Latest / Force Tech Talks / Force Tech Talk Episode 24 Pt1: The Founder Story, with Mike Salmon (Part 1)

Transcript

Force Tech Talk Episode 24 Pt1: The Founder Story, with Mike Salmon (Part 1) · Force Tech Talks

• 00:00:16:14 - 00:00:43:15 Chris Dawes Welcome back to Force Tech Talks the podcast. You're right I look a little bit different don't I? My name is Chris Dawes from visual PR, the production company that creates these episodes for and with Force Technologies. And it's deliberate because I've got a very special guest today that I'm really excited to be speaking to. And it is the director of engineering and the founder of Force Technologies, Mike salmon. 00:00:43:15 - 00:00:48:24 Chris Dawes And it means I've got no preconceived knowledge so we can go from scratch. Right? Greetings, sir. 00:00:48:25 - 00:00:55:13 Mike Salmon Yes. Okay. And I've got no preconceived ideas of the answers either. Well, so both of them. 00:00:55:14 - 00:01:06:19 Chris Dawes We'll pull the pin and let's see what happens. First things first. Then you started Force Technology. What was it back in 1986? 00:01:06:20 - 00:01:09:14 Mike Salmon In the dark ages? Yeah, yeah. 1986. 00:01:09:21 - 00:01:12:02 Chris Dawes Where did that come from then? 00:01:12:03 - 00:01:34:25 Mike Salmon Well, I passed as an engineer, led to sales, which then I worked for a number of distributors. Found that you could earn more money by selling than making. So, yeah, a friend of mine told me about a new franchise that was coming out of the States. So we shot over to the States and signed up to become the UK distributor. 00:01:34:26 - 00:02:03:22 Mike Salmon That company was at mill. The first year that Atmel did business was 86, so tied up quite nicely in the first year that they turned over about $1.3 million, just free small company. And in that year we actually got $300,000 orders in that first year, first year. So we started off really well with that mill. And they used they used to do a lot of work with sick and people had sick. 00:02:03:22 - 00:02:19:03 Mike Salmon So we able to change their allegiance from seek to Atmel. So we kept that franchise for a while and was very successful, changing people from Sikh and other manufacturers to Atmel. 00:02:19:06 - 00:02:23:28 Chris Dawes And I've even got the note that you were the first Atmel distributor in Europe. 00:02:24:00 - 00:02:27:06 Mike Salmon Yes we were we were the first distributed worldwide. 00:02:27:07 - 00:02:27:25 Chris Dawes Oh, really? 00:02:27:26 - 00:02:52:27 Mike Salmon Yeah. Because we were knocking on the door when that didn't even have any production. We went there and saw the guy guy called George Pearly Goss, who was actually laying out a 27 C64 on a table with colored pins. Truth? Yeah. And with neary now, they're worth, I think, $2.7 billion. And I never got any shares. Oh, no. 00:02:52:27 - 00:02:58:00 Mike Salmon It was really annoying. But at that time, they weren't allowed to sell shares outside the US. 00:02:58:02 - 00:02:58:09 Chris Dawes Oh. 00:02:58:09 - 00:03:05:27 Mike Salmon I see that time and changed it. But so I never took the the advantages of having low cost shares. 00:03:05:28 - 00:03:06:20 Chris Dawes That's a shame. 00:03:06:26 - 00:03:10:21 Mike Salmon I know I wouldn't be sitting there. No one. 00:03:10:24 - 00:03:11:25 Chris Dawes Being a son or on the. 00:03:11:25 - 00:03:14:10 Mike Salmon Phone or whatever. Yeah. 00:03:14:13 - 00:03:22:02 Chris Dawes But how did you really see that? Was it a risk at the time, or did you? Were you absolutely convinced? 00:03:22:09 - 00:03:45:07 Mike Salmon Oh, a big risk. I mean, for all my career, I'd been getting jobs as marketing the managers and sales managers for distributors. Like, I remember a company called abacus. I was working for them, you know, a nice car. I was driving a nice BMW, good salary, had a nice house, all the good things that went with being successful. 00:03:45:13 - 00:04:07:22 Mike Salmon And then this guy came and said, should we take this franchise? And I said, well, I don't know. And one day he said, well, the thing he did for me was he gave me a desk and a telephone. So I went in my job, gave up all the toys that I had and started this desk thinking, oh, what do I do now is coming up. 00:04:07:27 - 00:04:26:20 Mike Salmon And I'm sitting there with the telephone. So I sat on the phone making about 100 calls a day for about two years. Wow. And till he started picking up and I started to take some reasonable money and then obviously, you know, took on other staff and went from there. Really. But it was hard work and very frightening. 00:04:26:26 - 00:04:27:06 Chris Dawes Yes. 00:04:27:07 - 00:04:32:12 Mike Salmon But I'm glad I did it, obviously, because I'm successful now, quite. 00:04:32:14 - 00:04:33:18 Chris Dawes 40 years later. 00:04:33:19 - 00:04:59:08 Mike Salmon Yeah, that's so quick. You'd be surprised how quick it is. Really. Oh, crap. Yesterday. In my head, it's still 1980, 88 or 8, 18, 1990. In my head. It's the rest of the body that's given up. But yeah, I still have that inclination to be around and see the excitement of distribution, taking nice orders and. Yeah, and losing. 00:04:59:09 - 00:05:01:00 Chris Dawes You still get the buzz of the big orders. 00:05:01:01 - 00:05:24:03 Mike Salmon I've always been one to enjoy getting the orders and taking the the losses bad as well. I didn't get an order. I thought I should have got it used to hurt. Just take me personally. Yeah. And I think that's. That was the enjoyment as well, though, because you were never like that. It was always. Oh. Oh like that. 00:05:24:04 - 00:05:26:15 Mike Salmon Right. Throughout my career. 00:05:26:18 - 00:05:28:26 Chris Dawes Adrenaline junkie. That's basically what we're saying there. 00:05:28:27 - 00:05:29:15 Mike Salmon Sort of. 00:05:29:16 - 00:05:57:26 Chris Dawes Yeah. Which I know we're going to move on to a sporting element in a bit. That kind of also uses that same principle. So it says a lot about you, Mike. That one does just a quick one then is that. I know you said the 40 years goes incredibly quick. Do you ever sort of look back and remember you in that 1986, 87, 88, that sort of early years and go that version of me would not have believed what this is now. 00:05:58:02 - 00:06:01:09 Chris Dawes Do you enjoy what you're able to see now? 00:06:01:12 - 00:06:20:28 Mike Salmon I was. Always into anything for money. I was always no money was prime mover as I was concerned. Yeah, but I suppose in the early days and we can go to how it worked for me. But in the early days, people sold to people. 00:06:21:01 - 00:06:22:01 Chris Dawes 100%. 00:06:22:02 - 00:06:26:00 Mike Salmon You know. And, you know, most of my customers were my mates. 00:06:26:01 - 00:06:26:27 Chris Dawes Yeah, yeah. 00:06:27:02 - 00:06:44:04 Mike Salmon You know, and I could bring them up and say, I'm sure this month got any orders and they would give you an order. It was like that. And, you know, you'd go drinking the pub and if you went to an exhibition, you didn't care about what was being exhibited. You cared about going across the road to the pub with all your mates. 00:06:44:06 - 00:07:12:04 Mike Salmon And I missed that. That was always fun. Yeah, I certainly changed a lot. But no looking back, I mean, we know what it was like where Little Office and I had a woman that used to use the machine because we bought most of our product as well as the atmosphere we bought from the factory, obviously. But in the meantime, there was other things that we could sell as well, and we was always buying from Japan. 00:07:12:06 - 00:07:30:17 Mike Salmon Japan was the main supplier of the semis for us, and so and we'd be on the phone, she'd be on television and the printer would come out and the sticky tape thing, you know, and they would find out if someone could got anything or it was cheap enough. So it worked like that. And then we got a fax machine. 00:07:30:18 - 00:07:39:20 Mike Salmon Wow. Of course, you could write on the what you wanted and you put it in this thing, and and that would come an answer from Japan within a couple of minutes. 00:07:39:21 - 00:07:40:12 Chris Dawes Yeah. 00:07:40:14 - 00:08:08:08 Mike Salmon And that started, you know, but it was person to person. And then what happened was in the industry was it was going to be taken over by the arrows and the it's the big pan distributors. So all the good guys that work for them, that had their good mates as customers would say, if I set my own company up, will you buy from me? 00:08:08:10 - 00:08:17:08 Mike Salmon Yeah. Of course. And that's how all the distributors started up in the early days, because I had mates who gave them business, allowed them to start up. 00:08:17:10 - 00:08:20:24 Chris Dawes Makes sense. Yeah. Makes sense. And people buy it from people. 00:08:20:26 - 00:08:47:00 Mike Salmon They do. And. And all these new companies in the Cyprus, all these guys with new technology were coming on to the marketplace and the customers didn't really understand it. So all these distributors, the guys coming up knew it. So they were taking lots of good business. So some of these guys are now in our big companies. Yeah. Astute people like that. 00:08:47:02 - 00:09:03:18 Mike Salmon And that's how it started. And then we we only had one franchise at the time. So we were doing very well on that. I mean, by 1991 92, we were doing $1 million a year just on that mill. Really? Yeah. So it was very good for us. 00:09:03:19 - 00:09:12:15 Chris Dawes And good for them by the sounds of it as well. But I get the impression that there was suddenly a change then when Atmel set up a European office. 00:09:12:16 - 00:09:13:21 Mike Salmon Oh, yeah. Yeah. 00:09:13:25 - 00:09:15:09 Chris Dawes That changed things for you. 00:09:15:09 - 00:09:38:27 Mike Salmon It always does. They had a distributor doing a million, 2 million. And they're thinking, why am I giving him the profit? So they set up a guy, they put put me a nice office in Camberley or something like that. Right. And he would be European manager. Yeah. And first thing he would do was start taking all the business that you used to take direct because he was offering obviously direct pricing. 00:09:38:29 - 00:10:00:22 Mike Salmon Yeah. So yeah, that was that was upsetting for a lot of guys in my position with their own franchises, people like micron, who came from nowhere and started doing billions of pounds, billions of dollars worth of business in memory. And that that was a big problem. I mean, it's funny because there was a time I had a policeman come to the door. 00:10:00:24 - 00:10:16:27 Mike Salmon It's a little story. I've got lots of Dutch they came to do and said, do you know I won't mention names? Do you know this guy who does this? I said, yeah, of course I do. He said, I said, why? He said, well, someone take a shot at him. 00:10:17:00 - 00:10:18:14 Chris Dawes Wow. 00:10:18:16 - 00:10:34:09 Mike Salmon They don't know whether it was a good air rifle or whatever. They shot the wind, shot him at him through his glass door, and he came to me and said, was it you? I said, did anyone hit him? He said, no, it wasn't me then. I was quite a good shot at the time. 00:10:34:10 - 00:10:35:12 Chris Dawes I wouldn't have missed. Yeah. 00:10:35:13 - 00:10:39:28 Mike Salmon I wouldn't have missed. But anyway, that's a, that's another story. 00:10:40:01 - 00:10:42:22 Chris Dawes But it got like that in that industry. No. 00:10:42:25 - 00:10:53:20 Mike Salmon Terrible. It was it was very cutthroat with Americans coming in and all the, all the distributors done all the hard work and designing in the product taking away from our overnight. 00:10:53:21 - 00:10:54:24 Chris Dawes Wow. 00:10:54:26 - 00:11:00:27 Mike Salmon And then they came to us and said, okay, we set up, we don't need you anymore. So we lost the franchise, took franchise away. 00:11:00:27 - 00:11:03:14 Chris Dawes But that opened the next door. 00:11:03:16 - 00:11:04:14 Mike Salmon Yeah, absolutely. 00:11:04:15 - 00:11:07:08 Chris Dawes Setting up the Force Technologies as we know. 00:11:07:08 - 00:11:34:18 Mike Salmon It in about 95. We had one of our defense customers were using any Haight-Ashbury, which was an old part, and old manufacturers, and they made that redundant. No way. It was a defense product in a defense environment. And they had something they needed, something which would meet all the specs. So they said, could we do it? So yeah, we found a Di that was similar. 00:11:34:24 - 00:11:56:01 Mike Salmon We managed to to pat it out in a different way. So it became similar to charge, and we sold it to them. And we only stopped selling that part to about five years ago. Wow. And this was this was like 20 years. We've been shipping maybe 100 or 200 a week. That was all a mantra. Sorry. So and that lasted all that time and we went from there. 00:11:56:02 - 00:12:32:06 Mike Salmon Somebody else answered the same problem. We managed to do it. One of the big attributes that I was involved in was that if someone was using a lot of glue logic on a on a device, then we were able to and that would be like 74 series, which was the backbone of old, old digital design. And we were able to use the new emerging technology, which was programed logic controllers, CPUs, stuff like that, and that people would know, although they were about 4 or 5 times bigger than what they wanted. 00:12:32:08 - 00:13:02:26 Mike Salmon We were able to put those designs of the old obsolete into a new device and make it better, because it could it could do the job of four of the old. Yeah, of quite simple design. I mean, I don't have FPGA knowledge, but we always get the knowledge and implement it. And then we built the parts and then we tested them, and then we proved that they were what they supposed to do. 00:13:03:00 - 00:13:24:28 Mike Salmon So we got a lot of that come in. And then of course you had the big problem with the our friends in China who came over and said, oh yeah, whatever you want. We've got it might not work, it might be fake, but we got them. And so how many? A lot of people, because of pressures of, of cost were going that route and they were coming and stuck. 00:13:25:00 - 00:13:55:20 Mike Salmon They were they were putting stuff into airplanes, you know, that were fake. And even the test programs they had didn't find out they were not good for purpose, let's put it that way. Yeah. So they had to look at another route. And then we even though our technology was not unknown, but it was new, we were able to give them what they wanted and put them into it and get sustainability. 00:13:55:22 - 00:13:59:14 Mike Salmon And it's taken 30 years for people to recognize that. 00:13:59:16 - 00:14:19:16 Chris Dawes Yeah. So I mean, that's the whole thing that I'm seeing is that, yes, it was a nightmare when you got you've lost the thing, but it opened that door for I mean, you, you learn how to survive, don't you? And that's when you become cleverest, I think, to be honest with you. And so that was where we entered the semiconductor obsolescence solutions. 00:14:19:19 - 00:14:45:10 Chris Dawes I'm guessing the one that you were talking about there it was that the 27256 UV prom or that's the 115 years then that one did. So I mean, again, it's you know, you mentioned what did you say 300 odd thousand in year one, which is unheard of when you start a company and then you've got a product that you were forced to to create that then lasted successfully for 15 years. 00:14:45:12 - 00:14:45:27 Mike Salmon Well, a couple. 00:14:45:28 - 00:14:47:08 Chris Dawes Of new. 00:14:47:10 - 00:15:10:04 Mike Salmon New window from customers that we hadn't known before enabled us to get enough money to get through the period where we were teaching people that what we had and what we could do, even though it wasn't coming back in revenue. So, yeah, those big chunks gave us a bit of a little bit of ease. Yeah. You know what? 00:15:10:04 - 00:15:20:24 Chris Dawes I'm always in my head. I'm like going, right. So that force situation made you go have to go one step backwards, but then two, three, four, five steps forward that you possibly wouldn't have done. If the status. 00:15:20:24 - 00:15:25:06 Mike Salmon Quo is as you say, it's you have to do to fix a family. 00:15:25:08 - 00:15:26:18 Chris Dawes Don't they. I, I. 00:15:26:18 - 00:15:32:16 Mike Salmon Think oh yeah. And I was my office was 70 miles from my house. 00:15:32:19 - 00:15:33:06 Chris Dawes Oh, wow. 00:15:33:07 - 00:15:45:26 Mike Salmon I used to commute every day. I had, I bought a cot and I used to sleep in the office because if I had gone over the pub and a couple of beers, he couldn't go home. So get the camp bed out and sleep in the office. 00:15:45:28 - 00:15:50:16 Chris Dawes No one tell you that it was your business, so you could have moved in there closer to you? Yeah. 00:15:50:19 - 00:15:56:13 Mike Salmon You know, by that time, back into the 1890s, my kids were going off to university and. 00:15:56:18 - 00:15:59:00 Chris Dawes They could have moved the premises. The office premises? 00:15:59:00 - 00:16:32:02 Mike Salmon Well, it wasn't my premises that was, you know, I was renting off a friend of mine, and he subsequently started to do some other things. So I had to buy another office and I bought that in Basingstoke. And from there really just moved on a bit more as we went along. But yeah, anecdote I can tell you is that even though I used to commute all that way and I mean, I worked, I used to leave home about six, never going before 9:00 for four years, I did that. 00:16:32:04 - 00:16:37:13 Mike Salmon Wow. And people say to me, you're lucky you look what you got. 00:16:37:15 - 00:16:40:00 Chris Dawes Did you have the overnight success as. 00:16:40:02 - 00:16:40:16 Mike Salmon A lot of that? 00:16:40:18 - 00:16:43:12 Chris Dawes Yeah, the overnight success that took years of 40. 00:16:43:12 - 00:17:08:13 Mike Salmon Years later, it's under the under the guidance of Karen. Yeah. Oh, she's doing things in the last year that I should have done 25 years ago. I really yeah. She wasn't looking at it when I was making reasonable money. Okay. I was able to let the kids go to uni without any loans. You know, we had a lovely house. 00:17:08:13 - 00:17:29:13 Mike Salmon We had the cars I had, I was doing my racing, so I was getting corporate entertainment. Yeah. Anyway, so yeah. So at the end, all that was really getting to a position where I could do what I want, but I didn't really want to risk it. You know. 00:17:29:14 - 00:17:30:24 Chris Dawes You got into a comfort zone. 00:17:30:25 - 00:17:53:22 Mike Salmon I did into a rut, a good, comfortable rat, but nevertheless a rut. And one of the ladies who were working for me, I was doing this all my working late and whatever she fought for. Doors down from the from the office I got into, it took me about three hours to get into the office, and she rang up and said, I can't come into the office. 00:17:53:28 - 00:18:16:01 Mike Salmon I'm snowed in, right? So when at my door walked four days and knocked on the door and I've come to collect you. And she didn't last that long. But that was why, the way I saw it, if I got to suffer, everyone's got to suffer. If I do good, then everybody does good. And that's how it should work. 00:18:16:02 - 00:18:35:12 Mike Salmon Yeah. You know, you've got these guys that haven't don't do anything with this stuff, but they want to drag everything out of them. You can't do that. I've got an engineer working for me. And when we moved one of the premises, he actually came and helped us move some of the furniture. And sir. And I said, what are you doing now? 00:18:35:13 - 00:19:00:01 Mike Salmon And he was, what, 18 at the time? I said to him, could you paint that more? So she did that. So he's painting the wall. I said, how by you getting it's not very far to into brush. The wall was huge. But 18 years later. Right. He's my head of applications, and he's the guy that sees a problem from a customer and then can adapt it to what he really wants to do. 00:19:00:03 - 00:19:16:03 Mike Salmon And I've got 2 or 3. I go down a coffee shop, he worked in a coffee shop and he said to me, said, got any jobs? And I said, no, my. He said, well, I'm looking for a job. And now he's been with us for must be ten years. 12 years. Wow. He don't make any coffee, though. He just. 00:19:16:09 - 00:19:27:10 Mike Salmon He works in the stores and logistics. Brilliant. But these people, if you bring them on, they become family. Exactly that. And and you treat them with respect and they'll treat you with respect. 00:19:27:12 - 00:19:36:15 Chris Dawes Which, you know, sounds like it's the same thing you did with the supplier customer. Your relationship with your customers was that they were extended family at the early drinking. 00:19:36:15 - 00:19:38:28 Mike Salmon Without a doubt. Now different. Totally different. 00:19:38:28 - 00:19:40:01 Chris Dawes Because is it really? 00:19:40:02 - 00:19:41:19 Mike Salmon Oh, yeah, very much so. 00:19:41:20 - 00:19:42:02 Chris Dawes Well, that's. 00:19:42:09 - 00:20:05:15 Mike Salmon Not that. I'm. I mean, I've been out of full time business for four years. I had a stroke and that sort of stopped me from being couldn't really design anything anymore. So no, it's now with the Chinese starting this problem with counterfeit, it brought in a lot more regulations in terms of, you know, have you got it? Is it right? 00:20:05:15 - 00:20:41:00 Mike Salmon So when that happened, a lot of the young guys were coming into the into tier ones and things and then demanding that they wouldn't deal with you. And this you had these regulations because it was their neck on the block if it went wrong. So that really created a different environment between the sellers distribution and the buyers, i.e. the buyers as they were in the old days, which were basically middle aged to 55, 60 year old guys that are only in the buying position because of the experience. 00:20:41:01 - 00:20:55:24 Mike Salmon Yeah, they weren't normally they weren't graduated guys. They didn't really know that very clean environment that became the norm. And if you look at force, our forces got accreditations coming out of their ears, but. 00:20:55:27 - 00:20:56:19 Chris Dawes Only have to. 00:20:56:19 - 00:21:01:24 Mike Salmon Only because they've got the guys who can control it and bring it on. Yeah. 00:21:01:26 - 00:21:26:08 Chris Dawes And again shows that it didn't stand still. You know it's moving with with the times. I mean one of the big things and I'm going to move then on to your personal side in particular one that we have a mutual interest in on the motorsport. But to show that force technology still doesn't stand still 2026. And there's a new part of the premises coming along that is out of this world as well. 00:21:26:10 - 00:21:51:07 Chris Dawes Even now, it's still looking bigger and better, isn't it? And I just get the impression that you are enjoying. You mentioned about Karen doing things now that you could or should have done 25 years ago, or whatever. I get the impression you're enjoying watching it because it's still your baby that started up. And to suddenly see these changes and these advancements and everything, I can tell that it still excites you. 00:21:51:08 - 00:22:18:16 Mike Salmon Oh, I get into office maybe once or twice a week, just to sort of get a cup of coffee from the coffee place, and I look around and all of this work they're doing and stuff, and it is exciting. I'm annoyed that I'm not involved in it, I bet. And when she comes to me and says, I need a hundred grand for this piece of kit, I saw how much and but yeah, she's doing what she's doing and I know she'll be successful. 00:22:18:16 - 00:22:51:27 Mike Salmon And it's really exciting the way she's going. And it also works on a customer base as well, because where we used to sell a component to, to replace an old component or something. People are coming to us and saying, well, I've got this problem, okay, this chunk of it, I don't know what to do. Okay. So this problem is probably worth 20, 30 million, but it can't do anything with it because it is still a bit down here. 00:22:52:00 - 00:22:52:20 Chris Dawes Right? 00:22:52:21 - 00:23:01:01 Mike Salmon So we take the whole thing and make it work with this bit here. Normally they would try and buy replacement for a component. 00:23:01:02 - 00:23:01:13 Chris Dawes Yeah. 00:23:01:14 - 00:23:23:28 Mike Salmon But because it's all interface now with other stuff they say solve my problem please. Because they can't find engineers. They're always short of engineers. Oh okay. All the guys that know about this stuff is retired or dead. Okay. Yeah. So they're they're in a pickle. They really are. And we're coming along saying all right. Mr.. Mr.. By Mr.. 00:23:23:28 - 00:24:04:26 Mike Salmon Project manager Mr.. Weber. Yeah. Never. We're sort the whole problem. We'll put the dying to stock for 20 years. You know, we'll design new packages, we design the test programs, we'll get the die if it does not valuable redesign a diet and make it. Because the old stuff is not that difficult to reproduce. So with the new stuff, you can quite easily make it work in the old part, you know, with modifications, which we'll take off their hands and they know that whenever they want somebody, they'll come to force and say, okay, I need a thousand of those parts, and they'll force will then make a thousand. 00:24:04:27 - 00:24:13:02 Mike Salmon They'll take the diner packages and then put them into something, and then just ship it out to Mr. Customer.