June 21, 2024 • 37 mins
Hadleigh Ford, founder and CEO of SwipedOn, shares his adventurous transformation from maritime to tech CEO in our latest episode. Discover the captivating journey of how a young New Zealander became one of the youngest harbour pilots and went on to work on some of the most luxurious vessels in the world.
Learn from the real-world challenges and triumphs Hadleigh. Hear about the early days filled with financial missteps and the critical role of customer feedback in pivoting to success. He also delves into the strategic decisions that shaped their growth, including outsourcing development, as well as the pivotal moment of bringing on a co-founder to enhance operational efficiency.
Lastly, Hadleigh opens up about SwipedOn's unexpected acquisition by a UK-listed company. He shares the pros and cons of being part of a public company and offers invaluable advice on perseverance, early customer engagement, and balancing work with personal life.
You can connect with Hadleigh here and go and check out SwipedOn.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I had the benefit of naivety, and if I probably knew
too much, I may not have evengotten things going.
I may have spent too longscoping things out.
So I quite like that naivety toa point.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hadley is the founder and CEO of Swipe Gone.
He will kind of shirk on thisone.
I think he's the nicest guy inthe New Zealand tech ecosystem
tech ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
One thing I didn't have in the early days was
mentors of people that had doneit before, and that would
probably be the biggest thingthat could have saved me from
making a few mistakes.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hey everybody, it's Greg Sheehan.
Welcome to my podcast, whereyou will hear from a range of
guests, including those from thestartup world and those that
have had incredibly interestinglives and some stories to tell.
I would really appreciate it ifyou could hit the follow button
and share this amongst yourfriends, but, as you know, time
is limited, so let's get on withit and hear from our next guest
(00:54):
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Now back to the show.
My guest today is Hadley Ford.
Now Hadley is the founder andCEO of Swiped On, and I've known
Hadley for well about a yearnow properly, he will kind of
shirk on this one.
(01:58):
I think he's the nicest guy inthe New Zealand tech ecosystem.
He is just a thoroughly goodguy.
You should see the smile on hisface right now.
He's embarrassed.
Welcome to the podcast Adelaide.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Thanks, greg, great to be here, and yeah, I don't
know what to say to that.
Maybe I'll just try and be abit of an arsehole and balance
the equation.
Let's bring full arseholery tothis podcast.
I can do it.
I can do it.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
No, I can do it.
I can do it.
No, no, thank you.
Thanks for the kind words.
Oh, that's very cool.
Hey, I always start off everypodcast talking about people's
sort of journey to date.
So not the Swiped On origin,but your origin.
Tell us a little bit about you.
Know where you grew up?
Were you the entrepreneurialkid and how did you sort of make
your way career-wise toultimately then start Swiped On
Cool?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
I grew up in Wworth our so north of auckland and
yeah, I weirdly fell into themaritime world.
So, yeah, I remember my mum'sfrom advertisement in the paper
and I'm kind of 17 year old thatdidn't know what they wanted to
do and I ended up going for acadetship working on merchant
ships.
So, yeah and yeah, I just wentthrough that.
(03:03):
So I started out as a cadet andworked my way through to being
an officer on container shipsand, following a bit of a
pattern in my life of grass isgreener in certain areas, I went
from container ships through tocruise ships.
That was awesome.
Then had an opportunity to workon super yachts and all the
while I was kind of progressingthrough the ranks as well, and
then went from, yeah, cruiseships through to super yachts as
(03:25):
well.
I spent the last probably sevenor eight years of my maritime
career working on super yachtstoo, which is pretty awesome.
It was a little bit.
After that as well, I hadstarted to have a family, so it
wasn't really great being awayfor months at a time working at
sea.
So I started to work as aharbour pilot in New Zealand.
So by that stage I was 29.
I pilot in New Zealand.
So by that stage I was 29.
I was actually one of theyoungest harbour pilots ever and
(03:47):
that job in itself you guidethe ships and you speak to the
tugs and park them and take themout to sea.
So I did that and that's kindof building into Swiped On World
from that point.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
The difference I can imagine between being a super
yacht skipper and being a pilotbringing container ships into
ports is quite a differentexperience.
The super yacht sounds reallyglamorous, was it?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
it was actually like I'm not really gonna.
I mean, of course, there was abit of you know, someone has to
clean this and that and there'sa lot of hard work.
But you're going to beautifulplaces with beautiful people
with a lot of money, like it ispretty glamorous and I don't
know if you've seen the showbelow deck, but, yeah, a lot of
money, it is pretty glamorous,and I don't know if you've seen
the show Below Deck, but yeah, alot of that does happen.
It is quite reflective, butprobably what happens in a whole
season happens in a 30-minuteepisode there.
(04:31):
Yeah, that was cool.
The first Super Bowl I went to,I didn't really do it by halves
, it was the largest Super Bowlin the world at the time, so it
was like 160 meters, 520 feet,20 feet and we had 60 crew and
that was based in Dubai workingfor the shake there, and then I
did probably a good five yearsthere and then thereafter went
(04:51):
to one for a Russian oligarchthat was being built, built in
Germany.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I bet there are so many stories that probably you
don't feel the liberty to beable to tell like, lots of
stories, yeah, a lot, becausenobody's listening to this.
Don't worry, it's fine, you canshare it in your life.
I won't go there Unless you dohave a story, okay.
You know, is there something Ifeel like there might be, one
(05:14):
that you kind of might belooking to share.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
No, it's a bit of NSFW in there, but it was a
great time and I guess it's partof working for those donors.
So I didn't work in a charteryacht, they were private, I
guess you kind of, in turn,respect that privacy and I've
tried to carry it through.
But maybe grab me for a beerlater and I'll disclose a bit
more.
It was wild and look, in theend of the day, it taught me a
(05:38):
lot that while these people mayhave had impressive, I guess,
careers or lives to date,they're actually just no
different to you and I as well,and saw a lot of, I guess,
humanity in it.
And that was quite cool to havethat exposure at a relatively
young age to some prettyimpressive people.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, so how did that ultimately lead into the sort
of origin behind Swiped On?
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Cool, yeah.
So the last year I was on,which was for this oligarch that
was being built in Germany.
It was like 90 meters long,cost 100 million euros to build
and I was the chief officergetting it set up.
I was also the relief captain,but anyway, we were setting it
up.
So everything from helicopterspheres to cleaning equipment
(06:20):
it's almost a shell of a vesseland you're filling it up with
everything it needs.
And one of those things we werelooking to set up was the
visitor book and also like aboard to sign the crew in and
out, because in an emergency youneed to know who's on board and
who the contractors are.
And yeah, the ipad had come outa year or two prior and I was
like, oh okay, weird, you couldtuck an ipad on the wall.
(06:40):
It would look a hell of a lotcooler than a dog head visit a
log and it would kind of be abit more befitting of a hundred
million euro yacht.
So it was where the idea camefrom and it's what most people
do when they have these reallycool ideas at quite a formative
time with an open market.
I did absolutely nothing withit.
I remember I told a mate it wasa dive instructor on board.
I was like, oh, I've got thisidea.
(07:00):
And he said, oh, that.
But yeah, I just went on withmy day and it kind of popped out
of my head and even to this dayI get you know things kind of
fluttering through my brain andI don't act on them.
But that was slumber.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
And so at that point what you start to, sort of build
a little bit of a product, orare you just riffing about the
idea of a product?
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, I genuinely did nothing for about two years.
So I left the yacht when westarted to have children and I
was actually I'd gone from, youknow, walking the pier in Monaco
and Antibes and all theselovely places to working as a
pilot in Timaru, which is prettygrounding but pretty cool.
And you know, I kind of lovethe kind of down-to-earth nature
of you know rural South Islandand that pilot's role is quite
unique.
It's quite specialised and Imean there's probably only 100
(07:48):
in New Zealand and the roleitself is generally it's week on
, week off.
It's one of those type of rolesand I don't sit idle
particularly well and in my timeoff I thought I'd better do
something and I've always had abit of a bent for business and
growing things and I thought, oh, look, I'll start to study some
(08:09):
extramural papers throughMassey and I started, you know,
did marketing and kind offinance papers and all of that,
and I realized it would take meabout 27 years to get a degree
if I was doing it paper by paper.
And also as I was doing it, Iwas like, oh, this is a little
bit of common sense, I'mprobably pushing 30 at this
stage.
And I thought, well, bugger,I'll probably get off spending
my money doing something myself,making my own mistakes.
(08:32):
And that's when the idea from acouple of years before popped
back into my head and I was like, oh yeah, no, that still tracks
, I'll give it a go.
And from there I was likestraight on to Google.
I didn't really want to messaround to, probably to my
detriment, and, on the positiveside too, didn't want to mess
around, so just decided to getGoogling, found a company in
Auckland and said, right, can webuild this?
(08:54):
So you know, certainly didn'thave a business basis or a tech
background to get started andwithin probably six months or so
the first version was live onthe App Store as an iPad only
app in probably six months or so.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
The first version was live on the app store as an
ipad only app and at this pointyou had a sense that the
customer was a reception in abuilding, in an office.
So that's, it had morphed tothat as opposed to ships yeah, a
great one.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
So, yeah, I built it for myself.
I was the person with thatproblem and when I first started
out, it was definitely,definitely for ships and I would
say a couple months and once Istarted speaking with people
about it I remember chattingwith my sister she was like, oh,
hold up, you can just chuckthis in reception, like everyone
has this problem.
It was more actually for thecrew in and out, like more of an
(09:36):
outboard that also did visitors, whereas I know today the
market massively, so it's morefor that visitor management and
time inside.
So yeah, as we were building it, I kind of learned the market.
I didn't speak to potentialcustomers.
I did so many things wrong.
I mean I probably paid theprice financially and time wise
as well, not to realize theopportunity and just to kind of
(09:57):
dick around myself.
But you know there's always tolearn and that was one of them.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
So and so at this point, it's just you and a
company that built the productfor you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, correct.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Mobile company up in Auckland.
I think the original spec was30K and probably all up.
I spent, you know, closer to 50back then and this is 2012, 13
times.
And I remember thinking I coulduse that because I'd saved a
bit of money for workingoverseas and I could buy a
rental property in Ponsonby orsomewhere, you know somewhere
(10:28):
that's reasonably priced inAuckland.
And yeah, for a while there thesmart money would have been on
the rental property, but wepersevered.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
And so how long did you persevere for before the
shape of the business started tochange?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Probably only 12 to 18 months in market with that
first app range.
Probably only 12 to 18 monthsin market with that first app,
and this looks well, certainlyin my head.
It was the day when apps like adollar, 99 or 99 cents and you
only buy it and appsubscriptions had come out, so
there was no payment gateway oranything like that.
So I thought I'll use apple'skind of built-in and app
subscriptions and I think themost you could pay back then was
(11:00):
like 15 for our app it was.
It was like $9.99.
You had unlimited employees andunlimited visitors.
So I would say I probablydidn't financially model it
particularly well and that firstyear at best it was probably
making $1,000 a month, somethinglike that.
And then, once it was live, Istarted speaking to customers
and they're like, oh, this iscool, but I want to be able to
(11:22):
interrogate the information froma web dashboard, I want to be
able to sync multiple devicesfor different entrances.
And I just built an iPad appthat didn't speak to anything.
It was really quite dumb.
And then I was like, okay, well, scope creep If I was to go and
build another version of itagain, learning from all those
mistakes.
I'm just you know I'm sixfigures now and is it even worth
(11:42):
continuing.
But what I did for the secondversion of SwapDom is outsourced
it and found some developersjust through, like you know,
upwork kind of website and builta second version.
Through all the mistakes thatI've made, that probably cost
something like 10 grand.
So for the price, I was just alittle bit smarter and a bit
savvier at that stage and madethe price a lot higher.
(12:05):
I mean I'm talking 20, 30 bucksper month here and I actually
called it visitor book at thetime, just really boring name,
but it was by swiped on.
I just wanted to be reallyclear for that value, prop and
yeah, like within two or threemonths it was probably bringing
in close to 10 grand a month.
It just it all kicked off fromthat stuff up at the start and
then really scaled the businessfrom there.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Was there something that were kind of providing
tailwinds for that aroundregulation, around health and
safety, knowing who was inbuilding?
Had there been any changes withanything like that?
Yeah, there were.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I wasn't consciously tapping into those, of course,
in the later stages, yeah,definitely.
Obviously, the health andsafety side is biggest knowing
who's on site and you know,signing agreements as they come
in Later on.
We benefited from, you know,data privacy, gdpr, all of that.
And a visitor book in Europe isnot compliant because you can
scroll through it and see whothe last visitor was.
(13:00):
And then, yeah, I mean evenCOVID as well.
It was a great tailwind forhealth regulations.
So, yeah, we've had the benefitof regulatory tailwinds,
basically for the life of thebusiness and those early ones.
Yes, they were buying itbecause of that, but I wasn't
aware it was.
You know, I'd call it dumb luck.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah, you build sort of a 10K product and you're
making 10K a month almost.
At what point are you startingto go?
Okay, I need help, I need tostart hiring people, and where
does that pretty?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
quickly, pretty quickly.
So I would say, around thatstage I had a co-founder come in
, another ex-superyacht guy whowas equally saw the problem and
that was ben scott, so he reallyhelped me.
When you get two people onboard something, you don't
double capacity, you triple orquadruple it.
You know you're makingdecisions quicker.
You've got, you know, someoneto bounce ideas off.
And that was that stage.
(13:47):
And then we realized that thatversion, because it was built so
cheaply on the fly it wasn'tgoing to scale again.
So we had a third iteration webuilt out properly.
So that's actually you knowwhat we've got today.
Whatever it is kind of probablynine, nine years later.
That's what it's built off.
So it took me three goes toactually get the product and the
stack and everything right.
But use that revenue from thatsecond version that was done on
(14:10):
the fly to build things outproperly.
And all the while I waspiloting during the week, on
week off kind of thing, andwhenever we had spare money to
employ people, I would roll themin and keep my salary going.
I would roll them in and keepmy salary going.
So I didn't necessarily burnthe bridges and fully leave for
quite some time until thebusiness and my salary was very
(14:31):
secure.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
And so, by the time you did leave, how big is the
business at this point in termsof headcount and that sort of
thing Cool.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Well, we had outsourced developers at that
time, so I guess the headcountrevenue was a bit lighter, but
on ARR terms, we raised money atthat time.
So I guess the account revenuewas a bit lighter, but I mean,
on ARR terms, we raised money atthat time and I think we're
about 600,000 New Zealanddollars in recurring revenue
when I finally left and so westarted to raise, we decided we
need, we saw the opportunity.
It was massive.
There were other people poppingup with you know, they've gone
(15:00):
and raised a lot of money.
We're like, oh okay, we're kindof left behind here.
So we went to raise a milliondollars as a target and that was
probably 2017.
So, if you're kind of followingthe curve of revenue, it took
quite a while to get to thatpoint.
But our raise I guess maybetook four to six months from
starting things to closing andby that time we were at a
(15:21):
million ARR.
So we were really hitting thegradient on the curve there.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
And so you raised.
Where Did you go through angels, or did you do a bit of a VC
route?
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, through angels primarily, and that was mostly
backed by.
Well, K1W1 were the firstinvestors in and they were quite
quick to make the decision, andthen the bulk was Enterprise
Angels here in the Bay of Plentyas well.
We did some pitches there andthen a couple of other high net
worth that rounded up thatamount and, yeah, that was 2017.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
And was that the?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
only raise you ever did.
Yes, in hindsight we never evenneeded to do it, so kind of
fast forwarding a little bit.
We actually had an approach sixmonths after that raise to buy
the business out, which I'm surewe'll get to, and we'd barely
spent any of that money and wewere growing really well and I
would say we're up at about 16employees in New Zealand at that
stage as well.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So take us through that offer to buy the business
out.
And I know there's been somechallenges in this.
Just having got to know you abit over the last 12 months or
so, Take us through what you'reprepared to share there.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, cool, cool when it started and people often
asking me how did you find anacquirer or what were the first
steps?
Did you go to market?
I just had a LinkedIn requestfrom someone over in the UK,
accepted it and then from there,the initial conversation and
for anyone that I guess may belistening around potential
(16:47):
acquisitions, it always startswith a partnership and they want
to get to know a little bitmore around the business and,
hey, we're looking at partneringand at some point in the future
we are also looking at buyingcompanies, and potentially yours
.
So that was how it started.
And then I think, the secondconversation, you know, within I
don't know maybe three days,they'd forgotten about
partnership and it was like, hey, we're keen to buy a business
(17:08):
in this space and we want to buyyou.
That escalated pretty quickly.
I've always had the viewpointthat I'll have discussion with
anybody.
I won't stop things at the door, definitely explore it for as
far as possible until it makessense, and that was one thing we
explored and ultimately we didclose in the deal there.
We're a listed company in the UKunder the London Stock Exchange
.
There's a sub-exchange for theAIM market, so for smaller
(17:33):
capitalization companies, andthey had just sold off an
infrastructure business forsomething like £18 million and
wanted to transition into a techbusiness and we were, I guess,
the first acquisition to helpenable that.
And at the time that we sold wewere doing about £1.7 million
in New Zealand in ARR and wesold for £11 million.
(17:54):
So it was about six and a halftimes revenue.
As far as the transaction goesand the reason that you make the
best decision with what's infront of you at the time of
course you do the reason that Idid that is that I got to
maintain and the managementshareholders got to maintain
skin in the game, so it wasbasically a 50-50 cash and share
sale.
So on the valuation of thebusiness, they rolled in in
(18:18):
equities, issued new shares tome at an equivalent value and
then I got half cash out.
So it was like a mini exit.
I was happy to continue tooperate, and under a public
company as well.
I thought would be pretty cool.
I've always had interest in youknow stocks and investments and
I really wanted to see what theworld looked like there and it
was a bit of a fast track.
You know way to do it.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
And how did that look in reality after that deal was?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
done, strangely, didn't change a lot.
Didn't change a lot, they hadsaid at the outset.
So the company's smart spacesoftware and it's fast forward.
Again it's been spent delistedbut they'd said, look, the
biggest risk to us and ourbusiness is them.
So they quite consciously leftus to continue to execute on the
business and the opportunityand we did so.
(19:02):
In that way I'm quite thankfulthere wasn't a lot of changes
and interruptions which youoften see with other
acquisitions, and we justcracked on and grew really well,
month on month, year on year,and continued to seize the
opportunity and we ended upbeing public for a good five
years, five plus years.
Where the frustrations crept inis that we were one of like, in
(19:24):
the end, kind of one of threetech businesses.
We were the ones that deliveredthe, I guess, the enterprise
value.
We built value with and swipedon, whereas the other ones
didn't quite deliver and execute, which kind of dragged the
opportunity, dragged the shareprice, but in another world,
another lifetime.
They all delivered and youlayer up the enterprise value,
you know happy days and we allwin.
So you don't go into thesethings completely blind and
(19:46):
without risk.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
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Let's get back to the show.
So they let you kind of go anddo what you needed to do, and
you weren't kind of being toldlook, we need you to deliver x
amount of revenue or x amount ofprofit or anything like that.
You were free to.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
You know we got a lot of that.
Yes, there was a degree ofearly investment but by and
large over that five years wewere essentially bootstrapping
from within and we becameprofitable, while we were cash
generative basically fromacquisition.
You know, maybe six plus monthsout of that.
So we were obviously a paperlosses but we were generating
cash.
And then thereafter weacquisition you know, maybe six
plus months out of that, so wewere obviously at paper losses
but we were generating cash.
And then thereafter we went toyou know EBITDA profitability
(21:04):
for the last couple of years andthat profitability in the end
was balancing out losses inother areas of the group.
Not ideal, but look, I do getit from a group perspective that
certainly since the kind oftech bust through you know 21 to
22, that profitability has beenkey and we did deliver on that
(21:24):
and delivered on a groupperspective.
So yeah, just kind of time andplace stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And you're out now.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
So, yep, fast forward again, I would say.
Around early December this yearthere was an offer to buy our
parent company from a competitorin a tangential space.
So they wanted to visit it.
They did a lot of deskmanagement and wanted to add
visitor into like a full officemanagement I know it's boring
stuff, but bear with me.
(21:51):
But they wanted a bolt-onacquisition for us and in the
end it didn't have board support, so that's turned a hostile
takeover like cool yeehaw.
I want to see this stuff.
And that was to buy our parentcompany but ultimately it was to
buy us because we were, youknow, the main asset within the
group, representing 95 percentof revenue, and that there's
(22:13):
obviously quite a process andquite rightly as a public
company being sold and duringthat process it was actually
weirdly similar to buying ahouse.
You know, you have the duediligence offer, which was the
initial one, and then we can getto a point where it's
completely unconditional andthat company had gone through DD
.
While DD was happening, someoneelse can come in and put
(22:36):
another offer in, and we didhave that.
So we had another offer out ofanother US company.
So the first one was based inthe US and the second one came
in with a higher bid again.
Ultimately, that bidder was abit of a I would say, a gorilla
of private equity funds and theyreally muscled in and they got
(22:56):
that deal and there wasn't acompetitive bidding back and
forth, which would have beenquite cool.
But anyway, I'll quite happilytake the second bid.
Shareholders voted on it, itwas more or less unanimous, and
we closed on that about sixweeks ago.
So we're now part of we've goneprivate again and we're part of
well now the largest businessin our in our industry, which is
(23:18):
quite cool before we sold, andthat's part of well now the
largest business in our industry, which is quite cool Before we
sold, and that's one of thebenefits of being a public
company or previously being.
We can disclose our numbers.
I can tell my friends orwhatever, what the revenue was,
number of locations we had,because we had to put it to
market as a private company.
They're a lot more coy aboutthat, and rightly so.
So we were, I would say,11-something million in ARR.
(23:38):
Bear in mind, five years ago wewere 1.7.
We'd scaled through to 11 andwe had about 9,000 workplaces
using our system as subscribers.
And then now the combinedentity that we've joined, we're
well in excess of 30,000locations.
We really are the gorilla inthe room and the biggest company
in our market, which is, youknow, from starting it in Timaru
(24:01):
from the kitchen table.
It's quite cool to now play akey part in that.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
And has it changed your world at a personal level
Because being able to take somecash off the table, et cetera
has it changed things much foryou and the family.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Yes, so yeah, if you'll recall the first exit,
I'm twice exited from my ownbusiness.
I don't know if that'ssomething to be proud of
Probably not.
But the first exit was halfcash and shares.
And then the exit went throughsix weeks ago.
Just realized all of thoseshares.
There was a very small premiumon what was issued back in 2018.
So, look, financially it wasgood but not great.
But I mean, yeah, I probablydon't have to work again if I
(24:37):
don't want to.
I've achieved a lot.
With hindsight, I probablywould have done things
differently, but so would havewe all.
So, yes, yeah, it absolutelyhas changed things, given
optionality.
Now, for me, it's about doingwhat I enjoy and just growing as
an individual and someonewithin business.
You know, someone that's comefrom no tech experience, no
business experience, to kind ofbuild up and lead a business
(24:59):
with I think we're about 50people today.
As long as I've got coolopportunities to keep growing,
then yeah, I'm all for it, andif not, I've got the option to
do whatever I want.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, what would have been the hardest sort of time
in that journey, from sort ofwhat, 10, 11 years ago through
to today?
You know, in that wholeentrepreneurial journey Because
it is really hard Was there amoment that stands out where
you're like man, that was rugged.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
The weird thing about me is I don't know if there was
like an emotional curve on thejourney.
I don't go super super high andI don't go super super low.
I'm quite balanced in thatsense, just naturally as a
person, and I think maybe it wasa bit of training working at
sea or as a pilot.
If you panic, shit just goesdownhill really quickly and
you're in some quite tightsituations.
(25:43):
You just need to kind of putthings into perspective.
So, yeah, there were tryingtimes and probably the biggest
thing is people in HR anddealing with tricky situations
in other people's lives.
The business stuff takes careof itself if you set up good
systems and have good peoplerunning it.
But there's not one thing thatsticks out in my personal life.
So when I was 33, so I'm kindof four years into this journey
(26:05):
as well and I did have cancermyself I don't know if you're
across that I wasn't aware ofthat.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
no, no yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
So that was like the worst personal thing.
So I had what's called like aliposarcoma and yeah, as I said,
I'm 33, we're just about toraise money.
So I had that, had an operation.
It came back six months later.
I was like, oh shit, here we go.
So like I'm doing like calls andemails from from hospital and
that was pretty full-on, as youcan imagine, and it's kind of
(26:32):
existential.
But once again, like that'sreally good now because it puts
things into perspective andyou're just like, oh, it really
doesn't matter what people thinkor how you deliver.
There's far more importantthings in life.
And look, to be honest, thatprobably paid a little bit when
I had the opportunity for anearly exit.
I don't know what next year isgoing to bring.
I'll take some money off thetable.
(26:53):
So that was the most testingpersonal thing.
I mean, I'm seven years cleanfrom that now and I get annual
scans and it's all good.
It's kind of long forgotten.
But I'd be remiss if I didn'tactually bring it up as being
the most challenging point.
I remember I was just got offcrutches for our first pitch
with Enterprise Angels and so,and then I had pitches up my
(27:14):
side like I had like a meterworth of stitches and I was like
I didn't want to tell them itwould come out in dd, but I
didn't want to stand up thereand I thought I was going to
kill over next year or something.
So I like dropped the crutchesand then went and did the pitch
and then sat back on the seat.
So no, it's all good stuff,yeah it's an amazing story.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Do you think the cancer journey changed your
outcome on business generally oreven just you know life?
Did it really radically changethings?
Speaker 1 (27:40):
yeah, yeah, definitely.
I think anyone's been touchedby that, whether it's personally
or with family does changetheir perspective.
But like, yeah, I totally seeit as a positive.
For me, you just don't get socaught up in the day-to-day or
even the months-to-month stuff.
It just just doesn't matter andjust gives you a bit more
freedom just to crack on andhave fun.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, exactly because it's not that big a deal
compared to life and death.
Yeah, and when it comes to youand your kind of entrepreneurial
spirit, do you think you've gotit in you to go again?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Definitely, I definitely do and, yeah, ideas
just keep popping up.
I mean I do wonder in the worldof AI.
I mean I know the answer thatthere's opportunity everywhere
and you can execute on anything,but it's a pretty saturated
world.
And then you think AI is justgoing to take care of a lot of
things and features and Ihaven't had a massive, massive
(28:33):
yearning to jump into anythingelse, and I know what it takes.
It is a 10-year journey.
I am keen to do it again, butto anything else, and I know
what it takes.
It is a 10-year journey.
I am keen to do it again.
But also I'm really enjoyingthe team now, the opportunities
to grow, so I'll just keep doingthis while I enjoy it, and I
know I've always got another onein me at some point, whether
it's months or five years away.
We'll see.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah.
And so where do you getinspiration from?
I mean, obviously you've got atremendous amount of resolve in
yourself and in your character,yeah, but do you read books, do
you listen to?
Not so much podcasts, but youknow.
Where do you get yourinspiration for being an
entrepreneur?
Where do you learn?
Or is that just on the job?
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I mean, yeah, there is a lot of on the job and I
love the creativity of thingsand that does keep me going.
As far as learning goes, I'mactually a big podcast listener
as well.
So they say, you know,successful people read a book a
week or whatever.
I love books, but I can't smasha book a week.
But I could do four podcasts ina week, no stress, whether it's
(29:32):
driving, I'm mowing the lawnsor whatever.
And, yeah, a lot of businesspodcasts.
I know it's geeky, I justreally like that and that's why
I'm doing.
I'm in the job I'm in.
I really got into this onecalled Business Wars as well.
It's like Coke versus Pepsi and, you know, netflix versus
Blockbuster and there's a lot oflearnings from that that you
can put into the you knowindustries you're in today and
(29:53):
it's really cool.
And what about?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
And, of course, your podcast group.
Oh, of course, of course.
Yeah, we'd be remiss not to saythat.
But what about your ability torecharge?
How does that happen?
Do you just like, are youpretty full on during the week
Well, you certainly have been inthe last few years and then do
you just collapse on theweekends.
Do you run, do you fish, like,how do you recharge?
Oh Gosh.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, I mean I've got three young kids so I can kind
of live vicariously through themand go into their sports and
all of that.
I try and I mean we're in theBay here so I try and get out
for walks and, I guess, just getamongst nature as much as
possible.
But yeah, and I kind of back tomy earlier point that I don't
have wild highs and wild lows,Like I don't feel like I need to
(30:35):
disappear for a long time.
I know it's weird and maybeit's not quite right, but I just
feel kind of naturallyenergized every day and I get
energy out of the team here.
You know I've hired the firstperson through to the 50th.
I like them all, we all justkind of build off each other and
I mean mean it is a greatprivilege to be able to, you
know, hire people you want towork with and enjoy working with
(30:57):
them.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
And yeah, it's just, it's a pleasure to turn up every
day like so I don't know geekyor something, but I just really
get energy from from the gamehere it's really interesting and
I've been kind of thinking, asI've been chatting to you, about
the earlier origin for you andbeing a pilot and being a
skipper generally on containerships and super yachts et cetera
, and how that mindset of juststaying calm because you know
(31:23):
there's tidal movements and seasand other boats and all sorts
of things going on and so juststaying calm and staying you
know well, actually pun intended, even keeled is probably then
translating a lot into startupsbecause, as we all know, for
startups it's insanely hard attimes and it's a very uneven
(31:43):
keel at times.
So you having that mindset,that must be quite an asset when
everybody else is gettingflustered.
You're not.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yeah, you did right.
By the way, I love the maritimeanalogies and there's so much
of modern english that just hasthese maritime yeah origins
terminologies through it.
I love it, I love it.
But yeah, I mean that's thething.
You set a destination, you'reworking towards that and we're
very, very big on on vision andbrand and culture and there's
almost no difference working on,say, yachts, as an example.
(32:17):
At the end of the day, you'vestill got to go down to the crew
mess and have lunch with thesepeople.
You've got to sleep and livewith them.
So if you go and rip intopeople about something, it's
really awkward, like 30 minuteslater when you're just off the.
So there's probably amanagement lesson in just the
humanity and working with people, which I don't consciously try
and do, but does probably rollinto the way that I operate, and
(32:41):
I like to think that people aremotivated by just, you know,
doing cool things together andnot wanting to let not myself,
but even each other down, andthat's very, very similar to
yachts and ships.
And if you've got a captainthat is running around shouting
things, being an asshole orwhatever, then the crew leave
and you just don't achieve whatyou're after.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Is there something where you know, has there been a
time where actually the shiphas really hit the fan in the
business and you've had to justreally take a deep breath?
Speaker 1 (33:13):
A couple of people.
Things have come up where,while we have a good crew and
you want to have everyone onside, you know, from time to
time just things happen withpeople or their own personalized
role into the business orwhatever.
So we have had a couple ofrogue occasions.
But I don't know, it kind ofgoes back to my earlier point.
It's not really a big deal inthe end of the day.
And even on technology, I mean,you know it kind of goes back
(33:33):
to my earlier point, it's notreally a big deal in the end of
the day.
And even on technology, I mean,you know, years ago we had the
whole system fall down becauseof something that was introduced
, you know, probably byourselves, into overloading the
system.
But as long as you're open andhonest with customers as well,
they're really cool.
And you know we've had outagesfor I don't know, maybe three,
four hours I mean I'm talkingyears ago here which is rock
(33:54):
solid today, and I didn't lose asingle customer because of it,
because we had good, clean commsand we were transparent with it
.
And I think that's a lessonthat I've continued and you
can't really hide from teammembers or your customers.
Just the more open you can be,and the more you bring them on
side to business problems, thenyeah, you can't lose.
So yeah, we've had some trouble, but no, nothing.
(34:16):
That's really Nothing too bad.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
I guess final question is tips for other
founders.
You've been in this game youknow for a decade or more now
and you're, let's say, 40-ish or40.
Knowing what you know now, whatwould you do differently?
What would you advise foundersto really be thinking of in
their journey, maybeparticularly in those earliest
stages?
Speaker 1 (34:35):
I had the benefit of naivety, and if I probably knew
too much, I may not have evengotten things going and I spent
too long scoping things out.
So I quite like that naivety toa point.
One thing I didn't have in theearly days was mentors or people
that had done it before, andthat would probably be the
biggest thing that could havesaved me from making a few
(34:57):
mistakes.
And yeah, I mean, look, there'sjust really obvious things, you
know, speaking to customersearlier, doing a lot more
research before you build things, and that's probably where it
would stick.
And also perseverance.
Actually, I can remember atleast twice I'm like right,
stuff, this, I'm packing up thebusiness, it's just not worth it
(35:19):
, and whichever reason.
I remember once I was reallyclose to that and I ended up
getting a big contract for anoverseas company that they
wanted to pay three years upfront.
All of a sudden, we had thismoney to be able to create a bit
of freedom that I didn't haveto pile back in.
So it's like the image of theperson mining and the diamonds,
like just there, like it doeshit.
So, yeah, I would just say thatI guess.
(35:40):
Perseverance and tenacity to apoint yeah, as long as you've
got the right business.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah, and I know you've helped a lot of people in
their own journeys, go throughyou know as founders to go
through that and you've been areal steady hand, if you like,
on the tiller on the wheel forhelping them.
So I know that has beenappreciated in the ecosystem.
So what I will do actually ismake sure that there's ways
people can connect with you onLinkedIn and also to Swiped On
(36:08):
and to go and check out SwipedOn in the show notes to this
episode.
But you are genuinely just ahell of a nice guy.
And you don't always meet niceguys and girls in startup.
Often you do, but you are ahell of a nice guy and it's
always really nice sitting downwith you over a beer.
A little bit more tricky nowwith me not being in New Zealand
(36:29):
, but, yeah, I really want tothank you for the time today,
hadley, like it's been a realprivilege and an honor chatting
to you.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
No, I really enjoyed it and an absolute pleasure.
And yeah, keep talking, lovethe climate.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Hey, don't forget to check out Deskwork, the team
behind you, being able to buildhigh performing offshore teams
for your startups and SMEs.
It's deskworkco.
Backslash, greg, and go andsave yourself some hard-earned
money.
I had the benefit of naivety, and if I probably knew
too much, I may not have evengotten things going.
I may have spent too longscoping things out.
So I quite like that naivety toa point.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hadley is the founder and CEO of Swipe Gone.
He will kind of shirk on thisone.
I think he's the nicest guy inthe New Zealand tech ecosystem
tech ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
One thing I didn't have in the early days was
mentors of people that had doneit before, and that would
probably be the biggest thingthat could have saved me from
making a few mistakes.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hey everybody, it's Greg Sheehan.
Welcome to my podcast, whereyou will hear from a range of
guests, including those from thestartup world and those that
have had incredibly interestinglives and some stories to tell.
I would really appreciate it ifyou could hit the follow button
and share this amongst yourfriends, but, as you know, time
is limited, so let's get on withit and hear from our next guest
(00:54):
.
I want to tell you a little bitabout desk work.
Desk work is your offshoringoption.
If you want to save around 50%of your total headcount cost for
equivalent talent acrossaccounting, marketing, sales,
your operations or your admin,then check out Deskwork.
Honestly, if I was looking tostart an accounting firm again,
(01:18):
it would be a no-brainer for meto use Deskwork.
I've used offshoring teamsbefore in the past.
I got past my skepticism onbeing able to do it and it was
so phenomenally successful.
Go have a look at desk-workcobackslash, greg, and book
yourself a free discovery callto learn more about it.
(01:38):
Better still, mention my nameand get yourself some discounts.
Check it out.
Now back to the show.
My guest today is Hadley Ford.
Now Hadley is the founder andCEO of Swiped On, and I've known
Hadley for well about a yearnow properly, he will kind of
shirk on this one.
(01:58):
I think he's the nicest guy inthe New Zealand tech ecosystem.
He is just a thoroughly goodguy.
You should see the smile on hisface right now.
He's embarrassed.
Welcome to the podcast Adelaide.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Thanks, greg, great to be here, and yeah, I don't
know what to say to that.
Maybe I'll just try and be abit of an arsehole and balance
the equation.
Let's bring full arseholery tothis podcast.
I can do it.
I can do it.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
No, I can do it.
I can do it.
No, no, thank you.
Thanks for the kind words.
Oh, that's very cool.
Hey, I always start off everypodcast talking about people's
sort of journey to date.
So not the Swiped On origin,but your origin.
Tell us a little bit about you.
Know where you grew up?
Were you the entrepreneurialkid and how did you sort of make
your way career-wise toultimately then start Swiped On
Cool?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
I grew up in Wworth our so north of auckland and
yeah, I weirdly fell into themaritime world.
So, yeah, I remember my mum'sfrom advertisement in the paper
and I'm kind of 17 year old thatdidn't know what they wanted to
do and I ended up going for acadetship working on merchant
ships.
So, yeah and yeah, I just wentthrough that.
(03:03):
So I started out as a cadet andworked my way through to being
an officer on container shipsand, following a bit of a
pattern in my life of grass isgreener in certain areas, I went
from container ships through tocruise ships.
That was awesome.
Then had an opportunity to workon super yachts and all the
while I was kind of progressingthrough the ranks as well, and
then went from, yeah, cruiseships through to super yachts as
(03:25):
well.
I spent the last probably sevenor eight years of my maritime
career working on super yachtstoo, which is pretty awesome.
It was a little bit.
After that as well, I hadstarted to have a family, so it
wasn't really great being awayfor months at a time working at
sea.
So I started to work as aharbour pilot in New Zealand.
So by that stage I was 29.
I pilot in New Zealand.
So by that stage I was 29.
I was actually one of theyoungest harbour pilots ever and
(03:47):
that job in itself you guidethe ships and you speak to the
tugs and park them and take themout to sea.
So I did that and that's kindof building into Swiped On World
from that point.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
The difference I can imagine between being a super
yacht skipper and being a pilotbringing container ships into
ports is quite a differentexperience.
The super yacht sounds reallyglamorous, was it?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
it was actually like I'm not really gonna.
I mean, of course, there was abit of you know, someone has to
clean this and that and there'sa lot of hard work.
But you're going to beautifulplaces with beautiful people
with a lot of money, like it ispretty glamorous and I don't
know if you've seen the showbelow deck, but, yeah, a lot of
money, it is pretty glamorous,and I don't know if you've seen
the show Below Deck, but yeah, alot of that does happen.
It is quite reflective, butprobably what happens in a whole
season happens in a 30-minuteepisode there.
(04:31):
Yeah, that was cool.
The first Super Bowl I went to,I didn't really do it by halves
, it was the largest Super Bowlin the world at the time, so it
was like 160 meters, 520 feet,20 feet and we had 60 crew and
that was based in Dubai workingfor the shake there, and then I
did probably a good five yearsthere and then thereafter went
(04:51):
to one for a Russian oligarchthat was being built, built in
Germany.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I bet there are so many stories that probably you
don't feel the liberty to beable to tell like, lots of
stories, yeah, a lot, becausenobody's listening to this.
Don't worry, it's fine, you canshare it in your life.
I won't go there Unless you dohave a story, okay.
You know, is there something Ifeel like there might be, one
(05:14):
that you kind of might belooking to share.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
No, it's a bit of NSFW in there, but it was a
great time and I guess it's partof working for those donors.
So I didn't work in a charteryacht, they were private, I
guess you kind of, in turn,respect that privacy and I've
tried to carry it through.
But maybe grab me for a beerlater and I'll disclose a bit
more.
It was wild and look, in theend of the day, it taught me a
(05:38):
lot that while these people mayhave had impressive, I guess,
careers or lives to date,they're actually just no
different to you and I as well,and saw a lot of, I guess,
humanity in it.
And that was quite cool to havethat exposure at a relatively
young age to some prettyimpressive people.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, so how did that ultimately lead into the sort
of origin behind Swiped On?
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Cool, yeah.
So the last year I was on,which was for this oligarch that
was being built in Germany.
It was like 90 meters long,cost 100 million euros to build
and I was the chief officergetting it set up.
I was also the relief captain,but anyway, we were setting it
up.
So everything from helicopterspheres to cleaning equipment
(06:20):
it's almost a shell of a vesseland you're filling it up with
everything it needs.
And one of those things we werelooking to set up was the
visitor book and also like aboard to sign the crew in and
out, because in an emergency youneed to know who's on board and
who the contractors are.
And yeah, the ipad had come outa year or two prior and I was
like, oh okay, weird, you couldtuck an ipad on the wall.
(06:40):
It would look a hell of a lotcooler than a dog head visit a
log and it would kind of be abit more befitting of a hundred
million euro yacht.
So it was where the idea camefrom and it's what most people
do when they have these reallycool ideas at quite a formative
time with an open market.
I did absolutely nothing withit.
I remember I told a mate it wasa dive instructor on board.
I was like, oh, I've got thisidea.
(07:00):
And he said, oh, that.
But yeah, I just went on withmy day and it kind of popped out
of my head and even to this dayI get you know things kind of
fluttering through my brain andI don't act on them.
But that was slumber.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
And so at that point what you start to, sort of build
a little bit of a product, orare you just riffing about the
idea of a product?
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, I genuinely did nothing for about two years.
So I left the yacht when westarted to have children and I
was actually I'd gone from, youknow, walking the pier in Monaco
and Antibes and all theselovely places to working as a
pilot in Timaru, which is prettygrounding but pretty cool.
And you know, I kind of lovethe kind of down-to-earth nature
of you know rural South Islandand that pilot's role is quite
unique.
It's quite specialised and Imean there's probably only 100
(07:48):
in New Zealand and the roleitself is generally it's week on
, week off.
It's one of those type of rolesand I don't sit idle
particularly well and in my timeoff I thought I'd better do
something and I've always had abit of a bent for business and
growing things and I thought, oh, look, I'll start to study some
(08:09):
extramural papers throughMassey and I started, you know,
did marketing and kind offinance papers and all of that,
and I realized it would take meabout 27 years to get a degree
if I was doing it paper by paper.
And also as I was doing it, Iwas like, oh, this is a little
bit of common sense, I'mprobably pushing 30 at this
stage.
And I thought, well, bugger,I'll probably get off spending
my money doing something myself,making my own mistakes.
(08:32):
And that's when the idea from acouple of years before popped
back into my head and I was like, oh yeah, no, that still tracks
, I'll give it a go.
And from there I was likestraight on to Google.
I didn't really want to messaround to, probably to my
detriment, and, on the positiveside too, didn't want to mess
around, so just decided to getGoogling, found a company in
Auckland and said, right, can webuild this?
(08:54):
So you know, certainly didn'thave a business basis or a tech
background to get started andwithin probably six months or so
the first version was live onthe App Store as an iPad only
app in probably six months or so.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
The first version was live on the app store as an
ipad only app and at this pointyou had a sense that the
customer was a reception in abuilding, in an office.
So that's, it had morphed tothat as opposed to ships yeah, a
great one.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
So, yeah, I built it for myself.
I was the person with thatproblem and when I first started
out, it was definitely,definitely for ships and I would
say a couple months and once Istarted speaking with people
about it I remember chattingwith my sister she was like, oh,
hold up, you can just chuckthis in reception, like everyone
has this problem.
It was more actually for thecrew in and out, like more of an
(09:36):
outboard that also did visitors, whereas I know today the
market massively, so it's morefor that visitor management and
time inside.
So yeah, as we were building it, I kind of learned the market.
I didn't speak to potentialcustomers.
I did so many things wrong.
I mean I probably paid theprice financially and time wise
as well, not to realize theopportunity and just to kind of
(09:57):
dick around myself.
But you know there's always tolearn and that was one of them.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
So and so at this point, it's just you and a
company that built the productfor you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, correct.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Mobile company up in Auckland.
I think the original spec was30K and probably all up.
I spent, you know, closer to 50back then and this is 2012, 13
times.
And I remember thinking I coulduse that because I'd saved a
bit of money for workingoverseas and I could buy a
rental property in Ponsonby orsomewhere, you know somewhere
(10:28):
that's reasonably priced inAuckland.
And yeah, for a while there thesmart money would have been on
the rental property, but wepersevered.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
And so how long did you persevere for before the
shape of the business started tochange?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Probably only 12 to 18 months in market with that
first app range.
Probably only 12 to 18 monthsin market with that first app,
and this looks well, certainlyin my head.
It was the day when apps like adollar, 99 or 99 cents and you
only buy it and appsubscriptions had come out, so
there was no payment gateway oranything like that.
So I thought I'll use apple'skind of built-in and app
subscriptions and I think themost you could pay back then was
(11:00):
like 15 for our app it was.
It was like $9.99.
You had unlimited employees andunlimited visitors.
So I would say I probablydidn't financially model it
particularly well and that firstyear at best it was probably
making $1,000 a month, somethinglike that.
And then, once it was live, Istarted speaking to customers
and they're like, oh, this iscool, but I want to be able to
(11:22):
interrogate the information froma web dashboard, I want to be
able to sync multiple devicesfor different entrances.
And I just built an iPad appthat didn't speak to anything.
It was really quite dumb.
And then I was like, okay, well, scope creep If I was to go and
build another version of itagain, learning from all those
mistakes.
I'm just you know I'm sixfigures now and is it even worth
(11:42):
continuing.
But what I did for the secondversion of SwapDom is outsourced
it and found some developersjust through, like you know,
upwork kind of website and builta second version.
Through all the mistakes thatI've made, that probably cost
something like 10 grand.
So for the price, I was just alittle bit smarter and a bit
savvier at that stage and madethe price a lot higher.
(12:05):
I mean I'm talking 20, 30 bucksper month here and I actually
called it visitor book at thetime, just really boring name,
but it was by swiped on.
I just wanted to be reallyclear for that value, prop and
yeah, like within two or threemonths it was probably bringing
in close to 10 grand a month.
It just it all kicked off fromthat stuff up at the start and
then really scaled the businessfrom there.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Was there something that were kind of providing
tailwinds for that aroundregulation, around health and
safety, knowing who was inbuilding?
Had there been any changes withanything like that?
Yeah, there were.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I wasn't consciously tapping into those, of course,
in the later stages, yeah,definitely.
Obviously, the health andsafety side is biggest knowing
who's on site and you know,signing agreements as they come
in Later on.
We benefited from, you know,data privacy, gdpr, all of that.
And a visitor book in Europe isnot compliant because you can
scroll through it and see whothe last visitor was.
(13:00):
And then, yeah, I mean evenCOVID as well.
It was a great tailwind forhealth regulations.
So, yeah, we've had the benefitof regulatory tailwinds,
basically for the life of thebusiness and those early ones.
Yes, they were buying itbecause of that, but I wasn't
aware it was.
You know, I'd call it dumb luck.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah, you build sort of a 10K product and you're
making 10K a month almost.
At what point are you startingto go?
Okay, I need help, I need tostart hiring people, and where
does that pretty?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
quickly, pretty quickly.
So I would say, around thatstage I had a co-founder come in
, another ex-superyacht guy whowas equally saw the problem and
that was ben scott, so he reallyhelped me.
When you get two people onboard something, you don't
double capacity, you triple orquadruple it.
You know you're makingdecisions quicker.
You've got, you know, someoneto bounce ideas off.
And that was that stage.
(13:47):
And then we realized that thatversion, because it was built so
cheaply on the fly it wasn'tgoing to scale again.
So we had a third iteration webuilt out properly.
So that's actually you knowwhat we've got today.
Whatever it is kind of probablynine, nine years later.
That's what it's built off.
So it took me three goes toactually get the product and the
stack and everything right.
But use that revenue from thatsecond version that was done on
(14:10):
the fly to build things outproperly.
And all the while I waspiloting during the week, on
week off kind of thing, andwhenever we had spare money to
employ people, I would roll themin and keep my salary going.
I would roll them in and keepmy salary going.
So I didn't necessarily burnthe bridges and fully leave for
quite some time until thebusiness and my salary was very
(14:31):
secure.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
And so, by the time you did leave, how big is the
business at this point in termsof headcount and that sort of
thing Cool.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Well, we had outsourced developers at that
time, so I guess the headcountrevenue was a bit lighter, but
on ARR terms, we raised money atthat time.
So I guess the account revenuewas a bit lighter, but I mean,
on ARR terms, we raised money atthat time and I think we're
about 600,000 New Zealanddollars in recurring revenue
when I finally left and so westarted to raise, we decided we
need, we saw the opportunity.
It was massive.
There were other people poppingup with you know, they've gone
(15:00):
and raised a lot of money.
We're like, oh okay, we're kindof left behind here.
So we went to raise a milliondollars as a target and that was
probably 2017.
So, if you're kind of followingthe curve of revenue, it took
quite a while to get to thatpoint.
But our raise I guess maybetook four to six months from
starting things to closing andby that time we were at a
(15:21):
million ARR.
So we were really hitting thegradient on the curve there.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
And so you raised.
Where Did you go through angels, or did you do a bit of a VC
route?
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, through angels primarily, and that was mostly
backed by.
Well, K1W1 were the firstinvestors in and they were quite
quick to make the decision, andthen the bulk was Enterprise
Angels here in the Bay of Plentyas well.
We did some pitches there andthen a couple of other high net
worth that rounded up thatamount and, yeah, that was 2017.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
And was that the?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
only raise you ever did.
Yes, in hindsight we never evenneeded to do it, so kind of
fast forwarding a little bit.
We actually had an approach sixmonths after that raise to buy
the business out, which I'm surewe'll get to, and we'd barely
spent any of that money and wewere growing really well and I
would say we're up at about 16employees in New Zealand at that
stage as well.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So take us through that offer to buy the business
out.
And I know there's been somechallenges in this.
Just having got to know you abit over the last 12 months or
so, Take us through what you'reprepared to share there.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, cool, cool when it started and people often
asking me how did you find anacquirer or what were the first
steps?
Did you go to market?
I just had a LinkedIn requestfrom someone over in the UK,
accepted it and then from there,the initial conversation and
for anyone that I guess may belistening around potential
(16:47):
acquisitions, it always startswith a partnership and they want
to get to know a little bitmore around the business and,
hey, we're looking at partneringand at some point in the future
we are also looking at buyingcompanies, and potentially yours
.
So that was how it started.
And then I think, the secondconversation, you know, within I
don't know maybe three days,they'd forgotten about
partnership and it was like, hey, we're keen to buy a business
(17:08):
in this space and we want to buyyou.
That escalated pretty quickly.
I've always had the viewpointthat I'll have discussion with
anybody.
I won't stop things at the door, definitely explore it for as
far as possible until it makessense, and that was one thing we
explored and ultimately we didclose in the deal there.
We're a listed company in the UKunder the London Stock Exchange
.
There's a sub-exchange for theAIM market, so for smaller
(17:33):
capitalization companies, andthey had just sold off an
infrastructure business forsomething like £18 million and
wanted to transition into a techbusiness and we were, I guess,
the first acquisition to helpenable that.
And at the time that we sold wewere doing about £1.7 million
in New Zealand in ARR and wesold for £11 million.
(17:54):
So it was about six and a halftimes revenue.
As far as the transaction goesand the reason that you make the
best decision with what's infront of you at the time of
course you do the reason that Idid that is that I got to
maintain and the managementshareholders got to maintain
skin in the game, so it wasbasically a 50-50 cash and share
sale.
So on the valuation of thebusiness, they rolled in in
(18:18):
equities, issued new shares tome at an equivalent value and
then I got half cash out.
So it was like a mini exit.
I was happy to continue tooperate, and under a public
company as well.
I thought would be pretty cool.
I've always had interest in youknow stocks and investments and
I really wanted to see what theworld looked like there and it
was a bit of a fast track.
You know way to do it.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
And how did that look in reality after that deal was?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
done, strangely, didn't change a lot.
Didn't change a lot, they hadsaid at the outset.
So the company's smart spacesoftware and it's fast forward.
Again it's been spent delistedbut they'd said, look, the
biggest risk to us and ourbusiness is them.
So they quite consciously leftus to continue to execute on the
business and the opportunityand we did so.
(19:02):
In that way I'm quite thankfulthere wasn't a lot of changes
and interruptions which youoften see with other
acquisitions, and we justcracked on and grew really well,
month on month, year on year,and continued to seize the
opportunity and we ended upbeing public for a good five
years, five plus years.
Where the frustrations crept inis that we were one of like, in
(19:24):
the end, kind of one of threetech businesses.
We were the ones that deliveredthe, I guess, the enterprise
value.
We built value with and swipedon, whereas the other ones
didn't quite deliver and execute, which kind of dragged the
opportunity, dragged the shareprice, but in another world,
another lifetime.
They all delivered and youlayer up the enterprise value,
you know happy days and we allwin.
So you don't go into thesethings completely blind and
(19:46):
without risk.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
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Let's get back to the show.
So they let you kind of go anddo what you needed to do, and
you weren't kind of being toldlook, we need you to deliver x
amount of revenue or x amount ofprofit or anything like that.
You were free to.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
You know we got a lot of that.
Yes, there was a degree ofearly investment but by and
large over that five years wewere essentially bootstrapping
from within and we becameprofitable, while we were cash
generative basically fromacquisition.
You know, maybe six plus monthsout of that.
So we were obviously a paperlosses but we were generating
cash.
And then thereafter weacquisition you know, maybe six
plus months out of that, so wewere obviously at paper losses
but we were generating cash.
And then thereafter we went toyou know EBITDA profitability
(21:04):
for the last couple of years andthat profitability in the end
was balancing out losses inother areas of the group.
Not ideal, but look, I do getit from a group perspective that
certainly since the kind oftech bust through you know 21 to
22, that profitability has beenkey and we did deliver on that
(21:24):
and delivered on a groupperspective.
So yeah, just kind of time andplace stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And you're out now.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
So, yep, fast forward again, I would say.
Around early December this yearthere was an offer to buy our
parent company from a competitorin a tangential space.
So they wanted to visit it.
They did a lot of deskmanagement and wanted to add
visitor into like a full officemanagement I know it's boring
stuff, but bear with me.
(21:51):
But they wanted a bolt-onacquisition for us and in the
end it didn't have board support, so that's turned a hostile
takeover like cool yeehaw.
I want to see this stuff.
And that was to buy our parentcompany but ultimately it was to
buy us because we were, youknow, the main asset within the
group, representing 95 percentof revenue, and that there's
(22:13):
obviously quite a process andquite rightly as a public
company being sold and duringthat process it was actually
weirdly similar to buying ahouse.
You know, you have the duediligence offer, which was the
initial one, and then we can getto a point where it's
completely unconditional andthat company had gone through DD
.
While DD was happening, someoneelse can come in and put
(22:36):
another offer in, and we didhave that.
So we had another offer out ofanother US company.
So the first one was based inthe US and the second one came
in with a higher bid again.
Ultimately, that bidder was abit of a I would say, a gorilla
of private equity funds and theyreally muscled in and they got
(22:56):
that deal and there wasn't acompetitive bidding back and
forth, which would have beenquite cool.
But anyway, I'll quite happilytake the second bid.
Shareholders voted on it, itwas more or less unanimous, and
we closed on that about sixweeks ago.
So we're now part of we've goneprivate again and we're part of
well now the largest businessin our in our industry, which is
(23:18):
quite cool before we sold, andthat's part of well now the
largest business in our industry, which is quite cool Before we
sold, and that's one of thebenefits of being a public
company or previously being.
We can disclose our numbers.
I can tell my friends orwhatever, what the revenue was,
number of locations we had,because we had to put it to
market as a private company.
They're a lot more coy aboutthat, and rightly so.
So we were, I would say,11-something million in ARR.
(23:38):
Bear in mind, five years ago wewere 1.7.
We'd scaled through to 11 andwe had about 9,000 workplaces
using our system as subscribers.
And then now the combinedentity that we've joined, we're
well in excess of 30,000locations.
We really are the gorilla inthe room and the biggest company
in our market, which is, youknow, from starting it in Timaru
(24:01):
from the kitchen table.
It's quite cool to now play akey part in that.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
And has it changed your world at a personal level
Because being able to take somecash off the table, et cetera
has it changed things much foryou and the family.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Yes, so yeah, if you'll recall the first exit,
I'm twice exited from my ownbusiness.
I don't know if that'ssomething to be proud of
Probably not.
But the first exit was halfcash and shares.
And then the exit went throughsix weeks ago.
Just realized all of thoseshares.
There was a very small premiumon what was issued back in 2018.
So, look, financially it wasgood but not great.
But I mean, yeah, I probablydon't have to work again if I
(24:37):
don't want to.
I've achieved a lot.
With hindsight, I probablywould have done things
differently, but so would havewe all.
So, yes, yeah, it absolutelyhas changed things, given
optionality.
Now, for me, it's about doingwhat I enjoy and just growing as
an individual and someonewithin business.
You know, someone that's comefrom no tech experience, no
business experience, to kind ofbuild up and lead a business
(24:59):
with I think we're about 50people today.
As long as I've got coolopportunities to keep growing,
then yeah, I'm all for it, andif not, I've got the option to
do whatever I want.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, what would have been the hardest sort of time
in that journey, from sort ofwhat, 10, 11 years ago through
to today?
You know, in that wholeentrepreneurial journey Because
it is really hard Was there amoment that stands out where
you're like man, that was rugged.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
The weird thing about me is I don't know if there was
like an emotional curve on thejourney.
I don't go super super high andI don't go super super low.
I'm quite balanced in thatsense, just naturally as a
person, and I think maybe it wasa bit of training working at
sea or as a pilot.
If you panic, shit just goesdownhill really quickly and
you're in some quite tightsituations.
(25:43):
You just need to kind of putthings into perspective.
So, yeah, there were tryingtimes and probably the biggest
thing is people in HR anddealing with tricky situations
in other people's lives.
The business stuff takes careof itself if you set up good
systems and have good peoplerunning it.
But there's not one thing thatsticks out in my personal life.
So when I was 33, so I'm kindof four years into this journey
(26:05):
as well and I did have cancermyself I don't know if you're
across that I wasn't aware ofthat.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
no, no yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
So that was like the worst personal thing.
So I had what's called like aliposarcoma and yeah, as I said,
I'm 33, we're just about toraise money.
So I had that, had an operation.
It came back six months later.
I was like, oh shit, here we go.
So like I'm doing like calls andemails from from hospital and
that was pretty full-on, as youcan imagine, and it's kind of
(26:32):
existential.
But once again, like that'sreally good now because it puts
things into perspective andyou're just like, oh, it really
doesn't matter what people thinkor how you deliver.
There's far more importantthings in life.
And look, to be honest, thatprobably paid a little bit when
I had the opportunity for anearly exit.
I don't know what next year isgoing to bring.
I'll take some money off thetable.
(26:53):
So that was the most testingpersonal thing.
I mean, I'm seven years cleanfrom that now and I get annual
scans and it's all good.
It's kind of long forgotten.
But I'd be remiss if I didn'tactually bring it up as being
the most challenging point.
I remember I was just got offcrutches for our first pitch
with Enterprise Angels and so,and then I had pitches up my
(27:14):
side like I had like a meterworth of stitches and I was like
I didn't want to tell them itwould come out in dd, but I
didn't want to stand up thereand I thought I was going to
kill over next year or something.
So I like dropped the crutchesand then went and did the pitch
and then sat back on the seat.
So no, it's all good stuff,yeah it's an amazing story.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Do you think the cancer journey changed your
outcome on business generally oreven just you know life?
Did it really radically changethings?
Speaker 1 (27:40):
yeah, yeah, definitely.
I think anyone's been touchedby that, whether it's personally
or with family does changetheir perspective.
But like, yeah, I totally seeit as a positive.
For me, you just don't get socaught up in the day-to-day or
even the months-to-month stuff.
It just just doesn't matter andjust gives you a bit more
freedom just to crack on andhave fun.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, exactly because it's not that big a deal
compared to life and death.
Yeah, and when it comes to youand your kind of entrepreneurial
spirit, do you think you've gotit in you to go again?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Definitely, I definitely do and, yeah, ideas
just keep popping up.
I mean I do wonder in the worldof AI.
I mean I know the answer thatthere's opportunity everywhere
and you can execute on anything,but it's a pretty saturated
world.
And then you think AI is justgoing to take care of a lot of
things and features and Ihaven't had a massive, massive
(28:33):
yearning to jump into anythingelse, and I know what it takes.
It is a 10-year journey.
I am keen to do it again, butto anything else, and I know
what it takes.
It is a 10-year journey.
I am keen to do it again.
But also I'm really enjoyingthe team now, the opportunities
to grow, so I'll just keep doingthis while I enjoy it, and I
know I've always got another onein me at some point, whether
it's months or five years away.
We'll see.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah.
And so where do you getinspiration from?
I mean, obviously you've got atremendous amount of resolve in
yourself and in your character,yeah, but do you read books, do
you listen to?
Not so much podcasts, but youknow.
Where do you get yourinspiration for being an
entrepreneur?
Where do you learn?
Or is that just on the job?
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I mean, yeah, there is a lot of on the job and I
love the creativity of thingsand that does keep me going.
As far as learning goes, I'mactually a big podcast listener
as well.
So they say, you know,successful people read a book a
week or whatever.
I love books, but I can't smasha book a week.
But I could do four podcasts ina week, no stress, whether it's
(29:32):
driving, I'm mowing the lawnsor whatever.
And, yeah, a lot of businesspodcasts.
I know it's geeky, I justreally like that and that's why
I'm doing.
I'm in the job I'm in.
I really got into this onecalled Business Wars as well.
It's like Coke versus Pepsi and, you know, netflix versus
Blockbuster and there's a lot oflearnings from that that you
can put into the you knowindustries you're in today and
(29:53):
it's really cool.
And what about?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
And, of course, your podcast group.
Oh, of course, of course.
Yeah, we'd be remiss not to saythat.
But what about your ability torecharge?
How does that happen?
Do you just like, are youpretty full on during the week
Well, you certainly have been inthe last few years and then do
you just collapse on theweekends.
Do you run, do you fish, like,how do you recharge?
Oh Gosh.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, I mean I've got three young kids so I can kind
of live vicariously through themand go into their sports and
all of that.
I try and I mean we're in theBay here so I try and get out
for walks and, I guess, just getamongst nature as much as
possible.
But yeah, and I kind of back tomy earlier point that I don't
have wild highs and wild lows,Like I don't feel like I need to
(30:35):
disappear for a long time.
I know it's weird and maybeit's not quite right, but I just
feel kind of naturallyenergized every day and I get
energy out of the team here.
You know I've hired the firstperson through to the 50th.
I like them all, we all justkind of build off each other and
I mean mean it is a greatprivilege to be able to, you
know, hire people you want towork with and enjoy working with
(30:57):
them.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
And yeah, it's just, it's a pleasure to turn up every
day like so I don't know geekyor something, but I just really
get energy from from the gamehere it's really interesting and
I've been kind of thinking, asI've been chatting to you, about
the earlier origin for you andbeing a pilot and being a
skipper generally on containerships and super yachts et cetera
, and how that mindset of juststaying calm because you know
(31:23):
there's tidal movements and seasand other boats and all sorts
of things going on and so juststaying calm and staying you
know well, actually pun intended, even keeled is probably then
translating a lot into startupsbecause, as we all know, for
startups it's insanely hard attimes and it's a very uneven
(31:43):
keel at times.
So you having that mindset,that must be quite an asset when
everybody else is gettingflustered.
You're not.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yeah, you did right.
By the way, I love the maritimeanalogies and there's so much
of modern english that just hasthese maritime yeah origins
terminologies through it.
I love it, I love it.
But yeah, I mean that's thething.
You set a destination, you'reworking towards that and we're
very, very big on on vision andbrand and culture and there's
almost no difference working on,say, yachts, as an example.
(32:17):
At the end of the day, you'vestill got to go down to the crew
mess and have lunch with thesepeople.
You've got to sleep and livewith them.
So if you go and rip intopeople about something, it's
really awkward, like 30 minuteslater when you're just off the.
So there's probably amanagement lesson in just the
humanity and working with people, which I don't consciously try
and do, but does probably rollinto the way that I operate, and
(32:41):
I like to think that people aremotivated by just, you know,
doing cool things together andnot wanting to let not myself,
but even each other down, andthat's very, very similar to
yachts and ships.
And if you've got a captainthat is running around shouting
things, being an asshole orwhatever, then the crew leave
and you just don't achieve whatyou're after.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Is there something where you know, has there been a
time where actually the shiphas really hit the fan in the
business and you've had to justreally take a deep breath?
Speaker 1 (33:13):
A couple of people.
Things have come up where,while we have a good crew and
you want to have everyone onside, you know, from time to
time just things happen withpeople or their own personalized
role into the business orwhatever.
So we have had a couple ofrogue occasions.
But I don't know, it kind ofgoes back to my earlier point.
It's not really a big deal inthe end of the day.
And even on technology, I mean,you know it kind of goes back
(33:33):
to my earlier point, it's notreally a big deal in the end of
the day.
And even on technology, I mean,you know, years ago we had the
whole system fall down becauseof something that was introduced
, you know, probably byourselves, into overloading the
system.
But as long as you're open andhonest with customers as well,
they're really cool.
And you know we've had outagesfor I don't know, maybe three,
four hours I mean I'm talkingyears ago here which is rock
(33:54):
solid today, and I didn't lose asingle customer because of it,
because we had good, clean commsand we were transparent with it
.
And I think that's a lessonthat I've continued and you
can't really hide from teammembers or your customers.
Just the more open you can be,and the more you bring them on
side to business problems, thenyeah, you can't lose.
So yeah, we've had some trouble, but no, nothing.
(34:16):
That's really Nothing too bad.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
I guess final question is tips for other
founders.
You've been in this game youknow for a decade or more now
and you're, let's say, 40-ish or40.
Knowing what you know now, whatwould you do differently?
What would you advise foundersto really be thinking of in
their journey, maybeparticularly in those earliest
stages?
Speaker 1 (34:35):
I had the benefit of naivety, and if I probably knew
too much, I may not have evengotten things going and I spent
too long scoping things out.
So I quite like that naivety toa point.
One thing I didn't have in theearly days was mentors or people
that had done it before, andthat would probably be the
biggest thing that could havesaved me from making a few
(34:57):
mistakes.
And yeah, I mean, look, there'sjust really obvious things, you
know, speaking to customersearlier, doing a lot more
research before you build things, and that's probably where it
would stick.
And also perseverance.
Actually, I can remember atleast twice I'm like right,
stuff, this, I'm packing up thebusiness, it's just not worth it
(35:19):
, and whichever reason.
I remember once I was reallyclose to that and I ended up
getting a big contract for anoverseas company that they
wanted to pay three years upfront.
All of a sudden, we had thismoney to be able to create a bit
of freedom that I didn't haveto pile back in.
So it's like the image of theperson mining and the diamonds,
like just there, like it doeshit.
So, yeah, I would just say thatI guess.
(35:40):
Perseverance and tenacity to apoint yeah, as long as you've
got the right business.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah, and I know you've helped a lot of people in
their own journeys, go throughyou know as founders to go
through that and you've been areal steady hand, if you like,
on the tiller on the wheel forhelping them.
So I know that has beenappreciated in the ecosystem.
So what I will do actually ismake sure that there's ways
people can connect with you onLinkedIn and also to Swiped On
(36:08):
and to go and check out SwipedOn in the show notes to this
episode.
But you are genuinely just ahell of a nice guy.
And you don't always meet niceguys and girls in startup.
Often you do, but you are ahell of a nice guy and it's
always really nice sitting downwith you over a beer.
A little bit more tricky nowwith me not being in New Zealand
(36:29):
, but, yeah, I really want tothank you for the time today,
hadley, like it's been a realprivilege and an honor chatting
to you.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
No, I really enjoyed it and an absolute pleasure.
And yeah, keep talking, lovethe climate.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Hey, don't forget to check out Deskwork, the team
behind you, being able to buildhigh performing offshore teams
for your startups and SMEs.
It's deskworkco.
Backslash, greg, and go andsave yourself some hard-earned
money.
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