Mark Warrick (#035)
Take a moment when trying to discern the difference between kindness and manipulation
Company: Cauldron
Headcount: 6
Stage: Pre-Seed
Tell us your story
It can seem like a stereotypical founder trait to have a hard upbringing, but for me, to live the life of being fostered throughout my childhood was anything but stereotypical.
In many ways, it is harder looking back on it because to live through it, I knew no different. From a toddler onwards, after bouncing around several foster homes, I ended up with some serious luck aged 6. A foster family took me on and they looked after me for the rest of my childhood. If you know the foster world, then you’ll know it is nearly unheard of to receive that kind of commitment. School became a haven. To be surrounded by teachers, it felt like extra parents in a way. I was very shy and got a lot of joy out of impressing them!
Over the years, my drive got so intense, that as a teenager, I achieved something that to this day still surprises me. In the 90s there used to be a national competition each year called the “Young Engineer of Britain”. The winner was announced on the six o’clock news, in national papers and it was my dream to get into the finals.
I’d grown to love my soldering iron and used to stay late after school trying to invent things. One of them caught my teacher's eye and he reckoned it might have a chance.
Long story short, I made it to the finals and when I was 16, was named a “Young Engineer of Britain” and was presented with the £1,000 prize on the stage by Sir James Dyson - an idol of mine at the time! My foster parents decided to let me buy the cool jacket I had always wanted and the rest went into savings.
The whole experience of winning that prize permanently fused in my head a desire to relive that feeling. I’ve realised over the years that drive is not something I have to work hard at, it is the one consistent thing that I wake up with and is just there. However, it doesn’t matter how much drive you have, success is not easy to come by. You hear from naysayers incessantly. It takes inner steel to keep going when things are failing. And luck, as much as you’d rather it weren’t a factor, always seems to be a surprisingly large part of it all.
When we announced our $1.4m pre-seed, I said at the time that I guess a lot of people will see it as “just another start-up” doing a little round. But for me? Gosh, I tell you. The feeling I got when receiving a call on a Friday night in October last year from Seedcamp to say Cauldron blew them away and they wanted to invest? It took me right back to being 16 at the awards, and hearing not my name called - but Cauldron’s name. The joy of success is amplified 10x when it results from the monumental efforts of grinding teamwork.
Tell us a story that has really resonated with you
It’s less a story but more an observation that is resonating with me right now. It is about how lucky we are as embryonic start-ups that industries allow start-ups to get ahead of the established companies, because they are slow to deliberate, and often worry about change.
I was the Chief Design Officer at tech unicorn Thought Machine for 7 years before spinning out their labs and forming Cauldron. Back in 2016, Thought Machine announced itself to be solving one of the hardest problems in banking. At the time, the industry rejected it. The industry said “no way can these non-bankers solve this problem”. I still remember the TechCrunch article going out back then and the comments streaming on twitter from industry experts saying “they do not get the complexities and should leave the industry to it”.
Even the article itself said “a ton of questions must be answered, and assurances made, and regulations complied with, before any bank will touch this with a ten-foot pole”. Fast forward five years and Thought Machine has 500 employees and is the leading future platform with dozens of the world's leading banks adopting their tech with a rush for others to follow.
I am now seeing the exact same thing in Web3 gaming. The games industry itself, just like with Free-to-Play a decade ago, are mulling over Web3 gaming. I mean, if the competition today was the existing games industry, it would be much harder for the likes of Cauldron. Yet, history is repeating itself. Even with wonderful projects like Parallel commanding huge audiences.
But thank goodness. If the banking industry hadn’t been cynics, Thought Machine might not have existed. If the games industry were not naysayers, then Cauldron wouldn’t stand a chance. The question I ask myself is, will I be the one to roll my eyes at the next advancement in the industry, and let the next start-up get ahead of me!? I hope not. Haha.
What can't you stop thinking about?
This quote. It must come into my head once a week at least. I can’t seem to shake it:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
So yes, I love Lord of the Rings. I know the book inside out and have watched the extended editions of the films probably a dozen times now. But this quote resonates with me so much and there is often something someone says during any given week and in floods this scene of Gandalf in the Mines of Moria counselling Frodo.
If I could tell you just one thing...
My one thing is to tell people to take a moment when trying to discern the difference between kindness and manipulation.
Some of my inner steel has developed through having to find out the hard way how some who are being kind are in fact only looking out for themselves.
A little space for shout-outs
Carmen Alfonso Rico. A selfless human who I am so pleased to have met. What more can I say? Some people just refresh the soul with their humanity.
If you could get a warm intro to anyone in the world, who would it be and why?
Oh my! No one should make this warm intro because I would totally embarrass myself.
I would love to hang out with Ilkka Paananen, the co-founder and CEO of Supercell. Literally, he is the template leader of who I aspire to be. The balance of humbleness with competitiveness and his clarity of vision along with dreamy people leadership is quite special.
When things are tough, I listen to Ilkka’s interview on the 20VC podcast. Walking around London, maybe I’ve played it four times now (I adjusted that number down a bit so it is a little less weird). Over the years I have had mild obsession Limor Fried, Robert Brunner, John Carmack, and Ed Catmull, but if I could even be 10% of Ilkka as a leader then I would have over achieved.