Careers Workshop

CAREERS WORKSH O P

Life as an Entrepreneur

This past year has seen an explosion of newly launched small businesses and startups. In this article Tristan Fletcher (1998) speaks about his roller-coaster experience of company building.

Iwanted to build a company the second I started at The Perse, motivated by both autonomy and the desire to build. I read general engineering at Cambridge University and went on to specialise in an MBA-like version of the subject, adding academic momentum to entrepreneurial motivations.

An alternative meaning of the word “career” is to veer from side to side, and this has certainly been a dominant feature of my own. While others on my master’s course focused their projects on redesigning manufacturing processes on factory floors, I flew out to India to try and build a water purifier for the developing world to use. This was my first attempt at entrepreneurialism and it corresponded with my peak in idealism. After a brief career as a business consultant, I swung the other way to become a high frequency trader in an algorithmic hedge fund. Alongside forays into academia (in the then nascent topic of machine learning) and more mamon-worshipping stints, I had a few attempts at company building. These were in pursuits ranging from forecasting fine wine prices to predicting the location and timing of ambulance call-outs. None of them led anywhere significant because I was trying to do too many things at once; as with many other things in life, if you want to be successful, you need to focus. In reality you will not build up the frustration tolerance to navigate all the setbacks that starting a company entails if you have other projects you can jump onto when things aren’t working out.

I have now put all my eggs into one basket with ChAI, a technology company I co-founded a couple of years ago and run as the CEO. It’s the culmination of all the skills (hard and soft) I’ve learnt over many years, using AI on unusual data sets such as satellite imagery to forecast commodity prices for manufacturing companies. Despite it being my sole pursuit, it involves many different skills and aspects of my personality, and therefore caters to my desire to not be pigeonholed. It’s also been a privilege having something like this to focus on during the unusual working and living conditions the last year or so have presented.

This all comes 15 years into my career, which when I first left school, I felt was far too late to start a company. There is a lot of attention paid to the small number of people who have built massive businesses, particularly in technology, at a very young age. However, there are just as many news-worthy exceptions. I strongly believe that you need to learn a lot about how the business world works, as well as what your own strengths and weaknesses are, before starting a company. You might have a bit more energy when you are in your mid-20s, and therefore you might be more likely to think creatively or be less tarnished by the status quo. Ultimately, I think these are irrelevant in comparison to the experience that simply being that little bit older brings.

I also do not subscribe to the idea that failure is a good thing because of all the learning it brings. I feel that it’s really important to not be put off trying out entrepreneurial ideas by a fear of failure, but more importantly you should have a strong, rational, conviction that your idea will succeed before you invest too many resources into it.

I have been very pleasantly surprised by the positive networking opportunities in building companies. When you work in banks and hedge funds there is a perception that if one person is successful, it is at the expense of someone else. My experience in building ChAI has been very much the opposite; other entrepreneurs are on the whole naturally supportive, helpful and optimistic people. Perhaps I am careering back to another idealistic peak…

IT’S ALSO BEEN A PRIVILEGE HAVING SOMETHING LIKE THIS TO FOCUS ON DURING THE UNUSUAL WORKING AND LIVING CONDITIONS THE LAST YEAR OR SO HAVE PRESENTED. I FEEL THAT IT’S REALLY IMPORTANT TO NOT BE PUT OFF TRYING OUT ENTREPRENEURIAL IDEAS BY A FEAR OF FAILURE, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY YOU SHOULD HAVE A STRONG, RATIONAL, CONVICTION THAT YOUR IDEA WILL SUCCEED

Tristan spoke at an event organised by Digital Catapult to pitch ChAI to investors for the first time.