In this conversation, Tony Kyriakidis, founder of Nevron, shares his journey from Cyprus to the Netherlands, detailing his experiences in software development and the establishment of Mission Control, a platform for incident management. He discusses the importance of learning the local language for business success, navigating government contracts, and transitioning from an agency model to a product-focused company. The conversation also explores the role of AI in incident management, proactive project management strategies, and the freedom and challenges of entrepreneurship.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

02:19 Learning Dutch & Fitting in

10:16 Landing the First Government Client

15:27 Transitioning from Agency to Product

19:45 What Mission Control actually does

24:36 Leadership & Operations at Scale

33:36 AI in Incident Management

38:51 Risk Planning & Entrepreneurial Mindset

42:16 Freedom and Entrepreneurship

About Tony

Tony is the founder of Nevron B.V., a software company specialized in mission-critical systems for governments, law enforcement, organisations, and major events. Since starting his entrepreneurial journey with Smashing Parties in 2014 and Venuepark in 2016, he has built a track record of delivering high-impact solutions. Under his leadership, Nevron’s software has been used during the Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix, by the Dutch National Police, Rijkswaterstaat, and at leading festivals in the Netherlands. With a clear mission to become the world’s leading incident and operations management software company within the next 30 years, Tony continues to drive Nevron forward.

Where to find Tony

• Website: https://nevron.io
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-kyriakidis
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/iam.tony

Hello everyone, today's guest is Tony Kyriakidis. I hope I pronounced that right. He's the founder of Nevron, who's the company behind Mission Control. And it's a real-time platform used to coordinate safety incidents and stakeholders at really large events. We just talked about a couple and public operations. Recently mission control and this is really interesting was organized or used to organize the security around the nato summit that we had here in the Netherlands in The Hague and it's one of the largest security operations that we have in this country or had recently so it's very interesting we'll get into how he moves from Cyprus to Amsterdam where he comes from how he mastered to speak dutch fluently which is not very common for an expat in the Netherlands and how he's actually managed to get large public sector contracts and build trust there so tony Thank you and welcome. To the show.

Thank you very much mark for having me this is our second time having a conversation about, technical stuff. And we together had like... Not a round table. But it was a presentation that we gave together. You remember that?

I want to go. On stage, the DevRev leadership circle where we had an on stage panel discussion where we were both on the same panel and that was April this year. Very interesting as well. Love - So you grew up in Cyprus, you then came to the Netherlands to study, you then found them smashing parties, venue park and ultimately quite a long time ago, rating Nevron.

That. Yeah, it was fun. That was fun.

How did that happen? And what were the biggest moments along that trajectory. How did you end up with Nevron?

Yeah, so it all started in the... I was in the army in Cyprus.

So... Actually, I'll start a little bit from before that. The reason I'm in the technical world and why I'm developing was because when I was a kid at school, when I was around 10, 11 years old, we had computers in class. And I didn't have a computer at home. My parents did have laptops back then, but we had computers in class and my classmates didn't. They used to go on a platform called Freewebs and they used to create websites. And it was one of the first platforms to ever build like custom websites and stuff.

So I found that super interesting. And when I went home one day, my parents, they are... I'll say world-class photographers, both of them. And they do weddings and they had a website for their weddings. And I found that the website wasn't good enough.

So what I did is I built a website on three webs. And I immediately found out that there are many limitations to those platforms.

So at 10, 11, 12 years old, I started developing myself. So the first thing I learned was HTML, CSS. Then I ventured into JavaScript.

And then I gave up many times. And I kept coming back at it.

So programming was always part of my, let's say, childhood growing up. And then I started learning photography and I started doing club photography and I wanted to venture into events.

So I started organizing my own events while I was in the army. The army in Cyprus is mandatory. I was special forces. I was a commando in the army.

And then I decided to basically... Do events. And I started doing events right after the army.

So I was 20 years old. I started smashing parties. It was a nice time for me as a 20-year-old organizing events. And... I was at a point in my life where I decided, okay, I need to leave the country. I need to go get more experience abroad. Teach myself. Business and stuff and then come back and do these parties better.

So I went on Google and I literally typed event management studies abroad. And the first thing that came up was. Sponsored ads by Inholland, The Hague, which said media and entertainment studies. And I clicked apply and I just came to the Netherlands. And that's how I came to the Netherlands. It's an important thing to note that I do have family here. My grandfather is from Amsterdam. And so I had like a basic understanding of the language. But when I came here, I realized like, okay, I don't speak Dutch. But I really need to like... Incorporate myself into this culture and actually understand the language in order to do business here as well.

So I started speaking Dutch with my friends and I immediately was like okay Now I understand the jokes, I understand the culture, and people were taking me more seriously. And even though this is a country that they immediately take you more seriously when you come here as a young, let's say, kid. I found that if you speak the language fluently, of the country that you live in or the country you want to do business in is just, it gives so much, so many bonus points.

So yeah, I'm super happy that I learned the language and This is one of the advices I give to everybody who comes to the Netherlands. Try to learn the language. You understand the people. You understand why they direct. You understand how they do business. You understand their jokes. Because I personally find Dutch people to have like nice humor, but you don't understand it if you don't understand the way they speak.

So yeah, that's how I came here. And when I was studying at the first year of university, with my friends, I... Started a company called Venue Park. And Venue Park basically was an online directory where you could find venues. And the reason I wanted to do the platform was because I couldn't find venues to... Organize events myself.

So once I learned how to that platform didn't exist. That I wanted to A platform like that didn't exist. I started basically building that myself. And I had experience in the past with development. I did a few projects before on my own, a few side projects. And that's when I really went in and created Venue Park as a platform. And from that... Because building venue park with my mates, didn't go as planned, let's say, but I did have the experience. From development.

So I started doing software development on the site for clients. And through my network in events, I did a few projects with a few companies called Life Crowd, Brandmakers, Crafture, and Mojo Concerts. Which is in the event space. And that's how basically I started Nevron as a software development agency. From that, I transition fully to now, today. To being a company that only focuses on mission-critical software.

So we only build stuff for clients such as Rijkswaterstaat, teams for Formula One in the Netherlands and for the NATO summit with the police. So that's a little bit how it went. And.

It's an incredible story, right? How you got from coming here from Cyprus just to study. And it shows that at least CO used to work because if you found a Google ad from an - Right here in the Netherlands, they're from a school, and they use a solid ad, and it actually does work, which is really cool to know.

Still, I wanna get into the Dutch a little bit more, because the advice that you give to lots of expats is, No different from the advice that I give. If you want to live in a country and you want to do business in a country, it just helps so much to speak the language. You give that advice to a lot of people. I do as well. I think a lot of people know it. Yet I'd say 99% of them don't do it. Most of the expats that I know live here don't speak the language. And if they do, it's only because they have to pass an exam. And it's like very basic Dutch. What is different about you that you still went through and just actually did it?

Yeah, I don't know exactly why I did it, why I decided to do it, but I thought it was important for me. To do it in the first place. Maybe I caught it up somewhere, but I know, I think I might have read somewhere something that said, If you really want to do business in a country, then you really need to learn the language. And I don't know where I read that, but I do remember having that thought.

So somewhere along... My studies or before that, before coming to the Netherlands, I. Caught that up and that's why i started learning it and the way i've learned it is basically I've and For the people who don't know, the Netherlands is a super international country and everybody speaks English. And so it's super easy for any expat to come and live here. And that's why many expats come here in the first place. The reason though, I decided to tell my friends, especially in university, my Dutch friends too, Only speak in Dutch to me. That's step number one.

And then I started reading in Dutch. And by reading, everything came together. And within a year, I think, I started speaking fluently Dutch. And yeah, there's another friend of mine called George. He's from Greece. And you know, me, I'm from Cyprus. He's from Greece. We have a heavy Greek accent when speaking. We still have that. He has it more than me, but it's interesting to see from his side how much it helped for him to speak English. Dutch because he has many clients now abroad, but he has Dutch clients. And for him to be based here in the Netherlands, it helped a lot to learn the language.

And I think you have a lot of government clients, public sector clients, which is especially amazing for an expat. And I think speaking Dutch is probably one of the most important things. Things that you had that actually helped you get that contract. I think without speaking the local language, landing government clients in the Netherlands, at least, is very difficult.

Still, there's a lot more to that. So Who was your first Dutch government client? What did you do to land them? How did that even happen? Because it's.

Hard. I think Rijkswaterstaat was the... The first client and it started out as a partnership in the first place.

So A few years ago, I had, I received a call from a friend of mine who was a Dutch who lives in Spain, who was had a connection with a Dutch person who lives in Spain, who had as a client Rijkswaterstaat. And he developed a software he used to work at Rijkswaterstaat for over 40 years and he left he started a software development company and they built just one specific SaaS tools and he showed that to Rijkswaterstaat and that SaaS tool was called IM in the cloud, which is incident management in the cloud.

So, He brought us in contact because that person needed development help. And He's... He's... In the stage in his life now that he wants to retire. Okay, so... After like one or two years, we developing some stuff for them. It was like, Hey, Do you want to have like a more active role? Do you want to become a partner in the company? And I said immediately, yeah, let's do it. Let's partner together. And that's how it started with me and Rijkswaterstaat because as becoming a partner in that company, it forced me immediately to have a conversation with all the functional people at Rijkswaterstaat and all the client negotiations at Rijkswaterstaat.

So that's how it started with Rijkswaterstaat. And yeah.

Yeah. And now we're in the position with... I'm in the cloud where I'm taking the whole company over starting next year. And I'll be the exclusive contact, let's say, for incident management in the cloud. And Rijkswaterstaat. That's how we started with Rijkswaterstaat. With the police, It was through connections. My second big project that I did with the Dutch National Police was basically because we kept delivering good work with our partners. Our partners recommended us through the police and the police had a talk with us and we just hit it off immediately and we gave a demo of mission control and through that we just basically did the whole nato summit together.

That's so cool. And I think it makes sense, right? After you have your first government client and you have the records to show for the second, the third, the fourth are easier, but it's the first one. That you need to land first. And that makes a lot of sense that you had a really good entry there with, well, with that partner that you worked with.

Still, what did you, I mean, Selling to government is very different than selling to private sector. What was it that? You underestimated or that really surprised you about the processes, the procurements, the compliance or the culture?

Like, what's it been like working with them?

Yeah, so... Working with the government is interesting. It takes a very long time to get going. It's a process that... Hopefully once you're in? But to get in is a big issue. You have to go through so many huddles, so many meetings. You have to have so many conversations with people. You have to create so many reports. And at the end of the day, if the need isn't there by the government... You'll never get an entry.

So what I underestimated was how long it takes to get in. That's the whole thing. And now negotiating a contract we've been talking about for a year now with them. And we're still not there yet. And it's a process that's always been that way. And not only with the Dutch government, but with the Cypriot government, it's the same thing. It takes a long time to get a contract going.

So that's what I underestimated. The other thing is, if I compare governments, The Dutch government actually does try to innovate a lot. An interesting meeting today. About using AI in incident management and in the government. Which is still a thing that not many governments do. Everybody talks about it, but nobody's actually trying to implement stuff. It's still a little bit scary to them. And this morning I had a conversation about... Ideas and many of the ideas were coming from people in the government and it was refreshing to see that They are so involved in the process. They actually want to improve. It's not just, I have a government position.

So. I don't care what happens. I just want to do my job and that's it. Now it's like, How do we improve safety? How do we collaborate better? What can we do? To improve the process. And that's what I like. And that's something that, is a little bit unique to the Dutch, let's say, culture, being proactive. And I love it I really love it.

So, yeah.

Really good to hear about our own government. Thank you.

So, and then you started Netrun as a, I'd say an agency, right? Just doing software development for clients. It's moved into a products company, a software company, which is completely different business model and different way of working. What's the change been like? And what are you still using now that came from the agency world? And what have you all had to change to become a software company?

Yeah, so... First of all, the decision I made it about two years ago. I knew that after... Reading a lot and after... Speaking with many people, I realized quickly that Being an agency, you're more like a talent, and sales company more than actually a product development company.

So I realized that for us to grow and do Who won? And interesting things and actually make a dent, let's say, in the world, we need to transition from agency into something else. And in the beginning I was like, okay, What I'm doing now as an agency is I'm actually chasing new clients all the time. Getting projects. Delivering those projects, And the whole circle keeps going and going.

Sometimes you have a client that falls out. Sometimes you have projects that take longer than they should.

Sometimes you don't find a client. Middle ground with your clients.

So it's always a process that's stressful. And I found that with cash flow, especially, If you don't have like big reputation, a big team, a big sales company, if you don't have a big sales team, then it's really hard to thrive and grow as a software development agency or in any agency in that sense. And because I had bigger ambitions, I tried to, in the beginning, I tried to fix the agency process. I tried to. Find how I can systemize things, how I can reduce the development process and what can we do with that. And I quickly realized that I needed to find a niche. And with that niche, First of all, as an agency, if you have a niche, you can, let's say, what we call boilerplate some stuff. For example, now. All our new projects are 80% the same exact base that we use with all projects. And what does this do? It does two things. First of all, you are super secure. Because you've done it many times.

You know exactly what's going on. Your team knows exactly what they need to do.

So it's all secure. And the second thing is you're super fast because you've done it before. You've done it so many times.

You know exactly what's working. You can deliver something super fast.

So you cut out a big amount of development time at the beginning. And that leaves your people, your resources, to focus on exactly what they need to develop. With the moment. I realized. That this works. I was like, okay. Step 1: We're going to turn the Software Development Agency into a new Software Development Agency. Fast forward, we did a few projects. It started working. We started having more like clients in the world of incident management and operations, basically.

And then at that one point, I was like, okay. I had an idea for a product. It was called Mission Control. And it combined all the knowledge we had from events, from working with the government, from traffic management, and we combined that into one and we created Mission Control. At the beginning of this year, I said, okay, we're stopping entirely with software development as an agency. And we're going to transition within one year, to a company that develops software, as a SaaS, let's say SaaS software, and we sell that to other companies.

So we went from an agency to a product company. And that helps a lot because you can create products and you focus your resources to creating one single product or multiple products. You keep building on top of those products.

So they keep getting better and better. So the end client, keeps on getting a better end result. Instead of every time going and building one thing for one client and then disappearing.

So yeah, and we're on track. We are delivering our last client project now. And from this point on, we're not going to get any other custom software projects for anyone. -.

Nice, and it's all about mission control. So tell me a bit more, what exactly is it that mission control does and so forth.

Mission Control basically, is.... Basically, I'm going to try to explain it. Basically, it's a little bit complicated even for us to explain. But basically, it's a common operational picture. I'll come back to that. It's a common operational picture. That allows any organization, to see in real time all the data that they need to run effectively. Resources? Stakeholders, where they are and everything, and combine that with open source data and closed source data that they have themselves.

And then trigger stuff on it. So for example, I'll give you an example. It sounds more complicated than it is, but an event organization, can visualize all an event terrain. Completed. Okay And on that event terrain, you can see exactly where all your security is. All your bar personnel stuff is Dall-E resources where they are. And at the same time, you can map out all the incidents that are happening in real time. Is there a calamity? Is there infrastructure that's broken? Everything you can see in real time on a map. And you can act on it.

So you can trigger a person to leave from a security post, to handle an incident at a place and you can see it all happening in real time. And that's basically what we built. And yeah, and it can be used by governments to map out entire cities and see where the garbage needs to be collected, where things need to be fixed. Everything can be visualized. It's like a task manager. For incident management.

Sounds a little bit more complicated and I need to work a little bit on refining my pitch for that.

So i think a couple of years ago you showed me the demo of the formula one a dutch Grand Prix here and the whole event terrain. And it was, yeah, I think it was incredibly cool to see how that works. And yeah, makes a lot of sense.

Still, for a festival, for a music concert, an event, that's okay. But public safety, I mean, Rijkswaterstaat, which is basically the Dutch national government control of our waterways and our roads, which is, I mean, if an incident happens there, it's quite important. NATO Summit, even bigger. You're a small company.

So what makes these... Big customers with really huge challenges around safety, security and incidents trust a young and small company like yours.

Track record, first of all. Think.

Like the projects that we've done in the last few years, they were all large projects for large clients. And we've always delivered That's the most important thing. We always deliver. We always try to deliver good work. We always try to over deliver with clients. That's one of the things that I try to do always is, think ahead and think for the client, not just think, what the client wants at that point. Because many times the client thinks, They know what they want. But things from a software perspective don't always go that way.

So we try to think together with the client, together with the business. And that eventually means that you're going to deliver something great for the client. And by delivering great things for the clients, they trust you and they refer you to other people. And what happens is, you create a portfolio. Of projects that you've done and with that portfolio you have proof. That proof is super important to people. It's like, I sometimes mentor a group of small young kids who want to start businesses. It has nothing to do with software, but what I do is always I try to tell them, like, go do stuff for free for people and always try to overdeliver. Go out there and ask people for things. And by doing that, first of all, you get experience. Real-world experience. And that real world experience will give you more knowledge than four years in university or anything you read on your own. Do an actual project for somebody. Actually deliver something. Once you do that, you build up confidence. You build up a portfolio. And that way you can go and ask money. And once you go start ask money, you start low.

And then you start building that up. So get more clients, get more projects, have a big portfolio and. Always never compromise on quality that's the most important thing always deliver with quality and have a portfolio and then you can go ask bigger clients to do.

Better things now it's more money once you build a portfolio yeah nice okay now and i think so track record your track records your project portfolio is then everything and it's the most important thing you use to sell and get new clients yeah makes sense And along the way, I mean, you started developing, building your own websites when you were young. You now are running an actual business. You are you're not just a coder, an engineer, somebody that sells, but a manager. What's that journey been like for you? What did you get wrong first? And what does it look like now when you hire people, you manage your teams, your software developers, giving feedback?

Yeah. What does it look like for you managing your business now?

Yeah. That's... A topic that I'm focused on a lot right now, because it's actually a pretty young process for me as well, A small team now, but a few years ago, I started as a freelancer.

And then I had full control over my time. Nobody cared more about the things I delivered than myself.

So... I could control the quality and everything. Now, Fast forward a few years, having a team. Drawing that team? Having people leave and go explore other opportunities, dealing with people who get children and how to deal with that.

Like it's a new world completely. It's managing people is something that didn't think would be this difficult. But The first step for me was taking the first step and hiring the first employee. I cannot believe how long it took me. To actually take the first step and actually Get the person. Boo. Do some work. I wish I did that way earlier in my roadmap. I wish I hired somebody two years before I actually did hire my first person. And since then, I had the second person and then the third person and then the freelancers and everything. The process basically for hiring in the beginning as a small team is basically you get a somebody to do something. And no matter what it is, like, If you are stuck and if you put in... 10 hour days every day, you need to hire somebody to offload some work on you. And at that point, I don't think you really care about who you're going to hire. You just need a clear explanation of what the task is. And that offload that to somebody else.

Soap. I did that. The first thing I should have hired, though, was an executive assistant or a personal assistant. I didn't do that. I hired a backend developer as the first thing that I wanted to do because it was the only thing that I knew how to do. Back in development. And... I found that if I was a backend developer, I'll have more control over the process. If something goes wrong, I still can jump in and fix stuff. Wrong mentality. Because... You need to give responsibility to other people and you need to hire people to offload your work and not give you more headaches.

So now I'm hiring for exactly the positions that I don't want to be dealing with in the first place. I hire you to do the job that I don't want to do or I cannot do.

So now, I've read a book called Traction. I don't know if you've heard about it. It's a great book. And... I, the first thing you do is basically you map out the core values that you have.

So I took a day, mapped out the core values. And then you put your people in. If you don't have any people, that's even better because then you can start from a blank, let's say, page. You basically hire people based on those core values that you have. And I found that helps a lot with, with hiring new people.

So for anybody who wants to expand the company and, you know, hire new people, I really recommend two books. And that's buy back your time, by Dan Marteau you obviously know Dan really well and Traction And I don't remember the name of the author for Traction, but I'll make sure to send you the details so that you can add them in the description of the podcast.

Yes, and indeed, I think we actually met two, three years ago. First time you and I met was through Dan Martell, his coaching community that you and I were both a part of at the time.

So Buy Back Your Time is something that I think you and I both know quite well as a book. And I fully agree with the method, right? Hiring a virtual assistant first and then scaling from there.

Yeah.

So and then you now are you're actually a founder. A CEO running a business. Do you still spend time software developing yourself or is it all spent in contract negotiations, managing a team and managing a business?

I still... Like...

Like we had a conversation a little bit before starting the podcast, but basically in the whole of August, we had so many events going on. We had Formula One, we had Amsterdam sale, we had Mysteryland and other events, huge events, and we had to deliver software for them. And at the same time, I needed to. Experiment with new things.

So I let the team work on client projects and I started again, developing myself every day, focusing a little bit, building new features out myself, prototyping. And then once I had something solid, and ready to go, I would push that to the team for them to implement that into mission control or any of our other platforms but yeah so A lot less than before. But I still develop sometimes. And I find that now that I do it because, well, I really want to do it. I find it more enjoyable. It's like the beginning stages, let's say, of software development. But yeah, I still have a lot of experience. I still... I'm involved a lot in the process, especially for architecture.

Like... Starting a project? How are we going to build out the infrastructure for the project? How are we going to host it? How are we going to set up the Service? How should this project look in a fundamental base that I really like? Because I feel that that's one of my strengths as a software engineer and I'm I feel that I have a lot of input to give there still. And yeah I think I like that and I'll keep doing that up until I don't need to do it anymore but yeah for the time being I'll keep doing that.

Nice. And indeed, if it's what you like doing, then you should spend at least some time doing it. You still need to run a company. But it's important to get energy from as well.

So we're only recording this podcast now indeed, because you just talked about August and I think those three events are just, they're absolutely nuts. I think they're some of the biggest events that we have.

I mean, you talked about NATO summit, but after that, I think the desk Grand Prix is an incredible and large event. Still, I don't know how many millions of visitors we had this year, but it was incredible. Mysteryland was, I think the, or if close to the biggest festival that we have here. What does an event look like for you how do you prepare how do you manage how does your team support it is that like 24 7 work to be ready for an event and support during an event.

Yeah it depends on the event itself and depends on the software that we provide for a project like the dutch grand prix we work together with a mobile we deliver software for the mobility team and the mobility team here's a twist the great partners of us and you we oftentimes begin developing six months before an event. So we build out new features, we discuss whatever needs to be done, And that's the exact point that an organization starts the development of New Year's event.

So these are events that happen once a year. So they start preparations. Approximately six months before the heavy preparations. And that's the same point that we sit down with them and discuss all the requirements and all the new things that need to be done, all the implementations, and we start working on it.

And then close to the event is as a team and as we deliver the stuff that we need to deliver. It's approximately a month before the event. We're all ready to go. We discuss with the client whether they want us to be 24-7 available to them.

So in Dutch, there's a nice, it's called piketdienst. And I do this regularly. We offer this for all our clients and basically it's you charge a fee, an hourly fee, to be standby. And you charge an hourly fee if anything happens and you need to actually implement something or develop something or fix something, then you charge a full amount.

Yeah, the team has been 24/7 available. For the Dutch Grand Prix for the last four years. For the days of the event.

So it's usually Thursday to Sunday. 24/7. But it's not for all events. There are events that basically our software isn't, it's not in our agreement to be part of the event itself.

So it's just upon delivery of the project and then it's done. But yeah, usually it's a combination of the two.

Sense. I can imagine that was a very busy month for you guys. Wow. A question that I have to ask and that we haven't talked about yet, but I'm going to ask it anyway. AI is like really big. You run incident management. It's, I would say, almost traditional SaaS, even if it's for incredible events. Do you use AI? Does that come into your tools? Where do you see that playing a role in your business, in your world?

In the world of incident management, and I'll... Okay, I'll give you an example of Rijkswaterstaat at this point. With Rijkswaterstaat, our partner, which is the National Highways Agency of the Netherlands. We basically deliver I'm in the cloud, which is the incident management logging tool that's used to track all the accidents that are happening. On the highways and at the same time dispatch roadway inspectors and towing trucks and all that. And what we realized is there's a big focus in the Netherlands on mobility. And there's a lot going on with research right now from university students and master's students and PhD students about predicting mobility. And predicting incidents in general, And we have this discussion today, actually, All those researchers actually, you cannot predict these kind of things. Yes, you can predict like We estimate that... In the next few days, we're going to have so many incidents. But you cannot go in detail and say like my God, in one minute, we're going to have an incident because this and this. It's too random. You cannot predict these kinds of things. You cannot predict when somebody will have an accident on a highway or when a tire will explode for no reason or why an engine... Has an issue. You cannot predict that.

So... Instead, we should focus our resources and AI on making the whole incident management process shorter. Because what is incident management at the core? Is restoring normal operations. That's the core of incident management. The goal, though, of efficient incident management is restoring normal operations, as efficient and as quickly as possible.

So, There's a few things going on during the whole... In the management process. The first of them is identification. Ciao. An accident happens on the highway. The time it takes for the accident to happen and somebody to register that accident, is time lost. How do we use AI? To minimize the time and you can do many things which are already implemented Cameras on the highways. Minute they see something or they expect or they see something that has stopped, a car that has stopped, log it directly into the system. It opens up, it lights up something. That's one way to use AI. Then it goes to the actual technology. Person who speaks on the phone with the police. Okay, an accident has happened. You start typing it out. But at the same time, If it's, for example, a Collision? With more than three cars? Then you immediately know that it's a priority one incident.

So there's multiple priorities. So AI can automatically detect incidents, What you're typing?

And then dispatch two cars or three towing trucks at the same time. So it makes the whole logging process much faster. And that saves time. Because The traffic starts building up. The minute there's an accident, and that's productivity loss. And at the end of the day, that's money lost. And obviously it might be a tragic incident, like people might die.

So the faster ", the better. So the whole incident management process, we are now seeing how can we implement AI on each part of it to make the whole process better. And this morning we had a discussion with Rijkswaterstaat on collaboration that Leo van der Berghe was the creator of I'm in the Cloud and I'm his... I'm taking his part over. He collaborated with the university to develop AI systems to make the whole registration of incidents much faster.

So those are the ways that we are seeing how to implement that. In the government, we know there's... A lack of resources, people. They don't have enough people who are trained to do these kind of jobs.

So anything we can do to make the process faster for them means safer roads, means less accidents, faster response, less traffic, less frustration, more productivity. So yeah, we're taking a completely different shift from predicting to actually implementing AI.

It's incredible. And I know that the ex-VAT stats has been, I think, for the last 10 or 15 years already, this has been a huge focus for them. We used to have accidents and they used to traffic jams for hours. And I think one of their biggest focuses for the last, let's say, 10 or 15 years has been how can we get it? Off the road as quickly as possible so that the traffic can flow again. And it's, yeah, AI is a logical next step for that process. Makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I think one of the things in our pre-discussion, one of the things that you mentioned is proactive hindsight, an interesting term, wasn't quite sure what that meant. Can you explain it to me or to the rest of us? And what does that mean for you? And how do you use that?

Yeah, absolutely. Is one of my newest projects. Favorite things to do before starting or collaborating with a client. And basically, proactive insight is a term that I first read in a book called Meltdown, Sorry, I don't remember the author again. I should have noted it, but it's a book about incident management and crisis management. And I'm trying to read everything I can because I'm in the industry right now.

So I'm trying to get all the stuff that I can about that. And one of the things that I saw an exercise that they do for crisis management it's called Proactive Insight and it's a tool what it is before you even start a project, for example, a software project or any project, You imagine... That same project, completely failed, disastrously failed. In the future. And you try to come up with ideas on why that happened. Okay?

So, Let's do this exercise together. Mark, let's say you are organizing a barbecue party. In your neighborhood, okay? And you want to invite your whole neighborhood to come there. And it's going to be in one month. What's the worst case scenario that can happen?

The weather is going to be a disaster. It's going to rain. It's going to pour. It's going to be windy. Absolute worst.

Days. It's going to rain. Take one. I'll give you another one. It's going to be a disaster because... It's going to catch fire. The barbecue is going to catch fire. Your whole house is going to burn down. Okay. That's one.

So you have your whole team. List out every single thing that can happen wrong. Over exaggerate and then Work backwards. Okay.

So if the barbecue is going to... Burn and the entire house is going to burn down, what can we do? To minimize that risk. Okay, so we can have a fire extinguisher next to the barbecue stand. Or we can have a distance between the barbecue and the house.

And then we can have fire blankets ready for when something happens. And we can have somebody like have a shift, like every 30 minutes, somebody changes to just have a look at what's happening at the barbecue. That way you create a new plan to mitigate all those risks. And by doing so, you end up creating a product or service or organizing something way better. Than before.

So that's proactive insight. And especially in my world, when we build mission-critical software that people rely on to do their job and the safety of the people. We've really started implementing this process. From the start of the project.

So making absolutely sure that you at least it's risk management, but then From a very different angle and very different perspective.

Absolutely. Usually we do evaluations afterwards. A project. What we should do is do a pre-evaluation.

Sorry, not a pre-evaluation, a pre-project start assessment of something. Yeah.

Exactly. Nice. Okay, one other question, and this is something that you and I talked about i think it was earlier this week and it's one thing that stuck with me and i loved our discussion and he talks about freedom of life and entrepreneurship yeah i think we both made very conscious decisions to become entrepreneurs Why did you choose that, and what has it actually brought you?

Yeah, right. So I've had this discussion with many friends who are entrepreneurs and I'm with you, of course. A friend of mine The jokes. I decided to become an entrepreneur in order to avoid the 9-5-5 and instead work 24-7. And I get that by so many people. For me, it's basically, I don't really know why I chose this path, but I always knew that I didn't want to settle for just a normal job and do basic stuff. I always wanted to do great stuff. And I always wanted to implement my own things.

So that's the reason I chose the entrepreneurship path. And that's why I always decide, every decision that I make is it something that I like doing? Or is it something that will help me achieve what I want to achieve? Yes or no. And that's why I'm, You can do this with... Companies like you can become an employee and work with a visionary company and do stuff but that's not the route I want to take I want to have more control over my time which sometimes means that I'm going to work overtime. It means that sometimes I'm going to put in 12, 16-hour days but at least I'm working on something that I want to work on. That's the difference. And... If you do this, if you work 12 to 16 hour days as an employee for something that you dread doing, you're going to end up in burnout. And we see that happening very often. But at the same time, that's what you see with entrepreneurs. They work so many hours. And they don't get burnouts. Why is that? What's the difference? It's basically because they want to do it. It's because they know what they're building and what they're striving for. To do.

That's why they put in the hours. So for me, it's basically... The freedom to do Anything I want with the time I have. And usually it means working over hours and doing a lot of things on my business. But at least I'm working on something that's mine. And that's the big difference. It's a selfish reason, but it's the truth.

Yeah.

If it's something you're passionate about, I don't think anything else is worth working on.

How about you, Mark, though? How about you?

It's the exact same. It's slightly a different reason, but it's the exact same reason.

So, I mean... Unlike you, I started my career in working life, right?

I mean, I've had a paying job, a nine to five, which was often 12 or 16 hours, but I've had a nine to five. For the first 20, 25 years of my career. And at that point, about five years ago, I wasn't sure what I was going to do next. I was really... In doubt. I knew that I was going to quit my last job and I was looking for something new. I spent a lot of time talking to recruiters, thinking was I going to become a CIO, was I going to do something else, going back to consulting, had a lot of different options. And I figured out that I didn't want to do any of them. Basically, and I think that's what you said. I didn't want to do... And go and work for somebody else, and do what they wanted me to do. Basically have to follow their bidding, follow their agenda, follow the company's agenda. I wanted to work on the stuff that I'm passionate about, that I want to do, that I feel like doing. If it's going to be a success, I can absolutely be very proud of myself. It's going to be a failure. The only person that I can blame is myself. And I love that part. I love the freedom. I think that's it. The freedom to do what I want to do and what I feel passionate about. Very similar.

Absolutely. And you have a family.

So does.

That help? Actually, it's the other way around.

So I do have family. I have two daughters, but they're grown up. I would say they have almost Yeah, they've left the house. The oldest just got married. - The youngest, she has a job and a car.

Well, basically they're, I see. Mature by now, which is really nice. I only made this decision at the point that they were about five years ago, at the point that they were in their universities already. They weren't that dependent on me anymore. And I actually felt like I could... Take the risk. Of earning less for a year or two years. And actually, yeah, so it was a bit different. I did that post, I say no post family.

I mean, I still have a family. I did it after they graduated high school and when they were in university and I had more, freedom, I could take more risks on myself.

So yeah, it helps. But in a different way.

Do you think you would do that though? Now that you've been through the process? Or you think you made the right decision?

I think, I mean, absolutely made the right decision five years ago. Looking back, probably something I, when I started my career, and this was back in the 90s, I had a very small company with a friend of mine, web hosting, building websites, 30 years ago, like way before, even before CSS, I think. Way before JavaScript. Really cool to do. But at the end, I decided to let that go. We stopped the company and I went to my day job. Maybe I should have just started it back then.

So I think the one piece of advice that I would give to myself... 30 years back as maybe... Start entrepreneurship way earlier and learn about it way sooner like you did.

No regrets though. For how it's been.

Exactly. So, and if I ask you, with all your experience in the past couple of years, if you have to give one piece of advice, the biggest lesson that you've learned over the past couple of years to CTOs or CIOs or others in tech? What would that be? Biggest piece of advice.

Okay. Controversial piece of advice. I think. Many CTOs out there right now don't have a clue about the technology that the companies are actually implementing. That's my... Currents. Thing and I think CTOs should focus a lot more on understanding. How technology is moving. They have to be on top of every development. Right now and they should stop. Falling into the trap of all the new trends and trying to steer entire teams into new developments just because a new trend or a new framework or a new idea is out there. We've seen that with AI right now. While it's the right decision to do for many companies, it doesn't make sense. Shifting your entire ideology as a company. To something. That has to do with AI just because it's the hype right now. That's my.

Advice. What's right for your business. Don't follow the hypes, the trends, the everything else. Absolutely. Nice.

And then if you look at you, and if we go and look ahead five or 10 or even 30 years, what's next for you? Mission Control and.

Nevron? Yeah, so with Nevron, the aim is... In the next 30 years to become the biggest incident management and operations. Efficiency, So for development company, in Europe. That's the goal. That's the North Star. If we don't get there, it doesn't matter. But all my decisions now are based on that call. And it sort of liberated me at this point because Doing so many things and making so many decisions and not having like In North Star, let's say. Isn't the best thing to do.

So if you know where you're going, You get there. One way or another. If you don't know, you'll never get there.

So yeah, that's having a no star, which is the 30 year goal for me, which is long enough. I don't want to retire. I'm not planning to, I'm still young, but I don't plan to retire anytime. I find pleasure in what I'm doing and growing companies. And I think it's one of the goals that actually brings value to the world. And I really want to focus on building Nevron to become the, biggest incident management and operational efficiency company out there.

So cool. Yeah, I can't wait to see and follow all of that. Absolutely. Tony, it's been incredible having you on and thank you very much for being here.

Thank you very much, Mark. It was a pleasure. Thank you. As.

We wrap up another episode of the CTO Compass, thank you for taking the time to invest in you. The speed at which tech and AI develop is increasing. Demanding a new era of leaders in tech. Leaders that can juggle team and culture, code and infra, cyber and compliance. All whilst working closely with board members and stakeholders. We're here to help you learn from others, set your own goals and navigate your own journey. And until next time. Keep learning. Keep pushing and never stop growing.