Tom Ilube’s Seven Insights

Until recently Tom Ilube was Chief Information Officer of the world's largest pure online bank, Egg plc and a member of the Executive Committee.

In 2005 Tom left Egg plc to found Garlik, in partnership with Mike Harris, the Founding CEO of Egg plc and Professor Nigel Shadbolt of Southampton University.

Tom's technology career spans 20 years with a range of blue chip organisations including Goldman Sachs, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, The London Stock Exchange, Cap Gemini and British Airways. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society and a Liveryman and Court Assistant of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists', the City's 100th Livery Company.

He has an MBA from Cass Business School and in 2005 the University of Wolverhampton awarded Tom the honorary degree of Doctor of Technology.

An excellent and engaging speaker, here are my notes:

The Past

Companies that he's been worked for or started:

• Price Waterhouse Coopers
• Goldman Sachs
• Lost Wax
• Egg.com
• Garlik

Garlik

• See: www.garlik.com
• Symantic Web Technology
• More than £10 Million in Venture Capital

Tom first explained a nearly universal truth about entrepreneurs. They always tell you all the positives with absolute certainty. As If they know them to be true!

And so, with absolute certainty, here are his seven fundamental insights into business...

1. How to Build a Team

• Form – choose roles for everyone, recruit the best you can.
• Storm – let it go wrong, maybe even encourage it to break down. Teams argue to start with however good your management skill.
• Perform – knock them dead with your streamlined, calm and collected team.

2. When to Make a Decision

1. Gather 60 to 80% of the information.
2. Make your decision.
3. If it's wrong, will it kill the business? Only a very small number of decisions can (these ones might need a little more thought).
4. Take SMART risks to avoid wasting time or losing momentum.
5. Don't stick to your incorrect decisions. Admit it. Get over it. Fix it.

Alignment vs Agreement

• Make sure everyone in your team is 'aligned' – they are all moving in the same direction.
• Don't try to get everyone to agree, they probably never will.

DEFINE A SPECIFIC GOAL AND MOVE AS ONE UNSTOPPABLE FORCE TOWARDS IT!

3. Where's the Money?

Where should you find funding?

• Family and Friends – you will probably never win here... whatever the outcome they're disappointed!
• Venture Capitalists – can be sharks showing little emotion
• Angel Investors – will want to be heavily involved – it can become annoying – they will always worry about their money – they will probably interfere.

Remember, when raising money from Venture Capitalists (VCs) , expect a 50:1 rejection rate and know that the timescale is likely to be 12 months.

Don't be hurt when you show them your baby but they just tell you it's ugly!

4. What is the Most Important Subject?

DRAMA!

Staff who you are leading will quickly pick up on your feelings as well as how you treat them. Always appear in good spirits, be careful of knee-jerk reactions.

5. Who Are You?

Myers-Briggs personality profile says Tom Ilube is:

INFJ

...A big ideas guy who creates energy from within himself, acts on his feeling and prefers planning to spontaneity.

Tom warns to be careful of offending people whose personalities work differently to yours. Just because you want some alone time, it doesn't mean they do too!

6. What's Your Purpose?

I am a...

Work out your conditions of satisfaction. Then set some SMART targets!

Make your own bold promise:

In 12 months time, I will be...

7. Leading a Start-up is about Commitment

• It's about the creation of a company – that is what serial entrepreneurs crave.
• There is no parallel in being an employee. It just doesn't compare.

Gems from the Q and A

• "Bootstrapping" is great but you shouldn't let it hold you back!
• Every chief executive feels uncertain about the big shoes their wearing once in a while.
  • ALWAYS HAVE A DREAM OR AN ULTIMATE AMBITION
  • But, if you can't cope with where you are now, you may as well forget it...
• Brand names: What makes a great one?
  • Does what it says on the tin? – obvious for customers but limiting
  • An adaptable Umbrella? – 'garlik' might do anything!
  • Look at the core ideals of the company -> generate LOADS of ideas...hundreds.
  • Think about what people remember
  • People don't need to like it, they should want to learn more about it.

'Innovation and the environment'

This is a unique opportunity for students to meet many local business representatives and academics; talk to our exhibitors about careers issues; and increase your understanding at two very interesting seminars.

You are probably wondering how clever small businesses in the UK are responding to the current environmental and economic climate. This is your chance to find out.

There are two speakers: the first, The Rt hon. John Denham, Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, will be talking about 'The role of innovation in solving our environmental problems'. The second: Phillip Duddell, from The Olive Consultancy, is discussing 'Sustainable Business: Myth or Reality?'. There is also an exhibition where many University departments and Local Companies will be represented. This event is also a brilliant chance for you to learn about the career enhancement opportunities that joining your University's SIFE team offers. For full event details, you should check out the PDF invite that has been sent to hundreds of local companies in the past few weeks. There are only a limited number of seats available. To secure yours now, before they run out, go directly to the registration form.

Southampton Web Entrepreneurship Conference

This is a one off opportunity to hear from some of Britain's most successful and exciting web based entrepreneurs.

Our speakers include:

• Tom Ilube - of Garlik.com and ex-Chief Information Officer for Egg.com
• Charles Cohen - CEO of Probability Plc and ex-CEO of beenz.com
• Kieran O'Neil - founder of Playfire.com and HolyLemon.com
• Tony Treacy - founder of Sustainable e-Business Development
• Paul Fockler - founding member of Mendeley.com a Last.fm for research papers

When: Wednesday, March 11th 4pm to 8pm

Where: Staff Social Centre, The University of Southampton (please see the Directions page for more info)

The Southampton Web Entrepreneurship Conference is a mini-conference designed to bring together local businesses, various members of the University of Southampton, and many very interesting web entrepreneurs and online consultants.

If you would like to have dinner with everyone, please purchase a dinner ticket. The extra cost of the ticket helps us pay for your transport down to the restaurant. Due to the number of speakers we are looking to fit into the relatively short space of time, there will be limited opportunities for Q&A during the conference. Dinner should provide the perfect opportunity to meet everyone and have a chat.

This event has been organised by Fish on Toast, the University of Southampton's entrepreneurs' network.

The timetable of events:

Time Event Speaker / Details

16:00:00 Garlik.com Tom Ilube

17:00:00 Mendeley.com Paul Föckler

18:00:00 SEO W/S Tony Treacy

19:00:00 Holy Lemon Kieran O'Neil

20:00:00 Dinner The Olive Tree Restaurant

Make your first million in the Resession! – Bill Cain

This week we have Bill Cain. Bill is a specialist in strategic business building and marketing in the SME sector. He also has years of experience in management and leadership development, in all sectors of industry, whatever the size of the organisation. Visit his website for more info: nextstep-entrepreneur.co.uk

Bill will be talking a little about his own entrepreneurial background and work within Southampton. He will also be outlining a few opportunities that he sees as arising from the current economic downturn.

These are my notes:

Stop Waiting, Start Selling.

If you want to get through to business directors:

1. Talk about their business' successes… then, ask if they've thought about the improvement you can offer.
2. Focus on Customers and Sales
3. Create management systems that free up your time
4. Entrepreneurs should not let themselves get tied up all the time
5. Check out Seth Godin's "Tribes"
6. Remember they are incredibly cost conscious at the moment. SELL THE SAVINGS.

"Age is not barrier if your ideas can stand up for themselves"

Starting a Company

• Find the Customers THEN find the business
• Legislation is excellent for making money fast if you can move fast. Look out for changes
• Have conviction in your investments
• Ask questions of everybody you meet. If they are in business mode, you should be selling.
  • Use the internet for marketing if you can. Check out Twitter, Linked in and Facebook.
  • Always ask questions when networking. "Have you thought about trying to save a bit of money in the current"
• If you leave a team together too long, new ideas may stop flowing. Mix it up. Break the pecking order, keep it fresh.
• Don't get comfortable, business can go stale
• Don't worry about "bootstrapping" to start but..
• Big ideas need big funding but be prepared to take a small percentage of the massive pie.

Doing Business in the Recession

• Loads of organisations going out of business
  • Expensive kit available very cheap! Just because they are failing doesn't mean you would.
  • Markets are opening up for strong, lean companies
• Your first leverage (borrowing) should come from close by
  • Beg
  • Borrow
  • Steal
• Generate ~20 ideas on around the same topic.
  • Gives you a basket to pick from.
  • Many will not work. It's not a problem though - you will have all the angles.

Doing an MBA Once You're Already Successful

• The people you meet are inspiring
• The ideas and concepts seem a little old hat.

Once You are Running

• Once you've built a customer base, ask them what they want. Find it. Sell it to them.
• The most effective sales pitch is a referral.

Conclusion

• Set yourself a target
• Look at what you've got. Most people don't use their skills properly. So you're already better than them
• In this economic climate…everyone is worried about starting -> COMPETITION IS LOW!