Your online masterclass host for this week: A technology expert

Every Tuesday at 12.30pm you can watch an online business masterclass delivered by one of our Adviser members.

This week, Oliver Kraus hosts How to minimise risks when developing technology solutions

Masterclasses are available at a cost of only £10 each. To register for this week's event at 12.30pm on 16 May, go here.

Don't forget that members can watch every weekly masterclass for free! To register, log in to your Enterprise Nation account and go to the events page where the discount will be automatically applied.

If you're not yet a member, free masterclasses are just one of many benefits. Join now from only £4 a month!

Company: Rocket Surgeon

Twitter: @RocketSurgeonUK

Company founded: 2016

What is your favourite business book and why?

I recommend everyone to read Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely. It is not your everyday business book, but a behavioural economics one.

What I like about this book is that instead of giving steps to follow, it gives insights on how we, and our customers, make decisions. Using an experimental approach, it demonstrates how to create successful marketing campaigns, have happy employees, and avoid doing mistakes by following false intuition.

Who is your business hero and why?

I don't know about heroes, but I like how Elon Musk is doing thing. I am inspired by the way he looks at things that most people will say are impossible and makes them a reality.

I also like the fact that many of his technologies revolve around things that will benefit human kind and the environment we live in.

Describe your business in a tweet.

Rocket Surgeon helps make technology much more accessible to non-technological decision-makers and entrepreneurs.

What has been your biggest challenge?

My biggest challenge so far was my previous role as a CTO, or more specifically, the process of becoming one. I had to learn how to select the right technologies, how to find balance between the different business needs, how to manage team members and much more. Many of my decisions were crucial, and affected not only me but also my team, the company and the customers.

Growing Rocket Surgeon is my current and exciting challenge, but the experience gained in my previous role has been invaluable.

What has been your greatest success?

My greatest success was that of my team. Although I created very large technological solutions, I believe that working successfully with people is much more important. When my developer came to me and said that much of what he is today is because of what I taught him and how I worked with him, this is when I felt most successful.

What piece of advice do you wish you had known when starting out?

I wished I would have known that ideas are not as important as the execution, the execution is not as important as the marketing, and nothing is as important as your enjoyment and fulfilment.

Why do you consider long-term strategic advice important to business success?

While you can't predict the future, it is of course vital to plan ahead in business. Whether thinking in terms of finance, staffing, technology, marketing strategy; all of these elements have a future that cannot be ignored.

If you want your business to have a future, you must have future plans, and therefore drawing on the advice of those who can help you prepare for that future is wise. While ignoring what is yet to come and barrelling blindly forwards with enthusiasm may seem the fun option, it's not always the smartest or most cost efficient thing to do!

If you had a superpower what would it be and why?

Time travel. More than changing the past, it always fascinated me to see how the world would look like in the future. My second choice will be the ability to find lost socks.

To register for Oliver's online masterclass, how to minimise risks when developing technology solutions, go here or log in to your membership account and go to the events page to join in for free.

If you're an Adviser member and you'd like to host a masterclass, apply here.