Robert Smith (QM 1995-2002)
At time of writing (Jan ’23) it’s been a long time since I left the school as a pupil, twenty+ years. This time goes by rapidly so I thought I’d update a few highlights of my journey.
The only reason for this article is in case there are some alumni who have any thoughts of pursuing similar paths and I am happy to help and advise along the way. This is just my professional career, not all the amazing family milestones (one wife, two kids).
My dad set me on the right track. He was a computer engineer so from an early age I was messing around with computers and early on had my own in my room. I was never a console guy: no playstations, Xboxes (Amigas…) – just my PC. I wanted to tweak it, change parts and understand how it worked. This led to started playing around with the Internet which was still pretty new at this time (1998/1999) and making basic websites.
It all started while I was still at QM. I had the good fortune of being accepted to do work experience in Bournville at Cadburys. This alone was a great experience but more important to my life’s direction was meeting a guy called Simon Zutshi, who was working there at the time. He had heard from someone that I was starting to do websites (an early sign that networking and talking to people is very helpful). He had a temp job at Cadbury doing some of that work. Sad news though: I didn’t get the job.
However he said he would call me in the summer as he was starting his own business and would need some website help. I thought that would never come to pass. However, there I was, on holiday with my parents and sister, staring out the window and listening to Trance Nation 1, Disc 1, on my (CD) Walkman. My phone rings (yes we had mobile phones in those days) and sure enough it was Simon. We had a conversation.
“Dad, we need to go to a book shop and find a book on ASP”. My father is very understanding and we found one which was an expensive book at £30 in those days. I don’t remember him or my mother questioning it at all. It was a book on a coding language I didn’t know yet, but Simon thought it would be useful.
From there, I worked with Simon from the age of 16, through A Levels and University. Freelancing you would call it. He got me for cheap (well, I know that now) and I learnt a lot along the way about business, entrepreneurship and choosing your path. I also learnt a lot about independence spending a couple of summers in Boston, USA doing Blackberry development at a financial services firm, Fidelity (this was thanks to an American girlfriend I met at QM)
I came out of university, which was Warwick: Computer and Management Science (uni was a blast). I didn’t have a plan. All my friends had already set up apprenticeships or graduate programs or whatever else you’re meant to do. I hadn’t paid a lot of attention for some reason. Some have accused me of having my head in the clouds at times.
As luck would have it (and I’ve had quite a bit), Simon had met a company that did really nice design. He wanted to upgrade his websites with nice design and for me to continue doing the technical side of life. He’s arranged a meeting and would I drive him up there, into Cheshire (he couldn’t drive for medical reasons). Why not.
There was the second most important meeting after Simon, with Adrian. He had a successful design and print business and was starting to get into websites. There were 4 people working there. We started working together on Simon’s projects. We never stopped working together for over fifteen years.
The business went through a few iterations that all had many lessons. We became a digital only business as print design was dying and harder to make good margins on. We then did more and more ecommerce business before we settled on just one ecommerce platform (called Demandware at the time, which sold to Salesforce). We worked with some amazing customers along the way such as Red Bull Racing (F1 team), as well as Air Race and X Fighters from Red Bull. Tate Museums, the V&A, Laura Ashley, Next, Centrica, Liverpool John Moores and Twentieth Century Fox. There were also a myriad of small businesses you would never know that I learnt their business models and needs. It was an amazing education that is hard to replace.
At the same time I ended up running the business with Adrian for years. We had many ups and downs. I learnt how to run a business, understand cashflow, accounts, the tax service, hiring, firing, culture, team, marketing, sales, and more. Another hard to replace education that made me curious and feel responsible for everything. We had good cash years and not so good ones. We made mistakes. At one point we took on £250,000 of personal debt to keep the business afloat after a series of bad decisions. We worked hard.
Eventually we worked that debt off. In May 2019, the third very interesting meeting took place that would change the course of my career. This was with Gerry, who is the CEO of OSF Digital. Adrian had got introduced somehow and we met to discuss business. A few months later, Gerry and his team had acquired our business, Blueleaf in May 2019. We were to become part of a bigger whole, expanding OSF’s emerging UK business with our specialist services.
Three years of what is called an ‘earn out’ followed. This is where you continue to make money from the sale of the business, tied to hitting performance targets. It keeps you incentivised and means that OSF extracted good value out of the business. At the end of the day, our business is people and relationships, maintaining those was essential. I learn a lot about working in a much bigger business, having a boss (still not sure) and other people’s priorities.
Still, it has gone well as 18+ months after the end of the earn out I am still there. As I write this I’m flying to New York to represent OSF to our main partner, Salesforce. This is in addition to the trips to Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Shanghai, San Francisco, Berlin, Paris, Sydney and more, all representing OSF, speaking at events and meeting customers and most importantly, team. This education has been one of bigger business, international teams and customers, enterprise sales and strategy of running a 2000+ person company.
That brings us pretty much up to date. It’s been an amazing journey with many different educations that far eclipse the university side of things.
As a final note, there was one other aspect to my story I haven’t mentioned. How was I able at such a young age to easily talk to people, find these opportunities and be in the right place at the right time? Be confident, make a good impression? My parents raised me well. However in addition I think a huge role comes back to air cadets and the CCF. In my very formative years of 13-18 it taught me leadership, teamwork, determination, competition and ambition.
Which is why I’m also an air cadet officer at the school today, to try and help a few more people get the chances I got, at QMGS. Reach out if I can help you, or just chat.
Rob Smith
Fg Off (RAFAC), Farchynys Director