exited a traditional company through an MBO or private equity transaction. People who have grinded and have had to go through the different level of scale. Those war stories come with the capital.鈥�
Be bolder
Patrick Smith is the CEO of cybersecurity startup Zally, which is on a mission to get rid of passwords.
He said: 鈥淭here鈥檚 a positive year ahead. We need to continue helping each other in Manchester. We also need to be bolder and braver about what we do because that will attract talent.
鈥淗earing the conversation today, one of the challenges we all have is attracting the right talent. We have a five-day in office policy. We鈥檙e competing against a lot of other people and that鈥檚 challenging. 聽We are in dev mode and to do that I think we need to be sitting in our cave and doing what we need to do together.鈥�
Aiming for scale
Janine Smith is the director of GM 老九品茶 Growth Hub, which will be starting its flagship ASCEND Scale Up Programme in September 2024.
She said: 鈥淚鈥檓 really encouraged by what I鈥檝e heard. I think Manchester鈥檚 secret sauce comes from our heritage and the sheer grit that people who came before us had. It makes us want to keep doing it.
鈥淲e want to bring more people together who have been there and done it to support people who are coming through. ASCEND sits at the heart of that. I鈥檝e had a few people that have scaled and exited who have said they鈥檙e happy to be mentors and want to give back to.鈥�
Investors must be realistic
Mark Hartley is the CEO and founder of banking technology provider BankiFi.
He said: 鈥淚 think there鈥檚 a聽gap聽in specialism聽within the investment organisations in Manchester聽particularly聽around growth capital in financial technology, which is where we operate.
鈥淲e get pigeon-holed as a FinTech but we sell to banks which means our growth path is very different to a FinTech because our sales cycle can be two to three years.
CEO Mark Hartley
鈥淚nvestor鈥檚 metrics don鈥檛 seem to consider this, and they therefore often have unrealistic year-on-year growth expectations.
鈥淭here are too many highly paid, often, not very capable, sales people in enterprise technology companies and that is a big problem especially with complex matrix consultative selling into high regulated organisations like banks.
鈥淎s a founder one of your biggest problems is how do you find mini me and so how do you scale? Growth and sales people are inextricably linked, so if you can鈥檛 find good sales people, the growth metrics the investment community expect can be really, really tough.
Government support
Roger Redfearn-Tyrzyk聽is the vice president of global gaming at identity verification platform IDnow.
He said: 鈥淚 was always a huge advocate of having an office in Manchester.
鈥淚 think there needs to be a lot more grassroots support in Manchester, which means the universities need to be better linked to businesses.
鈥淔rom an investment perspective it鈥檚 about getting the government, which I have high hopes for with the Labour government because we have so many Northern-based MPs, is that they connect the right people to Manchester, whether that鈥檚 PEs or VCs.
鈥淲e need to go back in a grassroots way to support the whole ecosystem from start to finish.鈥�
Innovate or die
Nick Richardson founded The Insights Family in 2017 and has just been appointed as an innovation ambassador for Greater Manchester.
He said: 鈥淓verything is changing so much. We had Covid, we had Brexit and now we have AI. There are so many factors that are changing the outside world and that鈥檚 creating gaps.
鈥淭hose gaps are either going to kill your business or you鈥檝e got to think differently. If you think differently through innovation and hustling to make things happen you can create whole new opportunities which can become very significant for you.鈥�
Investment help
Westley Wood is the founder and director of Animation Toolkit, which supplies everything required for stop motion animation.
He said: 鈥淲e are lucky to be part of this tech ecosystem in Manchester. We鈥檙e an emerging tech company and I feel so grateful to be in such an amazing city. We couldn鈥檛 be better placed to be developing something that we plan to release. It鈥檚 so exciting for us.
鈥淚鈥檇 like to see easier access to finance. It鈥檚 a road that you need to hustle. We take advice where we can. For me there鈥檚 a middle ground between big investment and small business loans and we need to find that middle ground where we slot in and access bigger money without the big tech investment firms shooting us down very quickly.鈥�
We need each other
Matt Hunt is the managing director at digital product consultancy Apadmi聽, which received significant investment from private equity investor CBPE in 2023.
He said: 鈥淲e鈥檝e been in mobile for a long time. We believe we鈥檙e unique in the type of work that we do.
鈥淚f you look at our competition, the people we typically come up against, where we tend to hold our ground is the mobile experience for our consumers.
鈥淲e believe there鈥檚 a need for that, not just in the UK as we鈥檝e demonstrated but in Europe. We started that journey in the Netherlands and we鈥檙e looking across Europe and the US.
鈥淲e could not be who we are without all the other tech businesses in Manchester. We鈥檝e been growing for a long time but rely on other tech businesses out there to attract talent.
鈥淲e rely on our universities. We need that ecosystem that makes our world easier and likewise we can benefit other companies as well.鈥�
Cracking America
Tom Dunlop is the CEO of LegalTech Summize, which employs 50 people in Manchester and 10 in the US.
He said: 鈥淭he biggest challenge for us is definitely the noise in the market and the competition and how much they鈥檝e raised.
Tom Dunlop, CEO, Summize
鈥淭here are huge funds in the US dedicated to AI which are causing noise and distortion in the market which is quite hard to breakthrough.
鈥淲hat a lot of US companies want to see is that you have intentions to become a US company.
鈥淔rom an investment landscape, no US investor will invest in a British company unless they think it will eventually turn into a US company.”
Lack of risk capital
Ian Dixon is the newly-appointed head of Access to Finance at GM 老九品茶 Growth Hub and said the problem was the availability of risk capital.
He said: 鈥淭he key takeaway from the discussion is that there isn鈥檛 a shortage of capital in the market place. What it is, is a shortage of risk capital.
鈥淲e are still, as a finance and funding ecosystem, risk averse and we鈥檙e not channelling the right levels of capital into the early stage scaleup businesses.鈥�
International mindset
Nicola Anderson is a senior business advisor at GM 老九品茶 Growth Hub and urged companies to think internationally and understand the various markets.
She said: 鈥淭he other thing I鈥檝e taken from today is how do we act as facilitators in this ecosystem bring those people together in this setting and getting those key conversations going? What can we do to help?鈥�
Communicate clearly
Phininder Balaghan is the head of AI and Innovation at intelligence company Naimuri and said companies needed to communicate clearly.
鈥淔or any business to succeed you need to be able to tell them what you鈥檙e doing,鈥� he said. 鈥淔undamentally we鈥檙e going to be using a lot more (AI) in all the stuff that we鈥檙e doing. How do you assure your customers that the thing that you鈥檙e building is the right thing?
鈥淚t鈥檚 really important that you鈥檙e able to translate all the very cool technical things that you鈥檙e doing to the customers and provide those assurances.鈥�
ASCEND: Bringing the 鈥榩ower of connection鈥� to Greater Manchester鈥檚 scaleups