Congratulations to Wandisco CEO David Richards, who has just raised £45.5 million on an AIM
flotation. The FT reported that this "provides cause for optimism in London's technology
sector".
“I would point out
that Wandisco is based in Sheffield, which is in Yorkshire,” Richards told Microscope. You’d have
thought the FT would know that.
What tips would
Richards offers to anyone thinking of starting a company that uses local talent to create software
that helps the development teams at Hewlett-Packard, Walmart and Lockheed Martin to collaborate
more effectively over the internet.
“You’ve got the right idea there, but those are all Wandisco clients now,” says Richards. Still, as
he points out, this is a growth market. “We’ve had a 60 per cent increase in subscription bookings
and 30 per cent sales growth it recorded last year.”
Why did you choose
to float on AIM? Why shouldn’t people with a social media start up, to use one example, float their
dot com start up on Nasdaq? Is there a better example than Facebook? Facebook’s shares were down on
the first day of trading. Whereas yours were up by 20 per cent. Is that a sign you’re doing
something wrong? Surely we should all follow Facebook. They’re the leaders aren’t they?
“It’s a great story for the UK technology sector,” says Richards. He says we have to be more
realistic and less gung ho in the UK. AIM is the perfect vehicle in this case, he says. “I don’t
think there will be any spectacular launches, but what analysts call a long tail of smaller
companies.” Not always though. Analysts say that Wandisco offers the kind of growth that many
mature UK tech stocks, like Sage, are not providing.
The trouble with social media is there’s so much repetition. But isn’t Wandisco a sort of techies’
social media?
“Wandisco helps developers, who often work on different time zones, to collaborate more
purposefully,” says Richards. “Can I just say one thing about version control? That is absolutely
one of our biggest selling points. We save companies thousands of man hours by track different
versions of documents when several people are working on the same project online.”
What are the three
pieces of advice you’d give to UK technology start ups?
Don't focus on creating a business plan that you think venture capitalists will like - they are not
experts like you. Go with your gut instincts,” says Richards, “and if you haven't got gut instincts
- forget it!”
Start-ups aren't
for everyone, he warns. “Make sure your whole family is bought into the idea. If they're not it's
just a pipe dream,” he says. And finally, be careful about over estimation. “Everyone, first time
around, thinks they are going to solve world hunger by lunch time. Everything takes longer than you
think.”
This was first published in July 2012
Join the conversationComment
Share
Comments
Results
Contribute to the conversation