Being the CEO of a remote-first, tech PR agency, Brendon Craigie has demonstrated that he is forward-thinking and not afraid to embrace technology. But, despite founding a PR agency serving the digital and tech space, with a fully remote team that has managed to embed and enforce a strong company culture via digital touchpoints, Craigie found analogue methods to be most effective.

It’s hard to distill Craigie’s moment of founding Tyto into one specific window of time. He says that his big decisions often require months of "percolation", which rarely allows for one “lightbulb moment” where everything falls into place. As such, this should be read as an entrepreneurial journey, loosely hinged on one moment; which involved Craigie, a pen and a blank pad of A3 paper.

The moment

“I'm a risk taker. But, I take very calculated risks."

Here, we find Craigie in a very different position to where he is now. Still a CEO but miles away, literally and personally, from where he would end up.

“I was living in New York, I had been the CEO of Hotwire for 17 years, and I had been percolating on things for a while,” explains Craigie.

“[At Hotwire] I had been part of an exciting journey with seeing the company grow from [a few employees] to 250 people. I felt I had a sense of what was possible in terms of building something of my own. In October 2016, after a milestone birthday and overseeing an acquisition at Hotwire, I felt I had done every job and overseen every challenge I could. I was ready for the next challenge.”

A simplified rundown of what he then did is as follows; Craigie quit his job of 17 years, relocated his family from New York to Spain – because everyone needs a break – and sold his UK house, so he could pay employees he didn’t yet have.

He points out that a business needs to solve a problem for many, not just one. The issue in the PR agency space is that many agencies will claim to do the same things. What would make Tyto, as we now all know it, any different?

“What I saw from the inside perspective of helping to build an international agency was that companies in the tech space were global from day one. They needed to be able to build their reputations, across multiple countries, efficiently. And, the traditional options available to them like going to a network agency – while it’s all under one business name - can run like a collection of separate businesses.

“From a client perspective, even when you're working with one company with one name, you effectively end up working with multiple companies. The consequence of that for a client is it’s inefficient, inflexible and there is a lot of waste within that structure.”

Craigie says that he grew up in a house with five sisters, which created “a level of scarcity” when he was growing up. He explained that he would get frustrated at things being wasted. This life experience has trickled into his professional life, as his biggest bugbears are “wasted money, wasted time, wasted talent and wasted ideas”.

Thinking back to that day in October 2016, he said he finally had the time post-acquisition to take stock and think about what to do next. And while quitting a role of almost two decades, selling a house and relocating to Spain might read like flippant risks, Craigie offered this rebuttal:

“I'm a risk taker. But, I take very calculated risks…I draw down on as many pieces of data and information I can get as possible.”

The takeaway

"If you act on that excitement and then you've got the extra propulsion of the fear, you’ll achieve a lot.”

Craigie then began collecting and learning from his “data”.

“I read a lot of business books about key trends, and all of the non-PR-specific elements that make a good business, such as Peter Theil’s Zero to One. I was interested in the remote working model [this is pre-pandemic] so I read books and listened to podcasts about how to make remote successful but retain a great culture.

“I spoke to former clients to understand their frustrations and challenges. I wrote it all out in this big A3 art pad, and began to map out what I thought the core of the business would be. I of course iterated that a few times, then I put it into a digital presentation for 20 of my former colleagues. Some gave me validation, some gave me push-back on my ideas and eventually I was able to perfect the model further. Finally, I was able to offer a job to a handful of people and launch the company.

“That process of filtering, getting feedback and refining is essential, but when it comes to creating a business, you’re always going to have a leap of faith moment.”

Craigie also pooled on his network of business advisors and was able to gain a lot of advice from them, simply by offering to call and have a chat. This is something that he found invaluable, and now tries to always offer his time to those who need it.

“One of my favourite expressions is ‘you only live once’, so if you have a really burning desire to do something, then I would act upon it. If you're very passionate about something, then it'll work out.”

“I think a lot of people don't take those risks for understandable reasons. Even if you're really passionate about something, you really believe in that passion and energy, there will always be fear of failure. But that type of fear is a very powerful force, so if you act on that excitement and then you've got the extra propulsion of the fear, you’ll achieve a lot.”