After beginning his career as a fast-track graduate with British Airways, Nick Hynes helped pilot the loss-making loyalty points brand, Air Miles, to a $62m profit within four years by developing and implementing the then-new idea of universal electronic loyalty points and later spearheaded the use of the internet in booking travel. Nick pioneered paid search advertising, building European operations for Overture in just 30 months before it was acquired by Yahoo! for $1.63bn. He went on to found search marketing agency The Search Works, sold to TradeDoubler for $112m, and in 2009 started Somo, a mobile solutions business helping companies understand the connected customer revolution.

Nick was named as one of the top 20 most influential and inspirational Britons in the BIMA Digital Hall of Fame. In addition to a range of investment advisory roles, Nick is NED and investor in Swiftkey and Chairman of Reward, the technology loyalty company that powers loyalty providers like the NatWest Cash Back Plus programme for over 10 million customers.

WHAT IS THE KEY QUALITY THAT FOUNDERS SHOULD DRAW ON WHEN STARTING A NEW BUSINESS?

When we set up Somo in 2009, there were a few giants in the market and most people said, “Oh my god, what are you doing? There are huge companies here, people like BlackBerry, Nokia – these guys know everything.” The iPhone had been out about 18 months in the UK market. Easy to say now, but we predicted, “This is going to change everything.”

That is one of the threads that runs through most of the things that I have been doing all these years. That insight is what I would call “A-skill stuff”. We decided we wanted to build a business that was part of that wave. It’s just something I’m able to do. For anybody that’s an entrepreneur, you need to be fighting on the ground where your A-skill – whatever it is – is to the fore. That’s the skill I have, so I spend a lot of time and energy on that.

AIR MILES WAS NOT A NEW BUSINESS WHEN YOU JOINED, YET YOU HELPED IT GROW AT START-UP PACE – HOW?

When I got involved with it, it was a paper voucher business, which was a disaster. When I joined, it was rapidly going south. British Airways parachuted me in to try and sort it out as IT director. We developed an electronic points proposition, which is now the granddaddy of all loyalty schemes. We brought all that together without the internet, creating our own standard used across all our key partners, Shell, NWB, Sainsbury’s and BT.

They went from losing £3m to, when I left four or five years later, we were making $62m. I was running half the business line but nearly all the staff. When I first joined, it was nearly 80 folks, which went to over 1,800 staff – immense growth, just astonishing growth. I remain very proud to have been part of the Management Board that created this success.

That’s where I cut my teeth on how you integrate growth, marketing and technology, changing the way markets work, changing the way consumers behave and creating completely new technology to achieve this.

OVERTURE (INITIALLY BRANDED GOTO) WAS ONE OF THE FOUNDATION COMPANIES FOR ONLINE ADVERTISING, AND THE ORIGINATOR OF THE PAID SEARCH MODEL IN 1998. HOW DID IT GET STARTED?

I got recruited to join a little company called GoTo, later renamed Overture.

I immediately recognised it for what it was, which was direct marketing coming to the web, which, at the time, was a totally display advertising driven marketing environment.

Launching the business in Europe from home, I went from literally my back bedroom on my own and built a team – technology, operations, sales and marketing, business development, the whole lot – across 16 countries. We went to 650 people in four years. It almost killed me, frankly – it was incredibly hard, but incredibly rewarding as well.

We transformed the world of marketing by introducing the phrase “pay for performance”, you only pay when it works. That helped to change the way in which a lot of industries actually now operate, like travel, financial services and retail.

HOW CAN COMPANIES STAY RELEVANT WHEN ALL AROUND THEM IS IN TRANSFORMATION AND COMPETITIVE THREATS ARE COMMONPLACE?

Whatever we’ve set out to do has been dramatically changed along theway. Being open to change is absolutely critical. We’ve chosen to be like a mammal – we adapt, we twist, we turn and we don’t get bogged down in a specific.

At some point, we will specialise more. But, in the world of mobile – which is still very emergent, it’s still crazy, new things are happening at a huge pace all the time – we need to have agility and to respond to every twist and turn in the market.

WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO CREATE A TEAM THAT PULLS IN THE SAME DIRECTION AS YOUR VISION?

Ever since 1993, all the businesses I’ve been involved with have a values-based culture. In a world of ambiguity and uncertainty, people need something to hang on to. We lead with four values: Create Success, Lead with Knowledge, Love Innovation, Be Brave.

We use this as a filter mesh over CVs. When we bring people in, the first conversation is around these values. It gives people a self-managing tool, do they believe in the values, or is it not for them. That’s the most important part of a values-based culture.

We haven’t hired a single person at Somo for a “job”. Whatever job they’re doing, in three months’ time, will be something else. What you’re hiring for is a set of skills, attributes, attitude, ambition and belief.

Share the ownership of your company. Whenever you talk to your staff – whether it’s one-to-one, in a group or in a town hall-type meeting – make sure everybody there is addressed and spoken to as a fellow owner. I’ve given up a lot of ownership, far more ownership to staff and management than I have to external funding – this is what fuels my business. That’s what we’ve found works over and over again.

Sharing ownership doesn’t stop and start on the equity side – share your vision. Where are we all trying to get to? There’s no point laminating it and putting it in the top drawer of people’s desks – the vision is what we live with every day and is what we use as a benchmark in everything we do. Very often, especially in high-growth businesses, it’s unclear what the next three steps are going to be. But we’re sure of the next one, and we know which mountain we’re trying to climb.

THE MARKET FOR TALENT, PARTICULARLY IN TECHNOLOGY, IS FIERCE. WHAT IS THE BEST APPROACH TO KEEPING AND ACQUIRING STAFF?

When people have reached the zenith of their potential within our organisation, we move them on; move them out of our organisation. We move them on in their journey in their careers, on to other companies, though preferably not to competitors.

We want to attract people at the other end who know they are there not just as meat for the sausage machine but to be developed and challenged. That means people grow and they achieve fabulous things.

We have two appraisals a year. Nobody’s allowed to get more than eight out of 10. If they are that competent they will get stagnant. If I’ve coached someone to the point they’re ready to be a general manager but I don’t have a position for them, I find them a general manager position somewhere else.

HAS THERE BEEN AN INSPIRING FIGURE YOU CREDIT FOR YOUR BUSINESS SUCCESS?

The reason why I’m any good at what I do at all is because of Lord Marshall. He took over British Airways, which was then the civilian RAF, made it a public company and transformed the way it operated. He brought in a snotty-nosed kid like me and put me through the most amazing training. When I look at my people today and see what training they have received, it’s a fraction of what I had. If I have any skills at all, it’s due to that British Airways background. Including paying for me to do an MBA.

THE BEST LAID PLANS CAN GET SUBSUMED BY DAILY MINUTIAE AND FIRE-FIGHTING. HOW CAN ENTREPRENEURS BEST USE THEIR ENERGY?

In the early 2000s, when GoTo was very small, we got out-trumped by Espotting when they won some landmark deals. But we focused on where we were trying to get to overall rather than “How do we beat Espotting?”. When you’re emotionally involved, it’s important to stay clear-headed about winning the war rather than get distracted by an emotionally-demanding battle.

There are only 168 hours in the week. You can try paddling up river but eventually, it’s going to kill you. You need to go with the flow, with the change force. The way the internet was changing everybody’s lives … go with that, rather than battling your way through the rapids, going upstream. You’ll just crash and burn.