Shena Brien - CEO & Co-Founder at @ IP Telecom

Speaker A: Love this podcast. Support this show through the supporter feature from Acast. It's up to you how much you give and uh, there's no regular commitment. Just hit the link in the show description to support now.

Speaker B: You're very welcome to another episode of the scaling your business podcast. I believe this is episode 200 and M. I'm delighted to be joined by Sheena Breen, who was recently called the Irish woman who's transforming telecoms, CEO and co founder of IP Telecom. Sheena, you're very welcome to the show.

Speaker A: Thank you for having me.

Speaker B: Typical. Delighted to have you. Typical fashion shows. We kind of rewind the clock to what it was like where you grew up. I can see you went to college in Carlo. It. Talk to me about. I believe you said you grew up in Cork. We were chatting just before you started.

Speaker A: No, I, I live in corp. I have a house in Cork now. Yeah, no, I grew up in Dublin. I grew up in Newcastle, funny enough. Yeah, so, um, in Dublin and spent my, my childhood there. Um, I ended up in Carlo because it's just where I ended up going to college. But it was a brilliant place to go to college.

Speaker B: So it's like growing up in Dublin and Newcastle.

Speaker A: So Newcastle was a really small village when I was growing up so we had the advantage of being able to go into the city because they had this hourly bus service that we had. Um, but it was, it was a very upbringing, you know, we were able to with a lot of freedom. So we'd get on our bikes and go off for the whole day with my friends and whatever and um, I was very, very lucky. I had a very forward thinking mother to be fair, back in those days. You know, most, most mothers have been wrapping their kids and kind of youngest of four, three older brothers I would have been, you know, there was a tendency to maybe treat me like the little, little precious thing. Oh my God. Not with my mother, to be fair. I was like she expected me to be just as hard as the guys and doing whatever I needed to do. So as a result I followed one of my brothers into electronic engineering when I went to college at Carlo. So, um, that's all I ever really wanted to be, was a techie.

Speaker B: Interesting. You mentioned your brother. Typical, uh, question I asked on the podcast is around influence, but influence in the early years that had an impact on who you became in later life. People can typically point to family member, potential teacher in primary school. You've already mentioned your brother, but perhaps there's one or two other individuals that had a Massive impact on your early years. That kind of helped you become the person you are today.

Speaker A: So I have to, I, I've already mentioned her. Give a shout out to my mom. Ah, no longer with us. But my mother grew up in the East End of London to Irish parents. She had been born in Cork and um, her, both her, her parents were entrepreneurs in effect. My, my grandfather made coffins, believe it or not. He was a carpenter and my grandmother ran a shop in Cork city and they lost their businesses. So they had been through the whole, you know, entrepreneur thing, taking the risks, open the business closing and ended up moving to Dublin. So my mom had that in her and all her life worked really, really hard. Grafting was in my family, you know, you had to go out and work. I had my first job when I was 14. I was working in a restaurant and I think that's where it got me, my ethos for customer service. Not that we were sent out and you know, the old days of uh, sending kids out to work at bare feet or whatever. But no, it was, you know, getting the value of money and understanding the value of work. So mom set up her own company when she was 55 and she started driving and she always wanted to drive it wants to drive. And that actually influenced me. I'm a big, big fan of cars and anything that goes fast, planes, whatever. So she would have been a huge influence on me. I'm really supportive and the fact that I was a girl made no difference whatsoever. I could do whatever I wanted to do. Um, obviously my brothers had. Had not some influence into me, but generally I would, I would say my mom would have been the key one for, for me. She grew up in the east side of London, worked kind of post war, so there was, you know, she kind of did jobs that not necessarily would have been done by, by women. So it didn't even occur to her that women couldn't do everything. So that, that was what I grew up with. I, you know, it never occurred to me I couldn't be an engineer. And I was one of nine. In Carlow there are nine female engineers and the rest of them were 122, I think guys. Um, but again it just strived. It gave me the, the intention to kind of strive and be better at what I was doing. So that's the whole thing started. Yeah.

Speaker B: Shout out to your mom sounds like an awesome person. You've mentioned your mom and your brother having an influence on your decision to do engineering. What made you fall in love with it was it just Seeing what your elder brothers enjoyed and wanted to spend time with them.

Speaker A: We had not really because trust me, boys and girls, doesn't happen when you're growing up much, much later. We're all good friends now. Um, no Electronic engineering. So I went down to Carlo to do an interview. I actually didn't get in through my CEO, didn't do the traditional set. I did two years doing a pre college course, engineering where I did all kinds of engineering stuff. I did computer programming, I did mechanics. It's a really good entry level. They don't do them anymore. It's like a plc but it was all kinds of different engineering courses. And um, so one of those I came out of that was a computer programming. I thought I had, I actually had a particular talent for it. So I was going down to Carlo to do an interview with the head of computer science about doing computer science degree. And as I walked in the door with Carlo, this is how random things happen. There was a sign saying electronic engineering, um, interviews this way. And I went, sure, why not? And uh, and you know what? It was the best thing I ever did because the course I did was actually 50% programming, 50% engineering. And it was at the beginning of networking. So I learned I was one of the first graduates come out of college with a networking degree. And that's my very first job was in networking. So as I mentioned before my, my previous jobs with customer service working in bars and restaurants. I wanted to work with customers. I knew that as a passion. That is my big thing. I just, I love our customers and I love all our customers and come with me to work for. It's always been about making sure they, they understand what we're doing and I understand what they want. And um, so yeah, so my very first job working for an uh, early subsidiary. We're dealing with travel agents and not the most technical people, but they're amazing people. They love, they love customers too. So we spent, I spent four years working with them at ah, the beginning of you know, interconnectivity and networking and before the Internet. And it was really interesting to help those guys understand and how it would actually work for them to do their day job. So for my very first job that's pretty much what I was doing my whole life. I was a very, I was a techie. But I did have a skill of dumbing it down if you like to make people, make people understand it and help people to understand it. So that was uh, yeah, that's how I ended up in engineering.

Speaker B: You, you you, you touched on one of the jobs that you got with the, the Aer Ling. Um, I want to kind of focus on, on that period. So like, you know, let's focus back on like 1990s. You spent five years at, at that early this company, if I'm correct. Tmas. Was that what it was called?

Speaker A: Tmas? Yeah, they now, oh, gosh, they became Galileo Ireland when they were bought out by another company. So Aer Lingus had, um, had little. I don't know, this is obviously prior to your time reading, but you used to have little terminals when you went into a travel agency to book your holidays and they were all connected back to a mainframe. Um, so this is like, this is even pre my time, to be fair. Um, but it was. I remember my first. I actually remember my interview. Brian reached out to me recently, my old manager, and he looked at me because I was a girl first and foremost doing, you know, coming in to do an engineering role. Um, and he said, I'm quite short, I'm only 5 foot 2. And we were dealing with a lot of heavy equipment. And he was like, are you sure you're going to be able to handle all this? And then he stopped himself and he said, you know, the new world. I can't really ask you that. You know, the fact that you're a girl, it makes no difference. The rest of your shirt makes no difference. So it was really, um. It was. He took a punt on me and literally within six months I was actually team lead. I was managing the team up there, um, helping travel agents, doing installations. It was a very exciting job. I learned, I cut my teeth in that role. I learned a lot about managing a team from very early age, you know, very, very, very start my career. I had great mentors. So, um, Brian and Tom were my, my two managers in there and they really helped me, taught me a lot about analysis and how to deal with. With network issues. And that stood me in good stead right until this day, really. I still tell the lads and work stories of my early days and they're like, oh, my God, here she goes again.

Speaker B: You did, you did spend like five years there. And it seems to. It probably felt like 20 years of experience in those five years, given the fact that, you know, you became a top performer, you were managing people. What was one standout lesson, considering it was kind of like, I don't know, I don't want to label it as your first, like, real, but it was the first job I saw on LinkedIn. What was one standout lesson that you learned from managing teams that like has, has stood the test of time, that you know, you can still go, that's still a good lesson in, in 2023.

Speaker A: So I guess there's two things for me. First one was be prepared. Um, if you talk to any of my old colleagues back in those days, they tell you I was always end up going to site and leaving something back at the office. So, so now I write list when I'm going out the door. So being prepared, managing the team, I think the key thing I learned, I'm very early on is it's more about your team than it is about you and they're always a reflection on you. Um, so to, to, to do everything you do in order to support your team because that was, you know, I would, I got that very much from my managers. Um, looking back, I guess they were learning skills while they were doing that, but it felt to me like they were putting their own careers on hold while they were trying to help me get up the ladder. And, and so I've taken that through with every team that I've ever worked with. I've always made sure that any team that I work with have the, you know, the opportunities that they wanted to do to grow. Um, you know, even if that means I'm saying to them, look, you reach as much as you're going to do with us, it's time for you to move on. So, and that was very much where I reached the five years, the end of my five years, both myself, my direct line manager left at the same time, literally the same day. And it was like we both realized that at that stage, that company, you know, we love working there, it was like a family, but it was time for us to move on. And I was very lucky to be headhunted by a very similar company in the uk. Um, and that gave me my, my jump to, you know, my network designer role. And, and I went from. So we had been building networks in Ireland of about 20 sites around the country. You know, Ireland's not a very big country. So I actually went and designed and built 120 sites network infrastructure in the UK in my next job. So that was amazing. And I went in very young and my, my partner in that job was nearing retirement. So it was uh, it was very, very different. Very few people had the experience that I had at that stage. It was a brand new technology and the Internet was just coming to the fore. So you know, it was, it was, I was at the forefront and as I say My degree was the first one that had networking so it was, it was a very exciting time. And um, you know, it was really being pumped along. But yeah, managing, pushing your team forward, giving them what they need in order to do the skills that they actually need to do their job. And that's, that's key for me.

Speaker B: Certainly sounds like you got. You, you, you, you like won a, the lotto or gold maybe that university could have charged 10 times a month if they knew what you were going to get over the following decade. And because not only that, you, you uh, well not only that I'm referencing the Lingus company, but you spend some time with other companies like ntl, Leap, Magnet, Network one. I'm um, looking for you to pick one of those companies that stands out and talk about a pivotal moment in your career that still stands to this day.

Speaker A: So, so there's two things really that happened. I went to work for NTL in pre sales, so I'm a, uh, support engineering installation. So I'm a hardcore engineer at this stage. And then I went in at pre sales and I never would have considered myself a salesperson. So that was a key one for me because I actually learned that I can sell and not an E, not in a hard sell, knocking on doors, buy my product from me, but in assisting a salesperson to put the right solution together for the customer. So that's, that's a big thing for me, you know, is understanding, listening to your customer, understanding what they're looking for and then finding a solution that works for them. So that was key and unfortunately they made me redundant which it actually turned into a bonus because then I ended up working for Leap and um, Rory and Charlie Arda uh, taught me a huge amount about entrepreneurship and starting up your own business and how hard it is and the graft you have to do and the successes and the failures. Um, I left LEAP pretty much knowing that even though we were bought by Magnus, I think I pretty much always knew that I was never going to work full time for another company again. And then through Leap, I actually bumped into Brian Chamberlain, who's my business partner and co founder at IP Telecom, so that I can actually put my finger on ntl making me redundant to my pivotal moment. And it really is, and it does happen. Life changing things where you sit back afterwards go, my God, my life is over, I've just lost my favorite job. It was such a lovely job, great bunch of people. And now I work with an amazing company with an amazing bunch of people who are absolutely fantastic and they're mine, you know. So it's a definite. Yeah, I can put my finger on it. That was it. Um, and it was. You were bought by Magnus. Brian and myself decided to go to start this wonderful business that we know very few people were talking about at that stage. And um, and it just went from strength to strength and it's the best thing I ever did.

Speaker B: Love it. You mentioned IP telecom. It'd be, you would do a much better job giving you 32nd commercial than I would, considering that your baby. So the mic is yours.

Speaker A: Okay, thank you very much. Well, again, as I said, we started IP Telecom when, when VoIP was just in its infancy. And again, um, we set up the company in order to provide, I guess best breed telecom services for customers. Um, again, going back to my background, it's all about customer service. It's all about, you know, what the customer is looking for. Um, and I felt at that time, and not to denigrate any of the competition that I, that I'm in, but I just felt they were missing a trick and I think they still do. You know, um, customers are numbers and they're at the end of an ivr. And it's so frustrating for customers, not especially business customers is the market we're in, you know, not to get help and support where they're at. And it might not be a fault, it might be just how do I do this? Or how do I, you know, my phone's not doing what it should be doing. So we designed the solution. So in the early days, I guess it was a, uh, it was a very entry level solution. But as we grew the business from a very, um, very small startup, um, it was just myself and Brian working in the business. We were doing everything, erecting installations, we were doing support and we were developing and every penny we, we earned, we put back into the business. So we know for the first two or three years there was no salaries. You know, we were just plowing everything back in. Um, and I guess, I guess the thing I would, I would impart to a lot of people setting up their own business is just go for it. And one of my, one of my idols is actually Richard Branson. His big thing is just take risks. There are times in your life where you just have to bite the bullet and go for it. And if it's something you're passionate about, you will succeed. And it's the passion of what it's all about. Sorry, a little bit of an interlude there. So we, we set up the business, we wrote we started investing in the business and we built this infrastructure which is, which is a distributed architecture. Don't want to get too techy but that's, it's quite easy to explain. It's in multiple data centers. Um, and we went from a solution that was you know, failover backup and failover which used to take about Very intense 10 minutes to come up when it was failing over to us backup to now not having a single point of failure. You know, we've got 99.998 uptime and our customers don't experience any downtime. And so we're very confident with our network so that we can actually give that, that translates to us being confident to give support for our customers and help them to find the solution. So um, we have customers across diverse verticals. So we have farmers and we have high tech companies, we have recruitment agencies, we retail. Um, and because it works across every, every business, I mean I, you know, you smile at the farmers. It's like I actually one of my most exciting conversations only happened during COVID and it's funny enough down here in West Cork and this, this farmer who's, he does a lot of food, um, he grows, I think he's involved in, in uh, cattle and he basically uses their output for the wonderful foodies, foodie business that we have down here. So um, I was talking to him, I found him. It's game. Every now and then I pick up the phone, talk to our customers after their install just to see how they're getting on. And m. He was, there was wind in the background. I could hear him on, on our, one of our apps talking to us, heading out to check out on the cattle. And I said so how's your service going? He says, she this is the first day I've been able to do my day job which I love, hang out with my, my animals at the same time. I'm not missing calls from my vendors, my suppliers. So I'm actually able to run my business at the same time. And I actually thought that summed it up because IP telecom solution is like, it's an app based solution. So it's very now, it's very much for the future and makes it very easy for somebody like him to be able to take his business out no matter where he is. So that uh, I have that picture of this man walking across the field and his wellies and it's terrible, such a high tech company. But that sums it up for me. Able to run your business no matter where you are, how you how you do your business and what your business is. That's a very, that's a very strap line. And I'm really sorry, but that's kind of how I feel about our business.

Speaker B: So an absolutely fantastic story. I can see the passion is there as well. You've scaled the business, as you said, from you and your co founder to what it is today, and I'm sure you're going to continue to grow it. But throughout that scaling process, I'm sure you encountered many blind spots that you had to overcome. Whether that's like spending more time focused on lead generation in the early days to hiring. You know, cost of a bad hire is, is, is, is not cheap. Um, learn helplessness. Several other blind spots. What's one blind spot that you encountered in the past that you can potentially help another startup founder avoid?

Speaker A: Okay, so this is funny because this is the advice every, every new business is found. There's a couple of them. Reen. I could talk about these all day because they're actually quite. We didn't start really selling until we got our salesperson in 2016 and we set the business up in 2010. Before that it was just. And 100. Okay, that's a, that's uh, a nugget. Friends and family people, you know, go to your own network. If you're not salespeople, they're the easiest one for you to get in the business with. When, when you set up your own business, the first thing they tell you to do, even if you're not earning money, is pay yourself a salary, even if you put it on the books. And the only problem with that is you have to have money to pay things like your prsi, even if you're not earning right. And that's really hard for some business. You don't even have enough money to pay your social, social welfare stamps. Um, do it. We didn't mistake. We should have done it. And we know. And you put the money in the business and at some stage you can take that money back out again. So that's one thing. And then that's purely on a. Yeah, that's purely on a startup business. Very, very early days when you're, when you're putting every penny you have into the business, just take that little bit out and make sure that you're securing your future. You don't think your business is ever going to be successful at those days. You're waiting for it to kind of collapse, you know, um, very early days. I'm talking about now. But it was, you know, Very, very clear, very early on that what we were doing was a little bit different. Uh, so we were quite happy. That's a bit of, a little bit of advice I give you. Trust your gut. I said this in so many interviews going back, way back when this is the one thing. And when I read it now, I kind of cringe. But you know what, it's right when you know, you know your business better than anybody else, so you know that something's wrong. And this is to do with the hiring. If you're talking to somebody and they just don't seem to be as good as, you know, they seem to be too good to be true, the chances are they are. And there, there are lots of ways. I mean, you know, um, HR is not my first forte and it's not something that, um, that I would have, you know, thought I would be ending up what I do a lot of time now in the company. Get an expert to work with you. That's really, really key. Try not to make those costly mistakes. We're very, very lucky that we, we deal with an outsourced HR company who are just amazingly, very, very supportive of the business. And they have been working with us for a long time and. But again, yeah, trust your gut. Um, don't believe everything everybody says when they're coming in for their interviews. Remember what it was like when you were interviewing yourself.

Speaker B: What's the saying? They're like everyone's best interview. Uh, uh, everyone's best version of themselves is in the interview.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. And use the six months. Use those first six months. And not just for a. You know, sometimes you've got a cultural fit. You know, sometimes people you bring in just don't work with the people they're working with. Um, and so sometimes there's nothing to do with the actual individual. They're extremely talented. We've had some really, really SM people work for us and it hasn't worked out because, you know, the person they're working with closely, they just don't get on with. They just hate them. You know, they just look at work, you know, so I just beware. I'd be conscious of that as a manager, making sure you know what the dynamic is in those early days. It's really, really important. Um, so costly mistakes, I don't think we had any because we had no money to spend on the early days. And so. But we did learn from our mistakes all the time. As I said, that original infrastructure we knew. I mean, to be fair. Giving him kudos, Brian. Knew from the early days that that wasn't going to survive and that wasn't going to grow with us and it wasn't going to be scalable. It was basically multi tenanted solution that you'd have in an office, you know, shared office space. And we just had to grow from that into what we have today. So all our money was going into developing that. So we did that pretty early. Um, get your salesperson in earlier. I guess that's, that's a key thing because that would have, it was one of those things that paid for itself and you don't, even when you, you know, you've got low, low revenue coming through the company, it's worth investing on a good salesperson and because that will help you to grow. And we definitely grew once we had a sales team on board. Um, so yeah, I think there's lots of nuggets. Like I could talk about nuggets all day, but they were the key things. Um, reward your good people, look after your people. And I think I said this about my very first job and the work I've done over the years with management. Make sure you look after your team. It doesn't have to be all about money. You know, people feel appreciated. I felt appreciated when I was working for somebody else. If I was sent on a course or if, if my manager did an interest in my career. And that's the key thing, I think understand when and do that at the interview stage. Ask the question. You know, everybody says this, this five year thing, where do you want to be in five years time? It's a very legitimate question because it helps me to understand where do I want to take this person to, how do I help them get to where they're going to be. And it may not be with us, but we, we will definitely have the best of that person if we're helping them to get to where they want to go. So, bit too much HR stuff.

Speaker B: But yeah, that's, that's, there's plenty lessons. I wanted one. I got more than one. Sorry, no, I'm, um, I'm dead happy. Um, when I was doing preparation for this podcast, one of the places I looked was LinkedIn, um, only naturally. And I saw that we've got a ton of mutual connections. So one of the final questions I have for you is how important is it to build your network?

Speaker A: Do you know what? It's very, very. It's important to maintain your network. So I've built a network over many years. Um, and as I say my recent podcasts have given me an opportunity to go back and talk to other managers and people that I used to work with and seeing where they are now. And we're actually doing business with some people that I've had 20 relationships with. Um, so, yeah, it's really important also you get to learn other technologies and other. Other businesses and what other people are doing, so it helps you to interact with your customers as well. Um. So, yeah, and it's. It's a really important thing. I actually like LinkedIn. I'm also on social media and Facebook and stuff, which is purely for friends, friends and family. I don't talk business on Facebook and I'm really not very good with social media, apart from link and never done the Twitter thing. I'm kind of glad now, in retrospect, you know, but no offense to anybody does Twitter. But, um. But no, it's. I do enjoy and I. I learn a lot from LinkedIn every now. I don't often get a chance to go through, um, you know, this past weekend I was on quite a bit because there was a lot of activity and in IP telecom, um, and it was just an interesting. It was interesting to go in and go down those rabbit holes that you don't have time during the day. You know, it's nice to do it over the weekend and, and see what people are doing and people that I like being connected with. I've. There's an amazing girl, uk, um, Hannah, I can never remember her, her surname. She works for bt. She went as apprentice to bt. So she's been climbing poles and digging holes and putting cables. So she's sort of like me, only now, you know, and she's, uh, she's got. She's a very pretty girl and she's got a little girl herself. I know she's going to be like my mom, you know, she's going to give that. That girl the influences that I had. I just. I just think she's a big warrior and she's winning awards left, right and center for customer service and everything else, and she's just amazing. So that's the kind of stuff I get on LinkedIn and I learn about what other people are doing and, um, I follow Richard Branson, obviously, because he's just. My gosh.

Speaker B: Final question for you as we wrap things up. If you were a Minister for Education and you could add one mandatory subject to the Leaving sir curriculum that's not currently on it, what would you add and why?

Speaker A: I was hoping you were going to ask me that question. I was preparing for that question. Driving. Now, this is not just to do with my mother. Every child should leave school knowing how to drive. It should not be. It should be 100 mandatory. Absolutely. I also would have a life skills course. And you do not leave school knowing basic, uh, you know, P L And I'm not talking about your business P and L. I mean your, your life P L. How much money am I going to earn? How much money do I have to save? And I'd also tell. Talk to kids about pensions. This is really sad, but you don't know it until you're my age how important it is to start saving early. So I think life skills would be really good. And it's not Home EC and it's not economics and it's not m. A subject that's actually being taught today. It's a subject that's uh. And I think transition year is being missed. I think the opportunity of transition year is actually being missed to give kids a real understanding of what life is going to be about. And um, a lot of the kids that get into transition year are a bit clueless by the time we've had a couple of transition year students that come to work with us. And some of them are really smart, but that's because their parents are brilliant. But some people are. Some of the kids coming in are just, just kids, you know. And then it's not appropriate for them to come into the workplace. So life skills. Yeah, Driving, driving. Life skills.

Speaker B: I'm delighted with that answer because that's the first time someone said a new answer. Most people say something along the lines of coding or uh, usually something to do with finance or interpersonal skills. But driving is a unique one. So thank you for contributing that sheen. It's been an absolute pleasure spending the last 30 minutes chatting to you, getting to know you, understanding what it was like growing up in Newcastle all the way to. What made you pick Engineering the influence. But your mother and, and your uh, brothers had on. On your life a positive influence at that. And then learning more about some of the lessons. You learned that at uh, Lee, but the Aer Lingus company at uh, Magnet and then. And then starting and growing IP Telecom. Uh, wish you continued success, uh, but for today we'll leave it there.

Speaker A: Thank, uh, you so much. Reen. I really enjoyed talking to you.