Interviews
Name: Graham Stubbs
TCD Qualifications: M.A. Economic and Social Studies (1993)
About: Graham Stubbs, CEO and Co-Founder of Diona, a Dublin based technology company focused on developing solutions that turn mobile phones and tablets into powerful tools that help Governments help people. Graham has been shortlisted in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year competition 2015.
What inspired you to set up Diona?
It’s a story that evolved over several years and begins when I graduated from Trinity in 1993 with an Economics & Business Studies degree. My wife to be, Sheelagh, and I headed to the United States on green cards and ended up in San Francisco where through blind luck and the local Irish network, I accidentally ended up in the tech industry in Silicon Valley. Both of our careers took off with Sheelagh becoming successful in investment banking while I learned about technology, programming, consulting and sales at companies like EDS, Oracle and various Bay Area start-ups. Like many Irish immigrants in the US, we were doing well and working hard.
In 1999 our lives and priorities changed. Our son Owen was born with a rare mitochondrial disorder that resulted in extreme physical and intellectual delay challenges. Sheelagh and I decided to move back to Ireland in 2001 to be closer to family and friends. At the same time, I had become disillusioned with the tech space following the dot com crash. It seemed like tech companies were building tech for tech sake with no real business model or interest in improving the things that most needed to be improved.
Back in Ireland I explored becoming a teacher, I wanted to give something back, and we decided that Sheelagh would look after Owen as a full time Mum. At the same time we set out to get Owen organised for school and his significant health & social services needs. This began our own accidental education in bureaucracy and the lack of holistic engagement of government agencies for kids like Owen. It was as if you needed a 3rd level degree to navigate the system, with all the forms, all the different agencies and all the bureaucracy. We often wondered how families less fortunate than we managed it. Out of that frustration, emerged my passion to help improve social services through technology.
Right around that time, I was introduced to two individuals in Ireland who were building a software company to try and improve the lives of citizens and the efficiency of government. For me, it was a match made in heaven – technology helping solve problems I was familiar with firsthand. I put the idea of teaching on hold and went back to what I knew best.
10 years later Cúram Software had become the leader in its market and the founders exited through a sale of the business to IBM in 2011.
Along with John Polakowski and Anil Singaraju, who were co-workers at the time, we decided to continue the journey, and we set up Diona. We recognised the transformative potential of mobile devices for our market and believed we had the knowledge and capability to turn these devices into powerful tools that could help governments help people. Diona was founded to make that happen.
Did you plan on Diona being an international business from the word go?
Absolutely, it was central to our conception of the company. With one founder in Austin, Texas another in in Bangalore, India, and another in Dublin, we were international from our first day as a company. We knew our target market was worldwide, and we had to have our teams on the ground locally to support customers in the countries where we do business. Today we operate in 12 countries and have people from over 15 nationalities on staff.
Do you think that self-financing your business helped you in the long run? Is this a model that you would recommend?
The reality is that we were only self-financing for about 18 months. Building a software company, developing pipeline and sales and investing in people on an international scale, is a massively expensive proposition. We needed either to be independently wealthy, which we weren’t, or obtain the necessary finance from others in order to scale globally, hire the people we wanted, take advantage of the time to market and launch our solutions. Self-financing got us to the point where we could set up the business, prove to investors that our business model works, and get our first couple of customers on board. Unless you are independently wealthy, that is the model I would recommend; prove your business works and then seek investment to grow. This is particularly important in the technology space.
What are the benefits to being an Irish owned business?
I would say we are Irish headquartered rather than Irish owned. If you look at it, the ownership of Diona from day one is split between the founders, our employees and our investors, most of whom are located outside of Ireland. Each one of our 125 employees at Diona have ownership in the business through share options, and my job as CEO is to work in the interests of all stakeholders including our employees, investors, customers and partners.
Being headquartered in Ireland has some significant benefits. Access to the talent we need from an R&D perspective, the support of government through Enterprise Ireland, and the attractive corporate tax regime all play a huge part. But most importantly to us, being seen as an Irish technology company plays well with international customers and partners. There is a sense that if it’s Irish technology, then it’s good technology. Ireland has a great reputation abroad and that is important in our market.
What is the most important ingredient for success?
I don’t think there is one single ingredient. Like any good recipe, it is a combination of several complementary ingredients. At a high level, I would suggest having a great team of people around you that offset your weaknesses, a focus, and a passion for your customers, good corporate governance, a well thought out business strategy and access to the necessary finance are the key ingredients.
Who was your biggest advocate throughout the process?
That’s easy. My wife, Sheelagh was my biggest advocate. From the start, when I turned down the security of a good pensionable job to set up Diona with John and Anil, she has been completely behind me. Through the tough times of investing all our savings in the business, borrowing from family and friends, going without salary for a year, and managing the family finances while at the same time being a full time carer and Mum to Owen, she has been a rock. Without her support I couldn’t have done this.
How did your time in Trinity impact your career?
Apart from having graduated from a world-renowned University, which made getting a foot on the first rung of a career ladder easier, the Trinity ethos has helped me develop over the years. The liberal and scholarly history of Trinity which I was lucky to be a part of has helped me question ideas, think, be creative, problem solve and understand broader worldviews outside of my own. It set the stage for me to be interested continuously in learning and experiencing new things. These traits have served me well so far in my career, and are the traits I believe a modern workforce requires.
What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
The single best bit of advice I can give is, get a great team of senior people around you early, particularly in areas where you are weak. My weakest area is corporate finance. Our CFO and the chairman of our board, who came on board early, both have fantastic corporate finance skills. Having such strong support in this area helped me in the early days and still does today.
Are entrepreneurs born or made?
I believe that, for the most part we are products of our environments. Entrepreneurism is about ideas and solving problems. I believe we are all born with the ability to do both.
Diona is the first time I have set up a company with an idea to solve a problem, but I wouldn’t be here unless I had all the experiences I have had, in my personal life with family and friends, in sport, in my career, and in my global travels. I learned along the way that it is OK to make mistakes and learn from them. A big element of being an entrepreneur is learning from experience. I think entrepreneurs are largely made rather than born.