These are real new year resolutions from UK tech scaleups and leaders
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- Admin User
- 18th January 2022
- 4 min read
Scaling a tech company involves reflection, experimentation, pivots and resolution throughout the working year. Still, the start of a new calendar year offers an important moment to take stock of a year’s worth of activities and move forward with fresh eyes, strategic commitment and motivation.
To inspire this thinking, we’ve rounded up tech leaders’ personal resolutions, company commitments and new year aspirations for sector-wide progress – in their own words.
Personal resolutions
Scaled Insights (Healthtech, Leeds)
“My personal resolution is to keep as laser-focused as possible. There’s always opportunity that is just a little outside the sweet spot but would deliver money and other possibilities right now. I’ve discovered that the expression, ‘Too little wood behind too many arrows’ is always a challenge. 2022 we’re going to try to always shoot telephone poles – not just short arrows – at our opportunities!”Stuart Sherman, CEO
Filmily (Createch, Devon)
“My resolution is to make quick decisions and go by instinct; I make mistakes so it’s best to do them quickly and learn.”Andy Doyle, founder and CTO
Petalite (Electric vehicles, Birmingham)
“I need to get a daily diary and success routine in every day; we have lots of successes but always forget these in favour of goals which are very long term but hard to achieve in one day. I’m also aiming for more balance between mental wellness and working. We all push so hard but we need a small sliver of mental reflection and wellbeing.”Leigh Purnell, founder and CEO
Smart Migrator (SaaS, London)
“Productive year resolution at SmartMigrator – value time more and use it wisely.”Peter Simeonov, CEO and cofounder
Company commitments
Kuva (SaaS, Wales)
“One of Kuva’s big resolutions for the New Year is to take legal action against professionals who put their clients’ private information at risk by using cheap social platforms paid for with their data rather than investing in private, professional digital technologies for online working.”Stephanie Moran, chief innovation officer
electronRx (Deeptech, Cambridge)
“As an early-stage deep tech startup, we need to be constantly reminding ourselves of the reason why we exist, which can be a challenge while we are pursuing technological breakthrough alongside balancing the needs of stakeholders and the market in pursuit of product-market-fit. It doesn’t take much to quickly be blown off course from the original vision.
“In 2022, we are entering a particularly exciting period of growth as we work towards our Series A, with lots of new steps ahead of us, and so our New Year’s Resolution this year is the same as our lifelong resolution to remain dedicated to executing our vision of enabling truly personalised, n=1 digital medicine as we develop and bloom.”Dr Bipin Patel, CEO and founder
Myagi (Sales tech, US HQ)
“I’ll be working on implementing clearer goals and objectives for the team and the real-time access to the data they need in order to know how they are performing. Plus, a better planning cadence to ensure our team understands the priorities before they plan their work.”Richard Smith, global head of sales and marketing (and UK head)
Learning Labs (Edtech, Newcastle)
“Our team are all still remote and so I want to implement some fresh ideas to help everyone feel even more connected to their colleagues and to the company and our values, whilst also enjoying the lifestyle benefits of a largely remote setup.”Veejay Lingiah, founder and CEO
Guide Education (Edtech, London)
“As Guide Education look to expand into Australia this year and as we go from startup to scaleup, our focus on becoming a business with 100% commercially minded decisions targeting financial growth is absolutely resolute. We know how to serve our customers, but will keep listening to them. We now need to find new customers in new markets, where we may even be better received! Change is good.”James Dallison, director of growth
Tred (Net zero, Leeds)
“Our resolution is to bring our live product to as many people as possible. 2021 was about laying the foundations for us: we prioritised a sustainable, secure build of our tech. Now we’re turning our focus to growth, and getting our green debit card into the hands of thousands of customers.”Will Smith, cofounder and CEO
PixelMax (Virtual reality, Manchester)
“In 2022 we will have less formal meetings and reports! We are creating more room for creativity and innovative thinking, without losing the balance we have achieved in terms of accountability and deliverability.”Shay O’Carroll, cofounder
Hopes for the sector
PixelMax (Virtual reality, Manchester)
“We would like to see more collaboration across the sector, and companies enabling teams with the right tools to work effectively from any location. In addition, and something that’s core to our approach in 2022, we would like to see the sector embed sustainable practices. Finally, we want to see even more focus on tech for good; lets find ways to enable charities and not-for-profit organisations to benefit from what we have developed.”Shay O’Carroll, cofounder
Guide Education (Edtech, London)
“Be real. This is a tough game, particularly in education, but everyone thinks edtech is “going to the moon.” Nearly all entrepreneurs know it’s a roller coaster out there so let’s stick together and throw a little bit of honest reflection out to our peers so we can navigate the realities and then bask in mutual success!”James Dallison, director of growth
Myagi (Sales tech, US HQ)
“In the sector (SaaS) I would like to see change of use for email automation that discourages lazy automated cold outreach and encourages a more personalised value added approach.”Richard Smith, global head of sales and marketing (and UK head)
Smart Migrator (SaaS, London)
“The tech sector commitment I’d like to see is a focus on climate impact. Tech is inherently more profitable than most other sectors and companies can afford to donate more and help nonprofits.”Peter Simeonov, CEO and cofounder
