Mark Roden isn’t one for compliments or pats on the back. Introductions out of the way, I kick off the interview by remarking on the phenomenal success of Ding, the worldwide mobile top-up service he founded in 2006 that makes it easy for people, often migrants working abroad, to send credit to any phone internationally. 

The serial entrepreneur immediately steps in to correct me. “I don’t think we’re phenomenally successful. I mean, I’m not doing this faux modesty stuff but we’re not. We should be a lot bigger than we are. And I take responsibility for that.”

Roden proceeds to make it clear that he is on a mission to achieve global expansion, and like US Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren, he has a plan for that. 

To give him due credit, Roden knows more than most what success is made of. And failure. He has seen both sides of the coin: success first, in the 1990s, as a co-founder with Denis O’Brien of the telecoms firm, Esat, a move that took him out of a career in advertising. He took the plunge after a chance conversation with the tycoon-to-be at a wedding party. While the awarding of the second mobile license to Esat in 1996 is still cloaked in controversy, Roden cashed-in to the tune of €9 million when the company was bought out by BT in 2000, having first floated on the Nasdaq. 

Then came failure, so real and raw, it stays with him to this day, he tells me.

“I’m actively looking for the best people in the world”

The windfall from Esat allowed Roden to invest €8 million into Torc Telecom, a not so glittering success story which sank into receivership in 2001 as the dotcom bubble burst.  Roden licked his wounds and finally rebounded, funnelling the last of his savings into the in-store ATM service, Easycash, which he sold to Ulster Bank in 2004 for €7 million.

Lessons were learned. Financially, he was back in the black. 

He took his family on a holiday to Dubai to celebrate the deal. While there, he struck up a conversation with an Indian waiter who explained the laborious exercise of finding shops that sold phone cards that would allow him to transfer credit to his family back home.

Roden felt confident he could improve the process and Ding was born. Around three-quarters of all phones use prepaid credit, presenting a huge opportunity. According to its website, 300 million top-ups have been sent via the app, online at Ding.com, and in-store at over 600,000 retail outlets across the world.

While looking under the bonnet of Ding is a no go because it is a subsidiary of Ezetop, an unlimited company with few financial filing obligations, the signs would suggest that 13 years on, the business is in rude health.

The firm has offices in Barcelona, Bucharest, Dhaka, Dubai, New Jersey, Miami, Paris, and San Salvador and hires around 150 people at its Dublin headquarters in Ballsbridge. Roden gives me a broad sweep of Ding’s finances, close to €40 million in net revenues, €8 million in bottom line profits – a pretty successful venture by most measures, even if not phenomenally successful.  

On a personal level, the 59-year-old would also appear to be doing just fine. A former EY Entrepreneur of the year, he has featured in rich lists that put his fortune somewhere between €60 and €75 million.

But wealth and middle age have not dimmed his ambitions. High on the list of things that keep him awake at night is stagnation. Scaling Ding so far, and no further, bothers him.

Having founded the business 13 years ago, Roden has embarked on a mission to position the mobile top-up business as a true world player. While coy about his ultimate aim, he admits a certain degree of regret that he didn’t shake-up the business a lot sooner.

On the plus side, with vast experience comes business erudition and a forthright realism of what it takes to scale in the fast-moving world of technology.

Roden is casually dressed in a shirt and jeans when we sit down to talk amid the bustle of the Web Summit in Lisbon, earlier this month. He is affable and serious, with unshowy good manners. His gestures are ecomonical. If not an out-and-out perfectionist, he certainly gives the impression of a man who is exacting in his demands on others and more importantly on himself.

In our conversation, he talks about his brush with financial collapse, the dangers of venture capital, his admiration for Denis O’Brien and why he thinks Trump got it right on tax reform. But mostly, he talks about his big ambitions for Ding and why the company will still matter in the era of 5G.

When I ask him what phenomenal success looks like, he replies: “It’s not a financial measure. It’s a question of relevance and impact. At the moment we’re only scratching the surface of that.”

“Real global impact, and, you know, I don’t want to sound like some sort of missionary zeal type but we’re connected to 4 billion mobile iPhones. When ten per cent of them are using Ding; that’s global impact. At the moment, it’s a fraction of a per cent. Still, you know, we are very profitable,” he continues.

Roden has a theory about what has been holding Ding back to date. Personnel. “Part of the reason is, I know for a fact I haven’t had enough of the right kind of people in the business. We’ve got some fantastic people but going forward, we need to step it up.

Scaling up 

In practice, getting to the next stage means waiving dividends and pumping profits back into the business.  Serious consideration was given to a €40 million round of external funding last year but Roden is none too keen on venture capital, a theme he returns to later in the interview.

His immediate plan is to leverage Ding’s success to date to cherry-pick the sort of senior talent that will allow the company to expand. “I’m actively looking for the best people in the world,” he tells me.

Some of my friends in technology, in leadership roles in companies in London, maintain that you cannot grow a really successful tech business out of Dublin. And I think they are partly right

The right sort of people, according to Roden, will have 15 to 20 years of experience in at least two or three companies. They are business people who have done it before. “I think in my earlier years I tended to hire based on, you know, so-and-so knows a good finance person or somebody in HR. It’s a bit Irish, to be honest.”

Those days are gone. To help him recruit, Roden has joined forces with talent acquisition partner, Ciara Smith who previously worked on Paddy Power’s integration with Betfair and with King, the UK gaming company. The net has been thrown wide in the hunt for prospective international talent. 

He is also acutely aware that not everybody wants to up sticks and move to Dublin. That is where the new London office comes into play.

“Some of my friends in technology, in leadership roles in companies in London, maintain that you cannot grow a really successful tech business out of Dublin. And I think they are partly right because you know, for example, Paddy Power hostel world has offices in London, and I don’t mean five or 10 people, I mean 50 or 60 people. 

FC: why do people say that?

MR: Because there isn’t the same level of experience when you go to hire, you know. We’ve just hired a chief partnership officer, meaning he does all the deals with people like Careem (a premium, Uber-style, transport app used in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia), people like Digicel, Google etc. So he’s based in London. The search company we used for recruitment asked for a description of the role and said, okay, where is the role, based. I said, London, why? What if it was Dublin? And he said, well you would lose nine out of 10 on the shortlist. 

It’s a reality you have to face up to. I think people have too great a sense of the quality of people, you know, that are available locally. Some of them are outstanding. I mean, we’ve got 150 people in Dublin. So many of them are really world-class. Not everybody is. It’s just simply not the case that you have an organisation with 150 A-class performing people. It’s just a very hard thing to do. I mean, that’s a responsibility on us in terms of the kind of programmes and training and opportunities we put in front of people for career development.

The past couple of years have seen some Lanigan’s Ball moves in the upper echelons of Ding. Roden stepped out of the hot seat to make way for co-founder David Shackleton (a descendant of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton) to take over as chief executive. It didn’t last. Roden took back the reins last year.

A new play for Ding

“Ding started before the iPhone, before smartphones. Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen the iPhone and Android completely dominate that particular sector.”

Given the inspiring foundation story behind Ding, I ask Roden what is currently feeding his imagination. The answer is a tie-in venture with Careem that will allow Ding customers to top up their phones within the popular ride-hailing app. For Careem, it is a way of ensuring customers spend more time engaging with the app. He expects to see more partnerships in the future with big players like Google, Snapchat and Netflix.

MR: I know it’s not a well-known name in Ireland but Careem is like mytaxi or Free Now. So it’s a ride-hailing app in the Gulf, and this ride-hailing app is incredibly successful in 19 countries. I met the founders of Careem and something that one of them said struck me as being incredibly important. That was that the success of Careem would not have happened if they did not allow the drivers to accept cash to put on to the wallet. So, if I show you the Careem app (which he does), on the Careem app they have the wallet which I have 50 dirhams on. So I can go to get a taxi without any debit or credit card. So payment methods is the single most important thing to make a business successful. 

That’s why in Ding we have connections to 600,000 stores in inverted commas. I say that because in reality only about 100,000 of them are really relevant. You have to make it widely accessible. If you’re going to limit it to digital, debit or credit cards, it’s never going to scale.

FC: What do things like 5G mean for Ding? Threat or opportunity>

MR: Okay, so that’s the other thing that keeps me awake at night, which is, you know, where’s the silent bullet that’s going to take us out. I think the closest in some ways that I’ve seen over the last 20 years to something that’s completely disrupted the industry is WhatsApp. Ding started before the iPhone, before smartphones. Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen the iPhone and Android completely dominate that particular sector.

Thankfully to use WhatsApp outside of wifi, you still need a connection. Everybody can find wifi maybe if you’re around Lisbon or Dublin, you know, but if you’re in Akra, in Ghana, it’s just not there. You know, the cynical investors would say, oh, it’s only a question of time. Maybe, but who is going to pay for it? So I see a long runway for prepaid phones.

I think that Esat has been controversial, but it’s something which, personally, I know what went on inside and I know the story of the success; what made that happen

With Ding, we are connected to four billion people through connections, direct connections to 400 mobile operators, directly connected. That means that we can reach half the world’s population. That means we can achieve big scale if we get our marketing product right, but we don’t have that right at this point.

FC: You’ve obviously had your ups and downs. Your career has been chequered. You’ve been bruised. Did you personally lose a lot of money in Torc?

MR: I did yeah, around €3 million

FC: Esat was obviously your first telecoms venture. From what I’ve read, you didn’t know much about the industry when you started. Obviously, it was controversial but it was a success. What made it a success?

I do feel like the player who leaves Manchester United and then says holy crap maybe I’m not as good as I thought I was

MR: You can’t look at Esat without looking at Denis. I knew nothing about telecoms. He knew more. But I think what he had was a determination to take on the Department of Communications and to really, you know, not just back down the first time we got a rejection letter. So the first five years of Esat was a few of us writing letters to the Department of Communications, trying to go through the front door, trying to go through the side door in terms of whether an approach to a different department would work. None of it worked. The only thing that worked was when we appealed to the EU to say that there was a directive that had been passed. I still remember it, 93//88. It had been passed, but Ireland hadn’t implemented it. That was the thing that got Esat licensed.

FC: So you would put it down to a sort of force of personality then? A bloody-mindedness?

MR: All of the above. Determination, very astute as well. I think that Esat has been controversial, but it’s something which, personally, I know what went on inside and I know the story of the success; what made that happen. It’s a story I’m very happy with.

FC: So obviously you stand by the process. Did you have qualms when you left about making a success of your next venture, Torc? Or did you think it would be successful?

MR: First of all, I do stand by everything. It’s not just me. I stand by everything that I’ve read as well, in terms of how the process was completely independent. So I’m comfortable with that and confident about the process. In terms of leaving Esat you know, I do feel like the player who leaves Manchester United and then says holy crap maybe I’m not as good as I thought I was. Actually, I thought the opposite, I thought I was really good and then landed in the deep end and went down.

The infrastructure around Esat that Denis had created, and also the senior management. He had some fantastic people who created this. When you build a business that creates scale you forget, once you step outside that, you’re on your own, for good and for worse. The good is you get to make all your own decisions, the worse is you can sink very fast, very quickly, and you just don’t have that same support.

Spiralling down

Roden blames the demise of Torc telecom on a bad €19 million investment in World Telecom, a UK call card provider that had gone into receivership. He believes on its own, it would have survived. To satisfy the World Telecom deal, Torc brought in extra capital. He readily accepts there was not enough due diligence carried out in advance. 

“That’s an expensive learning, very expensive, but you know, it has been a learning. That is something I reflect on. When I say what are the most important things, it’s attention to detail. I know it sounds a generic phrase but really watching the small print. Also the determination to do things today instead of tomorrow. Lots of people say we’ll get to that next week. I still see it. Or we’ll work on that opportunity in quarter one next year. Quarter one, next year? How about tomorrow!” Roden says.

I felt like I’d lost everything. It still stays with me today

FC: Did you go lick your wounds after that? What shape did that take?

MR: Yes, I did. Nicola, my wife, was expecting Sophie who is now 18. And you know, you don’t have anywhere to go once the receiver comes in. He literally says, thanks a million, how’s everything, good luck. I was driving home and I absolutely felt an enormous sense of failure. Massively, personally as well. Nicola was incredible. She was seven months pregnant at the time. We went back and moved in with her parents.

FC: But you weren’t broke?

MR: No. I still had enough to start another business. But I felt like I’d lost everything. It still stays with me today. So it’s very real and very raw. I’ll talk long into the evening, if you want, about that but anyway it’s over.

FC: I suppose people are interested in failure because, for one, it’s human but also because you came back up again. When things go fundamentally wrong, it’s one of the few periods you get to reflect.

MR: I think those learnings and reflections come later. At the time, when you go down, you go down. Very often, it’s a dangerous period. There were some people around those times who were making the call on whether or not I would have to put in another half a million to protect the directors of the business who needed huge amounts of money. And thankfully, a fantastic guy from Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC), was an insolvency expert. And he said, it doesn’t have to be done. There were a lot of other people who were saying no, it does, you have to protect the directors. So that was some very good advice on a personal level that sort of kept me above water essentially.

The reflections come over a period of months and years. They evolve when you’re faced with the same experiences again. Anytime I’m either engaging auditors or consultants for a particular piece of work, I’m very alert, very wary of the t’s and c’s and what is involved. 

The importance of bravery

“Denis [O’Brien] is somebody who I do admire. He’s both a friend and he’s also somebody who I think is one of the most incredibly interesting and hungry business people.

Our conversation turns to venture capital. Ding has come close to accepting VC funding in the past. In 2011, there was an offer to put €15 million into the business, in return for up to 30 per cent equity. Then in 2016, around €50 million was dangled in front of Roden for a similar stake but on both occasions, after a long drawn out process, he thought better of it. 

To be honest, I was a bit wrecked. I know that’s not very digital or cool

While he won’t disclose who came knocking, he explains that he is not a particular fan of the model because typically VC investments have a life-cycle of around five years and then the investors cash out. “In business language that says Ding has to be as big as it’s ever going to be in five years,” he says.

Roden had pumped a lot of his own cash into the business. By eschewing VC money, he has managed to retain a majority stake in Ding, even if at times it was hairy.

“I felt it was the right decision, even when it was touch and go,” he says.

“When I look at what they were going to bring, which was money, it would have been a huge security for everybody but also they were saying, if you don’t hit your projections, instead of 20 per cent, we’re going to own 40 per cent. The downside is that risk projection is very strong and we were going through a bumpy time. I said you know what, one can look at changing the management around and I felt I could do that. I was including myself in that because, to be honest, I was a bit wrecked. I know that’s not very digital or cool and here we are in this building (Web Summit) so it’s definitely not the place to be saying this. I said I’m going to use this as an opportunity to step back from the business and move to chairman, and secondly, I’m going to encourage the development of bringing in a much wider base of talent into the company. 

“And then AIB came along and put €14 million into the business which we were able to use as a dividend. It was the first lend AIB had done post-crash. It went on the balance sheet but it was distributed to shareholders. They were fantastic. I don’t know anybody really well at AIB so I’m not plugging them. They were offering 3 per cent money compared to you know, eight, nine or 10 per cent money from the private equity guys and there was no dilution of equity.”

However, he hasn’t discounted bringing in capital in the next couple of years, as long as more than money is on the table. 

As our interview draws to a close, I ask him who he admires in Irish business. Denis O’Brien is the first name he draws, along with Intercom’s founders, the Collison brothers and James Welton, who established CoderDojo, the computer programming club for kids.

“So, Denis is somebody who I do admire. He’s both a friend and he’s also somebody who I think is one of the most incredibly interesting and hungry business people. So, start there, and James Welton, I think, is an extraordinary guy. He’s only 26 and he started CoderDojo. He’s not somebody you’d say, oh, wow, he’s creating this massive big business, but he’s a really interesting guy. And I think he’s got some very, interesting opportunities, super clever and very exciting. You know, I enjoy business, I love business, I enjoy being involved in this. But ideas without people that can make them happen remain ideas and people like Denis and James, have an idea and they make it a reality.”

FC: Do you see impediments to business in Ireland?

MR: There’s tax. I mean capital gains tax and the tax on share options are horrendous. I think it’s inequitable, and I think that the whole atmosphere around wealth creation is very negative. I think anybody who creates any business and is employing people, instead of them being incentivized to go and do it again, or to you know reinvest, they’re treated as some kind of parasite on society and I think it’s wrong.

it’s not so long ago that we had 20 per cent capital gains tax, it’s now 33 per cent. And you’ve seen in America as well, whatever one might think of Trump, one of the things he has done is to reduce taxes on the premise that wealth creation ultimately is dispersed around. So I would see that the capital gains tax should move to between 15 to 20 per cent. And there are economic studies as well. I only read one the other day by some partner in Deloitte that said when you reduce the actual rate of tax, you increase the take because look at the amount of fees being paid to all the big audit and tax groups to come up with schemes to protect and put capital aside. It is nonsense when you consider how that could be reinvested into the economy to reduce the burden of income tax on people.

I mean, we just keep playing around with a particular size pie, there’s no effort to make the pie bigger.

FC: Even if that’s right, is it not divisive? The optics in society don’t play.

MR: There may be optics, but there’s a complete lack of bravery on the part of the government, a complete absence of any kind of progressive thinking around engaging with wealth creators and bringing them into the conversation instead of limiting people by saying, you must spend X number of days out of the country. I bet if you spoke to most of the people who do that, you know what, I’d actually love to spend more time in Ireland, and if the government said to them well you can do that, but here’s the price, I bet you they would consider it.

When it comes to tax exiles, Roden mentions no names. As for himself, he is based in Dublin with his family. Of his personal future plans, he says he is sure he can sell Ding at any time. 

“But if we do, I have this deal with my wife that I’m not allowed to do that if I’m then going to go and sit at the end of the garden and start staring up at the sky saying if only we hadn’t done this or if only, I had stayed and hung in there. So I think that until I’m confident that we have achieved real scale, I’m not going to consider that.”