Oxford Ionics founder: Focus on the risks you don’t understand – UKTN

Chris Ballance is the co-founder and CEO of Oxford Ionics, a startup developing a “trapped-ion” approach to quantum computer technology.

In this week’s Founder in Five Q&A, Ballance discusses why founders should focus on the challenges they don’t understand as much as those that they do, motivating teams with a vision they can believe in and why an early interest in chemistry got him kicked out of school.

What’s one thing you wish you’d done differently when launching your company? 

Chris Ballance: When my co-founder and I started the company, a few things were easy: identifying our vision, the IP we needed to achieve it, and the quick hires we needed to make to take our first steps. What we found far harder was identifying the senior leadership team that would be the foundation for our success, and we underestimated the time it would take to put them in post. If I were to do it over again, I’d start looking for my senior team 20 years before day one. Failing that, I’d at least start the search on day one….