The second interview in our “Inspired Career Series” is with RiskTech entrepreneur Matt Hodges-Long, founder of TrackMyRisks, a business operating in the risk management and cyber security arena.
Richard Griffiths met with Matt to find out more about the venture and how his career journey took this route.
Interview with RiskTech entrepreneur Matt Hodges-Long
Tell us how you came up with the idea for TrackMyRisks?
After spending over 10 years contributing to and running Business Continuity & Risk programs for companies of all sizes and sectors around the world it was glaringly obvious that nobody had done to risk what Salesforce had done to sales, HubSpot had done to marketing and Xero had done to accounting in terms of developing an affordable, scalable and intelligent SaaS platform. So we set a course to bring risk management to the masses!
What have been the most challenging aspects of launching and developing the business so far?
The most challenging aspect has been finding investors that have the same level as ambition as I do for TrackMyRisks. The inherently British attitude of ‘playing it safe’ can be stifling at times. It’s no surprise to me that Amazon, Google, Uber etc all started in the US!
How did your previous career outings prepare you for TrackMyRisks?
I have had a wide and varied career which has included building houses, selling Hepatitis medicine in South Korea and heading up New Product Development for Regus globally. This experience has given me a pretty wide lens to view the world through as I am essentially a ‘jack of all trades’
Has anyone in particular been a major influence on your career and in what way?
Probably the most influential was Sir Lawrie Barratt, he taught me in a very public way why it was not acceptable to break the rules and ‘improve’ the specification of his houses as a young site manager. My defence that it only cost a few pounds extra per house didn’t please him as he reminded me he was building thousands every year! After dressing me down on that issue he then pulled me to one side and said apart from that I was doing a great job.
What next for TrackMyRisks?
The last couple of years have all been about the design and build of our software platform. This year is all about acquiring customers that can distribute our software to as many end users as possible as we make good on our promise to become the Salesforce.com of Risk
If you were starting your career today, what sector would appeal to you and why?
Probably what I am doing now – Software. I like the fact you can dream up an idea, build it and scale it massively. If only it were that easy it would be amazing.
What careers advice would you give to an 18 year old starting out on their career journey?
Don’t try to run before you can walk, go and get qualified, see the world, get different perspectives and most importantly learn from other peoples’ mistakes and ask for advice.
Being an entrepreneur is on many people’s ‘To Do ‘ list, but we all know the ups and downs don’t make it an easy life, – can you really recommend it and why?
I would definitely recommend it if you have a very thick skin, an incredibly understanding family and a very high pain threshold. Whatever anyone says it is never easy, there seems to be more downs than ups, the government are continually making it less attractive and rewarding but despite all that I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else because you get to say “I did that” rather than “I helped do that”