How “thinking about them” partnerships can get you noticed; with international entrepreneur Denis O’Shea, Founder of Mobile Mentor

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Unnoticed Entrepreneur with me, Jim James. Today joined by Dennis o', Shea, who's joining us from Nashville, Tennessee, but is originally from New Zealand and is the founder of a company called Mobile Mentor and has set up businesses across many continents. And he's going to share with us how he's done that. Dennis, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Jim. It's a pleasure to be on your show. Thank you.

Look, it's my pleasure because as we've learned, you have built a business on several continents, which is impressive. But let's talk first of all about Mobile Mentor. What kind of business is it and how have you got it noticed all the way since 2004?

Mobile Mentor is a service company and I used to be in the cellular industry working for Nokia for many years. And around 2003, I saw a problem, which was that companies like Nokia were producing these amazing smartphones and people were not using them for what they were intended. Most people were simply making phone calls and sending text messages and not doing all the amazing things we now do with our smartphones. And so I decided to leave Nokia and set up a company that would enable people to set up their smartphone properly and use it for what it was intended, like get email working, get your calendar syncing, get your music on it, transfer your contacts and enable you to become a proper, productive mobile worker. Because back in those days it was really hard to do that. So Mobile Mentor was built to do that single purpose job.

Wonderful. And I having also worked on introducing predictive text into the Market Back in 98, 99, user interface was really a big issue, but you managed to build your business very quickly to have a million customers. And that's really where I'd love to start the conversation. How do you go from having an idea to having a million customers? Dennis, I'm sure all of us would love to hear that.

That was quite the journey. So I had the idea to do this one on one mentoring and I went to Nokia and it was an interesting, awkward conversation. I said, Look, I've had 15 great years working with you. I'd like to leave and set up a company and I'd like you to give me some money to do so. So you can imagine how that conversation went down. And they said, you better go up to headquarters in Finland and to talk to some of the seniors. And so I did that, took my idea up to them and they reluctantly said, yes, okay, we'll let you go and we'll give you some money to set this up and prove the point you're trying to prove. And then I went to Vodafone, who was the world's largest mobile carrier, as you would remember, and I said the same thing to them. Look, I think this idea stimulate usage and drive data consumption and consumption of voice services in a way you've never seen before. Please give me some money to go and prove this and I'll do a pilot with 10,000 people and share all the data with you and then you can do what you want with the data. So I was basically saying, I'll do the research, I'll do all the hard work, I'll give you the data and the answers. You can then figure out what you want to do next. And so that's what I did. I did the pilot. 10,000 people brought the data to Nokia and Vodafone. They're like, wow, okay, you've got our attention, we're going to support you. And so then I had the largest cell phone manufacturer in the world and the largest cellular operator in the world as my left hand and right hand best friends.

Wow, that's amazing. And at the risk of saying you might have had a bit of the luck of the Irish there with you, Dennis, because for those of people listening in, although Dennis is in Nashville, plainly he's not from Nashville, Dennis. So all the way from New Zealand, you've managed to convince two of the world's largest multinationals in telco. But what have you needed to do then to build mobile mentor beyond that first million customers?

Along the way we got into Brazil and China and Australia and they were pretty sizable markets and that's how we managed to reach a million people with the service. And we had a very simple strategy. Initially it was called Follow the Kiwi because I had set up the company in New Zealand and we knew that to expand we would need to find people in each of the markets who could help us tell our story and form partnerships with local mobile phone operators. And so we found a really influential New Zealander in Brazil who was able to get us to senior people in a mobile carrier called Telecom Italia, the Italian operator who was operating in Brazil. We did the same in China, same in Australia. Found a New Zealander who could take us to the top table with this idea. And then we formed a partnership with those carriers in China, Brazil, Australia, and they helped us promote the service to their customers.

It's a really smart strategy. Culturally, you had a good fit with the Kiwi and then they were leveraging and helping you to build these Partnerships. What was the sort of getting noticed strategy once you got that partnership with the carrier? What was the joint marketing strategy, Dennis? To get uptake from the consumers?

Yeah, it was all about making them look good and putting them on the pedestal. So, like in Australia, we had a fantastic strategy with Telstra. Telstra is the largest carrier in Australia and our service was called Telstra Mentor. So it's a bit of their brand and a bit of our brand. And they did an amazing job. They promoted the service on radio, on tv. They even created a little box that they put in their retail shop. So if you're buying a smartphone, you could also pick up this box and go, oh, one hour of support to get this up and running, take it to the counter. And they'd say, yeah, that's a free service we provide. If you buy the latest BlackBerry on a data plan, we'll send somebody out to your home and spend an hour with you and set it up. And so they productized our service and made it part of the package and they just did such a good job, but it was their brand together with our brand. And then similar thing happened in Brazil and in China. So we were using and really leaning into their marketing engine to take the service out and we made it an exclusive offer. So, like in Australia, you could only get our service through Telstra, not through Optus or the other players. And so it gave them a unique position in the market.

Dennis, I've got to ask you, from a commercial perspective, what was the revenue share? Are you allowed to discuss that at all? Because you're giving a lot of your access to the end consumer to your partner. Are you able to share? What does that do for the valuation on your own business as an entrepreneur?

On our business?

On your own business, yes. Because if you're sharing and it's becoming co branded, for example, does that create any IP or any sort of commercial issues?

Firstly, we don't do that service anymore. That service had a lifespan of a few years during the time when smartphones were starting to be adopted. Now people can set up their own smartphones. It's really easy. Seventeen years ago, it was a very difficult task to get a smartphone working properly. Did it create a commercial value for us? I don't think so. It probably gave us credibility, the fact that we had the biggest carrier in each of our markets working with us and leveraging us, and we built our business very quickly. We were able to attract investors, we were able to hire 250 people. We grew the business quite quickly because we had the muscle and the gravitas of these players working with us and leveraging our services, But I don't think it created economic value in the traditional sense.

Okay, but it really got you the channels to market, didn't it? Which is fantastic. And I love that partnership story. Now you've moved and you've mentioned Brazil, China, and now you're in America. Do you want to just talk to us about the America strategy and what you're doing over there to create a new category as well for the industry?

Yes. So our business evolved over the years. Tablets came along and then laptops. And suddenly the mobile worker is not just using a BlackBerry device, they're using a laptop, a tablet, an iPhone these days. And so our services evolved and we became a managed service provider. And we specialize in helping organizations who have a mobile workforce. People who maybe work at home, work in the office, who travel a lot. They need to be secure on all the devices they use. And our job is to make sure they are secure and they're not getting hacked, they're not getting breached, they're not getting ransomed, and that they can be productive on every device they work on. So we decided to come into America and have a go at this market. And that's a scary thing. If you're a small company in New Zealand that nobody really has never heard of in America and you're starting from scratch, that's a big, daunting task.

Yes, a very big market to tackle.

It is. And so what we do is we took a lot of advice and decided to pick one state, one city, one industry, and define a market as small as we possibly could and go after that one market and narrow it down to just one customer. So we picked Nashville, Tennessee, because it's such a big health care city. And we did a lot of work in health care. And we narrowed it down to three target organizations we wanted to work with. And then we went after one, which is Hospital Corporation of America, the biggest hospital company in the usa. And I joined every organization I possibly could. EO Entrepreneurs Organization, the Nashville Healthcare Council, the Nashville Technology Council, the Disruption Lab, the Entrepreneur Center. And I networked like crazy. I went to every breakfast briefing, every lunch, every every cocktail function, every seminar. I just went to everything to get to know who's who in the zoo and how does the city work. And eventually I won a deal with Hospital Corporation of America. And that gave me the credibility of being a business person in the community, because I now had this logo I could brag about. So it was about two years of networking to get that first deal. But once I got the first deal, then I had arrived, and then it was easier to get the second one and the third one.

Dennis, that's a wonderfully patient and progressive strategy as well. I love your conversation about who's who in the zoo. I think that's a great expression. And now with security, you've also started to define a category, haven't you, which you're calling the Endpoint. Do you want to talk to us about how you're redefining a category? You keep innovating in this way. So love to hear how you're doing this.

Yes. And this is a really interesting one where we're only just at the beginning of a journey here. So this is a big, risky, entrepreneurial move we're making here. And what we observed was that the whole category of security and cybersecurity is a bit jaded. When people receive emails about security, it's very easy to delete. And when you hear briefings about security, eyes glaze over and ears shut because it's a tired topic. And everyone's, in a way, fed up with all the security noise that's going on in the marketplace. So I thought we need to freshen up this conversation if we're going to get attention and if we're going to cut through all the noise in this marketplace. And most of the players in security have huge budgets. We don't. So we needed to figure out a way of getting noticed. And so what we decided to do is come up with new language, create a new category. People would go, huh? What are you talking about? And we called it the Endpoint ecosystem. And the way we think about it is if you look in through the window of anyone's home office and you look at all the devices on their desk, they probably have got a desktop and maybe a laptop and a tablet, maybe a smartphone. There's a couple of monitors and there's all this stuff going on, and there's all the software running on those devices, and people are signing in everywhere. They got all these passwords and they're trying to be productive. All that, that cluster, that mess of technology going on, that's what we call the Endpoint ecosystem. And if that works, well, you have a secure employee who's productive. But you think about what's going on. People are clicking on links all day. That's a very risky activity. They're typing passwords all day. That's risky. And they're opening attachments, which may or may not have viruses. So we wanted to understand what's going on in that endpoint space because you've got millions of people in their home offices with that setup, doing those three risky things all day, clicking on links, typing passwords, opening attachments. And we thought, let's draw a ring around that. Really understand that a day in the life of remote workers or hybrid workers. And we did some research, nationwide research, a study to understand what's actually going on out there in the home offices. And we've gathered all this information, created the research, put it on a website called theinpointecosystem.com and made it freely available. And the idea is that any journalist, any analyst can come and take our research data and write their own story. And like we've had that Inc Magazine and whole bunch of healthcare publications and education publications write their own blogs about this is what's happening. People are really careless of their passwords or all the shadow it is going on. Or this is why people are resigning in frustration because they can't get their tech working. And so other people are writing their own stories based on our research data, which is great. There's attribution coming back to us, so we're getting noticed in a way we weren't before because we have something unique and original from the primary research we've done.

Dennis, that's textbook really, in terms of creating a category, creating the content, building the relationships with the media as well, and other analysts too. What about you mentioned here about creating the research? How difficult is that, do you think, or your experience to create that research so that it's large enough to have some value, to be representative, but not so large as to be an overwhelming task for an organization whose main job is not research.

Yes. So we partnered with an organization in Austin, Texas called cgk, the center for Generational Kinetics. And they specialize in understanding phenomenon across different generations. And like we were super curious about Gen Z. So that's a generation that the only generation alive that has no recollection of 9 11. Everybody else in the world can remember where they were, what you were doing, who you were with on 9 11, except Gen Z, because they were running around the kitchen and nappies. They had no recollection. And they went through life without being impacted by all the security changes, you know, airport security and cybersecurity and all that we've experienced. And now they're in the workforce and they see the world differently. And we wanted to understand how, how does Gen Z see this world? How do they experience this world. And because that's super interesting to employers because they're trying to hire more teachers and more nurses and more drivers, et cetera. And so we've now got this phenomenal set of insights into Gen Z, for example, but also millennials and Gen X and boomers. And so we can now predict the future by studying Gen Z. Because Gen Z is coming to the workforce in waves every year. When they graduate, they're coming in and over the next five years they'll become managers, they'll become leaders. Meanwhile, we're getting older and so Gen Z is going to power the workforce in the future. So the more we understand them now, the better we can predict the future.

And from a PR point of view.

What I love is the way that.

You'Ve partnership so skillfully with organizations that have got the domain expertise in terms of the audience group, but you've got the questions to be asked. I think I love that. Dennis, I've got to say, you sound like an award winning organization. Have you been entering any awards? Because I love. Your strategy has been so artful. There's got to be some awards in your closet for mobilementor.com?

There are a few small ones we did over the years, but there's one really big one which has moved the needle for us in a way that was beyond expectations. We applied for an award. We're a Microsoft partner, a Microsoft technology partner. And we really work closely with them and they're a fantastic organization to work with because they truly lean into partners and other technology companies don't. So they're really good at leaning on their partners. And we decided to apply for a Microsoft Partner of the Year award. And our strategy, quite honestly was in 2021, we thought, let's apply, let's try and become a finalist. And then the following year, 2022, let's try and win it. And it happened the other way around. We applied in 21 and we won it. We didn't expect to win it, but we won it. And in a way, my surprise go is amazing. And it truly was the amount of PR and attention we got from that. And then to see how Microsoft leaned into us and has brought us to the table with so many amazing clients and put us on the stage literally. Yesterday I was in West Virginia speaking at Primetime at a conference that Microsoft paid for, but they gave us the speaking slot. So the goodness that has come from that award is beyond anything I could ever describe. It's been really profoundly impactful for our business. And this year we're a finalist. So it's the exact opposite of what we expected to achieve.

You didn't want to quit while you're ahead then, Dennis, but actually you raise a very interesting point that awards don't necessarily have to be industry awards, but partner awards, as you say. Vendors, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, a lot of these big tier one MNCs have got these awards for partners, haven't they? Very powerful.

They do, yeah.

Yes. Thanks for introducing that, because we really haven't discussed the idea of winning awards. Dennis, I've got to ask you, you've obviously got a talent for creating partnerships to get noticed and to build channels. Can you give us an insight? What would you say makes a great partnership? What do you look for? Because you've plainly got a real talent for that.

I guess it's about understanding them and what are the outcomes they're looking for and making the partnership about enabling them to achieve their goals. And then we get swept along in the momentum. So we've never made the partnerships about us, but it's always been about them and helping them achieve something or build something or move the needle for them. And I got an amazing team of people around me, and some of the people I've hired have come out of Microsoft or come out of other large organizations. So intuitively they understand what the partner is looking to achieve. We've got deep empathy with our partner's business and their goals, and that helps us connect, talk their language, work with them, almost work for them. And they just see us as being joined at the hip, really strongly aligned in terms of business and in terms of culture as well. Microsoft is an organization that's really big on culture and doing good things for humanity and for the planet. And we've got similar views and similar perspectives, and so we align well culturally as well as from a business perspective, and that makes a big difference.

Dennis O', Shea, joining me from Nashville, Tennessee, the CEO of MobileMentor.com you've brought so much value and shared so much empathy with us and my audience here, unnoticed entrepreneurs. If you want to find out more about you and all of your amazing offerings and skills, where can they find you?

You find me on LinkedIn, and it's the only social platform I'm on. So it's Dennis o'. Shea. Dennis with one Nick. And the company is Mobile Mentor. Com. That's our company, and we help organizations with their security and productivity. And then if you want to read more about the research, that's endpointecosystem.com great.

And of course, I will put those links in the show notes. Dennis, thank you so much for joining me on the mic today. And it's been a pleasure.

Thank you, Jim. It's been a pleasure for me to speak with you.

Yeah, it's been wonderful. So you've been listening to Dennis o'. Shea. I will, of course, put all of his contact details in in the show notes. And you'll be listening to me, Jim James here, host of the Unnoticed Entrepreneur. And until we meet again, I just wish you keep on communicating. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Unnoticed Entrepreneur show.