Founder@ Interview
Interview with Brett Riley
“Make sure you find like-minded people who share and support your vision. Bring on people that are smarter than you and who can challenge you. Involve people who push your boundaries and make you explore worlds you would have never previously dreamed about.” – Brett Riley
Today we feature Brett Riley, the founder at ITARMI. We hear their story in their own words, their successes, their challenges and their insights.
Let’s start by getting to know you. Can you please tell us a little bit about you and what you do?
We are a husband and wife team who founded ITARMI nearly four years ago with the mission to revolutionise the way that IT support is delivered to businesses.
Through an on-demand service app, we can connect organisations with top-class engineers in a matter of hours, simplifying the process for everyone involved. We are currently based in Surrey and love spending time outdoors with our animals. We are also passionate conservationists.
A great introduction and start to this interview. Can you please tell us, how did you start, from what age, and what made you decide to change direction and start?
Prior to founding ITARMI, Brett had spent 20 years working at some of the world’s leading IT service providers. Specialising in business development, he gained vast knowledge in channel partners, SaaS platforms, engineering requirements and customer experiences. Having experienced first-hand the issues faced within the industry, he was determined to offer a solution that could benefit everyone.
Jenni’s career began in the automotive sales industry before she founded her own consultancy business facilitating companies with Independent Consultancy roles focussing on Business Development, New Business Start Up, Campaign Coordination, Event Organisation and Management and Marketing.
Having witnessed Brett’s undeniable passion and determination when proposing his new business idea, she was eager to join him in bringing ITARMI to life.
Thank you for that insight. So can you tell us…What does your business do and where is your company based?
ITARMI is an IT service provider based in Surrey. We have developed an on-demand service app that connects businesses across the world with fully vetted, fully qualified engineers who can be requested within seconds and on site within hours.
We empower engineers by giving them a higher level of control and autonomy, whilst giving organisations a greater choice of engineer skill sets at a higher service level.
Established nearly four years ago, we have a growing pool of over 1200 engineers and have delivered services in 134 countries across the globe.
What’s the story behind your success? What led to your aha moment? how did you get to where you are now?
Five years ago whilst on a business trip to New York, Brett was chatting to a taxi driver about how Uber was disrupting the traditional yellow cab market. This got him thinking about how a similar business model could be applied in the IT services industry to fix the gaps he had noticed throughout his career, which is how ITARMI was born.
As cliche as it sounds, it has definitely been a rollercoaster journey to get to where we are now. We have faced countless hurdles along the way, but our shared tenacity has helped us succeed.
This, along with our fantastic team of staff who share our values of strength, honour and respect.
Thank you for sharing that. What’s been your life’s biggest lesson so far?
We’ve definitely had first-hand experience of the saying “there are no friends in business”, but equally we have also had experiences where people have gone above and beyond to help us.
There have been tough times where we have had to juggle payments and operate at low costs just to survive, but Brett likens it to Wildebeest crossing the Serengeti: there are hazards like crocodiles waiting to eat you on your way, but you must be brave enough to do it anyway.
In our case, these crocodiles were bankrupt suppliers, unethical recruiters and Covid-19. You are always going to face challenges along your journey, but the biggest lesson we have learnt is that you have to be adaptable, strong and tenacious.
As we have said, we learnt the hard way that not everyone is your friend in business. Unfortunately there will always be people who don’t share your values, and we were definitely naive to this at points, but the experiences we have been through have taught us a lot and shaped who we are today.
If you were to go back in time, what piece of advice would you give to your younger self?
Believe in yourself, use your voice and don’t be afraid of failure.
There are always going to be people who doubt you and it takes a long time to feel like you’re making a success of it. We’ve experienced so many hurdles in the past few years that it would have been easy to throw in the towel on many occasions.
As we said before, you need to be really focused and tenacious to succeed. Failure is just a part of the process.
We’re nearly halfway through our interview so it’s a great time to ask how does your business run. What three tools make your business run better?
Microsoft Teams – with the sudden switch to remote working last year, this has undoubtedly become indispensable for us. Although it was useful before the pandemic, it is now a crucial part of the day-to-day running of the business.
Hubspot – this tool is integral to our sales department. It allows us to keep track of everything all in one place and drive us towards our goals.
Adobe – given that we are a paperless company, this software is essential. We have to send and sign a huge number of agreements and contracts on a weekly basis and Adobe makes the process completely effortless.
What do you know now that you wished you had known before?
As we have said, we learnt the hard way that not everyone is your friend in business. Unfortunately there will always be people who don’t share your values, and we were definitely naive to this at points, but the experiences we have been through have taught us a lot and shaped who we are today.
What has been your greatest or proudest achievement or moment?
Whilst we are extremely proud of our success with clients, the most rewarding part of our journey has been being able to offer fair and accessible opportunities to engineers from all across the globe; some of whom would have had little to no access to such opportunities otherwise. Knowing that we can help change people’s lives for the better is a feeling like no other.
What future life goals do you want to achieve and why?
So far we have delivered services to some of the world’s largest brands in finance and technology, but now we want to give access to smaller enterprises and we know our business model can support this. We see that in the post-Covid climate, more people than ever before are looking at a remote working culture, as well as their bottom line and how they can de-risk their operational expenses, which is where our value lies. We want to continue to do a great job to fully support the engineers who make it all possible.
In addition, we are in the beginning stages of integrating our technology with global leading ITSM platforms and CRMs which will give us exposure to the Fortune 500. Alongside that we are continuing our expansion plans in the USA.
To finish our inspire questions…”We believe that sharing inspiring words can inspire others.” If there was one positive thing you would say to someone to inspire and empower them what would it be and why?
Make sure you find like-minded people who share and support your vision. Bring on people that are smarter than you and who can challenge you. Involve people who push your boundaries and make you explore worlds you would have never previously dreamed about. There is a famous saying “it takes a village to raise a child” and I would like to carry that adage into the business world. It takes a village to run a business. Nobody can stand alone and conquer the world.
“Thank you it has been great learning more about your founder story and ITARMI”
To learn more about ITARMI Visit https://www.itarmi.com/
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