As the founder of a tech-enabled carbon brokerage and a climate-tech start-up building digital market infrastructure for the more transparent trading of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) commodities, I want to share eleven fundamentals to setting up an IT-enabled business.
Please note, I did not follow all these 11 myself! And they are mostly on the mindset, motivation, and must-avoid side, writes Melissa Lindsey, CEO of Emstream and Emsurge.
Nonetheless, to any Women In Tech reader who stops me in the street tomorrow, I’d still give these eleven responses to the question ‘How best to start your own tech business?’
1. Find great co-founders
Not that I found any co-founders for my two businesses, but such is the beauty of hindsight!
I console myself with the fact I could have fallen out with them.
But actually, when I catch myself thinking hard about it, it’s more likely that a co-founder (or co-founders) to turn to would have accelerated my ventures’ growth.
Three ways tech co-founders add value
Co-founders are worth having because they also:
– Provided logistical, financial, and emotional support;
– Broaden your business’s network with their own contacts;
– Put in some cheap but very reliable cheap labour in the early days or when times are tough!
If, like me, you have already missed the co-founder boat, do the next best thing — surround yourself with mentors and friends until you can afford to surround yourself with great employees.
2. Give equity to IT company employees
Got your first or even second employee? Great, now look into giving them equity!
However, I recommend you give equity under an option structure that requires your invariably talented people to both perform and stay.
Equity will give people the same sense of ownership as founders, and over time the company will feel like their baby too!
3. Office, what office?
Don’t believe you NEED to have an office if you want to set up your own tech business.
On the contrary, having a physical office as a tech company can work against you, as it restricts your talent pool to a fixed location. It’s hard enough to find good developers as it is; you won’t want geography acting as an additional restriction!
4. Play to your tech start-up's strengths
As a young tech start-up you can’t offer job security to prospective employees.
Instead, you need to offer work-life balance and other perks.
If you have international ambitions, it will also make more sense to grow your presence overseas and provide support outside of local hours.
But at every turn as a tech start-up, acknowledge your weaknesses yet counter them with your nascent status and flex your nimble muscles. How? Well, for starters, be generous with your time; your knowledge and your contacts.
5. Have ONE vision but MANY business plans
Everyone says to have ONE business plan, I say have MANY!
I had so many permutations of my business plan, depending on eventualities I couldn’t control, that I refused to waste time writing it down.
Unfortunately, unless you are willing to back yourself, remortgage your house and not require funding until your plan becomes visible, the ‘having-it-all-in-you-head’ option just isn’t advisable!
Instead, it’s much more sensible to come up with a clear, unwavering vision — then write out a plan that best supports that vision.
Base your tech company business plan on no less than EVERYTHING you know today
Just don’t feel married to your plan. Most tech companies pivot, and mine was no exception. My vision, however, was steadfast.
In particular, it was (and remains) ‘more efficient markets.’
I knew technology could deliver efficiency gains across fledgling commodity markets.
Admittedly, what I didn’t know was the best path. Currently, provided that I head in the right direction and get closer to achieving my vision EACH day, I’m happy.
6. Tech company decision-making 101: two weeks to learn 'x' - max
For start-up style decision-making, learn the minimum you need to know to make a decision, then move on.
In our early days as a technology-enabled business, I would give myself a maximum of two weeks for all big decisions.
This meant two weeks to learn, for example, about:
– fundraising;
– how many shares to issue;
– how much to raise.
In your case, it might mean two weeks to learn about blockchain and decide whether you want it in your technology stack.
Learn as a tech biz using books, Google, people
I find a combination of books, Google, and people works best for these 2-week learning exercises.
For example, when I was learning about blockchain, I read the initial chapter of a book to learn about the key concepts and main infrastructure providers.
Then I went on LinkedIn, where I set up virtual meetings with the key people at each of the providers and asked them to help me.
Thinking on a ‘forward’ basis; try it in your tech biz
At the start, this forced me to slow down but nowadays I think on a ‘forward’ basis. In other words, I now anticipate what I will need to know about in the coming months and start learning about it sooner.
For anything small that crops up, trust your gut.
Remember, most decisions CAN be undone but you can’t turn back time.
As a tech start-up, you are on a clock. Your commercial venture has a limited amount of time before you run out of money and have to go back to a real job!
7. Play the long game
Are you in it for the long haul? If not, be prepared to fail.
It took me a decade to build a successful LNG (Liquid Natural GAS) business for commodity broker Tullett Prebon.
As a result, I was resolved and comfortable in that resolve to start spending the next decade of my life building my new tech-based company.
I remember something significant.
An invaluable bit of venting
Early on as a woman tech entrepreneur, I was venting my frustrations at how slow the commodity market was to a successful tech enterprise founder.
His reply to my complaint about the SLOWNESS completely changed my mindset. He said, “That’s great.” And then he went on to explain that our market being slow to adopt technology, meant it wouldn’t be a fad. Quite the opposite — it would be harder for anyone else to replace ‘you’ once ‘you’ are in.
Speaking to a person, as I did here, reinforces my point about the importance of adding real human beings to the Google-Books combo, recommended above!
8. Gain new perspectives
Gaining the right perspective can help you move at the right pace. I realised early on that there was no point moving faster than the market. I risked simply running out of cash or burning through a crazy amount of resources before the market adopted me.
This issue might not apply to all would-be tech entrepreneurs!
But you might have a similar issue where pace, timing, and taking a measured approach, are key to surviving and sustainability.
In my instance, in enterprise-level commodity-tech, I now know you need to brace yourself for the long lead times that come with onboarding new vendors. For your reference, over a year is not uncommon, and that’s from the moment a trader or someone in the organisation decides they want you, and you are worth the uphill, internal battle!
What will your tech enterprise shake up, shorten, or disrupt?
Working out how to shorten long lead times, for example, could be the key to your tech company’s success.
For us, things like making the system non-transactional, web-based, secured with MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication), and encrypting all data from the start, really helped.
What will be the fixes, quick-wins, Eureka moments or USPs of your tech biz?
9. Know how big your company must and mustn't be as a woman in tech
Are you looking to run what would be defined as a lifestyle (tech) business, where you aim to work flexibly — or do you want to build something BIG with everything, plus add-ons, that go with that BIG thing?!
If it’s the former, your challenge is NOT to get too big. Your challenge will be NOT to need to employ lots of people; almost NOT to be too successful. It will be Sod’s law if you become all those things!
Tech empire-building on your own: three realities
Conversely, if you want to build a tech or digital empire, then be prepared to:
- Manage people;
- Be willing to give up almost EVERYTHING in the early years of building it;
- Not have everyone in your life (even close friends) always be aware that almost all your weekly time is devoted to your venture.
When I was in the early days, getting my businesses off the ground, I networked like CRAZY.
Today, seven years in, I only go to London once a week and I attend conferences twice a year. I would do more, but I have a toddler and want to be present.
I once had a friend who said to me they wanted to start their own tech business, so they could work when they wanted, ‘like I did.’
Well, I had to burst her bubble and share the then-reality — I work all the time.
10. Work smart as a tech business owner, especially if you're a parent
Today, I’m a big believer in thinking time through. And more than ever, it’s easy to work from almost anywhere.
If, like me, you are a parent, ‘working smart’ is visualising everything you need to do; it’s rehearsing conversations or drafting emails in your mind, then bashing everything out in the few minutes you can ‘have at’ a screen.
Want the raw proof? While I draft this article exclusively for Women In Tech, with my free hands I’m bathing my child!
The great thing about entrepreneurship, and running your own tech business (once the CRAZY subsides), is that you do have choices. For aspiring women in tech reading this, those choices might mean you could choose to work at night and play with your kids in the morning.
11. Join the club(s)
Another priceless perk of going it alone in the tech industry is that you also enter this informal ‘founders’ club’ where everyone who has tried to run their own business knows just how hard it is and is rooting for you. So give it your all, then give back.
Melissa Lindsey
Melissa is the founder and CEO of Emstream – a tech-enabled carbon brokerage, and Emsurge – a climate-tech start-up building digital market infrastructure for the more transparent trading of ESG commodities.
Since launching in carbon markets in late 2021, Melissa’s businesses have facilitated the transparent over-the-counter trade of over 14 million tonnes of carbon and over 170 companies globally (mainly blue chip companies) are now using her platform
Melissa was formerly the global head of LNG at Tullett Prebon, where she spent a decade structuring spot and term LNG trades and was instrumental in the creation of the financial LNG market and associated risk management tools. She holds a degree from Bath University in Economics and International Development.
