It was the longest weekend of Adam Ward’s life.
Ward and Josh Graham founded Airtime Rewards in 2014 and had grown it into a multi-million-pound business when events took a dramatic turn for the worse.
One Friday in March 2023, news broke in the US that regulators had stepped in to take over the stricken California-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).
Airtime Rewards, which is set to hit £40m turnover this year, was a customer of SVB and Ward told The Naked Founder podcast he quickly feared the worst.
“One minute you’re scaling your business and the next you’re watching the bank collapse with all of your money in it,” he recalled. “It was a pretty emotional weekend.
“I remember trying to get into the bank account on the Friday afternoon and they’d stopped you withdrawing money.
“What had happened was there had been a run on the banks. People had seen the article in the US, put two and two together and decided to act on it and pull their money out. The UK arm of the bank had put a stop on that happening.”
By Saturday, the full extent of SVB’s collapse on the UK tech sector had become apparent.
Ward told The Naked Founder podcast: “Saturday was about lobbying the government to try and step in and save one of the biggest assets of the UK, which was the tech scene.”
Frantic negotiations
Frantic negotiations continued over the weekend and, on Monday, it was announced that HSBC had acquired Silicon Valley Bank UK for £1.
“We went back into work on the Monday and fortunately the bank had been bought by HSBC, which was guaranteeing all the deposits, so our money was safe,” he said.
“It was almost like it didn’t happen. We finished the day with access to our money.”
Earlier in his life, Ward had looked set for a career in accountancy or law before finding his calling in tech.
While studying law at university, he started building software that created mobile ringtones and made him a small fortune in the process.
Ward taught himself to code and, in 2014, he and Josh Graham launched Karrot, which later became Airtime Rewards.
The company works with hundreds of retailers and has millions of users, but its success counted for little when Ward’s son Max – now five – was diagnosed with a genetic condition called Angelman syndrome.
Angelman syndrome (AS) is a rare neuro-genetic disorder that affects around one in 500,000 people. Individuals with the condition require lifelong care but can live long, happy lives.
Max Ward has Angelman syndrome
Ward was in London when he received the phone call telling him of his son’s diagnosis.
“We were told over the course of a five-minute appointment that the reason why Max was having all these challenges and problems and why he was in hospital so much was because of this genetic condition they’d tested for and we were given a diagnosis of Angelman syndrome,” he told The Naked Founder podcast.
Tears
“You can imagine the outburst of tears from my wife. I was sitting in my car trying to take it all in and understand what it meant. We literally left the appointment with a pamphlet to say what Angelman syndrome was and how my son would be over the next few years and that was it.”
The diagnosis prompted the entrepreneur to launch the Max Ward Foundation to support other families affected by Angelman syndrome.
As well as setting up the foundation, Ward embarked on a fitness regime and has lost 25kg.
Explaining his reasoning, he said: “If I was to support Max and the family as much as I could, I needed to be the best version of myself.
“I think a lot of founders fall into the trap (that) you’re so focused on the business and all of your responsibilities that sometimes you forget about you.”
The Naked Founder podcast is sponsored by Financielle and produced by Dan Brown.
You can listen the episode here