My Story
Mine Isn't the Perfect Entrepreneur Story.
I'm self-taught. I started my first business without a roadmap — and I've been building, buying, selling and starting again for more than twenty years.
Read enough entrepreneur biographies and you'd be forgiven for thinking everyone got it right.
They spotted the opportunity. Built the company. Raised the money. Made the right decisions. Sold the business. Then did it all again.
That isn't my story.
I'm self-taught. I started my first business without a roadmap, and over more than two decades I've made plenty of mistakes and taken more than a few wrong turns.
But I've also built companies, acquired businesses, employed people, raised institutional investment, developed technology, sold businesses and started again.
I've experienced the highs that make entrepreneurship addictive and the setbacks that make you question everything.
And I'm still building.
The Colourful Route
I founded Quore in September 2004.
Over the following nine years we grew the company, acquired three businesses, became a Vodafone Platinum Partner and eventually sold Quore to Evolve Telecom in 2013.
Then came new ideas, new companies and new lessons.
I moved into connected technology. Kibbi attracted institutional investment from Mercia. Other ventures followed.
Not everything worked.
There were decisions I'd make differently today. There were setbacks.
There were difficult business and legal chapters. There were times when the road ahead looked very different from the one I'd originally planned.
That's part of my story, and I don't want to pretend otherwise.
Because entrepreneurship isn't a straight line.
Built, Not Taught
I didn't learn entrepreneurship in a classroom.
I learned it by doing it.
- By making payroll.
- By winning customers.
- By losing customers.
- By buying companies.
- By selling companies.
- By raising money.
- By getting decisions right — and getting some spectacularly wrong.
- By getting knocked backwards and deciding to build again.
That education has taken more than twenty years.
And I'm still learning.
“There are decisions I'd make differently today. There are wrong turns I wouldn't take again. But those experiences are part of the entrepreneur I am today.”
- 2015
Kibbi — £150,000 Mercia Investment
Kibbi attracted a £150,000 investment from Mercia.
Raising institutional capital brings scrutiny, structure and expectation — and Kibbi is where I learned to develop technology properly, rather than resell someone else's.
- 2018
Second Business Exit
I completed another business sale.
Two exits taught me what genuinely creates value in a company: owned technology, real customers and a team that can build without being told what to do.
Why I Still Believe in Entrepreneurship
Britain has a remarkable tradition of people who create something from nothing.
Small businesses become employers. Ideas become products. Products become companies. Companies create jobs, investment, technology and opportunity.
Most of the people doing it aren't famous.
They're simply building. They're taking risks, solving problems, making mistakes, dealing with roadblocks and getting up the following morning to do it again.
This journey is for them too.
This isn't only my story. Britain is full of entrepreneurs quietly building businesses, employing people, taking risks and solving problems. Most won't have a perfectly straight road either.
- —For the self-taught entrepreneur.
- —For the person whose first idea didn't work.
- —For the founder who made the wrong decision.
- —For the business owner dealing with a setback nobody sees.
- —For anyone who's discovered that the road to building something meaningful isn't nearly as clean as the success stories make it appear.
A wrong turn doesn't have to define where you finish.
The Next Chapter
Today, I'm building Kasava.
And I'm approaching it with something I didn't possess when I started Quore in 2004:
more than twenty years of scars, lessons and experience.
My ambition is to build Kasava into the first £100 million business of my career.
Will every decision between here and there be right?
History suggests probably not.
But I'll keep building.
The Through-Line
- QuoreLearned how to build and acquire
- KibbiLearned how to develop technology and raise institutional investment
- Later venturesContinued building and exiting
- KasavaBringing more than 20 years of experience together to build at a much greater scale
On My Way to Building My First £100 Million Business
Because if my journey has taught me anything, it's this: success isn't about never taking a wrong turn. It's about what you build after it.
The Full Picture
I've also experienced the other side of entrepreneurship — disputes, litigation, difficult commercial decisions and situations I would approach differently with the benefit of hindsight.
I don't believe credibility comes from pretending those things never happened. They are part of my history. But they aren't the entirety of it.
Relevant public information, and my perspective on it, is set out in full on the public record page.