探花直播

Cal Henderson

Software Engineering BSc

Cal was already working in his chosen industry alongside his studies at BCU, but knew a degree would open even more doors for him. After graduating, he joined a start-up that went on to create Flickr. After Flickr was acquired by Yahoo, Cal and his team went on to set-up Slack, the leading instant messaging and collaboration platform. As a Co-Founder and CTO, his career has evolved in ways he couldn鈥檛 have ever imagined.

鈥淚 chose BCU because I liked the campus, the lecturers, and I liked the look of the course too. I chose to study Software Engineering as it wasn鈥檛 purely computer science. It was more practical than theoretical, which is what I wanted.聽

I actually started working in the industry before I even joined BCU, so when I was a student, I was working in London part-time, and travelling up to 探花直播 for lectures.

It was really important to me that I got a degree, because that would mean I would be able to get visas to work in other countries. It鈥檚 a necessary bar for a lot of jobs, so it was important to have that on my CV. I also learned useful skills from my degree that were immediately applicable to the job that I was doing.

I started a consultancy business with a friend of mine whilst we were still at University, where we would build websites for people. It didn鈥檛 really feel like starting a company though, as we were just doing work for clients that we found.

But around a year after graduating, I moved to Canada to work on a start-up that I'd been part of for six months. We were a team of just four at the time, and the company ended up becoming Flickr, the image and video hosting service. The company originally made video games, but that didn鈥檛 work, so we built Flickr, which then got acquired by Yahoo.

After that, we started on another start-up, again to try and make video games. But after four years, it wasn鈥檛 working, which is when we turned the company into Slack, where I still work now as the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO). We became a public company after about six years, and after eight years, it was acquired.

Today, we employ thousands of people across the world. When we started, we never thought the business would be as big as it is now. We thought, maybe, if everything went amazingly well, it could be worth around $100 million one day, but we never imagined it would be acquired by Salesforce for over $27 billion. It succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.

Back when I first joined my Co-Founders, we focused more on the thinking rather than being entrepreneurial, but then we unexpectedly found success. We definitely never thought it would be as successful as it is, the scale of it is nothing that we could have ever imagined.

When we first got started with Slack, we only had eight people working on it who knew each other really well. But nowadays, there鈥檚 over 4,000 employees and it鈥檚 this huge global operation. It now has over 200,000 paid customers and daily active users in over 150 countries.

It's such a different experience, working in the company now compared to the old days. It鈥檚 funny because I don鈥檛 think I would go out and apply for a job like mine now, as it morphed into this role over time, but it has been enjoyable.

I鈥檝e found that if you鈥檙e successful, you鈥檒l find your role and your job will change significantly with it. I do such a different role to what I did 10 or 20 years ago. But change is growth, and if you want to succeed, you鈥檒l need to adapt to those changes.

The important thing to remember though, is that the level of success that we have had, is hugely based on luck, the timing being right and things coming together. In the case of both Flickr and Slack, if we鈥檇 had been six months or even a year earlier, it probably wouldn鈥檛 have been successful. It does, of course, also involve hard work and talent, but it takes a lot of luck, too.

I think it鈥檚 also important to remember that most successful tech companies tend to become successful after a setback of some kind. Both Flickr and Slack came off the back of a failed attempt to make video games, so failures are important too. It鈥檚 one of the things that makes tech quite unique, this Silicon Valley mentality about encouraging taking risks, celebrating and learning from failure, and then dusting yourself off and trying again.

As much as success has defined my career, it wasn鈥檛 all smooth sailing; there was bad stuff along the way, but we kept reinvesting and trying again to get to where we are today. As long as you learn from your mistakes and use that failure as a lesson, then it鈥檚 not giving up, it鈥檚 just reinvesting what you鈥檝e learnt into the next idea.

Something else that鈥檚 really important in this business, is the group of people that you work with. Once you find people that you want to work with even when things are going badly, I think that鈥檚 a great sign. I鈥檝e been with this company for almost fifteen years, working with the same set of co-founders. Some are beginning to retire now, but I鈥檓 only in my 40s, so I could still do something else. I might even do another start-up one day. I don鈥檛 know what the next thing will be, but the bar for whatever I do next is high, so there鈥檚 a lot of pressure.

Thankfully, I don鈥檛 get as stressed as I used to. There are phases to any company; the first phase, when it鈥檚 a new venture or a start-up, you鈥檙e fighting for the life of a company that you don鈥檛 know if it has a future or not. That is a very stressful period, where you don鈥檛 know if the company will even exist in six months' time.

Then, there鈥檚 the middle phase, where you know it鈥檚 going to exist for a while at least, but you don鈥檛 know how successful it鈥檚 going to be, or even what kind of company it鈥檚 going to be either.

Then, you go into the phase that my company is in now, where we鈥檝e gone public, and we鈥檝e been acquired. We've hit all the major milestones and on a massive scale, so now it鈥檚 about how much further we can stretch this, which is probably the lowest stress level of those phases. We've already proven that we can be successful, so it just helps to be less serious about it, and recognise how lucky that I鈥檝e been to be in this situation, and to really make the most of it too.

My biggest advice to current BCU students and fellow graduates is to learn from the things that don鈥檛 work out. There鈥檚 a resiliency to this industry and it鈥檚 important to remember that every time you see somebody who鈥檚 had a successful career, you鈥檙e only seeing their high points and the things that have worked out for them.

Remember that almost anybody who鈥檚 had any level of success, has had some failures, too. So don鈥檛 let yourself become discouraged if your career path isn鈥檛 a smooth upward trajectory, because most people鈥檚 aren鈥檛.鈥�