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Peter Higgins 00:18
Hello, I'm Peter Higgins, and welcome to this investing matters podcast this week, you'll be hearing the second part of my conversation with the serial entrepreneur and investor Stephen Kelly, please enjoy.
00:32 Peter Higgins
The numbers that jumped out at me regarding the Sage Foundation was donating annually 75,000 days across the workforce, you know, annually. That's absolutely phenomenal how much work can be done in various communities with that sort of number.
00:42 Stephen Kelly
Yeah. And again, people are smart people, you know, if your showboating people get it, but if you if any CEOs are out there listening to this, I really would advocate you to take this seriously. And the good thing is I let the team choose one of the three issues. It shouldn't be my pet project, I thought it's fundamentally and strategically important that we established the Sage Foundation as a platform for the specific issues.
You know, I'll be honest, I feel upset about lots of issues, you know, from domestic violence, through the homelessness, through the lack of opportunity through socio economic groups, through the challenge that ethnic minorities face, there's loads of things I'm upset about, but you got to kind of pick one or two and I let the colleagues pick.
What are the big issues you want to focus on? Some companies do that they have a charity of the year, but to mobilise the energies of all your tens or hundreds or thousands of people within your company to be aligned around, that becomes really important to the culture. And you could measure it as well.
So it's much easier to recruit people, because you've got a fantastic brand. And part of that brand is caring in the community and making a massive difference. And that kind of be at the heart of social purpose. And also you could measure in terms of engagement and retention of colleagues and when yeah, magic really happens when you go on, in those days Sage Foundation event, we go went and clear the massive Girl Guides camp down and we had customers and partners there. And they the key thing for a CEO, you got to be authentic.
Yeah, I've really talked about this, the probably the most important guidance style your north star.
There's got to be authenticity. And therefore, you know, I know I'm busy guy, but I'm taking clear in that day, I'm going down to help the team. And we're picking up Russian knotweed, and all that sort of stuff in things that I'm not very competent at. And also, it's nice for your colleagues to see your vulnerabilities.
And as a CEO, you know, I'm not the smartest or the most handy person in terms of carpentry, all these sort of things. So I'm just mucking with the rest of the team, and show my competencies, and you know, have a laugh about it. But I think the important thing is you got to lead from the front. But you've got to do there, you can't the same do thing, you've not only just got to say stuff, but you got to do it. And as a CEO, they want you to see you roll your sleeves up, get in there with the troops in the trenches, and do the right thing. And if you do that, then I think people really value that authenticity, and that integrity, and it builds huge loyalties. And that's how brands become you know, brands for life. And they have not just colleagues and customers, they have raving fans and advocates, and people who really carry their flag.
03:28 Peter Higgins
Yeah, love that. Stephen, I'm going to change it up just a little bit, if I may, and ask you this, please, can you share with us your personal investing style strategies with your own ISA? And your own SIPP if you have any, please?
03:40 Stephen Kelly
Yeah, and I do I do two things I invest quite heavily in Angel companies tend to be around things like net zero sustainability, things I care about. So I sort of have a moral compass. So I want to invest in businesses where they'll make a massive difference, and really kind of move the dial in terms of particular sustainability net zero.
So I'm invested in the Algorithm People I chair, that company, Health Tech, again, is an area, Locum’s Nest, where I've invested as a number of companies, and I've actually co-invested with my great friend I mentioned before Steve Garnett in a number of those businesses, and we've seen unbelievable performance by great CEOs, where we've been lucky to mentor them. And some of the returns have been, you know, genuinely eye watering 10 and 20 times return over the period of those companies. And it's been amazing and rewarding to see young CEOs build companies and build huge value and do the right things in their own businesses. So there's a lot of private investment I do. And then secondly, public investment. Typically at the moment, I'm probably heavily invested in U.S. denominated stocks around technology and growth stocks, because I think, you know, actually, the FTSE whenever I look at it is looked at it for 10 years is you know, shifted between 6,000 7,500, it's flatlined.
Ten years ago is probably gone up 20%, five years ago is flatlined. You look at the NASDAQ in 10 years, it's gone up fourfold in five years, it's doubled. You know, it's had a bit of a correction this year. And you see all the people celebrating in the UK press and the FTSE has done well.
It hasn't. It hasn't. And it comes back to that culture of I'll be honest, I wouldn't want to invest in companies that give dividends away because it needs the management team have run out ideas how to grow the company, growth companies, as I said, you either grow fast or you die slowly. And zombie companies are not great to invest in where they do stock buybacks, you know, special divies, dividends and people salivate over a 3% dividend. You know, honestly, if you've achieved that, that's fine. I respect that. But I don't think that's the way in terms of managing a portfolio for the long-term.
There's going to provide superior returns. I may be wrong but history sort of proven me right. And I would have as I did invest dollars in growth companies with a philosophy that they want to become market leaders and they have obviously huge TAM, total addressable market and multi billions with great management teams ideally who have done it before because obviously you know, I would say as a first time CEO, I made tonnes of mistakes second time CEO I did a little bit better third time so you still make mistakes. But you get better and better, and you get in the roof.
So if you've done it before, it's better. So I'm sort of very weighted towards themes of net zero sustainability, the cloud in terms of computer, and also geared towards US companies in terms of my public company invested. And I think those, you know, those UK investors are looking across the pond, obviously, you know, reality as the dollar seems to be getting stronger, that seems to be the case. And there's loads of reasons for that at the macro level, political level. And, you know, in terms of the growth companies, I'd say, stick to really growth as a key theme. Because they'll, they'll be the companies that provide just unbelievably superior investment. And it's not like, the difference is if a stock goes up 3% In the year, it's mildly interesting. But if it doubles in a year, it gets very interesting. And those technology stocks are still out there. And the world we know, particularly COVID, probably created more digital disruption in 18 months than it did in the previous decade.
Now, the platform is there for a new paradigm around the cloud and mobility and devices like this kind of allowing everybody to have a different way of running it as a consumer and as businesses. So I think there's huge opportunities in some of those areas. And I mentioned some of the great companies out there like Salesforce ticker symbol CRM, you know, I think you'd be unwise to bet against those companies.
07:55 Peter Higgins
You touched on several significant and important points there Stephen, I want to go back on two, you've said it twice, regarding buybacks and running out of ideas. And then you've sort also touched on the dollar getting stronger, stronger, stronger, I think at the last point was down in the last 12 months, something like 70% sterling is down versus the dollar.
Now does that leave us wide open that to takeovers? We've currently got situation with your former company Micro Focus looking to be taken over by a US company? You know, heaven forbid, somebody else comes in for Sage at some point, we'll have nothing left in the FTSE, you know, for predators coming to take them over?
08:31 Stephen Kelly
Yeah, it's disappointing. I said, you know, sadly, for my previous company I left 12 years ago, Micro Focus.
Yeah, we have we built great team, we really, you know, probably maybe books will be written about what the team did that. But they transform that company from being a sort of old fashioned, stodgy British company that didn't have any technology or innovation at its heart.
To be in kind of, the market leader at application modernization started to move big workloads to the cloud, and just innovation and bringing customers into the room and changing the culture. And, you know, we had a phrase around the company, what we wanted to do in terms of the vision, and it was further next few years, we want to triple surged three by three, three times the size of the company. And the team smashed, smashed the ball out of the park resulted impact for shareholders, I think stock under my tenure went up by seven fold in those last three and a half years.
So say it's done at 70 pence ended up around five quid so everybody's happy and great friends, I still have the folks at Standard Life up in Edinburgh, many of the investors that trusted me, and I really appreciate that trust at the time. got fantastic rewards. So I think coming back to that, you know, Peter to your question is, I think, you know, it is genuinely around backing in management team for the big vision to become market leaders. And then the execution of the plans to make that a reality with an incredibly vibrant, meritocratic culture where they do embed, you know, not just the obvious thing of honesty and table stakes of integrity, but they really think about innovation, doing the right thing, having truth and transparency embedded into the culture and making that a huge success. And then then it does affect the philosophy and building a board that actually get a I've got domain experience. I've done it before can add some value.
Think I'll be honest, in the UK, we've got a lot to learn. And I think when I see my US boards, even 20 years ago, they were lightyears ahead of some of the UK boards and I do think you know directly to a question obviously you know why sterling gone down this can the euro as well so I think in times of crisis people flight to the dollar safe currency of the greenback, but there's other factors, you know, we've got one of the biggest balance of payments deficit.
You know, I'm to be honest, Peter, I, this is the first time in my life when there's been a balance of payments deficit inside it is now where the government hadn't mobilised and had a massive export led growth strategy.
You know, if you go back to the 70s, 80s, 90s when there was any devaluation of sterling, that was kind of placed for the government and business to say how we really become famous right to call us and have an export their growth strategy and obviously, you know, our goods against the Americans have sent him essentially you probably rightly said today than they were a year ago. Now the bad news is a press A portray and everything around the energy fuel rise, as all global factors what hang on a minute, we buy oil and gas in dollars. So sterling denominated currency us have to pay 17% more today than we did a year ago. So some of that inflation is our own doing.
What we need, you know, obviously, hopefully now fingers crossed is a more stable political environment, because that doesn't help sterling either, but also a really good long term plan to be famous at a few things and build some infrastructure that really is meaningful, have an export their growth strategy, and really get behind business and growth, which is so fundamental to the UK success in the long term, and the currency. And then the final point, obviously, is, you know, someone who's been involved in technology forever, coming back to choose to live in Britain, and seeing the amazing success of British technology in the last 10 years, which has been a game changer.
So I'll give you a job rolled out some of the data, you know, there's over 10 decacorns, $10 billion companies, brilliantly, about half of them are founded by immigrants, which is fabulous, because we're a multicultural cosmopolitan. And we want that to be a magnet for all the global talent around the world to come and live and set their companies up in the UK. There's 122 unicorns in the UK, that company is valued at a billion dollars, that's more than the whole of Europe put together, we had over 30 billion of VC investment last year, in technology startups and scale ups in the UK, which again, is just behind the only two countries ahead of us is the US and China.
So we're punching way bigger than our weight relative to the big European countries. And we want them to be successful, obviously. But it keeps us on our toes. So we've got to be more successful. But what we seem to lack is that DNA and the gene around how we go on to become global market leaders. And sadly, there's probably too many boards who throw the towel in early and give up rather than go the long haul. Because when you go the long haul, you become a global market leader, then you've got huge influence and typically a massive valuation, that's no surprise that there's a few kind of companies around a trillion dollars in the US that that have achieved it's kind of the dream around that.
So I think you know, truthfully, Peter, back to your question is this is a shopping bonanza for US companies going to look at UK companies, they've got 17% cheaper, where the fundamentals haven't changed at all. And sadly, that's going to undo some of the great work of what's happened with the London Stock Exchange.
And actually, the government, I think, in this area has done a pretty good job of encouraging the UK to be a magnet for listing companies. And there were some goods in the last three years, there's Canadian companies, US companies, a lot of European companies, people like Trustpilot, who have listed on the London exchange to make it a real kind of mandate for public companies. Now, why is it important? One is I think it's good to have role models. But number two is there's just a whole tonne of jobs in the City of London, around advisory service banking services, legal services, accounting, that actually create this ecosystem.
And in Sage, we used to think every job we took on directly created about three jobs in the ecosystem. So that's why it's really important for us as a company to be listed on the London Exchange. And it is a shame to see some of these companies throw the towel in early and choose to, you know, exit. Now, final thing I say is we need to change the philosophy that because when I was in the US sitting in the boardroom in California, and it's the same for all US companies, it's just about how do we become a global market leader, you know, we don't obsess about the exit, don't really talk about the exit, we just talk about who we're going to acquire, how we grow organically what product lines, we should launch what international expansion and then focus on how we do that successfully.
So you do beachhead to beachhead, and you don't try and think be all things to all people and sort of fall flat on your face.
So it's all about execution. But the philosophy and the DNA of the board is all about growth and ultimately become a market leader and serving all stakeholders and doing it the right way. And then, you know, the happiest people are the investors because they see the benefit of you know, companies that actually seriously for the long term double their stock price every year or grow by 60% per annum.
And that's a game changer if you've got portfolios with those stocks in so in the UK when I came back to Micro Focus, I went to a couple of board meetings of companies I was involved in where I invested and one of them you know, an individual said, you know, it was early stage company said well, we want to know what the exit strategy is. And I was just gobsmacked. I just like what yeah, this is like schoolboy schoolgirl error number 101.
What we're here is to talk about what what's the product market fit? What do we want to do for customers? How do we hire the best people? What are the plans that will make us the leader in the UK, first of all, and then what's the overseas expansion strategy, you know, that's where we need to obsess as board members. And that's where we need to support management and then let management have the space to get on and execute the plans and the strategy. But the philosophy is so even now different in the UK. And so you know, the please up make will be one boards, think about how you become global market leaders, if you haven't got enough expertise of doing that on the board, go and get some other people bring some UI, try to bring US people into my public company boards in both Micro Focus and actually Sage, people who have done it before people have seen them move forward in the direction of the movement before built companies, gone global, become market leaders, category leaders, bring them into the room with domain experience. And they'll tell you kind of the lessons learned with the scars on their back. And then secondly, I think just the philosophy of you know, maybe, I'm not saying it's always the case, but there may be a time where you do run out of ideas.
And if that's the case, sadly, you have to sit there and be honest and say, Well, you know, if it is a time to accept an inbound conversation, and an acquisition, then so be it, but it is sad to see that so many UK companies don't have that final mile of energy to become the global market leaders. And definitely in the early days of company, I wouldn't even spend it when I get that from companies looking for investment. If they talk about the exit strategy. I'm not interested in invest. I want to see entrepreneurs founders want to live their dreams with that big idea and go on to change the world and become the global market leader. That's what it's all about. And that's how you create huge value.
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18:45 Peter Higgins
Brilliant love that response Stephen, thank you so much, now, June 2020 keenly regarding your own strategies and passion for investing and all tech, you became the Chair of Tech Nation, please can share with us an overview of your role at Tech Nation, and its role in the UK and global tech economy, please?
19:03 Stephen Kelly
Yeah, Tech Nation, you know, it’s an unsung hero I think, a credit to Gerard Grech, who founded it way back in what 2014 down in Shoreditch, oh, a, just above a Barclays office in the East End of London. And that was the start of sort of Silicon Roundabout. And just to see that yeah, 120 unicorns I've met some of the guys from a company called Zilch last week bumped into ComplyAdvantage, Charlie there.
This is the great news is today we should celebrate 10 years ago, there wasn't the community of entrepreneurs and tech entrepreneurs, and you know, on paper billionaires who are building amazing companies, and how, why is this important Peter?
The UK now employs 5 million people in technology, technology before the pandemic was grown six times faster than the rest of the economy. The government talks very openly about levelling up strong regions, high skills, high wages, all the answers around technology, you know, technology folks are paid on average 10,000 median salaries more than other professional grades, we're seeing amazing ecosystem of companies grown by brilliant founders up in up in Edinburgh recently been in Manchester back in the northeast, out to Belfast down in Cardiff, Bristol, look around these regions.
There's the beacon of lights that started sort of 8-10 years ago, that have created a following of fabulous technology companies.
So it's really important right at the heart of that is tech nation and its partners. And what Tech Nation has done is built brilliant programmes to address some of the systemic challenges that companies face as they grow and scale.
So it's not easy to go from zero to a million dollars in revenue, I would argue. But when you go from like 1 million to 10 million, that sort of Death Valley, and as we said before, there's not many companies in the UK that have then gone on to be global market leaders and have companies that are worth 50 billion and 100 billion of that scale. And that's the opportunity.
So that's what Tech Nations really focused on is really helping those scale ups. And there's three things that they really struggle with scale ups. One is access to capital growth capital, secondly is around leadership development. And thirdly is going internationally, taking their UK market presence into overseas market leadership globally.
So we built a lot of intellectual property, a lot of mentoring, a lot of coaching where folks that have done it before come back into the Tech Nation community and teach the next generation of folks how to do it and how to grow and scale and get capital. And it's easy, it was not easy, but it's easier in London, particularly if you're a white male founder is tough, you know, if you're out in Belfast or Glasgow, and particularly if you're from a minority community, it's really hard to get access to capital. And then I've got all the data, it's like you have to do 50 times as many pitches, the barriers are significantly more.
So what we want to do is have a much more synchronised marketplace for access to capital. And I think that's come in the UK, but make it much more equal around how their capital shared out across regions and across different minority groups, and help those companies really do a great job of pitching for capital, and then help them around each development as they scale.
You know, the challenges when you're a million dollar company with a dozen people are very different than when you're, you know, $10 million, and even $50 million, $100 million to a billion dollars, you know, this, the challenge is scale. And at points you have to have a process in, you have a FD you have to put much more formal processes around some of the HR processes to really get the best actually human capital.
So there's different challenges you've faced in the journey. And it's really putting all that together and building the playbooks building the content, and sharing that with the UK Tech community. And I'm really pleased that many of the alumni of Tech Nation have gone on to be hugely successful.
So the Monzos, the companies, like actually Ocado, Darktrace, some brilliant companies, and there's a lot within alumni now that we think in three to five years time will be the unicorns of tomorrow.
So that's what it's all about. And I'm very privileged and humble. And obviously, it's a very, very natural place for me to be leading the board to support the management team to build the best programmes that actually are probably the envy of international governments around the world, of how the UK has really cracked the code on this. And you know, the numbers speak to it in terms of the massive investment in the UK, of over $30 billion, 122, unicorns, the growth of the tech sector and the high value jobs. And if you go up to Farringdon, now they hang out in a kind of coffee bar.
You know, everybody's in technology. And 10 years ago, that wasn't the case. They're kind of printing on media or yes, still, there's some great apps around digital media. But I think there's a there's a statement out there with a prediction that by 2030 50% of the employment in the UK will be either creative industries or, or digital economy. And I think we're well on the way to that we want to build that because it creates high value job, high skill, better education system, and also much more resilient, stronger regions, and all the things we care about in terms of building a better brand.
24:44 Peter Higgins
Brilliant, love that response. I've got to ask you two final questions you said 2030 Stephen, is that a target with regards to what you've recently said about you believing that the UK has the potential to become the most powerful tech and superpower of the world?
24:56 Stephen Kelly
Yeah, I think there's a lot of pieces that come together support that, Peter, but there's a lot of hard work to do. I think with the new government, it would be fabulous to have some really long term plans. And governments I went to see our government, we went and looked at probably two best governments in the world in terms of the digital agenda, Estonia and Singapore.
Now people say and they're right, in some ways that Singapore is the ultimate free market economy. Well hang on a minute, there's an incredible government in Singapore that has like long term plans, shared with all the stakeholders and the private sector, everybody's bought into it. But things don't happen by the market economy. You don't you know, we sort of in the last year or so. And we're now sadly suffering from the consequences of it. We haven't really had an energy strategy where we build resilience, low cost energy support our path to net zero.
The only way you do that is have like 10-20 year plans. I transport rail network, you get Italy, France, Germany, the railway networks just better. It costs a 10th of what it costs to travel on the UK rail network. And why is that important? Because if you want to get to net zero, and you want to stop plundering the planet, and you want to leave a fantastic planet for future generations, you've got to really take decarbonisation seriously. So it means we don't need to get off the roads.
We need to get into a lot of things digital is another one, you've got to think long term on some of these things. Some of the things you know, will happen. But there needs to be some long-term plans, around infrastructure, around investment around energy, around water, around technology around digital, even things like the role of the High Street whether it's important for communities, if you do nothing and leave it to the market, you'll turn around in 2,3,4 years’ time and come out with a load of unintended consequences, which will sometimes be disastrous. And now we're suffering the consequences of that.
So an example would be the energy hike. So we're seeing now, I'm not necessarily, I guess, philosophically a big fan of it. But the French 20-30 years ago put together a very coherent energy strategy based on nuclear power. And therefore, energy prices in France have gone up 4%, it's very different. They're not dependent on the gas pipeline that Germany is dependent on. So governments play a key role in this. And I think government not only sets the environment, the positive narrative, the importance of digital and technology, that the UK becomes a magnet around the world. It's incredibly inclusive, incredibly welcoming, really love not only just the investment from the Americans and overseas nations, but the talent to come here. And actually build companies in the UK found companies become the global market leaders, as we've talked about.
So you do need a plan. And you need a narrative that supports that plan. And I think we need to see both public private sector and the third sector, get on the bus and support that, because I'm a huge optimist in terms of the UK and the assets we've got, and the reason why we love you know, our sense of humour, that culture, the openness of travel well, it's an incredible, amazing country to grow up and be part of, and I think for technology companies, I do think it could be a golden era. And I am massively optimistic. But now with the new government coming in, you sort of alluded to this is a is a perfect time to establish that springboard, set the narrative to come up with long term plans that not only deliver for the long term, but also address some of the short term solutions and get through some of the crisis we face.
Obviously, it'd be great to see technology be a really critical part of the solution for Britain. And I think that is the case. And if we do that, there's no doubt we could become a Science Technology superpower. But it's after win, and it's after lose. And we've got nowhere else to look apart from ourselves in terms of responsibility and making it happen.
28:54 Peter Higgins
There may be a call you be getting in the next few days from Liz to join the digital transformation team.
You never know. That's a possibility. Now, I've got a final question for you, Stephen, Tech Nation's Future 50 an upscale growth programmes for tech companies have recently named the UK top business accelerator by Beauhurst, the UK is high growth data platform, Stephen having achieved so much from such a humble beginning, what would you tell the budding investor or startup founder that's currently facing uncertainty or adversity?
29:26 Stephen Kelly
So two part question, you know, I've give full credit to the team, I'm just very lucky that I sit in the background. And one thing I was taught early on is, you know, in times of crisis, you need leaders at the front of the stage.
But when things are going incredibly well, you just want to get off the stage, put the team up on the stage, and let them just enjoy and savour the moment, so Gerard and the team at Tech nation have done a fabulous job, I would take no credit for that they've done a brilliant job, they've worked their socks off to build best programmes that really are the envy of the world, in Tech nation. And we know that because loads of overseas governments and capitalists and investors come to the UK to spend time with Gerard are looking at what we built.
So that that probably is the gold standard. And that's all credit to Gerard, in terms of the other element, I think, yeah, so repeat the second part of the question Peter?
30:23 Peter Higgins
The second part of it was really asking you about, you know, as a budding investor, or a startup founder that's currently facing uncertainty or adversity, what advice would you give to them?
30:32 Stephen Kelly
So probably find someone who's been through your nightmare that you go through now. And actually I am people are so generous with their time, if you get and there's loads of ways to contact people, either social media or just reaching out to people, people are unbelievably responsive. I think so. So number one, you know, those voices in your head, that imposter syndrome that says, oh, of course, that person will now me, put them away, give it a go.
Yeah, who dares wins, you don't lose anything by trying. So I find someone who's done it before. But then I think, you know, hang on to your big idea. What was it that kind of got you up in the morning and out of bed at five o'clock, and you wanted to change the world, but your big idea, and it's that's still relevant now. And there's a really strong product market fit, and your customers really want it, then you've got to find a way to carry on.
I think the biggest challenge you have as an entrepreneur, is to know when it's not going to work. And there's no easy science on that. But you want to road test it and make sure it is going to work but if the data says you know the market is not ready, the customers aren't ready to buy what you're offering in terms of service and products, then you might have to rethink and you might have to go on to another idea, but generally I think, you know, if you're facing significant adversity in the macro level, you pick up the papers every day, it's kind of all bad news.
Apart from the kind of Lionesses, there's been very little good news in the summer, in the UK, and the, but you know, I think you know, what we love about the entrepreneurs, is the resilience that tenacity, that belief, when you get that, and then have that sense of optimism, you can move mountains, and obviously, you know, you need, I'd say, at the moment, the advice I give you is try and get a cash runway of maybe 18 months, 24 months, so you're not going to rush it and run out of cash. Because it's a terrible shame.
If you're doing really well in the business and winning new customers loving customers building great product, innovative, if you run out, if you have a cash crunch that have to, you know, do a down round or something like that, that's seriously damaging. So kind of think about the fundamentals, think about your cash runway. And then you know, what I would say in the bad times is don't obsess about the bad news. Because as entrepreneurs, we're optimists, you've got the big idea that optimism is infectious. And with that tenacity and resilience, you'll get a volunteer army of colleagues, and customers who really believe like you that your product or service can change the world, and then just kind of be unleashed on that journey.
So don't don't be too depressed about what the macro news is, there's always, sadly, we're just, you know, bombarded with social media and stuff. And it's very rarely about kind of good news. Or people just give cameos of all the good news in their life. And it's kind of not authentic. But you know that you've got a big idea, you've got belief. And that's why you get up in the morning. So double down on that, and then have a checkpoint I would every three months, is it working? And if it's not what needs to change, but ultimately, if it isn't working, and you've given it, you know, six months, nine months or a year and you've run out of ideas, then could you go and do something else that really has much more chance of success? And what have you learned from your experiences? You know, as humans, we're not very good at sort of lessons learned and changing it next time. It's definitely worth creating some reflective time to do that.
34:00 Pete Higgins
And with regards to the investors, Stephen, that seen red on the boards at the moment regarding the stocks and the shares and the funds?
34:06 Stephen Kelly
Yeah, I think, personally, I think this is they're all I'm sure you've heard from Warren Buffett and Anthony Bolton all these guys, lunars in the investment world, I think it's a great time to look at the fundamentals.
And you know, I personally, actually Peter published a blog about this, I think it's a great time for companies to IPO. And obviously, yeah, everybody says the IPO windows shut, bankers will advise you to hunker down and come back 2023, if the market improves, this is a golden time, you've got great company, and you've got visibility of the next eight quarters that you know, you're going to be the beaten race team, and you can kind of set expectations beat expectations, then this is a great time you get so much attention, you'll get PR you'll be a darling to investors. And again, you know, companies that are very successful think about this for the long term.
They don't think transiently just for this moment in time, they think about 2025, 2030 being a company there for investors through the whole kind of journey of value creation. But for investors who have got a lot of red on the screen, obviously, you probably look at it daily, maybe hourly, maybe even every other minute. But I'd kind of stick to the themes, your investment hypothesis. And I personally advise you to look for high quality companies with amazing customers with a big idea with brilliant management teams, and really on a growth agenda to market leadership.
Because those companies won't let you down. Even if demand softens, you might have one step back. But soon as soon pick up, it'll be two steps forward, and there'll be back to growth. And when you get those companies with high double digit growth, then you'll see the valuation of those companies follow the top line growth of the company's revenue curve.
35:59 Peter Higgins
Brilliant. Love that response to you've now with regards to the blog you just mentioned, is that going to be on the Tech Nation website or somewhere else that can find that?
36:06 Stephen Kelly
Yeah, or actually, if you want to follow me on social media, I typically do most of my social media myself and respond directly myself to message but it's S Kelly - @SKellyCEO.
So it's on all the platforms, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, main ones tend to be LinkedIn and Twitter for that sort of thing. So the blogs are on things like LinkedIn, and then I share them on the other platforms like Twitter, but if anybody wants to follow me, I guarantee I'll follow you back. You know, and it's just at @SKellyCEO.
36:37 Peter Higgins
Brilliant now, Stephen Kelly, Chair of Tech Nation, former CEO of Chordiant, Micro Focus and Sage. It's been an absolute delight having you on here. I'm sorry I kept you so long, but I just had to make sure I've tried to cover everything. So thank you ever so much for your time, Stephen. I'm really, really appreciate it. Thank you for being on this Investing Matters podcast with me.
36:57 Stephen Kelly
Yeah, Peter, a joy to speak with you love the chat and also I think you do amazing work. So I've listened to a few other episodes. I hope the audience enjoy the episodes as much as I have. Because I think you know, you're really getting the right conversations out there of things that matter.
37:12 Peter Higgins
I really appreciate that. Thank you ever so much, and I look forward to speaking to you soon as well.
37:16 Stephen Kelly
Take care. Thanks very much.
37:18 Peter Higgins
Take care. God bless. Bye bye.
37:31 LSE
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