Smart Communications – founded as Thunderhead in 2002 and today a global leader in customer communications management – offers one of the more compelling scale-up stories for UK entrepreneurs focussed on business growth and successful exits. But it almost started with an embarrassing gaffe.
At an event hosted by Lombard Odier, Smart co-founder Geoffrey Niven shared a revealing story from the firm’s early days developing trade confirmation software. “I remember this one meeting in particular, when we were trying to sell our product to one of the major banks,” he said. “We were sitting in their boardroom. We had taken seven of us, which was pretty much the whole company – we’d only left someone back at the office to look after the dog!”
“One of my colleagues said, ‘If you take our product on, it will help you become the number one derivatives trader in the world.’ They looked back and solemnly said, ‘We already are.’”
What felt at the time like a blunder, became a turning point for the company, Geoffrey Niven explained. “In that moment it broke the ice. They could see we were genuine and that we had a good product, and so we actually formed new relationships.” That meeting proved pivotal to Smart’s growth, helping lay foundations for a business that later featured in the Sunday Times Tech Track 1001 and the UK Deloitte Fast 502.
The story highlighted an important lesson – there is no single blueprint for entrepreneurial success – but authenticity is essential. Hosted by Mark Goddard, Lombard Odier’s UK CEO, the discussion brought Geoffrey Niven together with Tom Fleming, co-founder of early-stage consumer-tech investors Venrex Investment Management, and Stephen Bates, founder of Times Tech Track 100-listed firm International Trading Room Software (ITRS). Together they shared practical insights on how to build a business, scale sustainably, and exit successfully – lessons designed for founders navigating the UK start-up and scale-up landscape.
For founders, the gap is best defined as a painful operational problem that customers can’t ignore
Finding the gap: solving real-world problems
Geoffrey Niven began by reframing the familiar advice to find a “gap in the market”. For founders, he argued, the gap is best defined as a painful operational problem that customers can’t ignore. At Smart Communications, he said, “We thought we could solve client communication, particularly in the area of trade confirmations. It was heavy-duty stuff with complicated equations saying how the trade was going to work, and banks were just sending it as a Word document by email and hoping it would work. It started to crumble in a big way.”
“We said we would solve that by creating a system that handled all the compliance, captured all the information, and, critically, put business users in charge of being able to change the information. That was revolutionary.”
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learn more Stephen Bates described a similarly grounded origin story at ITRS. As digitised data availability grew, banks became more reliant on computerised analytics to make trading decisions. However, Stephen Bates saw a high-stakes fragility in the infrastructure. “There were around 10,000 servers worldwide linked to the data network, and if one server failed it could trigger a domino effect and bring down the entire global trading network. This happened to a bank which lost USD 120 million in a day because they had to clear all their positions when a server went down. It was a problem I was hearing all the time from clients.”
His firm’s solution – a real-time monitoring application using intelligent agents on every server – scaled quickly because it addressed an existential risk, not a ‘nice-to-have’. Tom Fleming reflected that the founders Venrex backs are rarely the most visionary in the room – they're the ones who can't stop thinking about a specific problem everyone else has learned to live with. For UK entrepreneurs, the message was simple: solve something mission-critical, and your route to product-market fit becomes clearer.
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The founders Venrex backs are rarely the most visionary in the room – they're the ones who can't stop thinking about a specific problem everyone else has learned to live with
Dealing with adversity: founder mindset is the growth strategy
For Tom Fleming, identifying a market opportunity is only part of what matters, however. Equally important is the founder behind the idea. “When Venrex backs a business,” he explained, “we’re more likely to back the founder who we believe is going to work out what a good business is.” In that sense, it’s as much about the jockey as the horse, which is why Tom and his team focus closely on how founders perceive risk: “We look at people who see risk as opportunity, who embrace and understand it,” he concluded.
Stephen Bates agreed that handling unexpected risks is part and parcel of growing a business. In the early days of ITRS, he explained, they were shocked to discover that several of the world’s biggest banks were piloting the ITRS software merely in order “to break the product apart to see how it worked – so they could copy it.”
When one of the offending banks discovered it had been blacklisted, it called ITRS to complain. Instead of backing down, Stephen Bates outlined – in strong terms – why he was refusing to allow the bank a second pilot trial. The call became a commercial inflection point, with the bank promising to bypass its own IT department and buy the software for GBP 3.5 million if it delivered as described.
I actually banned the word ‘problem’ from the whole company. I think things become a problem in business when management don’t address it because they’re frightened
Stephen explained how he reframed his thinking to deal with threats to the business. “The emotion, the fear, can be greater than the difficulty of resolving them. I actually banned the word ‘problem’ from the whole company. If you refer to it differently – as an ‘issue’, for instance – it gives a different perspective. I think things become a problem in business when management don’t address it because they’re frightened.”
Geoffrey Niven shared his own experience of dealing with setback. One of his earliest product sales had faltered when a major bank bought the software, only to leave it unused ‘on the shelf’. Though disappointed, Smart Communications leveraged the relationships they had built through the sale process. As the team at the bank dispersed and moved to other institutions, they each became a sales target.
Soon, with the help of those contacts, every one of the world’s biggest banks purchased Smart Communications’ software – turning a “failed” deployment into a long-term sales engine. Geoffrey noted, “The low was watching them put our product on the shelf, but then the high was seeing how it expanded the market opportunity. Those are pivotal moments.”
Complete founding teams are rare. A founder's awareness of their own gaps is often more revealing than the gaps themselves
Lonely at the top: why your team is your greatest resilience strategy
To get through these highs and lows, it’s important for entrepreneurs to build reliable teams, Tom Fleming explained. Being an entrepreneur can be “incredibly lonely,” he said. “[As investors] we don’t rule out solo founders, but we want to be confident they’ve got support around them. We often talk about ‘the hipster, the hustler, and the hacker’ – the ideal founding team being the brand person, the salesperson, and the developer. If you’re a solo founder you’re almost certainly missing something.” He reflected that complete founding teams are rare, and that a founder's awareness of their own gaps is often more revealing than the gaps themselves.
Stephen Bates echoed this point but noted that, ultimately, it’s hard to escape the pressure of being the decision-maker. At ITRS, he said, “It was challenging and it could be lonely. At the end of the day the decision rests with you, and you’re accountable for it, so it had better be your decision. I’ve always believed it’s better to make the wrong decision and correct it quickly than to sit around not making one at all. Indecision is what really burns you out.”
Geoffrey Niven added that resilience is often a team sport – especially during acquisition talks. Describing the moment one of the world’s largest technology companies approached Smart Communications for a buyout, he said, “It was a complete emotional rollercoaster. Afterwards, [when the buyout failed to go through], it was important not to get caught up in the emotion of having lost the opportunity. It was about calling on each other’s resilience and understanding.”
The business often becomes central to an entrepreneur's identity. Selling is as emotional as it is financial
Lombard Odier’s Mark Goddard, who works closely with founders at precisely these inflection points, noted that the emotional dimension of exits is often underestimated. “The business often becomes central to an entrepreneur's identity,” he said. “Selling is as emotional as it is financial.”
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Planning your exit: why succession planning is as important as the sale
As the event’s attention turned to buyouts and business exits, attendees were warned that even where a sale is secured, pitfalls can remain.
Stephen Bates explained that at ITRS, he and his co-founder negotiated a sale after realising that running their business had become too all-consuming. Under the terms of the sale, however, both founders had to stay on the board for six years. “That was difficult – not having control over something you started,” he said.
People often don’t understand how vital they are to the business. My advice is to make sure founders understand their own succession plan
Being ‘locked in’ in this way is all-too common, Geoffrey Niven noted, with buyers negotiating staged payment terms that mean the full sum is only paid once strong alternative management has been found. “People often don’t understand how vital they are to the business,” he said. “My advice is to make sure founders understand their own succession plan. Because if you haven’t got that plan, you can have a lot of money in your pocket, but think, ‘No, I’m cuffed in.’ People need to plan who is going to replace them in the business.”
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The long game: purpose, legacy, and life after the sale
Mark Goddard broadened the conversation beyond the transaction itself. “Founders need advisers who can help with succession planning and family governance,” he said. “Our first conversation with an entrepreneur should not be about assets and investments, but about their purpose, vision, values – both personally and for their business. It should be about what keeps them awake at night, and what sort of legacy they want to leave for the next generation. We need to help entrepreneurs navigate through periods of growth, but also through periods of transition.”
At Lombard Odier, he emphasised, we understand that entrepreneurs need advisers who engage with them before the exit cheque arrives, and that maximal business value is achieved by preparing for the moment of sale from day one. “This deep understanding allows us to accompany entrepreneurs through every stage of their company’s lifecycle, ensuring our support is truly aligned with their goals,” he said.
Our first conversation with an entrepreneur should not be about assets and investments, but about their purpose, vision, values – both personally and for their business
As the event came to a close, Tom Fleming offered a grounded warning. For every founder, he said, “There will be bumps in the road. There are two types of founders and investors: the humble and the soon-to-be humble. You have to have a reputation for sticking through the bad times.”
For Mark Goddard, this focus on resilience encapsulated the event’s conclusions. “Every entrepreneur’s journey is unique,” he said. “Through all the ups and downs, there is no ‘by-numbers’ way to grow and successfully exit a business. Authenticity, resilience, and the relationships you build matter more than perfect execution.”
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