Today we are introducing Troy Trewin, CEO of Lucidica, our 8th Business Council Member. He explains to us why he decided to move from Australia to the UK and become the CEO of an IT company. Find out more about his business tips and future projects…

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I was born in Melbourne where I’ve studied business and IT. I’ve worked for several years for PricewaterhouseCoopers then in 1999 quit to start a Web design company.  In 2007 I decided to move to London. Why I left Australia?  I wanted to buy an IT company as I was seeing more opportunity here in the UK and also wanted to travel around Europe.

What made you start your business?

The business was established with my business partner Thomas Jeffs, the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of Lucidica. Tom started out in 1999 when he was helping small businesses in London with their IT and computer issues, whilst studying at University College London. I then joined the business in 2007 as CEO. Tom acquired a real expertise in helping businesses with their IT over the years.

We quickly decided to build up a company that would follow the same approach: provide reliable IT service to businesses at extremely good value and in a fun and friendly way! We created our first office in the innovative area of Shoreditch and have a second one now in the City. We now have a solid team of 16 people that we want to enlarge even further.

What is Lucidica all about?

We specialise in looking after all the technology needs of small businesses in London especially the ‘S’ in SME – small busniesses with 1 to 50 staff. Basically, we provide IT services on 3 main activities: IT Support to ensure performance of technologies in place; IT Consulting to advise on new technologies like SEO & new software and IT Training on basics and for more efficiency. We are a kind of “IT Department” for the small business that can’t afford having one.

Tom started in 1999 with 4 customers and we have now more than 200 active ones. We established very trustful relationships with them; we’ve worked with some for more than 10 years now. As part of our training activity, we also hold at the British Library Business & IP Centre some monthly technology seminars.

What Lucidica means?

It’s not a real word but Tom made it up, derived from the word ‘lucid’ – making things clearer.  When I bought into the business it was the only bone of contention.  The value we placed on the business – or the fact that from day 1 he’d be reporting to me – didn’t matter.  Just the name.  I wanted it changed as some people couldn’t pronounce it, and many of our clients were sending us cheques with the name spelt wrong!  I asked him to  give me 6 months to think of a better name and I could we’d change it.  We got busy building the business up and I never came up with an alternative!

How are you promoting your business?

We develop new business a lot through networking and word of mouth.  As our activity is focused on providing the best IT services at a good price, and the fact that we’ve established some very good and long relationships with our clients, they are now recommending a lot our services. We are based on trust marketing and it has worked a lot in the Shoreditch area. As part of our business development the seminars we run at the British library bring us a lot of contacts, as it’s aimed at small businesses only.

Tom handles also a lot of PR by writing articles dedicated on helping small businesses with tech tips and advices on various IT subjects but also by doing quite a lot of public speaking, like next month at the IoD (Institutes Of Directors) Central Branch on Pall Mall. I started taking care of the marketing only 2 years ago. Now I‘m working on SEO and SEM to ensure good visibility in our specific category.  We also issue a monthly newsletter about technology for small businesses to a list of over 1,000 people. We are relatively new on Qype as we registered only two months ago but love the idea. It is a brilliant and useful way of promotion for small businesses in general.

What’s next?

We would like to open 2 more offices – in West and South London – so that we can cover all businesses in each part of London. Then, ideally we would like to have up to 20 staff in each office. Tom and I will focus much more on our Social Enterprise (www.responsibleit.co.uk) and help more young people in the UK start a successful career in IT.

Business Tip :

One of my regrets from the first 6 years of my 11 in business is not having a mentor.  We have 2 now and they are invaluable.  We meet them monthly and work ON the business, rather than in it – strategic matters.  I’d strongly recommend any business owner get at least 1 mentor, especially in any areas your management team has a strong weakness (e.g. finance, HR, sales).

Business Details :

• Qype: Lucidica
• Website: www.lucidica.com
• Twitter : twitter.com/Lucidica
• Facebook : Lucidica IT support London