Entrepreneur opens up about the death of his co-founder and ‘best friend’

Entrepreneur and tech investor  Jonathan Fitchew  has explained his decision to exit North West-based Pareto Law.

In a heartfelt interview with TechBlast he explained he couldn’t continue without his co-founder Andy Sawer, who died in January 2021 of an aggressive type of brain cancer called glioblastoma.

What do you do when your best friend and business partner dies?

The following day Fitchew went in the office they’d shared in Wilmslow, Cheshire, and realised immediately he couldn’t work without his best friend.

“I shared an office with him for 26 years side-by-side and as soon as I walked in I knew it was over and I had to leave,” recalled the 59-year-old, who is also an investor in North West-based Venn Digital and a cloud hosting provider called Next Connex.

Fitchew has spoken out in the hope it will break down the taboo around talking about grief.

“An individual doesn’t define a business, and Pareto Law continues to do an amazing job, but when Andy died part of me died too. I knew within a second of looking at Andy’s empty desk I was out.”