How to grow a tech business, retain talent and secure further opportunities in the sector

Two leaders in the Yorkshire tech sector spoke honestly and openly about funding, how to grow a business in a competitive world and what it is like to lead in a fast-moving sector.

More than 60 delegates joined TheBusinessDesk’com’s Women In Business – Tech Sector Special event, sponsored by The Art of Cloud and held at Bibi’s. Speakers, CEO of Panintelligence, Zandra Moore and co-founder of The Data Shed, Anna Sutton, talked about the challenges of tech language and called upon people to remove the jargon from tech and also the corporate world.

Both of them discussed how their career in the sector had been really exciting and that it was a great industry to be part of, especially as Leeds is now becoming a place where inward investment and further companies are locating in the city.

L-R: Kayley Worsley, Anna Sutton, Liz Rhodes of The Art of Cloud and Zandra Moore

Moore, CEO of data analytics software business Panintelligence, was part of the team that lead an MBO of the firm. It now employs 33 members of staff and is next year expanding to Boston in the USA.

She said that Panintelligence was about to go out for a fundraise, something that had never been done before because the MBO was completed through investments from the management team. She talked about tech having a very complicated and often hard-to-understanding language but she had also found the same to be true of the corporate finance world now having to enter that territory.

“It is a whole minefield of language and confusing acronyms. It’s hard for them to understand us and it’s hard for us to understand them,” she added.  She said there needed to a bridging of gaps between growing businesses and corporate financiers.

Sutton said The Data Shed self funded to start-up the business. The firm has a software development division and also consultancy services, and has also grown to a 33-strong team.

“We self-funded from the start because we wanted to focus on the product but actually went through a round of funding. My experience of that was that it was overwhelmingly male. There was lots of bamboozling language; it was a very odd experience, it was hard work. We actually got an offer but turned it down  because we got a big client instead which was exciting,”

Networking before the event

said Sutton.

Sutton has a predominately marketing-led background and so talked about operating in tech world without the tech knowledge or language herself. “We work at the forefront of tech. There are conversations in the office which are often very bamboozling and for me it’s about thinking how to convey that to our clients and to our market,” said Sutton.

She is focusing currently on strategising how to “flip” from a consultancy-led firm developing a product to being a product development business selling consultancy services. “It is going to be an interesting ride,” she added because this means ensuring that the right and “normal” language is used so their offering is clear to potential and current clients.

Moore added that it was important to have women in tech roles who don’t have  a tech background. She added: “Sometimes it takes somebody who doesn’t have that background to make others realise that people outside of the tech world don’t understand the language. ”

Moore said that Panintelligence was now classed as a scale-up business and while going through the process of growing the business had found it difficult to access or know what this funding was available. The business secured £7,000 for trips to Boston to focus on the next chapter of growth and scale-up. “The great thing about the tech sector is that it crosses borders very easily. IP travels very easily and products travel very easily. Once you have a product, moving it out to different territories is pretty straight forward. We are on that journey but trying to get people to support us has been difficult.”

Advice on scaling-up still feels difficult, she explained. “As a business person running a small team and is incredibly busy with a  young family, it’s very hard to spend time finding these things – I need them to find us,” she reflected.

Sutton said it was great that tech was “exploding” in Leeds but she feels there is a lack of a central hub for people to find out about investment and the tech sector as a whole. Of the growing tech scene in the city, she reflected: “It’s great for us as a business but not so great for recruiting.

“Our challenge from a scale-up point of view is supplying Data Shed with the right people. Competition is high and wages are high in the sector because of the nature of the roles. Finding the talent and getting it through the door is important. A passion of mine is how we get the younger generations through our doors because they think very differently to us.”

Sutton said that that young people now had the entrepreneurial spirit and the skills to be able to launch products and services online through social media channels, so it was about attracting and retaining them into growing businesses. “How do we nurture and harness that talent so that they can come into a business and hit the ground running?” she added.

Moore added: “We are in a very fast growing sector and the talent-pool hasn’t quite caught up with the demand of the market. It’s a great sector to be in; that said, there is a shortage talent because it’s new and so the people are expensive.”

She said that they have started to work with schools, offering placements; and that also having a flexible working environment for staff was essential. Moore added that diversity was also central to building great businesses and products. “In a sector like our ours – even in 6 to 12 months – things move incredibly fast so if you have been on maternity leave or caring for someone and you come back it can feel like a different industry. That can be terrifying and intimidating. It is important returning to work for any reason, we need to coach them back into it,” added Moore.

“There is so much opportunity for women in the sector – we would like more of you. It’s not being afraid to fail. Taking risks,” said Moore.

Sutton said she had found it helpful to have a network of trusted advisers around her and her co-founder to help navigate the growth of the business while keeping the values and culture “in tact.” She said: “A lot of people who set up tech businesses grow so fast and don’t have any external advice, therefore don’t know how to handle the growth.”  She added that throughout the growth it was important to capture and hold onto the spirit of innovation and  help people take responsibility within the business.

Both Zandra and Anna are passionate about inspiring others females into the sector, but also to make it far more diverse across the board. “It’s a tech to tech world I live in. It’s really important in this industry that role models step up. It’s hard to imagine yourself in a job unless you have seen somebody else doing it,” said Moore.