Let's introduce Paul. Hands of up. Who has met Paul before or knows of Paul? Okay. Hands up. Who's listened to the podcast with Paul? Okay. Okay. So, um, is everybody on the Wi-Fi connected to the Wi-Fi here? Have you got your Wi-Fi? It's the mix. If you go into it, it's the mix. So, intro to Paul. I hope I'm going to do you justice here. So, tech entrepreneur Paul Hamilton founded Suffuk based software company Halo 14 years ago right here in Suffukk or Stom Market. >> Yep. Good so far. >> Yep. And today the business is a global player competing with Salesforce and Service Now. In 2024, Halo became the UK's second most valuable software company behind Sage and the world's first purebred unicorn, which is a privately held young company valued at over1 billion dollars built and grown without significant outside funding. >> Without any funding. >> Okay, that's even better. Since it rebranded in 2019, the company has launched a suite of innovative products which are used by over 125,000 teams in more than 75 countries. With a 300% growth rate over the past three years, Halo was recently named one of the fastest growing companies in the Financial Times Footsie 1000 list. Is that right? >> Yeah. >> Their mission is now to push on and become the market leader in digital workflow for sales and service. Correct. >> Welcome, Paul. >> Thank you, Sue. >> So, if I was to do this as a lead interview, one of the first questions I would ask you is to take me back to the young Paul. So, I want you to describe to me, tell me a bit about you as a child, where you lived, your family, what your hobbies were. Just let's give us a bit of background to the personality that is Paul. >> Yeah. So, I was brought up in the north of Scotland. Who's who's been to when I say the north, I mean right up the north. So, let's go two-hour drive north of Invenesse. Who's been up up that way? Okay. So, a fair few most people don't have have never really heard where I was brought up. It was a little village called Castle Town. Um on the north coast, uh there's a little bit of land that sticks out called Dunit Head. There's a lighthouse. It's the most northerly point of mainland United Kingdom. Um there's not a lot going on up there. It's it's very it's actually really flat. People think mountains and things when you think Scotland, but where I was brought up, Kaith Ness is probably the flattest county that there is in in Scotland. So, it was very windy, very cold, very wet, pretty much all year round. Um, but as a kid, I didn't know any different. It was I had I had freedom. I could just I remember just going out on my bike and even like we were hitching lift. Me and my brother were just if we wanted to go to the town tho 5 miles away, we just hitch a lift there. And it was that kind of no one locked their doors. everyone kind of knew um when our village everyone knew everyone and but it just felt safe and parents didn't worry and um looking back it was a great I am I'm really grateful to have been brought up in a place like that where you do just you develop like independence and initiative and stuff that I think maybe we don't have the opportunity to develop as easily these days perhaps I don't know >> I mean tell us about that because are you the oldest youngest me >> the youngest youngest. Have you got just one brother? >> So, three, one of three. Uh, we were all quite close together, so consecutive years. Um, my sister was born in 78, my brother was 79, I was 80. Uh, so we were very close as a family and we used to just Yeah. play things. >> I'm still the baby as far as my mom would say. >> So, so did you grow up with mom and dad? Uh I did till till I was 11 and then they separated divorced and then I was living with my dad for my kind of teenage years. When I was 11 that was when I moved to Chelmsford in Essex and that was the majority of my I started high school in Thor and Cath but then moved to to Molsham High School in Chelmsford. Um I remember so my dad had moved down for work because there's very uh few employment opportunities up in the north of Scotland. More than 50% of the population worked for kind of public sector. Um, and yeah, there's not a lot of progressive employment opportunities. >> What did he do? >> Uh, he was a driving instructor for many years. Uh, he also ran a like effectively a retail manager for BSM, British School of Motoring, um, in like all over the place at Edinburgh, uh, Dun Firmland, Chelmsford, Cambridge, Colchester. So, we kind of ended up doing a lot of the one branches in East Anglia. Um, >> very different to what you're doing then. and what you >> very different then in his later years he was a bus driver as well for in Norwich just driving the the double-decker buses and you know I used to think that was pretty cool >> so in our conversations we've had previously two things come to mind when you talk about how you were when you grew up so one is you don't like to follow a crowd do you Paul >> you don't her mentality >> no I remember when I was so at my at Castleton Primary School so I I did get into football probably when I was six seven years old I began to to fall in love with the the game of football. And I remember my classmates all all used to wear like green and blue like and they just they were either Celtic fans or Rangers fans and up in the north of Scotland majority Rangers. And I remember saying to them like why why Celtic or Rangers like those teams are miles away. They're in Glasgow. Um you got Aber back in the 80s the Aberdine were very successful. This was just you had Alex Ferguson there till 83. they won European trophies and they they won the league and domestic cups and so on. Um and they were our that was my nearest team. So I thought well I'm going to support Aberdine. Um and at the time uh yeah I remember getting I'd have a red t-shirt and it wasn't as strict was we didn't have any money really when when we were growing up but uh I did I remember just trying to create my old Aberdine kit from red clothes. Also tell me curiosity. We talked about that as well, haven't we? So >> I was the annoying child that would always question everything like dad why this why that why and it just because it is and uh yeah that even like as a like honestly even up to the age of 16 maybe I'd still have that curios curious kind of mindset about me that I just want to know the answers to every everything which must have absolutely driven my parents nuts. So, I suppose you asked a lot of questions that they didn't know the answer to. >> They'd always pretend they knew. >> When did you catch them out? >> I mean, I did genuinely just remember growing up just thinking my dad just knew everything about everything. So, I'd always ask him what the answer question, like, oh, my dad will know. >> So, it's interesting because I want to talk to you about where you went into tech cuz that wasn't probably on your radar, was it, when you were growing up? >> Not at all. Uh, well, I mean, fit into that. >> I got a Nintendo. I remember uh I remember like spending hours playing Mario or uh Donkey Kong or whatever it was. >> Can everybody remember those? Yeah. Okay. >> It was a uh Nintendo with the duck hunt gun. £99 for the whole console set. And like I because again we didn't really have much money. So this was a an unbelievable like treat for I I I absolutely cherish that that thing. And uh yeah, so that was my first foray into technology I guess. Um >> did you try taking it apart then? Not that no I mean there's not a lot you can do with with game consoles I don't think but and then from that as technology progressed so as the internet came along sort of I guess 94 95 I mean um I got my first so I started I I guess I began to be curious about PCs and cuz even back then I remember I remember they they used to just wheel a computer in you you guys from Halo won't remember this but you're too young but there'd be one computer and it just like wheeled around the school in a on a trolley like a BBC computer whatever it was and um >> the old fashioned modems that you had to dial up. >> Yeah. And and so I I began to uh probably did like basic programming and stuff back then as well. Um and I always thought it'd be pretty cool to have your own computer. But back then, even in the mid '9s, not not many people had computers. Not not really. Um but I thought, how can I get one? And I remember and they were about about a grand. My first computer was Packard Bell SX2. It's like 486. Um, it' be like I think nowadays mobile phones are something like 10,000 times more powerful than like my first computer. It's crazy how technology has progressed. But anyway, so it was going to that was £1,300. I thought, well, how am I going to get money for that? So, there was a pub just around the corner from where I was living. And when I was 13, I just started washing dishes. And I was the best dishwasher they ever had. I was so productive and like Pareto's principle 8020. It's like I'll leave a little bit of dirt there and they but you you then move it onto like the actual dishwasher. You like clean them and then put in the machine and then that would finish it off. But um so it was there was a little bit of an art there. And um and I as honestly the feedback I was getting was that I was really good at it. So I used to earn£10 a shift. So five hours, so two pound an hour. Um £13 if it was like a weekend, so like a longer shift. Uh and I in the summer holidays I'd be work any holidays. All I'd be doing is two shifts a day, seven days a week. My parents didn't really I was a very I was clearly a very independent child and I didn't ever need help as far as like homework or I guess I was just naturally I mean I'm not that academic. I'm quite actually quite an applied learning person. I don't really like just learning theory and stuff. It's um so I always did the minimum I needed to do to kind of get through school, bearing in mind that I didn't really know what I was going to be doing for a career. Um but I thought and it's taught into isn't it to just do well at school and you'll end up getting a good job which will end up allowing you to have a happy life and all the rest of it. Um but I didn't love school. I I actually found um school pretty boring to be honest. Um some subjects I maths came easy to me so I quite liked the problem solving aspects of maths. And >> I mean you did get to uni didn't you? >> I did uh only just I I got so I did computer science and economics at University of Leeds. I needed 22 points. So like what's that two um so 10 for an A, eight for B, six for a C and I got an A in maths and two C's. So that was bang on 22 points. Um, so as I say, I literally do just enough to Yeah. >> But you you also has talked to me about the fact that you're selftaught, aren't you? >> Yeah. >> You've selftaught yourself and I I mean that's got to be that's fantastic, isn't it? That >> Well, I think again it comes back to having curiosity. Like if you've got natural curiosity and you're interested in something, you just want to find you just want to read read you just want to find out more and you just that's the best way to if it's the other way around where you're going to lectures not really invested, you're not that interested, it will be really hard to actually absorb all the stuff and it's becomes a bit of a chore and yeah my first six months after university I learned way more like I just got some books and taught myself how to build websites um taught myself how to like administer networks and look after the servers that run the networks, all that stuff. And you you don't learn any of that stuff at uni. Uni was all about maturing machine in the 1930s or whatever. It's just it's not helpful at all. So, but thinking back, you don't know how much uni like primes your brain for problem solving. Yeah, maybe it wires your brain in certain ways. It's I don't know. It's it's when I'm glad I went to uni cuz it's where I met my wife and it's I probably matured and became even more independent and learned grew up like as a person. So I think and I don't and and I'm very much encouraging my kids. They're now at the age 18 16 14. So my 18-year-old's now choosing um his universities and there's no way I wouldn't suggest well if he doesn't want to that's fine. I'd say yeah just do follow your passion whatever but but he wants to go to uni and he wants to do mechanical engineering. He's way more academic than I am. He loves learning. He's so clever as well. >> Yeah. >> I'm not I'm not that clever really. I've just got a um an interest and a curiosity and a determination. I think the to just Yeah. >> Do you think you're driven? >> Yeah, definitely. Yeah. >> Okay. So, what drives you? I mean, is it is it because I think that we we again we touched on this similar to me in a bit. Financial security is incredibly important to you, isn't it? Do you think that what is that what >> Definitely was. Um, no, it is it is it it probably was everything. Like when again when you're brought up where you don't there's a hundred choices available and you can only make one of them cuz your means don't allow you to get to the other 99 or whatever then you end up thinking oh that's a shame we wish we could make that choice or your whole childhood is just like that and then you think so money becomes quite important and also like hearing parents fighting over money or it's all it just becomes a big a big thing that you think well money is very important so I did grow up thinking I wanted financial security I didn't ever want to earn millions or anything like that. I just wanted a job that would allow me to I suppose not have to worry too much about money or yeah that level of financial security. >> So was the first job at Ernston Young >> after uni? Yeah. So so I didn't so so as a teenager I was really into technology. I bought my first computer. I took it to bits and then upgrade it, tinker with it and yeah I'd experiment a lot with techn and I love technology. Hence, I chose computer science as my or half of my degree. Um, but that just completely put me off technology um because it was so theoretical and it wasn't something what I was learning. It might have been useful if I wanted to go program semiconductors for a Motorola or something, but I didn't I didn't want to do that. I wanted to do something much more like um applied or industrial. I don't know. Um and so it put me off. And when I finished my degree, I was like, "Oh, I'm not I'm not doing computer science or IT." it's like it's really boring. So I just and I didn't know what to do. I genuinely didn't know what to do but I still had that desire for a financial security. Um and I just thought well what and you got these this back then it was a book with like I don't know 100 graduate schemes. The best graduate schemes all seem to be at like these big sort of the big five back then. So Arnston Young, PWC, Deote, KPMG, Arthur Anderson and then uh and then you got like the management consultancy firms like Accenture and Mckenzian and these were the like if to really make some decent money all the the good careers were kind of with these types of organizations and I didn't even think about what the actual work was. I just knew that if I wanted to make it work I' I'd just I guess I backed myself to be successful in any of these career. They were all kind of numbersy based things as well and I was naturally quite good at maths. Um so I went into a career as a traininee chartered accountant with Ernston Young. Um and it was all right. I I was driving here there and everything. We were doing audits for Aviva and Post Office. Interestingly I was auditing the post office at the time when the scandal was going on. Obviously I didn't know anything about the scandal but I was in their in their big HQ in uh in Chesterfield. I was based out of Leeds. I went to university in Leeds. Um, and but it didn't take too long before I just thought I don't think I can just do this for the rest of my life. Like not I can't. And then that's when I realized like there's more to life than than money as well. And um and I started I guess thinking more about it because you don't you don't actually think that much about it when you're at uni which sounds strange because that's the time you should be thinking about it but I was just I don't know having fun and socializing and growing up. Um but uh yeah so after about six months uh there was a a turning point in my life which coincided with me reading a book. I saw an article in the times. So back then again no internet like or the walls but not social media and the way you ingested information was through newspapers pretty much or the TV. Um and I was reading the times there was this article about this book that had just been released. Book was called Maverick. uh author Ricardo Semler and he he inherited a a company from his father when he was 21 years old. It was a very kind of uh stable toxic workplace traditional hierarchical um I think they had about 400 staff at the time when he inherited it and and he basically didn't want to he thought to himself right I'm not going to be responsible for 400 people coming into work being miserable living for the weekend. um he thought either he's just going to sell the business or and then he thought can I transform it? Can you actually have a profitable business that is also a happy workplace? Do is that possible or are they like opposites of each other? So he basically went on an experimental phase of about a 20-year journey just trying different things and and they ended up being hugely successful became Latin America's fastest growing company. They had a waiting list for thousands of people um wanting to work there and it was a very radical some of the stuff was it's very even in today in 2025 because this was back in well 99 I think he released that book um but it was very much the 80s and 90s was the when he was working on this business is called Senco and um and everything when I read that book I just absolutely couldn't put it down it's just is it I'm not I'm not really a reader and I find reading quite I'm quite a slow reader probably I think um I'm more of a numbers person than words person uh but that book I just could not put it down I was done within like a couple of hours like the whole >> and you you hadn't got the business then had >> I didn't have a business no but I just I just resonated with this idea of a democratic workplace that's just a meritocracy that it doesn't it doesn't matter who you know um there's no politics and it's purely and sharing the success with the people in the business as well um it was everything that Ernst Young wasn't. It was just the complete opposite. And and I was experiencing firsthand the challenges of a very stifling environment with no agility, very rigid. Uh it wasn't a meritocracy. It was it was how you spoke. It was how you looked. It was who you knew. It was it was what school you went to. It was it was quite like boys clubby. I'd say >> establishment. >> Yeah. Quite establishment. So tell us about the move into working with Alan. Was it Alan Rodson? Who's the co-founder? Your co-founder. >> Yeah. >> So tell us about that step and going into that business and starting out. And what was it called before it was Halo? >> So it was Net Help Desk. Um so between 2004 and 2011 I was basically an MSP with Allen. So when I say an MSP, a managed service provider. So basically a very small IT company providing IT services um of all sorts. So building websites, writing bespoke software for people, um installing even back then installing Wi-Fi networks, although just beginning to yeah, Wi-Fi was just becoming a thing. And I remember it everywhere we charge for it as well like even like literally everywhere cafes and um and but anything technology really and so this was in the north of Scotland where I met Allan and the in the north of Scotland the really mentality that like one person will like if you go to the local like these one person does so many jobs like in these highland villages um and so there is just a mindset that you just do a little bit of everything you come you become a jack of all trades and you don't really specialize and which has its pros and cons but um yeah so for many years myself and Alan were developing software as well as doing other IT services but the thing we enjoyed the most and also the most lucrative thing was the software development while we were um developing our I mean Allan is 25 years older than me so he was much more he was very profic he's the most gifted um software engineer I've ever met he's he's an absolute a genius. He taught he Yes. Okay. I went to uni and I did some programming modules and stuff, but terms of actually teaching me how to program properly so that I could sell a bit of software to a company to solve their problems. The whole life cycle from beginning to end, it was Allan who taught me that. Um, and Allan who who put trust in me to um as a as a young as a 22year-old, 23-year-old, whatever. And yeah, he did. He put a lot of trust in me. Um, >> and were you would you describe yourself as running a business then or? >> We we both were. Yeah, we were running we're almost like self self-employed people in a bit of a cooperative type thing. >> Like you say with most small businesses, you were doing everything, weren't you? >> We were doing everything. Yeah. Um, >> so when did that time come when you actually took on that first employee and and brought them on board? So during that phase when I was working with Allan, we began to like well we were building out this ticketing platform that we were using to manage all the work we were delivering for our customers and it became yeah they'd say oh can we can we have a portal we where we can suggest changes or I don't know request reports or whatever and we just like called away 24 hours and they go there's a portal and and so we yeah we ended up being this very useful thing that I I just said to Alan like this is all we should be doing really just selling It's really it's it's a really great thing that other people would find really useful and there's not back then there weren't a lot of product ticketing platforms around nothing was really web- based. It was all Windows programs. Um but I knew that to have to be able to sell it. We needed cuz we had even like Alan as well neither of us were for money. We didn't have money to grow business. Um and but back then and I think the internet has a has democratized like business in many ways because it means that if you do have the desire and you do want have the interest and passion you can you can just go and create a website and you can optimize that website to like we in in 2006 if you search for help desk software anywhere in the world it would come up with our website number one in Google just in the organic search results. So we'd get hundreds of inquiries from all over the world coming through. I'd end up flying um literally all over the world. So this is when it was that Allan was 100% coding. He didn't do anything. He didn't do any of the demo selling demoing on on-site training. Um he was literally just backend developer and and I did a little bit of everything. So it would be me that would be doing all the the customerf facing work. Um and I was flying some of the places I flew to from 2006 to 2010. Flew to Rwanda to Kaggali to implement for the commercial bank of Rwanda. Flew to Paramaribo Surinam to implement for National Energy Company in Surinam. Um also implemented for the National Energy Company in in greater Nida just south of Delhi in India. So I was going to all these weird and you might think why are the why these weird places? is because they didn't have the money like these other systems which were expensive the western world had money for these systems. And so then and you could tell for as great as the the effort I was making on a website like it it wasn't that con they could tell it was probably a couple of people working out their bedroom or but maybe I think they probably thought we were 20 or 50 people rather than just two people but anyway it's uh yeah when I think and again when you're in it all you're doing you don't really think about why you're getting I mean I guess the highest profile inquiry and implementation I did we did get We got an inquiry from Seammens in Dubai. I remember flying over this in 2008. Flew to internet city. So Dubai back then was not like it was it was growing and everything but it wasn't like it is now. Um but even then I flew to Dubai and I'd still be coding away cuz your time when you're working for yourself, you know it's like your time is everything. Time's so valuable. Um so I'd make use of every minute on the plane. I'd be whoever sat next to me be so annoyed. So I get my laptop out and I'd just be like programming away the whole flight building websites or whatever. And um I remember just going to they were so hospitable. This guy Hussein Ali in Dubai picked me up from the airport in a little clapped out car. But it was it was great. He took me to internet city. I was like wow this is amazing. um and then implemented for those guys. They then recommended Net Help Desk to their colleagues in Malaysia and then they then recommended to Melbourne. So I ended up going to like Seammens in Melbourne. Um which was the first ever proper like corporate office with loads of money that all of a sudden it's like whoa hold on a minute. Uh Net help desk isn't just for people with no money. It's like it there's something here about the product that people are beginning to recommend it. Word word of mouth is beginning to spread here. Um, and >> I think importantly you were and and put this in its very basic terms, but you're getting up off your backside and you're going out and you're doing it. And I think >> an insatiable appetite to I don't know what it was, whether it was just I I don't know it was just to spread the word or to develop better technology or it was just unbelievably exciting to to >> real passion. be a part of. >> It's just building. I think building anything like if you if you're involved in in building something, it's one of the most fulfilling things whether it's bricks and mortar or a digital business. I think to to be involved in building something with even it's building a brand, building anything is is such a fulfilling thing. And I'd encourage anyone I encourage my kids to just find something where you can you can just build something for a few years. And >> so tell me, how did this go down at home? because I'm assuming >> it was hard. Like, and again, look, I I kind of joke, but I'm not joking when I say this. Like, I only I reckon I properly matured about like mid mid30s probably in ter I had kids young. I had kids when I was 25, 26, uh, 28, whatever. And, um, I wasn't mature enough to have kids. I didn't know what it it it was really hard for my wife with me. Like my daughter was really ill in hospital when she was 6 months old. No, from she was born in July. She was 4 months old. Um she couldn't keep anything down. She had tubes in her. Um and even like the fluid they were putting in, she couldn't keep that down. And they didn't know what she was just like wasting away. and I'd be flying off like away for a week and not there to give my wife the support that I should have been able to give her. Um, but I was just so obsessed with doing what I was doing and I I could comp compartmentalize everything like really well. So I I would come home and like to be be devoted but it yeah but that wasn't enough. I think you need and I didn't have the emotional intelligence or skills I think that were needed to be a a a really good husband or or or father back then. But I think it's something that I've grown this like and it's part of being married. I think I mean you all know you've been married a long time. I've been married just had my 20th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago. I did a pub quiz a few nights ago and one of the questions was what's the what's China? I was like yes I know that one. It's the 20th wedding anniversary. Um, >> so tell me when the move came because you moved as a family, didn't you, down from Scotland down here. >> So because I was >> tell us that story because it's everybody thinks there's probably some science in it in the science. So tell us tell us a bit about that story. >> So as I was kind of describing there, I was like work was at the center of what I was doing. We begun, my eldest was born in Invenesse. My second eldest born in Edinburgh. Um my we had no family even now my mom's up in Scotland. She wasn't even up in Scotland. She was down in South End at the time. Um but so so it was just up in us up in Scotland and basically my wife with the young kids and she wanted to be near her family understandably and her family was her mom was in Earl Ston and her dad was in Colchester. So we basically just put a pin in the map that she wanted to be within 15 miles of where her mom was living. Um so pin in the map 50 mi radius and then we ended up just renting a house in Needam Market and uh lived there for 6 months and then we bought a house in Stole Market in 2010. lived there for three years, then moved to another house in Stom Market for eight years, and yeah, now we're just outside Stom Market. And we'll probably be in that house for the rest of our lives, I should think, in terms of we might maybe at some point get a house in another country, maybe. I I don't know, but we'll never have another house in Suffuk. I would have thought. >> So, you chose Sto Market deliberately for work. So, tell us about that cuz your first office wasn't where you are now, is it? It's >> Well, so I was again just working by myself. So Allan was beginning to wind down by this point. He was because he's not neither of us are particularly money driven and he he he enjoys programming and but he was at the stage in life where he began to want he was mid-50s and he wanted to just do other things and travel and he ended up um yeah living in different countries for different periods of time. Um, and it was becoming just me really. And I had to decide what to do with this business, whether to just keep doing it as a bit of a lifestyle thing, just me. And by this point, I was earning a decent amount of money. So like, I don't know, 50, 60 grand perhaps. Um, which in today's money probably 100K perhaps. Um, so I could have just kept doing that and that and that would have been enough for me. that would have been enough financial security. I don't I've never had aspirations to have like I don't know multi-million dollar yachts or anything like that. Um and but what I was curious about going back to the curiosity is just business like especially having worked in companies like Ernston Young and having begun to read I'd read a lot of business books by that point as well I think cuz even when you're working for yourself you still it's business isn't it? you do want to try and optimize your time and everything else and I remember reading a lot of stuff. Um back then Steven Kovi I read some of his stuff which was yeah tons like the time management matrix you know you got urgency urgent things important things and it's people get caught in the trap of working on the the non-urgent sorry the non-important urgent stuff which is uh yeah if you can figure out how to avoid that then you're on to a winner. So yeah, anyway, I I was beginning to become very interested in business and I think it was just that curiosity of like how do businesses become successful and it was never to make money like that was never the and even now like it's not the primary driver. We we're just about to reduce our prices like we don't we and the reason we can do that and I think we no one's ever done it in the SAS industry before. Um, people think we're crazy, but it's quite easy for us to do when we're not like it's not our primary driver and we are we've got a much bigger thing that we're we want to transform the enterprise software industry um and just raise the standards throughout and I think and it's it's it's not about the money. But I think so when I started had an option to start employing people cuz at that point in 2011 only probably in 20 even if 2010 I didn't have enough there was I didn't really I wasn't earning enough to be able to just recruit someone even then I think the starting salary is 18k but loaded fully loaded costs you're probably talking 25k or something by the time you've got them laptops and national insurance contributions and stuff. So, um, it was a big risk and in and investment, but it was just at the point in 2011 where I could I thought, right, this is at the point where I can do this. Put an ad out and I at the time I was working from my mother-in-law's spare bedroom cuz again, we had the young kids at the house and I didn't want to it was too distracting. So, and Beth's mom had she had a two-bedroom flat in Cedar Park and one of the bedrooms was empty. I just said to her, "How about I pay you 50 quid a month?" Um, and that the business was basically running out in my mother-in-law's spare bedroom. And again, I was doing demos like all these companies now all over the world, literally from mother's law spare bedroom. She loved it cuz she she got a bit of company. She could make me cups of tea. And um, so it was actually a really good arrangement. But uh, but obviously when I thought, right, I need to start employing people. I couldn't reasonably ask the person to come and work from my mother-in-law's spare bedroom. That would be be a bit weird. Um, so that was when I remember just again with no money to really grow this business. I just started sending some inquiries out to some local businesses and said, "Have you got any spare desk space?" Um, I'm just this I I offered them like software for free and stuff and um I couldn't really find anyone to agree to let me have a desk in their office. But um at Warside House they I think only half of the units. So this is the building by the the train station in Stom Market. Only half of the unit, they're all 900 foot units. So it's way too big for just one or two people. But um the landlord there said, "Well, I tell you what, we have got quite a few empty at the moment. So let me look into partitioning one of them up." And they ended up very kindly just creating a 200 square ft partition. So it's probably like, I don't know, maybe three times the size of the stage perhaps. So quite a small small room. And then uh and that was where so my first hire in 2011 that was our office at the bottom of Warside House. That was February 2011. And it went really well. I thought this cuz this was new territory for me. I'd never employed people before. I'd never really I'd never been a boss. I hate I hate when people I don't like the word boss or when people call me boss. And generally they don't. It's it's a very level playing field I think um at Halo. Um, but yeah, it was always I was just trying to clone myself. So everything I would do, I'd get them to do absolutely everything. So they just follow me around for a year basically and become a really valuable resource. Um, and then again we started doing more and more. Word word of mouth was like spreading and we were now too busy for two people. So it was a very organic process. It was like okay well it seems to be going all right let's hire someone else. And so April 2012 hired my next person. Um 2013 same thing happened again. So I hired two people that year. 2014 hired four people that year. Um and by 2018 we probably had about maybe 15 17 people by this point. So we'd moved from the bottom of Warside House to the top of Warside House. So up to like 900 ft. We had about a dozen people um in 900 ft². And then we moved to the old solist. It was a solicitor's office at the end of the high street. Um we bought that building freehold back in 2017 and that became our home for until 20 until co and we had 30 people and it was yeah it's quite a it's a it's a really nice building. It's got so much character. It was an old pub, the Greyhound. It shut down in 1982. Um but it uh it was a we for a startup and do you know we've still got that building and when we have so we have partners now coming to store market from all over the world so Norway, South Africa, uh Mexico, um Australia and when people come over now I I do make a point of just taking them to the old office because we still own it and it is now we've recommissioned it because we've completely maxed out on space again in the office we're in. and I take them down to the basement which is so during co we converted it into I guess a bit of a social space where we we actually put a bar in um so beer on tap TV screens and dartboard and it was somewhere where we we could I guess just wind down during after work on a Friday or whatever and it was there was a lot and even now like you can see there's cobwebs everywhere it's quite Like people are and I'm surprised by the reaction. They're like this is this is amazing. It's like they've just gone into Jeff Bezel's first ever garage or something when he was starting up Amazon. And so I think now we're actually going to keep because we are you know maybe come on to this but at some point next year we're going to be moving to Ipsswitch. Um and I think we're now going to keep that as a heritage kind of building and and continue to have people work out of it as well. So when you're when you're building a business, when you're running a business all the time, there are two key things around running a business, money, people. So what really interests me is that you do a lot by gut instinct, don't you? You you you don't really have a strategy. You buck the trend if someone tells you that they you ought to be doing it this way. No, you don't. You do it your way. Um but I what I want to talk about is how do you develop those people? I mean, I want to go into a bit more detail on some facets around Halo and when you were bigger, but just right now, I'm assuming you're breeding, growing, um, a bunch of mini me, aren't you? >> Do they have to do everything? >> That's the idea. Yeah. When people start, we give them a checklist of about 20 20 items, and it's everything from doing a sales demo of of Halo. It's getting to a point where you can resolve a hundred issues a week. So this is people who ring up or log tickets for wanting help. So have questions about how to use Halo. So that demonstrates the technical proficiency. It's even being on an interview panel. So we'll have people within six months who are now the other side of the interview process where they are interviewing people coming in. Um it's going to a trade show um where you're actually hands-on customerf facing listening to the world about what what their requirements are and and understanding how we solve these requirements. So we literally get people involved in absolutely everything. They end up specializing in one particular area and we and it's quite important I think to remain open-minded about what that is. So we don't ever employ for a specific role. We never have done probably never will do. Um, and because I think whatever role you go into, it's a it's really good to have that background knowledge of what we're all about, but but b like just the understand so you can in term when you relate to like all the other people in the business cuz we are a team. We are it's a bit like we got this sports team mentality and we are in a tournament where we are competing and there is a real team spirit like it's there's so many parallels with like we're big partners of itswitch town. I talked to Mark Ashen about this that the leadership styles and the way he's running that football club is is not too dissimilar for for how we're running Halo actually and the the siege mentality that's created as well um and the empowerment of all the people in the organization which is really important and just treating PE people like like every everyone really is kind of equal in the sense that yeah maybe not on day one when they walk through the door they don't know everything and but they have the opportunity to and they know that and they realize is not straight away because society conditions you to think that I don't know you got people at the top of organizations that are different. they're built different and they maybe it's the education establishments or privileged people they knew or whatever that there's some reason why and I thought this when I first went into meetings with very senior IT people when I was 23 24 years old I thought what the hell am I doing here like I have no right to be here >> um >> because you suffer from imposter syndrome don't you >> yeah I think well I think we all do don't we if we don't well if we >> I don't know how many suffer from imposter syndrome show of hands oh well there is quite a few >> I think if and if you don't I say the >> like I'd probably encourage people to put themselves out their comfort zone a bit more than perhaps you are because because that's how you grow like when you feel uncomfortable like the more you have that feeling of being uncomfortable the more comfortable you become and the more proficient more I don't know the more fulfilled you are so again it's about this building something it's about building yourself as well as the growth >> as an individual um that never stops like and you you never stop learning. >> Okay. >> Um >> so your business approach I'm going to go through some things here which I think are really really brilliant about your business approach. So 100% office based working 100% your average age of your employees your team which is now what is it? >> 24.5 >> 24 and a half years old but how many staff have you got now? 235ish. >> So >> why why the 100%. >> Um so we ex pretty much exclusively hire inexperienced people. So the way people become valuable is by knowledge being transferred to these people. The most efficient way to transfer knowledge is in person like without a shadow of a diary. It's like 10 times more effective. It's so much more cost effective for a business to transfer knowledge in person. It's more fun as well. Like the I think there is a innate need for human connection and human community amongst human beings. Um which is lost when you try and do stuff digitally. Um, going back to this sports team mentality thing and I I always the analogy I would use like if if you got so town's squad were all like training on their own in their own home gyms with cameras where they could see everyone. It's like it just wouldn't be the same. It's like there's >> Alex Ferguson is a is a role model for you, isn't he? You talk about >> he is. Yeah. Yeah. >> So there's no eye in team. >> You have a prior mentality, don't you? in the business. Yeah. And that's important, don't you think? Community >> definitely. Yeah. I think people sometimes get a bit scared when you start talking about tribes and stuff, but or I think it's a bit culty. Um the the Yeah. I mean, it's the reason we're successful is Yeah. Okay. The technology, we've got product market fit and we would say that our technology is the best. It's the most responsive. It's the most intuitive. it's the uh cleanest, easiest to configure and all the rest of it. But that's not really what matters. It's there's not a lot of difference being honest in terms of differentiation of the technology in the industry. There's not a lot. They pretty much a lot of the platforms solve the same problems. Um the the reason we're successful is the people and our passion and desire. how much we care, how much we actually care about and we are obsessed about our customers problems and we will never ever like admit defeat in any project. Our projects never fail whereas the if you look at the average stat in the industry of IT projects that fail. It's phenomenally high. Um and I think so you think well why is that like why is there this deep desire for a group of people to get together and just make things work? And I think it's there is that that we we do feel like we we are responsible for our peers and who's around us and we're all growing together and we're developing and we're on this we are on this shared mission where we have this objective where we believe we yeah okay you could say it's a desire to become market leader it's not really about that. I think that will be a natural consequence of what our actual desire is to we look around and we see and we exper and the stories we hear from the unethical practices that go on in the software industry um where they're just so there such a short-term focus from the vendors and they really don't they don't care about their customers. they they'll do anything they can to just extract more money out of them while having less cost and giving more value to the shareholders because they're almost all like multi- billion pound PLC's or like mostly based out of Silicon Valley where it's it's just and when as well because we we in our business we work with all sorts of different industries. We know what it's like in in other industries and it's it's hard in a lot of industries where you and you see the money that's thrown around and wasted and at the end of the day like so one of our competitors fresh they spend 54% of revenue on sales and marketing. It's like well who's paying for that? It's the customers. Um they've got another competitor they've got 6 and a half thousand salespeople. They've only got 8 and a half thousand customers. They've got like one account a year to look after. It's that but they they'll have like they'll just be like it's just so inefficient like the way these companies are run and structured and the and once you actually get to know some of the people the staff don't really care as well. So it's just like everything's wrong with it. It just needs completely flipping upside down. Halo's now in an opportunity where it's very fortunate that we we have become we are still privately owned. um we can make whatever decisions we want to make and if we want to think 20 30 40 years ahead then we can do that and we do do that that's and and and we think what can we do in the best interest for our customers thinking 40 years ahead >> I absolutely loved your comment about empowering your your team as they come in and they learn and you want to grow you have a little a group of mini CEOs They tell us about that. You know, you give them responsibility over their own income expenditure, their for their for their separate units and things like that. The interviewing strategy for new people coming in hiring on you don't hire on ability necessarily, do you? >> No, definitely not. It's certainly character and attitude over like academic qualifications and and um I mean it our software is complex so you do need a certain level of kind of I guess qualifications but even like we don't even we can tell from GCSEs we don't even and even if someone hasn't done A levels or does hasn't but they did really well in GCES and they want to come for a job like we would give them a job like if if they the character's there the attitude's they seem driven. They got We would absolutely like work with that person. Um and we definitely don't care what degrees people have. We've got people with all sorts of degrees. Um the good thing about again going back to people who've been to university is they're probably more likely to be a bit more mature and grown up and that if you are just like 18 straight from school or whatever. Um but we consider anyone like it's um yeah definitely I think that society overindexes massively on intelligence and like what your educational background is um doesn't honestly doesn't time and time again you can just see examples where like the the the best the most valuable people in business haven't actually been to fancy education establishments. unicorn. Did you actually know what a unicorn was? All those things. >> Um, and when was that moment when you realized that actually you had a business that was? >> I guess it was when we started getting a lot of interest from private equity organizations. I didn't even know what private equity was. I didn't really know what I kind of knew VC like venture capitalists. They sound like I don't know vultures who just come in and offer you money and you end up with a bad deal. But um I didn't really know or I was just obsessed with like doing demos to people um them giving me requirements and us solving the problems and that was it. That was all I thought about. I didn't really think beyond that much. So when people think it wasn't until 2018 when I actually began for the first time to think strategically. we were just we'd never say no to anything up until 2018. Um but in terms of when the so when did I I guess look up the word unicorn probably probably was around co I suppose um we begun to get some serious offers. Uh we we got offered to be acquired as well by some competitors um maybe five years or so ago. Um, but once you start getting like we had an offer from a private equity company last year for 1.5 billion in the summer just gone, we had an offer for 2 billion. Um, this isn't for the entire company. This is the two billion valuation was up up to 50% 1 billion. Um, and then so you do become you begin to think, well, should I consider that? Like what would what would we do with the money? Um, >> I mean, you're enjoying the money now, aren't you? I mean, >> well, you say that. I mean, we're using it to buy a big building, an inping the cashier than ever. But it's not. It's like as tight a ship as ever. It's um if people drive past and they see the lights left on, we got an urgent group chat on WhatsApp and it's a P1. Like someone will drive down and turn the lights off. It's uh it's and that and that's important by the way. We it the moment we lose that I will not be involved in the business anymore. like that will be and we've we've developed that culture where there is that level of whether it's cost efficiency, time efficiency um our customers time as well like it's really important we make the best use of our customers time and there is that deep so the whole you mentioned there about the satellite business thing how we are now put your hand up if you have read Maverick so or any of Ricardo Semler's books okay so there's uh four or five people so one of the experiment experiments he did. Um he created so I think they had about 1,500 people at the time and there was some hard economic times in Brazil um where one of the ways he battled and countered the the economic turmoil and to try and drive profitability was to just relinquish and again like can't stress enough the importance of relinquishing control in a business and just like delegating trusting. So he'd relinquished control over these different business units. And it might be they were a bit of a conglomerate. So they'd invol get involved in manufacturing all sorts of I don't know ship building machines or air compressors or but there'd be a team of people or a department that would be involved in one particular niche of what they do and he'd just give them complete autonomy over that entire business unit. They'd set their own salaries. They'd set their own pricing. They'd negotiate their own deals with suppliers. they'd literally be managing that business as a business unit within the business. Guru people who were all employees at the start, but they all became co- business owners essentially. And he began to like replicate this and it was hugely successful. Um we're beginning to do that as well where we we are developing very talented consultants, salespeople, um customer success like retention. So, it's important we retain clients as well and to continue to make sure that we're uh yeah getting feedback and all the rest of it. So, we've got great people throughout the business, but what I want to do as we grow and become so we're now 230 odd and we do plan to become a thousand people in Ipsswitch by 2030 and there is there's I've always had a bit of a fear of like again being at Erns where you're in that and it's just people feel a bit like a cog an anonymous cog in a machine. I don't ever want people to feel like that Halo. And I think the way and having read how Ricardo Semler did it at Smco. Um so what we're beginning to do now is to create businesses within the business where somebody has an entire P&L. They're slicing a share of the the customer license revenue. It's going in their pot and they are running everything from that pot. So even from recruit recruiting people setting the salaries deciding whether traveling standard class first class to London can go private jet if they want to they won't end up with much profit at the end of the day but um but the whole every single bit of decision- making is down to the individual business unit and these are people who are maybe only 23 24 like a couple years there is a rule you got to be you you have to have demonstrated that you embrace truly embrace Halo values um and a minimum time period of two years. So we develop people phenomenally quickly like they do become true Halo experts and and and worldclass in in our industry within just a couple of years. It's phenomenal how quickly people do develop. So there is some prerequisites to who we would consider to to lead one of these pods or whatever we call them. Um but yeah that's just one of the ways in which we are beginning to scale this business. Um there clearly is the demand and the appetite for us to push on and we're just now getting past the early adopters um beginning to pick up the kind of early majority and it's it's feeling like and we have to be careful as well not to we don't want to dilute not because we could and by the way going back to private equity and what what would we do with the money if they invested a billion that the first thing they would want to do is they'd Right, Paul. We're going to set up one office in in London, New York, Silicon Valley, Singapore. We're going to hire a thousand people in each office. They're going to be people from all all your competitors. You'd end up with a completely diluted culture. Um you would have we we would be just like everyone else. there'd be nothing which okay like if someone said to me again like okay I want you to absolutely maximize revenue within the next two three years there is so many decisions in this business that we'd do differently but if we did all that I don't think we'd become market leader I honestly don't think we'd become anything like market leader but the way we're doing it I can't see any way we will not become market leader yes it will take it will take time 10 10 years 20 years I don't know how long it takes We're we're on this train at the moment. Like it it left in so I've been doing this since 2004. The train left the station in 2004. Someone got on in 2011. It stopped. Someone got on. Someone else got on in 2012. Another couple of people 2013. Keep stopping at platforms and people keep getting on. It's going somewhere. We don't really know where it's going. >> Do you have anybody get off? >> Now and again people get off. It's um yeah, we're not So the hardest thing is recruiting like in any business. I think it's all about how do you recruit the right people for your business and the uh and how do you transfer that like what these halo values I talk about the halo way it's up to us to convey that to people like what that's all about. It's and sometimes we don't do that very well. Um and maybe and but other times it's great and people yeah end up becoming obsessed as well which is fantastic but and sometimes it's simply just that we had someone last year who was brilliant. They started with us and they were with us maybe six months. They then turned around, he said, "Do you know Paul, I'm really sorry, but this isn't for me. It's not it's not my passion." And I absolutely loved that. Like I respected that. He just said, "My passion is motorsport. My dream is to work for a Formula 1 team." Um, and he went off and he took a pay cut and he started working in in motorsport. He's now working for the Aston Martin Formula 1 team as an engineer. I absolutely love that story. So I think it's really important to that pe so people who are valuable in Halo, you can tell like they just they do love what they do and they don't you don't even have to love like if you think well what is business? What is it? And people say, "Oh, like follow your passion." And I think even that's misleading because you don't actually become passionate about something until you might need an initial interest where you so say sport like you tennis. Say you've never played tennis. You're not going to be passionate about tennis from day one. You're not just going to pick up a racket. You're you're going to be like, "Oh, this is this a little bit fun. It's a bit frustrating." And then you put the hours in and then you begin to love it and then you begin to feel the reward and the passion like that's when you see so so passion is something that develops and at Halo people who start on day one you're not passionate about Halo from day one sometimes it takes a month sometime I had someone recently where they're like they've been here 3 years they're like Paul do you know the penny's only just dropped I've only just realized that it's completely down to me like there's no external factors that are between me and getting to my destiny whatever that destiny is within like the Halo ecosystem I can achieve if I want to be CEO I can be CEO of again all these mini CEOs and the different so Chris is I'm going to call you out here Chris so Chris has been working with us since is it July last year so started you you didn't probably didn't really know and by the way Chris uh bit of an unusual story as well because he just walked in off the street with a CV most people don't don't apply that way um he'd also been working somewhere else for three years HSBC BC um similar type of thing probably to what I've been describing at Erns is a bit not that easy to progress and probably um bit political and uh yeah all the rest of it. Um, but uh I mean Chris, you want to come and maybe talk about how you you why you so what what is it what is it you thought you'd be doing when you started on day one? What did you think you were getting yourself into? And just talk a little about your last a bit about your last 12 months. >> Yeah. So, hi everyone. Um, wow. So, yeah. Um, as Paul said, I literally walked in off the street. I actually walked in with um my best mate. We both walked in together. Um, handed our CVs in. Fortunately, we spoke to um who we found out now is the head of consultancy for for one of the products. Um and yeah, he basically put us um straight through to an interview and kind of now being on the other side of it, we really encourage that for any single person that hears about Halo and is interested to just come in and speak to someone because it's that kind of human side which you can't show off a off a screen or off an application. To answer Paul's question, what did I think I'd be doing? Well, I had no clue about software at all. I I did a business degree. Um as Paul says, I was at HBC for 3 years. I had, you know, zero interest in software or computers before I joined. But what I saw in Halo was um a company that was going somewhere. Um I'd always wanted to be part of something that I woke up every day and um was, you know, raring to get out of bed, raring to go because it was exciting to me. Um and you know, HBC I found that it was a it was a stagnant company. There was no progression in in the company. No, not for myself. I could have progressed, but there was nothing to get excited about for the company. And um that's where Halo I found I find very different is that um as Paul's kind of alluded to earlier, you know, it's a it's a team mission and we're going from the bomb, you know, where when Paul started all the way to a goal that we don't know where that is yet. Um and that's kind of the exciting part for me. But no, obviously had no kind of interest in software, but um kind of very fortunate now to be in a role that doesn't make me do too many technical things, which uh does happen in in Halo. So don't ask me to solve any of your Halo problems if you use it because I'll be of no help. So >> thanks. >> Yeah. And we just had a a conversation probably about a year ago now where I was just saying how hard it was for to resonate with so when you're a B2B technology company if you were to just stop the a random person in the street say like have you even the biggest even if you say have you heard of Salesforce so 40 billion turnover um has anyone in this room not heard of Salesforce I reckon there must be some maybe all right there we go Thank you for being uh okay. Awesome. Yeah. All right. So, um and and when you're in the industry, you think, well, surely everyone knows, but they honestly they don't. When you're B2B software, even though they got big towers and stuff, Salesforce towers and um so for it's like, well, what chance do we have? Like, as we're like what one quarter of a percent of the size of Salesforce? So, how's anyone ever going to resonate with Halo as a brand? And our goal and mission is to become we want to we want people to know when you stop student at a university campus. So you have even just tell us about an exciting graduate scheme an exciting graduate opportunity. We want people to think front and center of Halo. It's like well they haven't even heard of Salesforce. How are we going to do that? How are we going to resonate and connect with uh with students at universities? And I'd probably say we now put more again how long term we think we put more effort and energy and cost and marketing effort and everything into promoting Halo as an employer brand than we do anything else in the business. So because we don't really do much in the way of product marketing. Um so anyway, we had this conversation about a year ago and Chris was like that sounds like a a challenge. uh let's see what we can do there to to increase the profile of Halo as an employer and we started off in Suffukk so I think we're now quite a good place in Suffukk where we've gone from honestly a year ago there was almost zero awareness that we if anyone thought tell us about a technology company in Suffukk 1% of people probably would have mentioned Halo I think now we're going to be above 90% so we've done we've done very well we've gone around every single school and college of size in in in the county talking to anyone from well what age range Chris >> anyone that would listen >> like honestly well we even had some kids that were like what 11 years old or something then >> yeah I mean that's >> but you usually it is like 16 17 year olds um before they the idea is before they go off to uni and just to plant that seed but if you think about this so we're not going to get a return on investment on that for what 10 years like it's for a long long time um and again this alludes back to we want to do that. We know we we think like we we actually think infinitely. We don't and I think think of myself as a bit of a temporary custodian of this business that at some I'm not I'm not going to be here forever and but I do hope that Halo will be and it will be the blueprint of of what a and we we will transcend Beyond Software as well at some point. We're we're now actually so in fact we're doing the Halo Music Festival at Trinity Park in in uh July next summer where we're going to have 10,000 people in in a field and we've got some decent acts lined up and that's something that again like to try and resonate and that festival concept we're going to hopefully it will be successful. We'll do that every year and it'll get bigger and bigger. we're actually pegging as we grow the business the revenue side we're going to have more and more budget we're putting behind the festival to the point where again in 10 years time it could become the biggest festival in the country um um and so there there is yeah and that's so that's something that Chris has basically taken on that project to raise our profile as an an employer brand um and there's all sorts of initiatives now that we're we're working on it's we've got like We were on in Scotland last week, I think, or this week. There's we're just I haven't even heard it. There's stuff going on now where I'll just have people message me. It's Oh, Paul, this is amazing. I just heard Halo on the Breakfast Radio in on Heart Radio Scotland. I'm like, what what's this all about? And it's just Chris like don't know, just doing his thing. And >> Chris, you sound as though you got a brilliant job. >> Well, McLaren McLaren F1. >> Yeah. No, >> we've had some fun there. We had >> What about the World Snooker Championships sponsoring that? Yeah, >> yeah, Chris hasn't really been involved in the McLaren stuff, but we did have Lando Norris in our office in Melbourne. We got an office in Melbourne, Australia. Uh, which was a lot of fun as well. Um, and over the past, yeah, since we became a partner in March, May 23 and uh, yeah, there's there's been lots of activations and things that we've done in in Formula 1 as well, which >> So, it sounds a bit exciting now. Yeah, I mean it's it's but the thing is like we don't want to it'd be very easy for us just to spend tens of millions on marketing campaigns. Um I mean we could we could sponsor the World Cup if we wanted to. We have had approaches and um it might it it would work in terms of it would generate some demand but it wouldn't be right for us because what would actually happen is we'd get too much interest too quickly. Yeah. >> And we'd end up not being able to deliver our services and product to the standards that >> So what you're saying is you got to do you grow, but it's got to be manageable growth. >> It's been an organic sustainable journey and it's going to stay that way. >> Okay. >> Um we had a waiting list actually last summer for a certain profile of MSP customer um kind of labor intensive stuff that we just stopped taking on that business for a while. So, when I said we didn't say no to anything up until 2018, we do now say not necessarily say no, but um we're very um um deliberate, I think, about how we're going about the business and the business we're doing. >> Great. So, I need to round off. Well, we're going to have a little I'm going to just ask some quick fire questions, Paul, but then after this, we're going I want I'm going to invite Rose self from the mix up to just talk a bit about the charity, the youth charity here because I think it fits really well with what you're doing as well, Paul. So, so Rose is going to talk a bit about the mix. Um, but quickfire, so I'm putting you on the spot here because I don't know what the answers are. Um, favorite film? >> Uh, any James Bond film, I reckon. >> James Bond. >> Okay. Which one? >> I mean, honestly, I enjoy them all and I really look forward to the new ones coming out. Um, >> Skyfall. >> Oh, okay. Daniel Craig then >> and the Highlands of Scotland. Oh, >> of course. >> Skyfall up in southern Scotland. >> Yeah, it is. Favorite band? Oasis. >> Okay. Inspirational person. >> Ricardo Semler. >> So, I think we've answered this one. What drives you? Money, success, family? >> It's >> the business. It's now it's now um winning this tournament we're in which not even winning like even if you win the trophy like when I talk I just always have the mindset of a sports sports team mentality like we are in this league we're in the champions league now with Salesforce and service now yeah we're the minnows um it' be like Ipsswitch competing with Real Madrid and Barcelona which will happen soon by the way um but uh yeah we want to win that trophy. Okay. Guilty pleasure. >> I probably drink too much beer. >> Certain type of beer. >> Uh something that's not like can't stand like Carling Fosters Carlsburg. Something like Italian or Spanish like Australa Peroni. >> Hidden talent. >> I can stand on I can do a headstand forever. Can you? >> Yeah, >> we might get you to try that. >> I've got a low center of gravity. >> Proudest moment. >> Uhhuh. Just I mean having kids I guess is is a proud Well, you don't realize Well, I didn't realize till later. Uh just yeah just um seeing the kids just develop I think. >> And finally what's on your bucket list? So, I've always been interested in space and I am I am now on the waiting list to due to go to space in August 27. So, I'll just be in the first thousand people in space, which is pretty cool. That was always something on my bucket list. That's >> You know, that's weird because I got a question on here that we didn't get to, which was >> what's next for you personally and in brackets it says going to space. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So I going back to inspiration. So I was always a massive admirer of Richard Branson and all he did especially in the '9s. And I remember again when I was working at Ernson Young and read read business books and I read his book and I just was blown away by like the the the bravery and uh the fearlessness of of his life and not and not not just the personal like achievements and or um adventures he's been on, but the way he disrupted the back like the way British Airways like tried to just kill his businesses and even the when he had Virgin trains and the government and like they were like who do you think you and just trying to create a train company and stuff and he's always had like really hard battles to to try and overcome and he's um just yeah he was he he was an inspiration to me and I was lucky enough to meet him a couple of years ago um and we got chatting about space and I was like oh he's like you should go and I was like oh it's too I don't want to die yet and so I didn't but then a year a year year later I was chatting to him again and he I was like oh is it how much safer is it now and he he managed to persuade me So, um, yeah. Now, now it's me signed up. >> Okay. Well, we'll wait for that moment then. You are going to film it, aren't you? >> I'm going to do something no one's ever done before in space. I don't know what it is yet. So, any suggestions? >> And on that and on that, we will leave it. Thank you very much, Paul. So, if any of you people have questions, we're after the break we're going to have a Q&A with Paul. And as he said, no question off limits. So, feel free to ask whatever. Um, and if you pop it on to Slideo, I can make sure that we're not duplicating the questions that are asked.