Peter Garraghan is the founder and CEO of Mindgard, a university spinout that works with organisations to secure their AI systems against emerging threats.
In this week’s Founder in Five Q&A, Garraghan discusses using technology to address real needs, finding an organisational system that works for you and how founders often underestimate the value of time.
What one thing do you wish you’d done differently when launching your company?
There is a tremendous amount of trial by fire when it comes to running a company. If there was one thing I would have done differently, it would have been identifying and avoiding activities with higher likelihood of sunk cost. Another one would be knowing what messages/outreach are worth qualifying, and which ones are noise.
What advice would you give to a first-time founder?
Groundbreaking technology alone isn’t enough; ensure your innovation addresses real business needs. Balance technical and business skills, and if you lack one, find a co-founder who complements you. A strong partnership can fill gaps, foster diverse perspectives, and greatly increase your chances of success.
What’s a common mistake that you see founders make?
Underestimating the value of time. Founders must become experts at prioritising tasks and managing their time effectively. There’s never a shortage of tasks to tackle, but time is your most valuable resource. Early on with Mindgard, I struggled to balance academic responsibilities with building a startup and underestimated how much time was needed for refining our value proposition, securing funding, and aligning with market needs.
Do you have a productivity hack?
Having an active personal Trello board that I add all meaningful tasks to, prioritised in terms of criticality based on current business goals. This helps with keeping track of progress, and what activities must be completed, should be completed, and should be dropped.
Excluding your sector, which nascent technology holds the most promise?
I have always found unconventional computing interesting, specifically exploring non-traditional material and means of compute. DNA computing in particular springs to mind. While it is still in its early stages, advancements in biotechnology and nanotechnology may unlock its potential for practical applications.
Founder in Five – a UKTN Q&A series with the entrepreneurs behind the UK’s innovative tech startups, scaleups and unicorns – is published every Friday.
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