To have any chance of birthing UK tech-giants we need frictionless access to a large single market; the divergence of wealth and power is making this more unlikely. The US and China have a significant advantage over UK companies who have a plethora of barriers blocking access to talent, materials and customers.
Technological and digital advancements mean that today, even the smallest companies in the world can become global. While the rewards can be immense, growing a business internationally isn’t without its challenges. Jellyfish started life as a UK-based start-up in 2005. As we approach our 15th year in business, we’re well on our way to becoming a truly global organisation.
I was 24 when I founded badi which meant I was starting out with limited experience, but I once heard this quote and it stuck with me: “The best people are the people who don’t know how to do something, because they are the ones who are going to find a way to do it.” For me, there’s a huge advantage to being young and innovative over having experience.
The war for talent is real.
According to Gallup – Only 32% of employees in the United States are engaged. That means over two-thirds of employees nationwide are disengaged with their work. It is not surprising, then, that employers are beginning to think of employees more like customers. Many organizations are realizing that they must pay closer attention to the moments that matter most when employees decide to join or remain with an organization.
My story began with my brother at my kitchen table. We spent countless hours there with two laptops, free credits to a cloud computing service and gallons of coffee, after they realising that bombarding people with generic, irrelevant ads wasn’t very useful – and with this the first version of our self-serve dynamic video platform was born.
When we started TripActions, we put the user first, working to solve all of the pains of business travel that we experienced ourselves as road warriors. From frustrating booking tools that lagged far behind consumer sites to feeling left stranded when a delay or missed connection occurred, business travel was a pain. And not just for travellers; for enterprises as well. With so many employees going “rogue” to find the best deals and book travel to meet their individual needs, organizations suffered from a lack of visibility and control over their travel spend.
I was an aeronautical engineering student, sitting in my dorm room in Glasgow watching YouTube videos of the V-22 Osprey, a military tilt-rotor aircraft, when the idea first came to me. 
“The modern entrepreneur has the qualities we’re all familiar with – an inspiring presence and dedication to their work, but they are becoming less hierarchy and process-oriented, partly because of the agility required to differentiate in today’s fast-paced startup culture. 
Looking back through my life – from growing up in Estonia to building a global tech business in London – I’d say the event that had the biggest impact on who I am was the unexpected death of my father at a young age. 
The idea for flatfair came about when I was facing an all-too-common problem. As my previous tenancy was coming to an end and my next was about to begin, I found myself having to pull together a deposit for the new landlord before the previous one had been returned to me. 
