Mergers & Acquisitions Mastery; How Hutton Henry Puts People First In Business Success

Jon Coogan (00:01.83)
Welcome to Mindset Mavericks. I'm Jon Coogan, your host, and today I'm joined by Hutton Henry. So thank you very much for joining us and welcome.

Hutton (00:09.026)
Hi Jon, thanks for having me. Really thrilled to be here.

Jon Coogan (00:10.812)
You're very welcome. So today we're going to talk about you. You were orphaned as a child and you've gone through a huge journey up to orchestrating multi -million dollar exits, mergers and acquisitions. And you've got a great story that proves that in both business and life, it's the people and not the profits that matter most. And that's one of the things I really want to dive deep with you today. So thank you for being here. Just to give our guests a bit of an intro to who you are and what you do.

Hutton (00:32.483)
Okay.

Jon Coogan (00:38.31)
I was going to give a bit of an intro, so feel free to jump in or correct me if anything I say wrong. But you're a seasoned expert in mergers and acquisitions. You're a three -time founder. You've had a successful exit in one of those businesses that you've been founder of. And you're a passionate advocate for the people first philosophy in business. As mentioned, you've got a remarkable journey which began with a loss of your parents at a young age and it shaped your approach to life and leadership.

Hutton (00:40.876)
Yeah, yeah, I so.

Jon Coogan (01:05.272)
and you now specialize in preparing founders for investment or exit. So I you emphasize the importance of people during mergers and you've also had a book called People First which encapsulates that belief about the success of any business is rooted in its people. And there's quite a few things around, I think it's Colby certified, is that the way it is? Yeah, I'll get you to explain a little bit about that. And you've also done a graphic novel on diversity as well. So quite a huge

Hutton (01:25.774)
Absolutely, yes.

Jon Coogan (01:32.924)
broad range of topics we can discuss with you and very interesting, Jane, I'd love to speak to you about.

Hutton (01:38.21)
Jon, you've done my intro. can jump off now.

Jon Coogan (01:42.387)
So yeah, I'm sure there's a lot more detail when going to it and there's many things I would have missed out, but that's just to give our listeners a bit of an overview as to what you do and a bit about your journey. But what I wanted to do, what I really like to find out is what makes you the person that you are today. So to go back into a little bit about your history, your childhood and education and some of those things. So can you tell me a little bit about your life growing up really and how you've ended up to where you are now?

Hutton (02:08.761)
Yeah, sure. So, yeah, I unfortunately lost my parents at the age of five. My family origins are from the Caribbean. And I went into a number of foster homes and ended up in one for 13 years. as much as they looked after me, was, you know, it was, as someone said the other day, it was really full of neglect and issues. So I had 13 years of

very hard work. My teeth completely rotted away. I couldn't speak. I was so shy. So you can see I smile a lot now. Not surprisingly, because I know what it's like not to smile. So I left. So it's a really interesting thing because it really connects to the Colby, sort of the psychometrics, because as you can see, things worked out okay for me. Sorry, my lights have gone off in here.

Jon Coogan (02:48.69)
Sure.

Hutton (03:05.59)
So, yeah, things have worked out okay for me, but the main thing was, my sense is gone, sorry, that I couldn't work out why I didn't end up like most people that had my situation. So, long story short, you know, I had no education. My foster parents told me every day that I was really stupid. They told me every day that I would never get a job. I left with no qualifications at all.

and but I had one you know a couple lucky things that happened. I'll try and get this light on because it's yeah okay. Can you see me okay? Is that right?

Jon Coogan (03:46.059)
If you want to take seconds to it you can because we can like I can crack those out so yeah do that.

Hutton (03:48.566)
Okay, let's do that because now you can edit it Otherwise, that's really strange. I mean, one of these cubicle things to... there we go. it's just left. Okay, I've just learned that. Okay, thank you. That's much more comfortable. So, yeah, so it was a dark time and no pun intended. And I'd had a couple of lucky breaks and one of them was the advent of the computer. So...

Jon Coogan (03:55.898)
Thank

Hutton (04:18.126)
My real brother was in the air force and I really, I had like a little bit of connection with my real family over those 13 years. And he dropped me a ZX81, one of those little 16 K computers. So yeah, yeah. And so at the age of eight, I started to code. and, and the thing is, you know, by the time I went to work at 16, I knew how to code. So I always tell everyone I'm a very slow learner.

Jon Coogan (04:31.472)
Yeah, the old Spectrum used to it.

Hutton (04:47.81)
That's eight years, right? Most people think about their experience in things, but it actually takes a long time to get, you know, good at something and master it. So you can imagine one of the benefits of that foster home was like, I really don't like it here, but I found myself something to escape into. And unlike children today, I've got two kids. You know, there's no distraction then you've got a keyboard, you've got code, you're going to, that's all you're going to touch.

Well, obviously nowadays when you're on a keyboard, there's so many other things you could consume. So I will jump through the decades because it's much easier. So age of 16, I did this terrible, my first job was in sales, selling bedrooms. And remember my teeth had rotted away. This was never going to work. And I also have a very odd name. And so I even remember the script today.

and they're literally trying to get you to introduce yourself and say, Hi, my name is Hutton and I work for room set bedrooms and they, who? And so they didn't get my name. It didn't really work. And luckily I got myself into, or Ford and myself met. I went to Ford Motor Company. I spent about a year and a half on a government scheme, dying to get into the tech area. And I got into it and they gave me a job and

So I have three lucky breaks. That computer when I was young. The job at Ford opened the world to me. I spent 10 years traveling the world. You know, we literally had our own jets and everything. I used to go to work, take my passport, I'd go to work, you know, be in Germany within a couple of hours or something. And I had quite a big team by the time I left at the age of 26, 27.

and good people around me, very, very supportive company, and they taught me how to work. So I'll always be so thankful of that. And then the other person was the dentist, because there was the day after my 18th birthday, I went into the dentist very ashamed. And as we know in the UK, we get free dental care. And these have been rotting for so long that the chap actually, he operated on my mouth for

Hutton (07:09.388)
three times a week for three months and my teeth, my teeth are the teeth I have now. He did a great job because I'm in my mid -50s now and the and I remember looking in the mirror for the first time. Whoo! That's even emotional now. The day before Christmas and it was just amazing. Yeah.

Jon Coogan (07:16.741)
Mm.

Yeah.

Jon Coogan (07:28.562)
Yeah.

Jon Coogan (07:35.834)
Yes, it's amazing just how much of an impact that can have psychologically as well. So I think especially with the background you've had and the way you've been treated by parents and having all those negative thoughts, I can imagine that was a very emotional moment.

Hutton (07:51.054)
It was quite hard. Yeah. And so, and then when I went to leave Ford, which is like really the first decade, they taught me so many things. I mean, that company is incredibly global and like visionary at the time. I was brought in at a 15 minute, meeting with what would call be called the CIO nowadays and his name is Reg and he gave me 15 minutes and he asked me, what are you up to? And I said, look, I've just been on.

holiday in New Zealand, I just think there's more to like, I've just got to go, I don't know why. And he said, look Hutton, I'm, he says, you've seen me around over the time and I'm the person who signed you off for your employment all that time ago. He said, because you know, at the time you were hired, they just brought in a graduate only scheme and I was really annoyed with it.

So I wanted to bring on somebody that didn't have any degree. I mean, I had no education, but I had no... And he said, I wanted to see how you get on. He says, I never helped you. You saw me around and I'm really pleased to see that you got a lot further. And you can imagine how emotional that was as well. So, yeah, so I was very lucky. So yeah, so that's that decade. Then I did another 12 years or so.

as a freelancer, working across all different industries. I got to live in New York. I just did so much international things. But I think there was a major lesson that I learned at Ford because we bought Jaguar and I ran a big sort of transformation program. And long story short, what had happened was we rolled out this system.

It almost brought down the Jaguar production line, my system, and I had the CIO that time, she was on my case and she called me up. was in there. there. So, so long story short, that's, that's where, when we looked at the post -mortem or when I did, I realized these people at Jaguar were so scared about their jobs and they just didn't care what was going to happen. The, the, the buy -in to the merger was very low.

Hutton (10:12.022)
And as a corporate person, I was never taught how to work with them and they were never taught how to work with us. Right? You're just thrown in, you're just expected to make it work. And that became a theme. And that's why the people first thing really came to light. And I got to work on lots of different mergers and what have you. I then did a couple of detours. So one of them, the major ones, which has really helped today in this work of working with investors.

By the way, hope you don't mind this long introduction, it's long. Literally, I did nine years in screenwriting. So I did a BA and MA because I wanted to learn more about people's emotions. My two of my real sisters are therapists. I could see how powerful it was for them, but I wanted to do something that was more socially acceptable. Because as soon as you say you're a therapist and you're interested in emotions, it sort of can have two.

two reactions. So that was an amazing period. I really loved that. So I learned how to write succinctly and in engaging manner. And also from a very young age, from the age of, I don't know, 13, 14, very interested in electronic music. I still DJ now. It's, know, so you've got a very arty person here who works in tech and with private equity. So that's the real me.

Jon Coogan (11:09.67)
Yeah.

Hutton (11:38.336)
And I love this sort of hobby I have that as a job, you know, and, and then started three different companies and over time got more and more exposed to these and A deals. And I love this work. I think it's superb.

Jon Coogan (11:56.944)
But yeah, now it's a really interesting mix, I'd say the creative, artistic side of you with the tech, which is not the stereotypical background, I'd have thought, for, yeah, to marry together.

Hutton (12:08.438)
Yeah, yeah, there are some lucky things around that foster care thing, because if I'm quite creative in nature, and it's very unlikely I would have taught myself tech if I hadn't had that scenario, you know, so I would have been the starving artist, you know, instead I'm the artist that can help fund myself.

Jon Coogan (12:29.542)
Yeah, that's going to last. I won't keep dwelling on it, but obviously you've talked a bit about your upbringing and it sounds like it was quite a dark place to be at the time. how have you managed to overcome those obstacles that you had and the negative thoughts that are thrust upon you? What is it that's made you still succeed despite having that background?

Hutton (12:36.834)
Yeah. Yeah.

Hutton (12:52.214)
I mean, can we pause very quickly so I can put this light on? What is going on? They're really... because I am moving around as well. This time it's on this side. Okay, thank you. All right, so... Yeah, it's very interesting because when I was with foster parents somewhere in my head I got this thing. They just, they weren't nice to each other. There were so many bad things happening.

Jon Coogan (12:55.62)
Yeah.

Hutton (13:18.638)
I'm blessed in my life. I have brothers and sisters there and we're all under the same roof. I would say, and I do appreciate being looked after, by the way, even if it wasn't great, the thing I had in my head is I can't, life cannot be like that. And I got a little bit of exposure through real family and things over later years, how life could be. So there was a bridge, that was number one.

Jon Coogan (13:43.974)
Yeah.

Hutton (13:44.854)
Number two, I have this saying, I still have it today, that you make your own sunshine. But that's just, you know, that's fine for me. And this is the thing that wasn't solved for me until I did Colby. And that was, you know, in my late forties. And I went to Arizona and got the training and I, and I'm not trying to sell that as a process, but what it taught me is that my natural, we test for your natural ability.

to deal with stress and creative endeavors. That's the only thing we do, right? And I found out like what my combination is and I'm basically what they would call a pioneer. It's a very high end quick start. I'm very forward thinking and I like building things. And with this system, you know, with this whole part of your brain, you've all got, we've all got it and it fully forms by the age of six and it never ever changes.

So even though bad things happen, they happen towards the end of my natural forming. And so that natural drive, I now understand, was always there, which is also the reason why I left Ford, because there's natural push to go. I do appreciate being with my real family at a young age, because that gave me a very solid sort of safety.

Jon Coogan (15:10.374)
Yeah.

Hutton (15:11.918)
to be very sort of entrepreneurial, I guess is the word. So my thing now is helping other people. And so I will admit to Jon that, you know, has this background cost me in terms of my mental health with leadership? Absolutely. Because self -doubt is something that will exude in many ways. And it was so deep rooted, it took a long time to get through that.

and so that's my story, but then I like helping other people. So in Colby, I've worked with more than 500 people, you know, and when I see them go through deals, I want to help them. I did want to do it with the merger aspect because of much bigger teams and what I'd experienced, but I found there was very little appetite and it was much better to work on a one -to -one basis. So to answer your question.

Jon Coogan (16:07.962)
One of the things that's interesting, you mentioned about how you didn't have a great education, you didn't get the high grades and things in the early days. And working with so many people, how important do you think it is, the balance between education and life experience?

Hutton (16:10.744)
There's some natural drive and there's also...

Hutton (16:23.192)
sides.

Hutton (16:26.798)
How it, it's put, sorry, can we start that again? Sorry.

Jon Coogan (16:30.194)
Yeah, yeah, just wondering based on your background of not having a great educational background, you said you didn't do great with your grades, etc. How important do you think it is  education compared to life experiences? obviously as people are forced to go to school, you've got to go to school until you're I think full time education 18 now in the UK. But do you see what do you see in the people you're working with?

Hutton (16:55.722)
Yeah, so I think aptitude obviously is, you know, if you're, there's aptitude and exposure and if you get the two, then you can go to the races and education and then, you know, companies shutting their doors like the graduate only thing that doesn't give you the exposure to see how much of a catalyst you have. So I know from my work, the education as it stands today works very well.

for a type of, you know, that cognitive person who's a fact finder, who likes recalling information and that it will work perfectly and they will be very comfortable for people like myself. I would say it was a bit of a prison, but I was already in a prison. But if you noticed, I did go to school in my 30s for my screenwriting. So I do appreciate it because it creates an inner confidence. So I don't know what you, what do you think about that sort of?

Jon Coogan (17:46.278)
Yeah.

Hutton (17:56.025)
education versus practical.

Jon Coogan (17:56.722)
I think.

Yeah, for me personally, I didn't do great at school. I just didn't really have the interest or the passion for it and I would just not do homework. just, I think I was capable, but just did not get on with school. I ended up going to college, started doing a college course, dropped out of college, did some evening classes. But then I think as soon as got to the workplace, that's really where I excelled. So I was curious, because you've worked with big teams on how much emphasis you put on

education when you're looking for employees and how much how much you value that.

Hutton (18:33.326)
Yeah, and so sometimes it seems really impressive, right? You know, my business partner has, I mean, he doesn't put it on on his LinkedIn and I've known him for 30 years and I only found out what he had and I was like, my gosh, that's amazing. And he's great because he said that that's fine, but we're in the same room, Hutton, you know, and I love that attitude. So I don't, and I do try and help.

coach people, if people come to me, I'll probably sort of look at things, try and help them get jobs. And I get, I think from my experience, what I realized was that we all put our own ceilings on ourselves. And what I try and say is like, just try and identify that ceiling and whether you want to work through it. You know, I'm helping a couple of DJs at the moment and they're seeing some blockers in their industry.

And it's like, know, so it doesn't matter even what industry, whether it's creative or commercial, I see the same type of things. see the same, you know, with female DJs, they're like, you know, I get this sort of behavior from men at the decks. And so it's amazing to have a view of both, you know, commercial and creative industries and also see, we're seeing exactly the same problems. But what I like to really dig into is your personal

ceiling and what can we do with it really.

Jon Coogan (19:58.775)
As I mentioned, the battery has just gone. I'm going to quickly change that. So it's been a bit of a pain, bit mushy, mushy, but it'll come out fine. It'll be edited and it'll all look perfect at the end of the day.

Hutton (20:02.167)
No worries.

Hutton (20:08.524)
No, it's fine. happy to tell you it's fine.

Jon Coogan (20:57.874)
There we go, and it's back on.

Hutton (21:02.188)
I did also want to give you a funny story about education. So I was lucky enough that our schools at that, mean, you're talking eighties. We had, we had computers in some way or form and I did computer, whatever it was. It wasn't science, but whatever it was. And I, and in that class, I did two of my friends projects and they got A's, right?

Jon Coogan (21:21.264)
Yeah.

Hutton (21:30.316)
And I got a U for mine. And it's like, how does that even work? And the reason why is that I wrote code. and my genuinely the program I wrote at that age was a product to help people learn how to code. And my teacher said, no, don't see it because they wanted you to write some kind of calculator spreadsheet thing. And I wrote.

Jon Coogan (21:32.71)
Wow.

Hutton (21:57.558)
Like you, you you these big printouts. That's how you gave it to your teacher and they read through it. And it was like this logic of how, and it was basic, right? Do you to say you, you, it was like teaching them how to code in basic. I wish I carried on with that idea, right? Cause I mean, how big is that industry now? So, so I do think there are limitations put on by teachers because they couldn't see my vision. And, and I'd broken some rules and you're, you know, you're

Jon Coogan (22:00.465)
you

Hutton (22:26.478)
podcast is like mindset mavericks and it's sort of I'd broken a rule and I got a smack, right? And I was quite shocked, you know, to get that. But yeah, so you can see what my view of education was then. It's like, well, it's not helping me at all.

Jon Coogan (22:32.626)
Yeah.

Jon Coogan (22:43.236)
No, not at all. And I wanted to go on actually, as you talking about breaking some boundaries and breaking some rules, and I want to talk about some of the companies or the first companies you started up. Could you tell us a little bit about that first company you started?

Hutton (22:56.782)
Yes, it was a bit of a weird thing because my now wife and I, I was working freelance in IT, she's working in film and we decided to stop working and we drove over to Berlin to become artists and we did that for just under a year and in that time I also tried to set up, I thought, you know,

I've got some tech skills, let me build this sort of company on the side. And whilst we were there, you know, I got a call from what would become a partner. And he said, I've got this really significant Endeavour project, you know, would you fly over and pitch for it? So pitch for that. And basically what was meant to be this sort of experiment took over and actually

It took over the artist thing really, you know, it just went really fast. So within 18 months we got named, it was a Microsoft partner. We got named the top three Microsoft partner in the world at the time, which was really good. And this is one of the biggest lessons I learned. What on earth do you do with that? Right. Because I was a techie running a business who didn't know anything about marketing, didn't know anything about prospecting, didn't know anything on

how to convince others because most of my business was around my local vicinity and encouraging people. business went fine, went well, and we kept growing. It was very enterprise in terms of the companies it was serving. So really punching above its weight. And in a way, I look at the company I have today where I have to market and make an effort. And in those days, it was so easy and I just didn't know.

And sometimes ignorance is bliss. In terms of mindset, I think when you start your first one, you're always in this sort of oscillation of like, I'm so excited, but I've just left the life where life was really easy. And it's sort of in comparison, not easy full stop, but you and we were just sort of winning jobs here and there, but they were really significant projects. I mean, they were superb.

Hutton (25:21.046)
I brought in friends and we are still friends today, which I'm so happy about, to help me build the business. And we fell apart because it's one of the common mistakes you see. And I see when I look at firms, you know, as they scale, they're like, let's bring in some big guys from, or big girls from enterprise. And those people haven't worked in these very scrappy firms before. So it's a very common problem when firms scale. I got that.

you know, and it became quite stressful for all of us. It was fine because I am a natural risk taker and it's like just keep going. But then when you bring people who are used to more governance and methods and being able to see some visible track, you know, pipeline, I fully understand. I'm so glad, you know, one of them still works for me today, which is great. And

The unfortunate thing is my sister passed away and I just shut it down then. So it was kind of a 50 % personal and 50 % I don't want to run a services company. That was my first sort of thing. And then I jumped into the second company to do software.

Jon Coogan (26:39.686)
I just want to touch on a couple of things, X. You've mentioned about hires and when you are a startup, you're starting to scale and starting to bring people in. And you're talking about how you can bring in people who are, in a sense, too commercial for startup, not used to dealing with that scrappy stages. But one of the other things I see is people bringing in friends who aren't necessarily the right people for the role. What tips or advice could you give people?

Hutton (26:44.141)
Mm

Hutton (26:56.94)
Yeah.

Jon Coogan (27:05.348)
about hiring for when you are those early stages and what is it you should be looking for?

Hutton (27:11.414)
It's a tough one because I think, I mean, it's friends and family, right, under that criteria. And the, I think you have to be really clear around scope and, know, and JDs don't really mean much, right? You know, it's really, what are we actually going to be doing? And, and can you bring in people with skills, but skills that are opposite yours and you're not going to have to be the bottleneck, et cetera. So,

Nowadays, I would probably always get someone else to help you just assess what you're doing. I would never have done it at the beginning, ever. It's like, my gut feeling is going to get me everywhere. I think you run a lot on gut, it's so exciting. People believe in your gut feeling, they can see it exuding, and really...

I think you have to say to yourself, it's something we do in coaching. you have to map out the real job of the leader. I'm, I'm, I don't even like using the word CEO in small companies, you know, but let's just say the leader and is that person going to be really happy transitioning from some kind of technical job, be it writing, coding, whatever it is, you know, going from doing something that shows value.

to moving to a more managerial piece where it's lots of spreadsheets and numbers and negotiations and it is a transition. So I think there are two things here. Get help vetting people in whatever way that is, even if it's a friend to walk through your theory. And the next one is you do start, what I actually say, Jon, is if you start a company within a month, it always finds your

areas of weakness or areas to work on within a month and then it takes you your time, whatever that time is, to fix them if you can stay on the journey. So, I don't know if you feel the same.

Jon Coogan (29:14.982)
Yeah, yeah, without a doubt.

Yep, definitely. it is like I having the right people around you to point out those not necessarily flaws, but just to identify those issues and being very self aware and just actually accepting those parts of you and just make sure you've got the right people to fill those gaps and to bounce off of. yeah.

Hutton (29:36.885)
I think you used the right word there, awareness.

Jon Coogan (29:40.292)
And with your coaching, that something you'd use, the Colby coaching, is that something you would use to identify right people to bring in? How do you incorporate that into your businesses?

Hutton (29:51.656)
Yeah, so if you take just any business and not even one's going through investment, the first thing to do is increase the awareness of the person running it. Let's look at how and then look at the role and see how well it fits the person so we can analyze that. And then you can start to look for those perceived areas that need help and find whether the people underneath that person fits those areas or if they conflict.

So there's a way to design teams with it in numerical format. And there's a way to help them understand where the gaps are. yeah, we don't always use Colby. You know, is like literally this person I can see through an assessment. This is not going to scale. I'll speak to the investor and say, look, I think we need to do X, Y, Z. And one thing I really want to get over about investors, not because I'm being nice, but

They don't fit the stereotypical image of an investor. They are very aware of the value creation from people. know, so number one area they will look at really.

Jon Coogan (31:02.33)
Okay, just and I want to touch on a few tips as well. You could give listeners around you've started three businesses. What things would you give as tips or advice of people who are looking to start their first business now? What are the things or potential pitfalls you often see?

Hutton (31:09.452)
Mm

Hutton (31:16.236)
Yeah. Number one, use the phone. Right. And, and, and, and what goes with that is ditch the website, right? Cause it's sort of, I feel, and this is a personal feeling. As soon as you start to build the website, you're starting to solidify what you're doing, but you're also putting a digital barrier up between you and your potential customer. And so,

I mean, if you've already got a pipeline, you already know what you're doing, fantastic. But in most cases, people are testing the water and you're much better off having meetings using the phone. The phone is the best thing, I think, for that piece. And falling in love with them, not you. know, falling in love with their problem and, you know...

I think it's so exciting, especially on the first one, you're like, you're imagining all this stuff because you see all these very successful people and what they're doing. You see it so many times that people visualize and their vision is around where their team is going and what value they can bring. But really we should spend more time sitting in the client seat and just imagining where their problems are. And we, to this day, we have a once a week problem.

meetings, so we can only talk about the customer and their problems and we're never allowed to solutionize in the meeting. Because it's a bit like, the other thing about starting as well, the third thing I would say is give yourself time. You know, it's so rushed. There's so many things to do at once that most people, and I still do it today, don't give yourself enough time to think, you know, and you can use the word strategic and all those words, but

at the end of the day, it's a, it's an interesting thing around boredom, right? If you are bored, you'll always be creative and you'll come up with things and businesses do not make you bored and you're always servicing it. But if you can say, right, so I have like two hours on the Thursday morning that I don't talk to the team. I'm not in the office and they don't know where I am. And, you know, I do stuff and then your brain is like,

Jon Coogan (33:17.34)
Hmm.

Hutton (33:36.898)
completely cleaned and thought about really.

Jon Coogan (33:41.862)
Yeah, now I'd love that piece of advice. And I think it's something, as you said, there's just no room for boredom anywhere anymore with the likes of TikTok and just a vast quantities of emails and everything else that's going on. There's never a time just to sit with your thoughts, process things and just, yeah, think through problems.

Hutton (33:59.8)
There is a, there's a new thing. Yeah. There's a new piece of not advice, but like a, approach that we, we are really enjoying at the moment, which is, we started at the beginning of the year. I, I meet with my business partner, we get a partner as well. That's a good thing. I meet with my business partner in the afternoon of a Thursday after I've had my brain cleansing morning and he's done his own thing and he, and I,

We're allowed to talk about work, but there's absolutely zero agenda. Right. That's number one. And then number two, the team come over and then we're not allowed to talk about work at all. Right. So you go. And the reason for that is the antidote to working from home. Cause working from home is transactional. It's very results based. And the only time we ever speak to each other is cause we're doing something. So.

The remedy for that is to spend a few hours together and probably go down to the pub and we are not allowed to talk about work.

Jon Coogan (35:06.48)
And what benefits are you seeing from that?

Hutton (35:09.528)
We like each other. That's it, just become friends again because we're not getting that social aspect really.

Jon Coogan (35:18.482)
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I've implemented in my work. think we used to have just structured get togethers with everyone every day and it might even be five, 10 minutes at a time, but at the same time it is just too forced. And I think what's better is just randomly contact a team member, have a five, 10 minute, 20 minute chat on Teams. It doesn't have to be about work and just do one -on -one and a bit of that.

like I say, socialising, trying to get to know people. I think getting to know people is where you start to build that trust and just be a bit more fulfilled at work as well, which I think is easily missed when you are working from home so much.

Hutton (35:59.506)
I agree, Jon, moment, I'm just gonna work out where this thing is, is this side or that? It's not consistent. And there we go, it's forward this time. gosh. So, okay.

Jon Coogan (36:11.706)
So one of things we've just spoken about is the startup businesses, ones who are just looking to found a business or that early part of the journey. But when it comes to thinking about exiting or mergers or trying to come out of the business, what stage should you start thinking about that as a business owner?

Hutton (36:34.414)
That's a very good question. There's a shoot, there's a shoot, go ahead, sorry.

Jon Coogan (36:40.208)
I was just gonna say, and the way I'm thinking about it, is it something that you should be thinking about when you actually start in a business? Is that a good practice to be into, or is it actually you shouldn't be focused on that and that can cause a distraction? What's your thoughts on it?

Hutton (36:46.659)
Mm.

Hutton (36:52.684)
Yeah, it's a fine line, right? So I think if you start with the exit in mind, that can go very well. We definitely see that. We don't often see that go. I mean, that's not a very use. It always feels so clever when we see it, right? But, you know, it's like, yeah, we intended that happened within three years as we intended. It's very, very unusual for that. So there's there is and I don't like the word should.

So it's really a case of, would like people to understand that when you get to that exit process, you know, that you're going to have people like us analyzing your business. So, and the number one thing we're looking for is your historical decision -making, right? And we can see that in lots of different places, know, documents, meeting minutes, online, there's lots of different things. So it's a case of...

plan for a sudden, you know, someone's going to come in tomorrow and they take a slice of your life and they don't, we don't get very much time to assess your business. So if you haven't got things in the right places, it's very hard for you to pull it all together fast and do it. And the ones who do that, they're almost through the door immediately, you know, because they've been, you know, they consistently been doing a certain number of things over the years. And,

And it's so easy for them to say, yeah, okay, you we've got those documents, we've got this policy, we really care. you know, really the five areas are your documentation. We would say tech because we're a tech business, but, you know, how you document that, your decisions about it and the value it creates. One of the most common mistakes we see is that people...

spend some money on something, say it's on tech, but they never record what the value output of that was. And so investors and everyone else just take it as the new normal. And they never saw that you put all that effort in and for, you know, 80 grand, you got back, you know, 200, or you saved this amount of time or this head count. It's very simple spreadsheet. If you can do that, you're onto a winner. Then you've got,

Hutton (39:18.646)
Obviously your people, how you're going to manage them, your processes, how you select them is really important. And it's just a myriad of things. I do have a lot of material on what to prepare. to me, it's sort of, I think the ideal thing is that just an hour a day between a few people over time can make it really easy.

Jon Coogan (39:41.574)
Okay, and just sticking with that theme, in terms of how somebody starts going about that process, what is the steps involved for looking towards an exit or merger? So do people come to you first, or is it the investors approach you and you go out to the companies? What steps should show up?

Hutton (39:58.286)
So the exit slide, a lot of people, it's interesting, we see two main studies there, really, the two cases. There'll be the most prominent one is usually they're quite reasonable in size and they'll go to a corporate finance house and that can be one person on their own or can be a larger business. And what that company will do is they will assess your business and work out whether they are

you know, if it's really marketable, because they've got to make money as well. And if they think, yeah, you know what, this is a good proposition, then they will bring in companies like us and on different areas and assess the company and then put together a really, you know, very slick deck on on selling it to the market. They also have the contacts. So they have the contacts in the investment area and things like that. You can. So that's that's one area.

The other area is we often see CEOs brought in somebody who they know is good at business development and they've asked that person to get the business ready for exit. And that person has used LinkedIn and things and just reached out to ideal buyers and investors. And just like a sales campaign, they have, they've done it all in house. They're the two main scenarios. They can come to people like us because we're connected, you know, and we would help.

readiness and we'll find issues. And one of the things we do do which is really beneficial to anyone we work with is we assess your company from the outside and just tell you how it looks because you'll have a story but we'll have a different story. And we know that within a few days. yeah.

Jon Coogan (41:45.818)
And what does that do do diligence look like from your perspective, in terms of what you're looking for when you go into company? I know you've mentioned looking at some of the records and things, but is it how much of it is about the people that you're looking at?

Hutton (42:00.31)
I think if you look at our, we've got like an eight, eight main scope areas. Team is always at the top. When we summarise to the investors, we're really looking at three key areas, which is people, cyber security and technology in that order. That's how we report it. And then we'll look at the commercial model, resilience, robustness, uniqueness.

Defensibility says there's a lot there, but there's never a situation where one of those things lets everything down. Usually if there's one thing wrong, there's many things wrong and they triangulate.

Jon Coogan (42:42.672)
Yeah, if you've got any case stories where you can see that having the right person on board has really made a difference, is there a particular time you can think of where having that one person has made a big difference? Because I know you're very much a people -focused approach.

Hutton (42:59.982)
Yeah. Yeah. And, and do you mean, so on the company being assessed, they have one person or, okay. I have one, I've got two examples, but they're teams. I don't know if that helps, but, one that I saw in Canada, five people, five young guys, when they were 25, went on the journey and they sold their business this year, you know, after 10 years. So.

Jon Coogan (43:05.808)
Yes.

Jon Coogan (43:14.844)
Okay.

Hutton (43:29.376)
One of the most impressive thing about them is they all knew their roles. That's five founders. They knew exactly what their roles were. And the other thing is they knew exactly what they didn't do. So you've got all the complexities of a business and then getting to see them was quite interesting as well because they, one of the key things about them was I got to see

the cars they drove and the houses they built. They weren't uber rich, but I could see they were creative outside of work as well as in. And of course that's going to resonate with me big time because there's that creative and commercial thing. So the reason why Jon, that's such an important case study for me is I sort of see them like the Rolling Stones. Why are the Rolling Stones still together today? And it's something I was obsessed with when I was in...

When I was a teenager, I could never understand why pop bands would hit a certain level of success and then they were split. You know, and I didn't understand that. obviously, you know, working in it, you know, with teams now, I completely understand the egos, the directions, the problems. So that's one really good team. Another team here in the UK was one where it was so well presented.

and it was really odd because they were all cross pollinating. they're the opposite of these guys. They, they would like, you know, the IT infrastructure person was the person building all their decks. We should lie. And it was so polished. And the reason why they stand out to me was humility and learning. They just wanted to learn everything and they didn't stay in their role. So you can see there's no perfect outcome. There's no perfect thing, but what you do see is a fusion.

and you know it within an hour.

Jon Coogan (45:28.208)
Yeah, just one of the things we've touched on already, but you have written a book and that is around people first. So what was it that led you to create that book?

Hutton (45:38.734)
I was sat in the Microsoft conference in, I think it was LA and the CEO at the time said, it wasn't sat here, was Steve Ballmer. And he said, it's a cloud first, mobile first world. And at the time, honestly, I was the only person who turned up there with an Apple iPad and a tablet and the angry stares and everything I got from everyone. There's 15 ,000 people at this thing. And they were just.

It was at the time where Apple was just creeping in. so there were two things, a, was a bit of a maverick then turning up to this event with a non -Microsoft, non -Micro, non -Windows device. Nowadays it's very common to do that. and the other thing is it really triggered me to, you know, to say, well, it's a people first world world. And the real thing I was trying to sort of weave into the and A process was we

We keep analyzing spreadsheets and we analyze the PNL and ROI. We never analyze the people. And if you do that, you know, and there are ways of doing it, you can actually design your team and not just clunk them together and hope it works.

Jon Coogan (46:53.564)
Which is actually really interesting because one of things about creating teams and that kind of diversity in teams, you've actually also written a graphic novel about. So what was it that led to the creation of that one, which is, it's along the same themes, but it's a little bit different.

Hutton (47:05.964)
Nah.

Yeah, it's because the book is really for the leader and the graphic novel is for the recipients of that type of work because this both the book and the graphic novel were both done before COVID and when you would present, know, I would run these sessions, you put a book on everyone's desk and we'd talk about team dynamics and everything and I'm going to lose part of the team because they don't have time to read books.

And so I, and I was thinking about how do I make this work with examples that really resonate with the people in the room? So there's like a startup founder, an engineer, an IT sys admin, you know, the, three main characters and there's like one female, there's one quick start. you know, she's very entrepreneurial. And, and so my idea was just to, to give that to the people and say, look,

This work is worth it, but you don't need to read a book for it. You know, can get this in a much easier format.

Jon Coogan (48:15.29)
And it is really important to have diversity and inclusion in the workplace for so many reasons. But if there's, is there a top tip you could give, I think, for leaders, current leaders, to help build diversity and inclusion in teams?

Hutton (48:31.672)
Yeah, I've got a tip and an observation. So the obvious tip nowadays, but I think it wasn't so obvious, is look outside the pool. the best tech guy for years I ever worked with is a photographer. I'm currently helping a musician get a job in tech. Of course, they're creative. That's my bias. But I do hear...

I remember years ago around speaking to one of the large Microsoft partners and they said, we have a fantastic sales team. We've taken on young people from car dealerships and we've taught them things. So they know how to do the people bit. We're helping them with the tech bit. So blending and widening the pool and where you look is really important. My story around the degree versus no degree, hopefully, you know, it shows something in there.

But I do have a slight warning on that diversity thing, which is learn how to manage it properly. I don't think I ever did. I thought I did because I'm very good at getting on with people and I can smile and do all the right things. But you also need to not smile and you also need to be, you know, to the point and things. So previously I was quite a people pleaser.

Now I'm to the point, if I don't agree, it happened, you know, it's sort of where you need to be as a leader. But I listened to Scott Galloway, don't know if you know him, the Harvard professor, yeah. And he, one thing that really struck me with him was that he was talking, he talked to a lot of the big CEOs when the Russia -Ukraine war started on their stance on what they were going to do. And the thing I learned from his research and the people he was talking to,

was that these big CEOs of a massive firm in their boardroom might have people with completely different political leanings. And they have to work out how to keep all of them happy and get them performing. So there's a bit of that on the very big companies, but on the very small companies, if you're going to bring different people in, you're going to have to bring more than one in. You're to have to bring a group of them in and really mix them up.

Hutton (50:53.878)
and you're going to have to learn to communicate with with candor.

Jon Coogan (50:59.59)
Yeah, and think just we touched on a little bit earlier about just having those personal relationships and having that psychologically safe space to actually have those discussions and know that people can speak up and they'll be heard and listened to and I think that's really important.

Hutton (51:01.516)
I'm even.

Hutton (51:05.026)
Yeah, just

Hutton (51:15.756)
Yeah. Yeah. I've sort of had this experience recently with taking on somebody who in the IT world sort of had a ceiling and, thrown him into some way it's been great, you know, because he's had the same type of work forever and then thrown him into other, you know, technical roles originally then, then like management type things. And the reason why I did it is because he

Jon Coogan (51:18.63)
Okay.

Hutton (51:45.71)
It was when he was on projects, he would send me these random sort of teams messages at nine 30 at night. And I thought that guy's really engaged, you know, but, but he's got a ceiling and he can't see it. So let's pull that away and let's see where he will go. And now he's, I mean, he's very excited. So even within your team, you can diversify what people do.

Jon Coogan (52:10.79)
Yeah, and that is really important lesson is just helping. Essentially, it's all about helping people feel fulfilled and. Valued and part of that team, so yeah, it's really important. What I want to touch on as well Hudson is I know you've got your lens app. As well, which is innovation work of another one of your innovations can tell us a little bit about what lens app is and how that can help in mergers applications.

Hutton (52:38.006)
Yeah, it's, yeah, so, it's really, they're the number one common problem we see is founders don't know what to get ready. So, you know, suddenly they're, they're, they're in, you know, someone became interested. I spoke to someone last night, you know, he is in the States and, he'd just been approached by a company to be bought, but he was never preparing for that. And then you're going in like, you know, rabbit in the headlights scenario.

A, not prepared for the meeting and B, not having all the right information everywhere. So it's basically a way of looking at, making sure you upload all the right documentation. gives you a score and then looking at security, you know, like all these questionnaires around different things in your practices. So you can kind of score yourself before you go into a conversation.

And so it's a deal preparation tool really.

Jon Coogan (53:39.022)
Okay, and is that something that could help at any stage of a business or is that specific to mergers and acquisitions or or what practical uses can you put that?

Hutton (53:46.75)
Yeah, it's a good question. For the moment, we're keeping it around the deal cycle because the market is so large. And I think, you know, what we do as a business, we could do it for any business, but it's really sort of, it's just one of those things. So yes, it could help any business, you know, do all the things we've been talking about today, but generally.

We're keeping it around the deal because there's something a deal does that it creates a sense of urgency on all parties. So, and that's what we've learned from that.

Jon Coogan (54:26.18)
And what is it that made you go on to create LensApp? So what is it that's changed by creating this platform?

Hutton (54:34.52)
Well, I think like all the best ones, you know, things, it actually was built for us because we were managing so many different projects and we wanted to quickly understand where these firms were and also quick, know, if you were one of the investors, it's like, Jon, we're on this project. Here you go. So I didn't really believe in key, whilst, you know, presentations are very important. It's not the best way to communicate.

And so we built it initially as our internal tool and that's what we use today to deliver everything. And then we thought, wouldn't it be interesting to bring people on it as well?

Jon Coogan (55:15.366)
And are any particular tools as well that or places information that people can get about mergers and acquisitions? Is there a particular reading or blogs or anything that you can recommend to help people?

Hutton (55:26.24)
Yeah, yeah. So I think for being bought out or being prepared, there's a book called Built to Sell. Very easy sort of, I don't know if you've read that book, Jon?

Jon Coogan (55:39.886)
I've heard of it, it's not one I've got around to yet. I think I've got a bookshelf full at the moment of ones I keep meaning to get around to but haven't yet.

Hutton (55:46.19)
Yeah, it's a really easy, because he puts it through a story. And so that's a really, you know, it's a lovely way because it's quite easy to comprehend. And I would say to me, that's the equivalent of the E -Myth in terms of &A. You know, the E -Myth is the thing we should all read. I didn't read that book for 10 years of starting out. was like, my gosh, why haven't I read that? You know, and this, I would say is like, you're

your starter one for your firm being prepared for &A. I do think a really good company to look at is, although it's very investment sort of driven in terms of how they help, there's an agency, a marketing agency that specializes in this sort of thing called Robot Mascot. I don't know if you know them, but they do a level of different sort of

they have the book, then they have a small video course and it kind of goes through where eventually they can help people. But you will get so much from understanding the investor and buyer's mindset from their material.

Jon Coogan (56:58.716)
Just from, you've got a lot of experience in this area of mergers and acquisitions. You've built businesses, you've exited, you've coached people and created a lot of opportunities for mergers and acquisitions. What legacy is it that you're hoping to leave, both I'd say in business and in life?

Hutton (57:18.312)
it's funny because I think it's probably for me now it, it's musical rather than anything else. I mean, I think that's, you know, that's, that's sort of the journey I'm on really. and I had been on and off that journey. I took a big period off it whilst I was building a business and, and I, I didn't realize how unhappy that made me until I came back to it. So that, that's an interesting one. and I do think.

both my business partner and I would like to leave the legacy of that people analysis. So we are driving that through a little bit harder, not harder, but trying to really understand where it fits and why it creates value. And I think that would be our contribution to quite a well -served market, really.

Jon Coogan (58:12.304)
And what is it? Is there one specific thing that makes you believe that it's so much more focused on people than processes and businesses? What is it that's so important about people?

Hutton (58:26.823)
I think it would always go back to my experience at Ford, which really what I hadn't explained is I saw them face to face and I could, you know, when I was driving up to the other company had been bought, you could really see how it hit them emotionally. And, you know, I do think things have changed, you know, that they're not shunted in as much anymore. But

I just think at the end of the day, is a merger of people, not a merger of companies. So if you can take that stance, you would do it differently.

Jon Coogan (59:05.242)
And just as one thing I'd like to kind leave on really is what advice would you give to aspiring leaders? So they're just starting their journeys. What should they focus on to build a lasting legacy for their tomorrow?

Hutton (59:20.479)
Hutton (59:24.674)
It's an interesting one. think it's, it's, there's two aspects. I think the personal journey development piece and your gut feel, when you know something, you let something go or whatever and trying to try and address that because that will impact your happiness and your success. and then I'll go back to what I was saying earlier, you know, and that's not me just coming up with a catchphrase.

but do obsess around your customer's problem, sit and try and find time to imagine it more often. I think once we get something started and working, most of the effort goes on the service and product and less time actually sitting with the customer.

Jon Coogan (01:00:11.484)
Yeah, fantastic. I think that's pretty much all we've got time for today. What I would like to do though, if people want to find out a little bit more about what you're doing and some of the works that you're working on, you've got your book, your graphic novel, your businesses, where can we find more information about you and what you're up to?

Hutton (01:00:29.662)
So I think our company is doing quite well at the moment. It's Linktree, isn't it? They're everywhere. yeah, so if you do the Linktree slash my full name, which is Hutton Henry, you'll find a myriad of guides and help. The graphic novel is there. The book is there. Everything is there for consumption, really.

Jon Coogan (01:00:33.531)
Yeah.

Jon Coogan (01:00:48.988)
Fantastic. So thank you very much for being on. I think your journey is proof it's a great success and business comes when you're valuing people behind the technology and behind the transactions. So thank you very much for being on and reminding us that really. So in the end, it's about leading with both heart and mind, which we should all definitely take on board. So thank you very much for your time. Cheers.

Hutton (01:01:09.26)
Thank you for having me Jon, it's been really great. Thank you.