People often talk about technology as if the tools are the story.
After 20 years in tech and AI, I’ve learned the opposite: the technology changes constantly, but the principle of what actually creates value does not.
The businesses that win are not the ones that start with the flashiest tech. They are the ones that start with a real problem and solve it in a way that is simple, high-quality and commercially useful.
If you can deliver something valuable quickly, generate revenue from it and do it to a high standard, you build trust. That trust compounds. Clients come back, they tell others, and over time you create an advocacy flywheel that becomes incredibly hard to stop.
Birmingham Tech Week founder launches ‘new category’ AI firm
Pair that with a big vision and you can scale far faster than people expect.
The first chapter of that journey for me was at Rant & Rave, where I spent a decade learning what great growth really looks like.
I wasn’t the founder, but I was fortunate enough to work alongside a brilliant one and to be part of building something special.
Hitting first million
I still remember the moment we hit our first £1m in revenue. My honest first thought was: ‘I want some of that.’
But what really stayed with me was not the number. It was the culture, the ambition and the sense of mission we built as a team.
That business would go on to scale to more than £22m in ARR before being sold in 2018.
Being part of that journey gave me a front-row seat to what sustainable growth actually requires: clarity of purpose, relentless execution and a product that genuinely solves a problem customers care about.
When I left Rant & Rave, I knew I wanted to build on my own terms.
Like many founders, I went through a period of experimentation. I ran a full-service agency, built a SaaS company in the brand advocacy space and even explored a wearable app.
I don’t see any of those ventures as failures. They all taught me something. But none of them truly lit a fire in me.
What I was searching for, without fully realising it, was alignment. That point where what you are good at, what you love, what the world needs and what people will pay for all come together.
In Japanese, they call it ‘ikigai’. For me, that came in the form of Birmingham Tech Week (which became TechWM).
Building Birmingham Tech Week was about far more than revenue, although scaling to £1m with the backing of ecosystem partners including Goldman Sachs, IBM, Accenture and Rigby Group was a major personal milestone.
What mattered more was what it represented.
We weren’t just building an event or a platform. We were helping shape an ecosystem, creating connections, opening doors and showcasing the West Midlands as a serious force in innovation.
Today, the region’s tech sector is the fastest-growing in the UK and worth more than £16bn.
To have played even a small part in that story means far more to me than any single revenue milestone, because the real outcome is opportunity: more founders, more jobs, more investment and more belief.
Now, as a second-time founder at Unloq, I’ve found that building a business is easier and harder in equal measure.
Easier because you have the playbook. You’ve seen the patterns, made mistakes before and understand what good looks like. Harder because your goals are bigger and your expectations are higher.
At Unloq, our mission is to transform the way businesses develop, adapt, execute and measure strategy through next-generation AI decision intelligence.
Finding your ikigai
In many ways, I’ve found my ikigai again. I know the road ahead will come with setbacks; that is the life of a founder.
But when you know you are building something that matters, you develop a level of conviction that carries you through the difficult days.
My journey to my first £1m taught me that revenue is important, but it is not the point.
The point is trust, impact and building something meaningful enough that growth becomes the natural result.
- Dr Yiannis Maos MBE is a serial entrepreneur and tech advocate with more than 20 years’ experience in AI, technology and growth. He is the co-founder and CEO of Unloq, a decision intelligence platform helping organisations use AI to make smarter, more impactful decisions.