I first started programming in COBOL on a DEC PDP 11 in 1981. Most of you reading this will probably never have heard of a PDP 11 but it is regarded by many experts as the most successful minicomputer ever.

The thing I remember most about the style of programming at the time was that you had to submit your code to the operations team who would input your changes and then run a compile on your code and report back any errors. If you were lucky you would get, at most, two compiles a day.

Whilst I would never wish to go back to that style of working it did make you a disciplined coder. It made you think hard about your code and it made you check it thoroughly for errors before submitting it for compilation. You desperately wanted to avoid wasting a compilation run with stupid errors that could have been easily prevented.

This being the early 80s the IBM PC was starting to make inroads into business. It was becoming realistic for small businesses to own PCs and to use them for word processing, spreadsheets and other office tasks.

Even though the big money in those days was to be made working with mainframes and minicomputers I was attracted by the fast-growing PC market. I can’t honestly say that I had great vision at that time and that I knew how big the PC industry would become but there was a definite buzz about and it seemed an exciting place to be.

My first foray into the PC world came when I joined a startup run by a husband and wife team. Therein lies a whole other story about the dynamics of working for a family business where the two owners regularly came into work not talking to each, having obviously had an argument that morning.

We developed accounting software for small businesses in MS-BASIC. We provided a turnkey solution by supplying SuperBrain PCs running CPM as the operating system, as was standard at the time. The software was supplied as two floppy disks – a program disk and a data disk.

After three years there, during which time I also learned ‘C’, I relocated and went to work for a software house that supplied software to the investment management world.

This was a big step up for me. It was a much more professional environment with more rigor and standards and I learned a lot during my time there. I quickly settled in and within a year I had been promoted to a team lead position. I was eventually appointed to lead the team building a new investment management product.

I spent 4 years there before the company was acquired by one of the big players in the investment management software sector. The culture of the company changed and I decided to move on. I was very well paid at the time and it was hard to match my salary in other positions.

I took a decision to lower my salary requirements so that I could find the right position for the next stage of my career. That proved to be a great decision as I landed a job as Head of Software Development at a software consultancy that was a division of a property firm.

I took a big drop in salary because I was attracted by the opportunity to run the development department and the carrot of being appointed to the board if things went to plan.

I quickly made a positive impact in my new role and I got most people on my side. I got on well with the managing director and other board directors. It was the time when 4GLs were all the rage and we made a decision to adopt Progress 4GL as our development environment.

We had a lot of success with Progress for about 4 years but they missed the boat when GUIs took over following the success of Windows 3. I knew that we had to change course or potentially go out of business so I recommended to the board that we adopt Visual Basic & SQL Server as our preferred development environment, mainly because of the skills we already had. They agreed.

Not long after switching to Visual Basic we won two multi-million dollar contracts with Pepsi and Pizza Hut. This was a major milestone as it gave me the confidence that we could win big deals and vindicated my decision to jettison Progress. Further big contracts with a major bank and a major retailer followed.

Within a year of joining the company I had been made a director and I was eagerly learning how a company operates and how to play a part at board level. I was also taking on more responsibility for managing a growing development team.

As we grew and went after bigger projects I also started to play a key role in the sales process. I worked closely with the sales director, helping to present to new prospects and to build our technical credibility.

I really enjoyed doing this and the buzz of negotiating deals and winning new clients was always very satisfying. The people at Pepsi said that my credibility was the key factor in  signing with us. That gave me a lot of confidence in dealing with senior executives at large companies.

I spent seven years at this company but as time went by my mind turned to starting my own company. My wife would occasionally ask me about our pension arrangements (I didn’t have any!) and I would respond “Don’t worry. I’ll have my own company one day and that will be our pension”.

Then before I knew it I hit my 40th birthday. That same morning, I had a real awakening. I suddenly realised how quickly time had gone since I was 30 and that if I kept procrastinating I would be 50 before I knew it.

The following week I approached a colleague from our sales team and told him of my plans. I asked him if we would like to join me and he immediately said “Yes”. Over the coming weeks, we registered a company and started developing a plan. In the evenings I was working on building a website for us.

On June 1st 1996 we launched our business from my spare bedroom and boy what a ride that proved to be. We spent nearly two years working out of my house. By the time we decided to take some office space I had eight people coming to my house each day to work.

I took on the role of CEO and for the next 21 years, I steered the company through many different economic cycles and numerous technological shifts. We got the business off the ground without taking on any debt and never needed any in the following years.

Along the way, there were many highlights as well as a few lowlights. There were many long hours and much hard work. There were also some periods of stress, most of this due to the fact that we were so busy.

It was not only very satisfying but we also had a lot of fun too. I’ve never once regretted my decision to start the company. If anything, I would wish that I had done it earlier.

We grew quickly. Within 4 months we had landed two multi-million dollar clients. We added more 7-figure clients over the following couple of years. We were very profitable and generating significant amounts of cash.

We were hiring new people every month to meet the demands our clients were putting on us. We were working on important projects for our big-name clients and as they saw what we could do for them they kept asking us to take on more projects. It was an exciting time and there was a real buzz about the company.

During that period we had many inquiries from companies interested in acquiring us but we chose not to sell out. There was always some terms that we didn’t like and we were happy being in charge of our own destiny. For us, it wasn’t the right time to sell and I’ve never regretted that we decided to keep control of the business.

And then the dot-com bubble burst.

When the dot-com bubble burst many of our clients put projects on hold. That was a difficult time for us and I probably learned more about managing the business during this period than at any other time.

We survived the ensuing recession, unlike many of our competitors who went to the wall because we managed our finances smartly. (This is something I now coach – how to survive economic shockwaves).

In the post-dot-com period, we concentrated on winning business when there was less business available. And we succeeded where others failed. We pivoted and added new services to our portfolio which enabled us to land new clients. It was slower growth but we grew strong again.

During this period we also bought and sold another software company, tripling our investment in the space of two years. This was an opportunistic purchase that occurred after I met another developer at a conference. We had cash in the bank so we were able to quickly do a deal.

We then went on to win some of our largest ever contracts. These were multi-million-dollar long-term contracts, with significant recurring income, where we beat out competitors much bigger than us. I learned a lot about how to pitch for big contracts against larger companies. Sometimes being smaller can give you an advantage!

A common statement made by others that knew us is that we punched way above our weight. We worked with some of the largest organizations in the world. We had clients that have been with us for ten years and more and had spent millions of dollars with us and in some cases, tens of millions of dollars.

We didn’t get to that level on day one but we grew into it as each year went by. We pivoted and adjusted our direction as we moved forward. We adopted newer technologies as they emerged. We refined our niche and eventually became world leaders in our area of expertise of commodities. When I started this journey I knew nothing about the commodities sector.

Looking back it’s amazing to think that I started this venture from my spare bedroom. It just goes to show what can be achieved if you take action. All the success I’ve had came about because I took a decision to pursue my dream of having my own company.

I’ve now passed the baton on to the next generation to take over the running of the company. The future is bright for them.

FOLLOW ME