Mark Hatton of Tiugo Technologies On Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup

Working on the business instead of in the business. You need to make sure you are working on areas of your business that are the most important elements of your success. Every day issues come up that will pull you into very tactical activities which is normal. However, keeping a focus on the most strategic items for your business is really important. Areas such as product management and roadmap milestone achievements, employee and key hiring status, capital needs and overall financial strength are examples of where a CEO needs to have their focus in addition to the everyday issues that come up.

Startups have such a glamorous reputation. Companies like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Uber, and Airbnb once started as scrappy startups with huge dreams and huge obstacles. Yet we of course know that most startups don’t end up as success stories. What does a founder or a founding team need to know to create a highly successful startup? In this series, called “Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup” we are talking to experienced and successful founders and business leaders who can share stories from their experiences about what it takes to create a highly successful startup. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Hatton.

Mark Hatton is a driven leader with a determination that ensures success, shareholder return and successful exits. His 30+ years of experience spans hands-on management from strategic execution to successfully growing enterprises in highlighting competitive markets. Over the past eight years, he’s worked across every aspect of private equity investment activities across the world, including fundraising and portfolio development,sourcing of strategic acquisitions and the management and sale of those investments. Mark is currently the CEO of Tiugo Technologies (Tiugo), a PSG portfolio company, that offers a suite of market-leading, API-first developer platforms, focused on content creation and digital collaboration.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I started in the technology business back with a company called MicroAge, which at the time was a Fortune 500 distributor and integrator of technology products. I started as an entry level sales person, and over the course of several years ultimately became President of their largest division with over $5B in revenue and over 400 people. It was a great experience and really taught me how to be a leader, and manager, in the technology market.

What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?

While partnering with PSG, we realized there was an incredible opportunity in the API first Developer Platform market to bring together market leading solutions to better help developers as they bring further digitization and collaboration to their applications. API based developer tools are being used in ever increasing ways to help companies bring collaboration and workflow management capabilities to their customers and employees, and our solutions help enable that transformation with greater speed and efficiency.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

We listen carefully to the needs of our developer customers, and react with all our ability to create solutions to help them do their job more effectively. We have literally millions of downloads of our products that are used in many different ways, and our ability to listen carefully to the developer community and respond with careful focus is a unique skill. We become a trusted partner to our customers, they typically stay with us for a long time, and we place a very high level of importance on this relationship. Most of our premium features that we offer our customers are a result of this close relationship and responding directly to their needs.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

We certainly try to. Creating opportunities for people, whether in our company or in our customer community, is what drives all of us. The ability to help people achieve their objectives is core to our mission, and this extends beyond any specific product. When you help people achieve their goals, by extension you become linked to their success and feel an obligation to help people succeed in any way you can. When this attribute of a company is so embedded, our ability to truly make a difference in the world becomes more possible.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Never stop learning. I find that applying lessons I have learned earlier in my career helps me shape decisions now with much more precision. I think human nature is to rationalize mistakes, to make them seem less personal and perhaps more clinical. When I think about my mistakes, and really understand what I did to contribute to that, I can better make sure I don’t do that again. The learning becomes cumulative, and over time situations you get presented with follow patterns you have seen before and you are better equipped to handle the situation. One example, great people cannot overcome bad products. I have had great teams in previous companies who were challenged with growing a business where the products were sub-standard. An almost impossible task, so now when I look at companies and opportunities I look carefully at the strength of the team and their products.

Attitude matters — The role of a leader in a company doesn’t have an off switch. You are looked at every day to provide energy, commitment, consistency and integrity to help lead the business. Regardless of whether it’s a bad day or a good day, you set the tone. In situations where I was less consistent or committed to a particular topic, I usually experienced worse outcomes.

Live in the future you are trying to create — I think as leaders we have a really clear vision on what it is we are trying to build and accomplish as a company. I think the job of a leader is to have this vision be very clear in our mind, live there and spend all your time addressing the areas in the company that are not consistent with this future state. One example was when I was with a company called Sophos, who provides security solutions and products for companies worldwide. I was brought in to grow the North American business, but we were a very small company compared to Symantec and McAfee who at the time held close to 80% market share. I had a vision to become the fastest growing company in our market, and set out a strategy to make that a reality. Each day I came in with the vision clearly in my mind, and I worked to address anything inconsistent with that (which at the time was many things!). Over the course of a few years, we began to grow very fast, took market share from those large competitors, and our goal became a reality. Our team believed in the mission, and the experience of leading the growth of Sophos during that time was something I will always look back on with great memories.

Often leaders are asked to share the best advice they received. But let’s reverse the question. Can you share a story about advice you’ve received that you now wish you never followed?

Always remove the ‘bottom 10%’ of an organization. I think that came from a business book, and while the concept is true the application of it became distorted. I have seen some of the best performers in a company come from times where they were struggling, and understanding the reasons why someone is struggling is critical to understand whether further investment of time and resources are appropriate.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

One company was going through a product transition, and during that evolution many areas in the company were struggling. The product, sales and finance teams, were all having a tough time as a result of stress and confusion in the business. That experience taught me how to act more quickly and decisively when situations occur, whether within a company or as a result of market changes. Markets change, and the ability to react quickly and decisively is a skill I learned during this time.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard? What strategies or techniques did you use to help overcome those challenges?

CEO peers from other companies become an important source of ideas, inspiration and in some cases therapy for what you are going through. The role of a CEO is a very unique one, and regardless of market or product focus, many CEO’s face the same challenges. I leaned on CEO peers to learn from their experiences, share thoughts and ideas I had in draft form and use this outlet as a way to help me think about how to navigate challenges. An invaluable resource for CEO’s in companies at any stage of growth.

The journey of an entrepreneur is never easy and is filled with challenges, failures, setbacks, as well as joys, thrills and celebrations. Can you share a few ideas or stories from your experience about how to successfully ride the emotional highs & lows of being a founder”?

Consistency is so important to bring to your team. You are never as good as your best days, and never as bad as your worst days.

Let’s imagine that a young founder comes to you and asks for your advice about whether venture capital or bootstrapping is best for them? What would you advise them? Can you kindly share a few things a founder should look at to determine if fundraising or bootstrapping is the right choice?

A key difference a founder should be thinking of that differentiates bootstrapping or raising outside capital is what other value can come from outside capital. In many cases, outside investors can bring resources that can help the founder grow their business in addition to capital. Areas like advisors, operating partners and access to other portfolio companies are examples of cases where a founder is looking for help.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Many startups are not successful, and some are very successful. From your experience or perspective, what are the main factors that distinguish successful startups from unsuccessful ones? What are your “Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup”? If you can, please share a story or an example for each.

I think the five areas include:

1. Team — there is absolutely no substitute for a great leadership team for your business. Your team will help guide the business at each stage of growth, as well as bring in the best talent they can to help the business.
2. Product Market Fit — the best team in the world cannot overcome a bad product, therefore, focusing on making sure you have the best product is really important. The technical maturity of the product is one thing, but making sure the product solves a key problem for your customers is critical.
3. Repeatable sales model — however you sell your product, whether direct sales model or through partners, having the ability to define the process and making it repeatable is so important. Learning from early successes, and defining that go-to market model in a way where you can bring in new salespeople/partners and make them successful quickly is a key part of building long term growth.
4. Ability to pivot — your team will build the best product they can, but your customers will ultimately judge the success. As a founder you need to carefully listen to your customers needs and react quickly to make sure you have the right product for what they need. This element of learning and your ability to pivot and react to your customers needs will determine how quickly you can move to a repeatable sales and marketing model.
5. Working on the business instead of in the business. You need to make sure you are working on areas of your business that are the most important elements of your success. Every day issues come up that will pull you into very tactical activities which is normal. However, keeping a focus on the most strategic items for your business is really important. Areas such as product management and roadmap milestone achievements, employee and key hiring status, capital needs and overall financial strength are examples of where a CEO needs to have their focus in addition to the everyday issues that come up.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start a business? What can be done to avoid those errors?

One of the most common mistakes I see with CEO’s and founders is their inability to react to what the market tells them in real time. There are so many data points that are available to CEO’s that tell them the health of their current business and can effectively predict the future success of their strategy. Looking for this data and reacting to it effectively will enable them to keep steering the company to eventual success. This data is like looking in a mirror, allowing CEOs to look at what’s working and, most importantly, the business areas that need focus.

Startup founders often work extremely long hours and it’s easy to burn the candle at both ends. What would you recommend to founders about how to best take care of their physical and mental wellness when starting a company?

There are so many articles written about having ‘balance’ while being a CEO of an emerging company. I think that advice isn’t accurate because there simply is no balance in terms of the hours and days you will spend on your business. You can’t control this, but you can control how you physically and mentally prepare and react to it. I think having time for exercise in any form is really important. You are being tested every day and your ability to maintain your energy and focus will be critical. Thinking of this role like an athletic event is a great way to approach it. Eat healthy, exercise and get proper sleep. While this sounds like advice you would be giving if you were running a marathon, keeping up your health ensures you can continue to effectively lead your team.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I think realizing the effect great companies can have on their employees, and as a result the communities our employees live in, can be tremendous. Getting involved, reaching out to the community and applying what you’ve learned to areas that have nothing to do with your ‘day job’ allow employees, and in turn the companies they work for, the opportunity to positively affect the world.

We are blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Michael Dell because he has such an inspiring story and has successfully led his company through so many different chapters. His calculated risk taking and ability to inspire his teams is both thoughtful and determined.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

You can follow me on LinkedIn @Mark Hatton and you can follow my company on LinkedIn @Tiugo Technologies or visit us online at www.tiugotech.com.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!