Red Flag alert are the UK's leading provider of business data intelligence and analytics to predict growth, global compliance risk and insolvency, based in Manchester. 

In this episode, Richard West talks to us about working his way up in Red Flag alert from sales operations to Managing Director and share holder, how he helped build a start-up from a PLC to a powerhouse with the mission of becoming the UK leader in business data analytics. 

Richard gives insights from being the youngest regional director at 22 years old, and his career path started selling forklifts. He shares how to pick the right funding (of which Red Flag have secured 4.5 million£ investment from Foresight and Uncapped) how to scale effectively, and what the backbone of their success is.

Questions asked:

1. Do you want to start by telling us a bit about yourself and your journey with Red Flag A!ert?
2. In our planning call you mentioned not going to uni and moving down under to become youngest regional director at 22, what made you decide to take this plunge and not take a possibly easier route of joining your dad’s business?
3. Coming from a heavy sales background, how do you think this has impacted you launching Red Flag A!ert?
4. Can you talk us through your investment story and your experience behind your decisions to take investment when you did?
5. You mentioned when getting investment, it’s important to pick the fund don’t let the fund pick you, how did you decide you’d picked the right funding and if you were to go back and do it again, would you have done anything differently?
6. How did you handle the transition from pre to post investment and what did the 100 days post investment look like for you and red flag alert?
7. Can you tell us a bit about your initial go to market strategy & how you managed to take your product out to companies similar to the one you’ve just come out from?
8. So 24 months ago you only had 11 employees, and now you’ve just launched your 4th salesforce, how did you go about scaling your business and sustaining the growth?
9. When expanding, how did you go about attracting decent talent to join your team with a relatively small budget?
10. What has been the biggest challenge in your career to date?
11. And finally, what one piece of advice would you give to someone looking start their own business or to join a start-up?

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