Founder Insights #3: A fireside chat with Scott Fletcher

The North West is gaining ever more momentum in the tech sector. Manchester is on the map for innovation, and it has been, quietly, for some time – a fact typified by our fireside chat with one of the UK’s best-known business leaders.

Scott Fletcher MBE has had a colourful career: first as the young founder of ANS, and now as a serial investor. He has received plaudits for his roles in charities, apprenticeships and the startup scene, guiding the future of UK business.

For our third Founder Insights – sponsored, as ever, by Brabners, and delivered by our very own Luke Grimes – we delved into the finer details of Scott’s rise to become one of the North West’s most celebrated investors. Our biggest audience yet settled down for an interview that took it all in…

Born for business: Scott’s background

Today, Scott is renowned for his investments, but these all springboard from his first achievement – creating ANS, a leading cloud service provider. For over 20 years, the company has been at the forefront of tech support in the North West; but how did Scott build it, and what inspired him back in the mid-1990s?

Answers start to form when Scott mentions his surreal delight at being back in Old Granada Studios. The building used to be his base as a teen actor on Coronation Street. At an early age, he realised the commercial opportunities for most actors are slim. There must, he reasoned at the time, be other ways to bridge money-making and creative potential. Having an idea isn’t enough. It’s what we do with it that counts.

The boy Fletcher started to experiment with what he could sell, taking (for example) the value of a cockle-and-whelks delivery round from £30 to £100 a night. Steadily, this entrepreneurial instinct began to grow, powered by deep respect for how money can keep us secure and cared for stemming from somewhat unstable home finances.

By his late teens, Scott was working 16-hour days making support calls, coding changes and learning the specificities of cash flows for his uncle’s business. At 22 he started ANS, spurred mainly by the country’s economic downturn – where some see ‘crisis’, Scott sees ‘opportunity’, and such thinking led him to form his own company three days after his previous employer went bust.

Luke:

You set up the business on your own, in your bedroom, didn’t you?

Scott:

When ANS was formed, loads of people [from his previous team] were worried about their job. But I just took action. JFDI – Just Effing Do It! You’ve got to take that step and, rather than navel gazing or worrying, just get on with it. That’s why I invest in people with drive and determination. If I like someone, I will invest in them, because I can see that. It’s an attitude and desire.

Never giving into a setback

In its first year, ANS had a turnover of £300,000, which doubled in the second and reached £1.2m by the third. How did the company become so profitable, so quickly?

Some of the reasoning can be pinned on Paul Sweeney, Scott’s long-time business partner who joined the organisation in 1997. Paul’s involvement gave them the confidence to float the brand for capital investment: what Scott describes as a “baptism of fire,” as the two met dozens of people who gave them a score of rejections.

Becoming an investor himself has cast these experiences in a new light, as he believes many of the ‘no’s were down to bad timing. Scott is adamant that coming back to a potential funder is useful; things may have changed, or a situation could have improved since the last meeting.

When people say “no” or “not now”, they could be busy, waiting on something, perhaps embarrassed at a lack of cash… The time of the pitch is key. If someone is tied up in other investments, they won’t always be ready to hand out more. That’s why Scott urged the audience to be resilient and never let rejection wear them down.

Letting mistakes teach us something

Following on from such recollections, we asked what business owners might take (beyond staying tough) from Scott’s journey to the top.

Luke:

You talk about a younger Scott making a lot of mistakes. When growing ANS, is there anything that stood out, to really learn from?

Scott:

How to manage people, to not shoot from the hip. Here’s an anecdote: we were 15 people at one time, and a girl – who worked in our support department – her uncle had just died. She rang me up and said he was like a father to her. And I said, straight away, that we had to check and see if that counts as compassionate leave or not. What I should have said is “Take the time you need”… Little differences in language mean a lot.

Compassion is vital to any business. Thinking long-term, as opposed to the immediate prospect of losing a worker for a few weeks, fosters a positive culture and respect for leadership.

Scott went on to tell us that for years ANS suffered a pendulum effect between sales and delivery: he would swing from one function to the other. Once he brought on people who solely focused on either side of the service, micro-managing became far easier, and a balance was achieved. More recently, this has included hiring a Financial Director.

Any regrets?

As the talk moved to its final stages, it became clear that Scott had no regrets about his investment decisions over the years. For him, investing is knowing when to quit – the emotional energy of running a startup takes 10 or 20 years until other priorities take over, so this is what he searches for in other individuals. Ideas are the symbol of a mindset, rather than an assured road to huge returns.

Scott:

Fail quick. Go around the block a few times. The investor gets most of his money back anyway, probably 75%. Compare the UK to the States, and you’ll find that we hold onto stuff for a bit too long… The guy with three or four failures is actually way ahead of someone who’s doing it for the first time.

He continued to talk about his fondness for charity support, and how he sees it as an intrinsic part of giving back to communities in the North West. However wealthy we are, being nice never loses its value, and success is worth sharing.

The final section of the evening was opened to the audience: what did they want to ask Scott Fletcher, now they were in front of him? Here’s a highlight…

Audience member:

With your focus on the entrepreneur instead of the value proposition, how do you see Manchester benefitting from Brexit in a professional sense?

Scott:

I campaigned for it because I wanted us to make our own way in the world. As a national strategy decision, we can back tech, which European law wouldn’t allow us to do. The right government can get on with it and we have to be bold. Any logical business person can see the opportunity ahead. All that matters through change is whether we look after our staff and customers; that’s all it is.

Audience member:

It’s amazing how much you’ve gotten behind the Manchester business scene – but if you don’t have much money, and you’re a tech startup, what can you give back to a business community?

Scott:

It costs nothing to give the next guy some advice, or a bit of help on some code. The community is better for sharing. As much as anyone contacts me for points to the right direction, or a connection, I’ll give it to them. And anyone can do that.

We relished Scott’s Founder Insights, and there’ll be more to present in January with our next guest. Check back with us in the coming weeks to see who that may be…