Inspirational Woman of the Year, Melissa Chambers shares her strategies and tragedies in business - from being pushed out of her own company during a time of personal polycrises, to running a successful cybersecurity business that built the world's fastest nanosecond encryption latency. Melissa is the CEO and Co-Founder of Sitehop, a company that delivers ultra-high speed, low latency, and high-grade cryptography solutions using FPGA hardware.
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SM: Melissa, welcome to the show. I want to dive right in. You found yourself in a position where you were homeless, jobless, your son got diagnosed with cancer, and your house burned down. You cannot make this stuff up. Spoiler alert for the listeners: it's a happy ending; everything is fine, the son is alive and doing well, and Melissa is here, so all works out well in the end. But what a roller coaster! Exactly, oh my god. Let's start there. I want to get stuck right in at the deep end. What the hell happened?
MC: Oh gosh, so we started—when I say "we," I'm going to say "we" because my husband and I started businesses before, whereas Sitehop is co-founded with Ben, has been. So we started a company unfortunately during the recession, and we ended up putting a lot of our own money into it. It was growing, we were global, and we had customers, but it was growing so fast that we had to take on investment. I'll do the short version. Basically, it was U.S. investors with really strict terms, you know, ratcheting where if we didn't hit milestones, and it was basically they kicked us out of our own company.
SM: Wow.
MC: So we were like, obviously, that hurt. After a couple of months of crying and drinking, we were like, "Okay, look, what's a good thing we can do out of this?" So we got rid of all of our possessions and rented one little storage unit for our family heirlooms. With our two youngest kids, we just travelled America and Europe. We were on non-competes; they're paying us not to compete with them. Let's make the most of it. At the end of a year (because the plan was that we would travel for like two years, wait out the non-competes), but at the end of the first year, we were in Canada, and our youngest son, who was six, was diagnosed with leukaemia. It was just crazy. We went to the doctor; they put him on a plane and flew him across the country to a hospital that took us five hours to drive to catch up with them. I mean, just craziness. So that happened in 2014, and thank God he's fine now, but I mean, it was four years of treatment. When he was diagnosed, we were out of the country, homeless, staying in Airbnb's, moving around, no base, no family, no job, no health insurance, minimal travel insurance. Yeah, so it was just...
SM: Wow, it sounds horrendous. In America as well, for all the great stuff it's got going on, the healthcare system is definitely not one of them.
"You found yourself in a position where you were homeless, jobless, your son got diagnosed with cancer, and your house burned down. You cannot make this stuff up."
MC: Definitely not. Although I can say, we lived in Maryland, and Johns Hopkins University is well-known; they're very, very good. So we went back to Maryland for Edward's treatment, and he got excellent treatment. But as far as paying for it, it was insane. Luckily, someone we knew said, "Hey, let's spin up another company. He wanted to help us out, had some money, and said, 'Let's spin up another tech company. You guys know what you're doing.'" So we spun up another tech company while my son's having cancer treatment, doing another startup. That was crazy, and that went on and enabled us to get health insurance. Little plug for Obamacare because we would have been in a lot more trouble if it hadn't been for that.
SM: Yeah, no, I can't even imagine. Let's not even kind of go there. What I'm curious about is obviously you've had these horrendous setbacks, which you wouldn't wish on anyone. These are some of the worst things that could ever possibly happen have happened to you. I know that you are so resilient. I know that it's part of your character as a mom as well as a serial entrepreneur. You're obviously gritty; you've got the thick skin and everything. I heard you talk about you just get on with it. Like, you've just got to—you know, the baby's crying in the middle of the night, and you've just got to wake up and sort it out. Is that almost, I guess, easier, in a sense, for you to handle versus the mundane crap, something's gone a bit wrong? Do you know what I mean?
MC: I don't know. I think my personality, even when things are going really well, I don't manufacture drama, but I don't like to sit still. Even just to sit down and watch a movie, I have to be doing something else as well. It's really hard for me to just sit still. But from a young age—I grew up in a very religious environment in the Bible belt of Texas. I had to learn to be scrappy from early on because I didn't want to follow the norms. Very early on, I learned that whenever there was a difficult time, I just kind of—I don't know if this is healthy or not—but I just kind of put it in a box and shut it in a room. I'm like, "I'll deal with that later." Even when Edward was diagnosed—and my husband will probably kill me for saying this—but he's the one who fell apart. I said, "Okay, we have to do this now. We have to do that." I just went straight into survival mode, what has to happen right now. It didn't really hit me for a year. It took a year for me to go, "Oh my God, we just went through that." Right, well, we were still going through it, but it's like PTSD is real.
SM: Jesus. You know you've had some humongous successes. You mentioned that you come from the Bible belt of Texas, a very religious background. I remember you saying your dad was a bit hard on you growing up and stuff as well. I know you've got a sister, and you kind of see how the same parenting—you know, just going back a little bit—can affect one person or another, depending on very different characters.
MC: Yeah, well, so my sister and I, we both reacted to it differently. When I was told I wasn't good enough, my attitude was like, "Oh yeah, watch me." Actually, that's funny because our board had an issue that came up, and they were like, "Nobody's ever done this," and I was like, "Watch us," and we did it. So, to your previous question, do I excel under pressure? I would say yes. There's definitely a 'don't tell me I can't do something,' whereas my sister tried to go along, just wanted to keep the peace and go along with it more, whereas I was ready to buck the system.
SM: It's an interesting nature versus nurture experiment when you've got siblings and you've had similar parenting, similar upbringing, both come from a very religious background, and everything, and actually, the very different responses that you can both have to those situations.
MC: Yeah.
SM: Whatever you want to call that, whether it's the entrepreneurial spirit within you, the grit, the resilience, you've obviously got that within you. Going through—I'm gonna stick with the tough times because I'm a masochist.
MC: I don't mind because actually, you know, I have come out the other side. If somebody else is going through something similar and they're thinking, "How is this ever gonna be okay?" Sometimes it helps to hear somebody else has been through it, and you'll be okay.
SM: Thank you for saying that. That's exactly the point. When you are in some of those darker times, I guess, maybe when you're in it, it's survival mode, put it in a box, gotta get on with life, gotta make it happen—that's your natural MO. Then the PTSD hits or something else can get in your way and really kind of grinds at you. What's literally going through your mind in those moments? If anyone's going through a tough time, anyone's listening to this, what's the internal narrative that goes through your mind that might help someone listening?
MC: I suspect it's a little different with different situations. But I tell my children now, and I guess it's from what I've learned is when something bad happens, give yourself a set period of time to grieve, to cry, to just do nothing but kind of give yourself a set time and say, "Okay, times up. I've grieved. It was sad, but it's time to move on." Sometimes it's easier said than done, and everybody slides and revisits it. I was just walking from the station to our office the other day, and there's a big office building being built. I love construction and building, and I love watching it go up. The trigger was they were framing it, and I was like, "Oh, that's really smart, metal framing. That's really good and advantageous." It immediately took me to my house burning down and seeing the wooden structural framework burning down. It just caught me. I was like, "Oh wow, that's still affecting me."
SM: It really caught you off guard in the moment?
MC: Yeah, and it just kind of hits you, and you're like, "Okay, you're okay. Everything's fine. Look where you are, look what you're doing."
"I've learned that when something bad happens, give yourself a set period of time to grieve, to cry, to just do nothing but kind of give yourself a set time and say, Okay, times up. I've grieved. It was sad, but it's time to move on."
SM: Wow, so that kind of other voice, that nurturing that comes in and like, "It's fine, it's fine." It's funny you say, you need to give yourself that time to get it out of your system. That is backed up by psychological research. There is a point, there is a very fine line, as there is with everything. It is healthy to get out, to wallow, to grieve, but you've also got exactly to your point, you've got to know when kind of enough is enough because there is a dangerous point where it just goes too far, and you are just wallowing, and you just go into a dark place. It's kind of get it out, then, right? Okay, wash your face. It's funny, as my mum's advice with this really makes me laugh. You know how you've been in the UK for a little while now, so you may have come across the cup of tea being the solution to kind of anything, right? My mom's got a very niche one, which is having a shower. It reminds me of that, if I'm ever crying, if I'm upset, if I'm going through some dark times, calm down, get it out, have a hot shower. So it has definitely not been all dark days for you, far from it. You've had a lot of success. You've built up very successful businesses. You've had huge teams around you. You've secured tons of funding. You've presented at the Mobile World Congress, I believe, with Sitehop. We'll get into Sitehop as well in a little bit. So, I'm curious, just with sticking a little bit with the motivational theme here as well with you, I'm really intrigued. What do you think motivates you more? Is it that kind of answering back to your dad with, "I'll prove you wrong—watch me! I'm going to go and do it," versus being fuelled by the achievements, the positive success?
MC: I think it's both, yeah. I think it's definitely both. That was fuelled from early on. When I left university, I was hired into a company called Philtronic. They hired like 20 engineers, junior engineers. They were going through massive growth and just really needed to scale it really fast. I was the only woman hired in this group, and I don't like to focus on women difficulties and issues, but it was definitely there. There was definitely a boys' club, and it was difficult. I just worked twice as hard to be like, "Well, you guys don't want to include me, then I'm gonna leave you in my dust." I literally worked double shifts so that I could go into the machine shop and learn how to machine my own stuff because we had prototyping and hands-on in the lab. That turned out really well, and that was really fulfilling. I was picked to lead a big project that went on, and we made a hundred thousand of one of my designs. That was amazing. I got a lot of my experience for the role that I'm in now. It was a little bit of both. It was a little bit of, "I'll show you," but also the gratification of achieving and accomplishing and doing something new. It was a new technology as well, and then taking it to market. That was a real meritocracy with that one.
SM: I mean, you don't want to kind of harp on too much about being a woman in business and everything else. I know that you know that.
MC: There are issues.
SM: There are. I mean, besides just being an incredible female founder in tech, you're currently the founder of a cybersecurity business. You interned at NASA back in the day, so you've always worked or it seems you've mainly worked in very male-dominated industries—NASA, cybersecurity. We mentioned you grew up in the Bible belt of Texas as well, so culturally, gender, you've got these things that are really standing in stark contrast with each other. How did you get into it? Was it just a natural interest?
MC: I think that's a good question. I've always liked math and science and creativity, and I like to draw and paint as well. So, when it came time to go to university, I was gonna go into the army because we didn't have money to pay for university, and obviously, if you go into the military, they pay for it. But it was—they weren't in heavy recruitment, but that didn't work out. So, I had to put myself through university. I was like, "Am I gonna be an art major, or am I gonna be math and science?" I started with art actually and loved it, absolutely loved it. But I quickly realised I don't want to be a starving artist as much as I like doing art. I actually want to—you know, I'm very ambitious and driven, and just the art stuff wasn't moving fast enough. I kind of always like to move fast.
"Well, if you guys don't want to include me, then I'm gonna leave you in my dust."
SM: So, transition more into kind of the STEM—science, tech, maths.
MC: Yeah, so I wanted to—I thought, okay, math and science and art, I'll be an architect. Well, there weren't any schools in Maryland. In the States, if you stay in-state for school, it's cheaper than if you go out of state; like, you almost pay like international fees or something if you go out of state. So, I couldn't do architecture because there weren't any schools that did it. So, I picked civil engineering, and then that's where I ended up getting a NASA scholarship and worked at NASA with the civil engineers, so the facilities engineering, which was great. That summer, I got to go around the whole base and see everything because I was working with the buildings. I got to see everything, but I said, "Oh, I don't think I want to do this day in and day out." So, I switched to mathematics and computer science and then ended up getting my first job as an engineer anyway, like wireless engineering.
SM: Wow, amazing. Were there any female role models that you looked up to at that time? I'm aware of the "see her, be her" kind of concept. You just kind of followed your interest.
MC: Yeah, no, I mean, in the engineering classes, I was the only woman in the engineering classes. When I switched to math and computer science, there were more women than in engineering, but then I ended up working as an engineer. So, it was really nice. I was there, I think, a year and a half to two years at my first job before the next woman was hired. There was like, "Come on, come on, I'll help you."
SM: "I'll take you under my wing." Yeah, and I love that there are more of these unsung heroes being unveiled now as history is being found out more of the truths, and an icon who I think is incredible is Hedy Lamarr. Do you know her? For anyone who hasn't heard, she's a Hollywood film star.
MC: Brilliant.
SM: Drop-dead gorgeous, but she was also the inventor of the technology for GPS, laid the foundation for the tech in Wi-Fi, yeah, really pivotal in the tech that we have today. But because she had good looks on her side, it was the acting and the film star career that really got her attention. She goes down in history as being more famous for that as opposed to all these other amazing things. Amazing. So, you went into engineering, and then somewhere along the way, you discovered actually entrepreneurship is what scratches that itch of moving fast enough and making things happen. You've had numerous businesses, built up very successful companies. So, let's kind of recap a bit of that. So, was this—one company you had—was this one that you were squeezed out of?
MC: So, I met my husband at the company that I joined straight out of university, and we both worked as engineers. When we decided to date, we left the company; it was just going to be too complicated. So, we cashed in our stock options, moved to Florida, had some kids, and then said, "Oh, gosh, maybe we should make some more money because we have a lot of kids now." So, that's when we decided when we're done there because like I said, we can't just sit around and do nothing. So, technically, we were retired early, but we started a video production company, which was so fun because, like I said, I like art and painting and visuals, and my husband is very musical. He plays lots of instruments and was in bands. We brought in his nephew, and we did video production for a couple of years, like six years, and that was so much fun.
"Oh, gosh, maybe we should make some more money because we have a lot of kids now."
SM: By the way, I think it's hilarious that you both left the company because it's too complicated to work together as colleagues but actually, going to set up a business together and be co-founders.
MC: You know what it was? It was the whole, because I was doing so well, everyone saying, "Oh, she must be sleeping with him."
SM: Right. So, that must have pissed you off.
MC: Oh, yeah, totally. And so, when we actually did decide to date, it was like, "I don't want to deal with that."
SM: Right, right. Fair enough.
MC: Which is that really fair? Yeah, annoying, but because I was starting to really do well at that company and move up and because I fell in love, I had to stop it.
SM: So, you did the video production company, did well, did that for six years?
MC: We did that; that made no money at all. That was more fun. We did lots of charity work and donated our time and things for schools and other charities. But during that time, you know, we had some kids and joined our families. So, we said, "Oh, you know, we should do something else because we could see the recession was coming too. So, this is like 2008, yeah."
SM: Big one.
MC: Yeah, huge. So, we decided it was a great time to start a tech company, and then the recession got really bad. So, even when we got our first order from Motorola and took it to the bank and said, "Okay, we'd like to take out a loan so we can build this product," they just laughed at us and said, "Do you know there's a recession going on?" So, we ended up investing all of our money into the company, and it was growing, and we had multiple locations around the globe, and we were manufacturing in the States and manufacturing in China. And then we had to take on investment, and yeah, it's a shame because it was actually one of our friends who was, you know, buys themselves banks for a living. But he went into— he's the one who came in and invested, wow, and went into deal mode, and just—it was awful. It was really, really bad. So, when I speak to other founders now, I'm like, "You know, as exciting as it is that somebody wants to give you money, be very, very careful."
SM: Sure, sure. It's interesting, with various conversations with amazing resilient entrepreneurs like yourself who've been through some of the worst of the worst, this is your case, and the things that have hurt the most are often those emotional, I guess betrayal, for one of a better word when it's somebody—it's more of a relationship thing, right? So, in your instance, it's a friend who invested and then went into deal mode and that all turned ugly or whether it's thinking you could have trusted a co-founder, there's various different stories, but they have that common factor. So, is that what happened with your friend? Like, you sort of knew him in a different setting?
MC: Yeah, I mean, our families would vacation together. I mean, our kids were, you know, in the same classes and yeah. So, to have that turn so sour, and I don't know, I suppose that's why they say, "Don't get into business with your friends."
SM: Yeah, and so this was the scenario where they ultimately pushed you out of the business. What was the reasoning?
MC: What was the mechanism? So, greed, I think, actually. The contract was, you know, it had provisions in it to ratchet back equity if we didn't hit certain milestones. And I think some orders were held back so that the milestone was missed. They got more equity, and it just, you know, and they used that to—
SM: Play dirty? Yeah, right. Yeah, okay. But it didn't knock you so much to kind of never go back into business again or go out and get investment?
MC: Oh, no. I definitely drank for three months straight. I mean, to the point where I was like, "I don't care if I go to rehab." It hurt a lot. It was really, really hard. And because, like you said, it was something that we'd put—I mean, lived and breathed. That was everything. Not only all of our money but all of our effort and our time and our heart, you know. And to have someone that you were friends with be the one to—you know, it's like, really? What? Yeah, that hurt. But finally, luckily, I was able to kind of pull myself out of it and say, "Okay, look, snap out of it. This is not how you're gonna live the rest of your life. Go and show them. Just, you know, turn it around. Like, do not let them beat you."
SM: Right. So, you needed your grieving period. In that instance, happened to be three months to adjust, yeah, process this, wallow, whatever you want to call it.
MC: All of that. Oh, my goodness!
"I definitely drank for three months straight. I mean, to the point where I was like, "I don't care if I go to rehab."
SM: And then so you pulled yourself through. Was it just a case of okay, got out of the system, pulled through? So, this is what I'm saying; you've gone on to found other businesses, raising investment, you've gone through that again. So, I guess it's a case of you've got the scars, learn from them, pick yourself back up, dust yourself off again. I don't know how you do it, Melissa. I don't know how. I just feel like I want to ask you the same question in 10 different ways.
MC: I mean, being an entrepreneur is so exciting. I mean, we're building something, you know? Especially in high-tech stuff, you know, you're doing things that nobody else has done yet. You're solving a problem that hasn't been solved yet. And now, I mean, I feel like I'm really in my element now because it's like, I just turned 50. Well, okay, I keep saying that. I said I was gonna turn 50 for like the year leading up to my birthday because I knew when the day hit, I was gonna fall apart. So that way, if I'd said it for a year, it didn't matter. So I'm still saying it because I don't think I'm gonna turn 51. I'm just going to stay 50, and that's it. But anyway...
SM: I just turned 50, 12 years ago. (laughs)
MC: Yeah, you know, that's exactly what I'll say. Yeah. But it's like all of my experiences and all the things I've learned, and you know, I even want to say to the junior engineer who's sitting in the lab doing the same test over and over, and you're thinking, "What is the point of this?" I can look back at when I had to do that and be like, "I see it now. I see why that was important. I see how I could have done it better," and you know, but then even that I can use to teach somebody else. So it's just, you know, it's all coming together, you know? Building something, teaching people, having fun along the way. I mean, why wouldn't I want to do it again?
SM: You got to remind yourself of that as well, you know, to have fun along the way because it's easy to just get, you know, pulled into all of the crap. But you mentioned just on that comment there about, you know, being able to teach others. Nice segue into the team, which is what you're great at. You talk about a lot. So, I've got a few questions for you there in terms of team management and getting the best out of people around you. So, I guess starting with hire fast and fire fast, you know, hire and fire. So I've heard you talk about, you know, if there is whatever you want to call them, a rotten apple or you see things aren't working out, there's one kind of toxic, you think they gotta go. It's not an easy thing to do, no?
MC: No, it's not easy.
SM: I guess a two-part question with that. One, how do you recognise that it's definitely like, no, okay, they've got to go, as opposed to maybe give another chance? And then, B, how do you go about kind of actioning it as quickly as possible?
MC: So, again, unfortunately, I kind of learned from seeing it done incorrectly before, right, and seeing what the result is. So if you let somebody stay who's not pulling their weight, who's taking advantage, people are like, well, if she's not gonna do it, then why should I have to do it? It can really mess everything up. So it's a little bit easier to deal with it when you see that it almost broke the company before in the past. So now I feel a little bad, so I said in one of our interviews to hire new people, I was like, "You come and work at this company because you want to move things forward and have fun. If you're thinking you're going to take this job and be able to sit back and coast, just don't." I was like, "Oh, maybe I shouldn't actually just come out and say that."
SM: You're better off being clear, especially upfront and in the interview, just like, "This is the way it works. These are our values. This is what we expect. This is what we don't tolerate." I think you're better off just being clear about that, and people know where they stand.
MC: I think it's worked out well. We have such a good team at Sitehop. Everybody, I hope everyone feels valued. I think they do. But because we hire people for their skills and then let them do their thing, and you make sure that you just get out of their way—what do you need? Like, this is what we need you to accomplish. What do you need to get there? And I think when people see that they're growing and that they're contributing and see the results and it's starting to pay off, it's really fulfilling. So when you have someone come in, and they're not doing that and they're slowing people down and they're getting in the way, that can demotivate a team. So unfortunately, you have to...
SM: Bite the bullet?
MC: You just have to make the decision because we're moving so fast that if there's anything like that going on, you just have to say, "I'm sorry, it's not working out."
SM: Yeah. What I take away from that is both the good and the bad. In terms of having great hires, keeping out of their way, letting them fly, and minimising the bad eggs, if you like, is the interview process. You just mentioned about being really clear, "This is where we stand." Am I correct in that interpretation? Is it very much like early on, do what you can to make sure that you're qualifying the talent before it gets further along?
MC: Yeah, luckily, we've made mostly good decisions. And I have to say, Ben, my co-founder (he's a CTO), he's amazing. I mean, our technical team, I mean, don't get me wrong, I mean, we're just now building the OPS team, and luckily, I've been able to hire people I've worked with before, so I already know they're good. But Ben does a very strenuous tech interview. I mean, say we do a first kind of, do they fit in the culture? Are they going to fit within the rest of the team? And then they do another interview that's very technical. And he's very kind, so on one hand, he's very super very knowledgeable and will challenge the tech team. But he's also really good at explaining things. So there's whiteboards all over the office because Ben will jump up and be like, "Okay, let's explain it like this," and he'll draw pictures, and he'll take the time. So he does that in the interview process as well, and he's done a really good job.
SM: Amazing, and you are a mom of six, is that correct now?
MC: Yep.
SM: How does being the mom of literally half a dozen humans help you be a better manager? Sticking with the team subject - has it taught you to be more patient, I would imagine?
MC: Oh yeah, definitely that, multitasking, knowing that everybody's different. Even though we're all in the same family, whether it be my home family or my work family, everybody's different; everybody has different needs, so you have to adjust to that. I mean, I was lucky that I had a mentor who was really, really good at that and could work with anybody and kind of get the best out of them. But because he could adjust to the situation and the person, the people at the company would do anything for them because they knew he had their back, and I'm trying really hard to be like that too.
SM: Yeah, amazing. I love that you mentioned this mentor, learning from others, taking the good stuff, and then earlier on in the conversation, you mentioned about seeing how somebody had made the mistake and done things badly and actually learned from all of that, right? We take with you. So bringing it into more present day, you moved over to the UK and now are the founder of Sitehop, which did I read something about it being kind of record-breaking, like latency, the fastest?
MC: The world's lowest 100-gig encryption latency. Yep, thank you. And we've now just, we literally were in the middle of a pilot with PQC, which is post-quantum cryptography, and it is running at 100 gigabits per second. So that's, you know, obviously, quantum computers are big in the news now. I mean, AI has been new, but quantum's really starting to come up, and people are starting to push it. And so the fact that, you know, we have post-quantum cryptography is good because most people don't know that data, everything, you know, the encryption's good now, but there's bad actors who are storing just storing, storing data. And then eventually, when, you know, quantum computers come on, they can just decrypt it all, right? And then who knows what they're going to do with that information. So having a post-quantum cryptography now is going to be hot.
"Having a post-quantum cryptography now is going to be hot!"
SM: Wow, okay, you heard it here first. Okay, well, I've never heard of PQC before, but they say you learn something new every day, so that's my one. Post-quantum cryptography is not what it was. Okay, definitely gonna Google that a little bit later. It sounds amazing. How big is the team now?
MC: So we are six full-time people, but we're probably gonna double probably over the next month or two because we've finished successful POCs with some global customers. We've been onboarded into six different countries as a vendor. You know, we're looking, we're going to start deploying soon. So, yeah, we're shifting from startup into grow.
SM: Yeah, Scale up, growing. So what were some of the key, I guess, moments in time in the business that unlocked the next level of growth for you? Because now it's easy, well, it's never easy, but you know, you kind of just rattle off six countries and everything else. But I guess like, what was the first big contract? How did you get in there? How did that help unlock the next stage?
MC: So relationships, okay? You know, don't burn bridges. It was just—
SM: Except if they're with investor friends who squeeze you out of your own company. Thanks, maybe that's one you can burn.
MC: Yeah, haven't spoken to them. No. So before we even officially started, you know, the beginning in January of '22, but in December, and I'll never forget, Carl was wearing this horrible Christmas sweater with lights, but he's brilliant, and he was the ex-CTO of one of our customers. And so he made an introduction. So first of all, he listened to us. He gave his time. His name is Carl Perkins, who was our first advisor, okay, and he's brilliant. He's amazing.
SM: Can I just jump in here as well, sorry for a second? I'm curious because obviously you're from America, moved to the UK, so how did you go about developing a network?
MC: Because I talk to everybody, right? Okay, it doesn't matter where I am; I will literally talk to anyone. So yeah, so it's easier for me. So that was your strap.
SM: So first and foremost, if you're an extroverted character that is able to go and talk to people, use what you've got, get out there, network.
MC: Exactly, yeah. Well, I mean, it's not even, it's not even work for me. It's just, I love it. I just love talking to people, and, you know, my mom did the same thing, could stand in the grocery line and have a full-blown conversation with the person standing next to her, you know, and I was like, "Oh, Mom," and my kids do it to me, but it's funny because they're becoming adults and they're doing it now. I love it. I love seeing that they do it now. But, yeah, so Carl, you know, he's very technical, so Ben and I both get mentorship and advice from him, so he's been amazing. So we were introduced to the CTO who then said, "Oh, talk to my next-gen team," and then that just got, you know, when we were able to present, "This is what we've done, and this is how we've done it differently."
SM: And just with the UK versus us thing as well, I'm curious, what have you noticed in terms of the networking, the commute, the referrals kind of thing compared to, you know, culturally between the two places?
MC: It just follows the stereotype, actually. And so I mean, networking itself, I think everybody networks that kind of the same way. It might be a little more outright and bold from them on the American side, and I've noticed Americans get to the point a little bit quicker, which sometimes comes across as rude. Sorry, everyone. So I just kind of apologise in the beginning and say, "Look, you obviously, you can tell I'm American. Just, you know, I'd like to just get right to it and get to the point," which I think has helped us with a British company because a lot of the Europeans and British, they are obviously more reserved. I mean, it's all the stereotype - very reserved, you know, more formal, yeah. And then here I come - poor Ben, my co-founder's like, "Oh, Melissa," and I'm like, "Sorry."
"Look, you obviously, you can tell I'm American. Just, you know, I'd like to just get right to it and get to the point"
SM: Well, this is exactly what I'm curious about because I got a bit of a culture shock coming to the UK over ten years ago now. So I grew up abroad, so yeah, obviously very British accent. But yeah, like I've been in London for over 10 years, and it really did, I was like, wow, like the reservedness, these things, you know, culture, they're not, they're intangible, you can't quite put your finger on it, but it doesn't mean that it's not there. And very much network, especially in business. I mean, I haven't done much business in America, but I'm aware of that stereotype of, you know, the movers and shakers a bit more outspoken, right? How can you help me, how can I help you?
MC: Well, let me give you an example of that. So when we raised the first time and we were pitching to British investors, angels, and VCs and things, and it was all very much the same, and then we got introduced to an American angel who was very polite, we did the pitch the normal way, and then he's like, "Okay, okay, do you want me to tell you what I really think?" And I was like, "Absolutely." And he's like, "Great, I hate this slide. Get to the point here. What are your numbers? Tell me your numbers." And I was like, I loved it, and Ben's like, "What's happening? What's happening?" And he's still with the company.
SM: Yeah. As much as I've got the super British accent, I don't know whether it's this, there's some Americanism which, you know, it saves time. It gets straight to the point. I want to cut through the woof. I mean, the interview, I just wanted to get straight into the fact you were homeless, jobless, son with cancer, and the house burned down. I just want to get straight down to it. Okay, so going back to Sitehop, so you kind of leverage your chattiness, if you like, got networking in a new country as well, you know, built up a new network. Relationships matter, got introduced, one thing led to another, and so really just kind of leveraging that to continue to grow the company.
MC: Yeah, so we got said so that helped then we went to Ben and I. So Sitehop's based in Sheffield. We travelled down to a founder-investor event in Cheltenham, right, and so, you know, jumped in his van, you know, first company road trip went down, and we met our first angel investor there, which was amazing, you know. So we got there, but it was because we were, you know, I dragged Ben along, and we just went and started talking to people. And then, and then it just kind of snowballed from there. Our first angel, Richard, was really excited, and then he started to make introductions, and then that helped us raise our first money. So since we're a hardware company, so what we do, the reason we're able to achieve the latency and the throughput that we do is because it's in hardware - it requires more investment because it's expensive, you know, it's one thing to have a laptop and write code on it versus having to actually build a 100-gig network in the office, right? So that sped that on, and then, you know, we just started hitting milestones.
SM: Amazing, congratulations. And so it's continuing on the upward trajectory now, it seems. You mentioned about doubling the team. Can you share what's coming up ahead, or do we need to watch this space?
MC: So a little bit of watch this space, I suspect. I mean, I can say that we're raising our seed round which I actually love. There's a lot of founders who hate raising money. I actually like it because I get to talk to so many people. I get to, you know, gush about our company and what we're doing and how we're amazing. So, in a way, I'm gonna miss it, but actually not. It's like being pregnant. Like, "Oh, I love being pregnant. Oh my god, get the kid out of me, right?" So it's like, "Oh, I love fundraising. Okay, I'm ready to get back to work now." So that's that's kind of where we are, but yeah, I'm really excited to get back in front of customers because honestly, we've got a ton of traction, and we've got one salesperson in Brazil, and we've got a massive amount of traction. So I can't wait to really build our sales team and go to market and really start promoting the company, yeah.
SM: You are the first founder I think I've ever heard that actually enjoys the fundraising process.
MC: I think because I believe in it. So I believe in the company and our team and our product, and I know we have something. Because I've done tech companies before, and I know we had something then, but it was a little bit better, right? We could do it a little bit better. We could save them money, right? But it was a little bit of a harder sell, whereas what we have now is a jump forward, right? It's a leap forward. So it's kind of starting to, like, sell itself.
SM: Wow, what about the rejection? Like, that's what I always hear, especially with the VCs, the egos, the attitudes. Does none of that get in the way for you?
MC: Oh no, I did get, so we've had a couple of no's, and mostly they say because we're too small right now. That could just be polite, but that's fine. So there was one that I really, really wanted, and they politely said no, you know, not yet. But that one, for some reason, I'm like, "Oh, I'll show you." I'm like, "You're gonna regret that."
SM: It's so interesting to unpick a little bit of what motivates somebody like you, again, that, like, "I'll prove you wrong," as well as, you know, the positive stuff. Melissa, you've been fantastic. I definitely feel like I could chat you all day. I know you love a good chinwag as well. Final question is, the best lessons often come from the biggest mistakes, hence the title of the podcast, "Strategy and Tragedy." You've had a lot happen to you. What would you say, we may well have already covered it, but what would you say is one big tragedy, if you like, that has really stuck with you, and you're like, "I'm never making that mistake ever again"?
MC: Well, I just suppose... the biggest one, it was actually a couple of little ones, is be super careful with contracts. Okay, from and so as a founder, you know, a startup founder, you're excited about your product and getting to market and not so much looking at the contract, but I know from experience that can burn you. So I may be spending too much time on our contracts right now, but, you know, I'm gonna make sure that it's right.
SM: Good reason to maybe invest in a good lawyer, yeah, look over the contract, which we've done.
MC: Which we've done, yeah. I would, yeah, even though you think, "Oh, just I'll cut that cost. Don't." It's your business.
SM: Right, okay, brilliant. Well, on that pearl of wisdom, thank you so much for sharing that with our listeners. Again, absolute pleasure to have you. Thank you so much, Melissa.
MC: Thank you. It's been fun!
Strategy & Tragedy: CEO Stories with Steph Melodia is the fresh business podcast that showcases authentic founder stories - including the ups & downs!
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