Guy Willner On Selling A Company For $555 Million And Now Advising PE Firms As A Board Member

Embarking on the entrepreneurial journey is like diving into a vast ocean of uncertainties, challenges, and opportunities. In a recent interview with Guy Willner, an experienced entrepreneur with a string of ventures spanning decades, we gleaned invaluable insights into surviving crises.

Guy’s latest venture, IXAfrica Data Centre, has attracted funding from top-tier investor Helios Investment Partners.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Guy’s journey underscores the power of resilience in navigating challenges and turning setbacks into opportunities.
• From failed A-levels to founding startups, embracing adaptability is key to thriving in the entrepreneurial landscape.
• Entrepreneurs must grasp the cyclical nature and operational language of private equity firms to navigate fundraising and partnerships effectively.
• Maintaining a balance between professional pursuits and personal well-being is crucial for sustained success and meaningful relationships.
• Understanding the implications of AI on computing demands and technological trajectories is essential for businesses navigating the digital frontier.
• Lessons learned from the dot-com bubble emphasize the importance of strategic foresight, agility, and learning from past experiences.
• Embracing change, seizing opportunities, and fostering resilience are paramount for entrepreneurial success in an ever-evolving world.

 

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About Guy Willner:

Guy Willner has worked in the data center industry since 1999, namely and most recently at IXAfrica. He started with his co-founders five years ago with the hunger to build a startup; he brings a wealth of experience to IXAfrica.

Guy’s entry into the data center industry started with his Engineering degree at Oxford Polytechnic — now Oxford Brookes University — where he specialized in electrical engineering, electronics & computing and wrote assembly language.

After graduating, he took a job with Phillips, working in assembly language programming before rising through the company and moving back to the UK to work in telecoms with Vivendi.

Founding IXEurope in 1998, Guy built the company from the ground up, turning it into a company that made eight acquisitions and floated on the LSE before being sold to Equinix in 2007 for US$555m. He also more recently founded IXcellerate, a leading operator of commercial data centers in Russia.

Among Guy’s other accolades and experience is being the President of Equinix Europe, a six-year stint as Non-Executive Director of South African-headquartered Teraco Data Environments, and eight years in the same position at technology leader Numecent before moving on to Swedish internet infrastructure giant Flexenclosure AB and Digital Realty Company Lamda Hellix.

He currently holds positions at Brazilian edge data center ecosystem Elea Digital, International Data Centre Group, IX Acquisition Corp, and Helios Investment Partners.

Connect with Guy Willner:

• LinkedIn
• Crunchbase
• RocketReach
• Zoominfo

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty hello everyone and welcome to the dealmakerr show. So today. We have a very exciting founder. You know a founder that you know have done it a couple of times you know in a in a very exotic and unique way you know I think that you’re all going to really enjoy his journey quite inspiring. You know again, the whole building scaling. You know, financing exiting. You know we’re going to really cover that you know on this episode you know stuff? like for example, how to survive crisis how to go about you know, raising money understanding really the role of private equity firms. I mean we’re talking a lot about venture capital firms I think it’s going to be quite refreshing to to tackle the pe angle. And then also work life balance and ai and the future so without further ado. Let’s welcome. Our guest today Guy Willner: wellner welcome welcome to the show.

Guy Willner: Yeah, hi there. Nice nice to nice to be on the shower hunter. Yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: So originally from Oxford give us a walk through memory lane I was life growing up.

Guy Willner: Know? Well my parents were not english so and my mother was norwegian my father’s french austrian so I was kind of ah a foreigner born in England um, brought up near Oxford and and went to Oxford Polley and to study engineering there I um. Had to go to ox pollly because I kind of failed my a levels because I was playing bass in a rock band and I was too focused on that not enough on my ah a levels I think.

Alejandro Cremades: Now in your case you know one thing that it was very interesting is that you thought that the army or the air force was perhaps you know like the way to go Ah, but why? why not? why? not.

Guy Willner: Yeah mean yeah I mean I was because I went to ox poly I thought well this is this is not the best university on the planet. So maybe I could join it with a military sort of training with it and then I have a more of a complete education. So I applied to the air force to be an engineer officer. And and after a while at the time I felt that the engineers were kind of second class to the pilots you know in in peace time. The the pilots are still flying but the engineers are are making sure that the annual fate at the ah you know the air base runs smoothly and the toilets are clean and stuff like that. So it was a bit I found out a bit bit difficult and also I saw friends. Going off, you know a friend of mine graduated and went off to drive road trains across Australia and ah, another one was selling euro bonds in the city which sounded all very exciting so I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be in a radar base. You know, sort of ah out in the stick somewhere. So I resigned after 2 years and was really nice is that the Guy Willner: at the um, the officer’s college at cramwell um said to me. Well we don’t want unhappy people in the air force because I I was an officer cadet at the time he said well let you go? Um, but promise me 1 thing don’t get yourself in a rut and. I thought that was really nice because I basically slapped him in the face after 2 years and said i’m’m I’m out of here. Um, and he’d given me some gratuitous advice so I was driving back from cramwell sort of North of Cambridge down to Oxford in a clapped- out morris minor that cost me about one hundred and sixty pounds

Guy Willner: And I was probably the happiest day of my life because the world was my oyster I could do whatever I liked and I think based on that I thought well I had a job offer with Bt in Houndslow and that didn’t sound like the world is my oyster. Um, so I decided to go to Paris because I had ah my older sister was living there. She was a fashion designer in Paris. So thought I’ll go Paris and find a job there learn a language at the same time.

Alejandro Cremades: So I mean obviously obviously you know there you were doing phillips. You know that was the corporate life. You know how he was treating you but I want to ask you? How do you decide, especially you know like being in Europe. At that time you know it was all about being a lawyer or being at a company or being a consultant or a doctor. You know the the whole venture world was not as developed. So I’m sure it was not easy for you to say hey I’m I’m I’m saying goodbye to corporate world and starting my thing you know how how was that transition like.

Guy Willner: It was very interesting because I remember when I started when I decided to try and start my own business I was 35 and I needed a chairman or I wanted a chairman for the business and this had this sort of chairman candidate this old guy and he said right meet me at the club. With your wife and um and so I met him at his old club with with my wife and he looked at her and he said do you realize what your husband’s getting you into and he was you know he basically he was good I mean he didn’t become chairman in the end but he um, he basically said you know yes this is a different this is going to be hard and um. But I’ve always been slightly off the wall slightly outside the the mainstream I suppose so it was perfectly normal that I’d try and start a business. Oh starting the business I mean that was that was way after Paris ah, after 5 years in Paris 5 years in the u k.

Alejandro Cremades: So then what happened next.

Guy Willner: Um, including ah ah, 3 years in Hungary with vivandi building up telecoms networks which was kind of like running a startup but for a very big company so it gave me a lot of training. So um, starting up the business I think I needed to be naive. Ah. Because if I knew all the risks. Maybe I wouldn’t have done it. Um and I remember the first thing I did was try and raise like two million pounds to build a small data center and nobody was interested and then a friend of mine in banking said, ask for 20 and I phoned up three I and said I need 20 and they they were interested and and said we’d like a business plan. So I started working working on that and in the end we raised 10000000 on what was essentially a powerpoint show. Um, this was in 99 so the bubble had just. Or the the wave had just hit the uk in sort of June ninety nine um in the us the wave had started earlier. Um so he raised 10000000 a year later we raised another £42000000 and a few months later we were on a roadhow trying to float the business. Um. Road showing across the us as well, but not for a London Stock Exchange Float and of course then we hit October 2000 which is when the whole bubble started or popped basically everything started falling apart so that was a bit.

Alejandro Cremades: So so I guess hey just for the people to get it What what was the business model there. How were you guys making money.

Guy Willner: So it was basically a box to house computers. So it was a data center so we were we were raising money to invest in data centers and by then the business plan had sort of iterated into 4 countries so or or at least 2 anyway. France uk to start with. Um, and then potentially Germany and Switzerland um during that journey. Jp Morgan had already invested in some businesses and they contributed there. They had two data centerers one in Zurich and one in Frankfurt so they contributed them into the business. So then we suddenly had 4 of these four of these things growing but very early stage. Um. Trying to flirt the business.

Alejandro Cremades: So Then how was you know the the transaction because obviously you guys ended up you know going through a through kind of like a I mean the dotcom bus you know, like kind of like hit you guys and then they the company ended up getting acquired. You know, which was you know at least you know you guys got an outcome there. But. What was what was that journey like of going through a crisis situation in the market like that.

Guy Willner: It was a really hard. You know I remember there was a senior management meeting and and and somebody kind of stood up and said I know I took easy jet for £49 to Frankfurt last week and slept on the floor of the reception area in the data center you know and everybody applauded it was like alcoholics anonymous. Um. So we had this sort of culture of you know we were really trying to keep this tight really run it tight and and you know we were very committed to to the business and then we started getting smart and started buying distressed asset. Um, which you know did us very well.

Alejandro Cremades: So you guys ended up selling the business and it was for a reported the 555000000 to equinix so what was that the you know transaction like I mean how was it going through an acquisition for you.

Guy Willner: Well, it was I mean if you think of it you know the management team’s been. We’d been through 9 years of of building this up from nothing. This is our first ever startup. So we’ve been really on a rollercoaster learning doing an Mba in life sort of during the whole process and then we’d been hit by as you say hit by the bus of the dot com. Bubbles so we were pretty you know battle hardened maybe battle weary I think as well. So I think we were quite happy to sort of go quietly and and get this business sold I mean we had floated on aim on the secondary market in the uk and during the sort of eighteen month period the shares went up about four and a half times so it was a. You know we we? The data centers were beginning to be understood, but you know we needed a change and maybe that’s the difficulty with entrepreneurs is sometimes they got such a short short span of attention. Um, they always want to go on the next thing which is certainly like me unfortunately.

Alejandro Cremades: What do you think? what kind of exposure or insights did that same journey. You know going through the full cycle of a business you know from start to you know finish. You know what? what? what basicability did that give you into the full cycle of a company being an entrepreneur.

Guy Willner: I think really, ah you know you got to understand really what your skills are personally and what you bring and and what you don’t bring and sort of laugh and joke about your weaknesses and and make sure you don’t you know, bring those weaknesses to the company with you. So it’s all about. Being humble and and understanding what you’re capable of and and and whatever you’re weak on makes sure other people in the company are strong with so it’s it’s about building it a tight team I think 1 thing that saved me from a complete breakdown was was that we were 2 co-founders. So um. I think if I’d been on my on my own. It would be horrible I mean the 1 big lesson is don’t start a business on your own.

Alejandro Cremades: So then for you the next chapter you know was say terraco. So in this case, you know you decided to join a board versus start another company. So what was that what was that thought process like of hey I’m just gonna join a board now.

Guy Willner: Yeah I think um I literally was probably battle weary probably burned out after my 9 years you know building this this thing which was basically full on from day one for 9 years and ah, so I was kind of euphoric when I’d left Equinix after because they bought the business and after six months I thought right? Okay I’ll let them run it. They don’t need me anymore and on the Monday the first Monday of course I had nowhere to go I had no office to go to I had nobody to have a chat about you know the weekend or whatever too. You know obviously my wife but. Um, didn’t have anybody at work to to talk to and ah joining the board of terrika gave me a bit of structure because at least every month I’d be on. Ah you know in South Africa or or on ah ah on a video call or whatever with the board in an area which I knew intimately so that gave me a bit of structure. It was.

Alejandro Cremades: So then so then for terraco you know how was that but what did you learn to from the dynamics of being at a board you know because obviously Terraco ended up being being acquired. You know it. It went through a transaction I mean multiple transactions but the company was sold initially, you know when you guys were pushing that for one hundred and thirty five million

Guy Willner: It was fun.

Alejandro Cremades: So what were some of those dynamics that you learn about you know, being an effective board.

Guy Willner: I think that what I brought with me from Iax Europe was the importance of company culture and the importance of of of a team working and and ah and a positive constructive environment and that that really helped because um the investors in Terrao were also positive and and and. And benevolent sort of magnanimous to the management team and that was really important because in the early days in sales in data Centers. You really? don’t know when the next customer is coming can be bit touch and go.

Alejandro Cremades: So right after this, you know you decided to start you know a couple of things you know one in Russia and then another one in Kenya so tell us about me this this sounds quite exotic a Guy Willner So why and unique.

Guy Willner: Um, yeah I mean um I was I was sort of trying to build a business of global a club for global club for data centers. Um as my sort of next. Thing after ixirup but it wasn’t working nobody was interested. It was too early and and it was beginning to fail but I had a bunch of trainees with me from sort of Lsc and and and um, whatever a but bunch of graduates and and then the european bank approached me and said we’ve got this project in Russia. Do you want to? um. Could you be chairman and so I but I thought why not you know I’d never never been to Russia. But and in the end I went into ebrd and they said well we’re changing focus. We’re not for funding it and I thought well I’ll go out there anyway. So I went out there and met um, an english Guy Willner who had. Been living 25 years in Moscow and was trying to build ah a data center business and it looked like it could fly. So um I then talked to iffc the world bank who were investor in the previous business in terrika and and they said yeah, we’ll take a look and in the end ifc invested so that was back in war 2010 something like that.

Alejandro Cremades: Because all in all, how much did you did you guys raise for the operation.

Guy Willner: Before anything nasty happened.

Guy Willner: Oh that’s I mean that’s been through many many rounds. There’s probably 350000000 something like that in total.

Alejandro Cremades: And what did you learn to about and dealing with you know, let’s say like investors you know of that profile.

Guy Willner: I mean the the russian business I mean notwithstanding that it’s Russia and that’s a terrible place these days. Um, when it was a good time I was dealing with bigger and bigger institutional investors. So you know by the time we you know by the time the war started we had. Ifc Goldman Sachs Pim ko mubardola semi turmo group so we had we had the great and the good as as investors and that’s quite a tricky thing to manage when you got lots of institutional investors.

Alejandro Cremades: So talk to us about private equity firms. You know what? what kind of breed is this I mean we’re we’re more used to listening to venture Capital you know type of profiles but private equity. You know what should people listening you know, know about.

Guy Willner: Private is is the fund I mean I’m advising 2 pe funds at the moment. So I’m learning that it takes a long time to understand how a p firm ticks and p firms are only as good as their the last fund they raised so they have a. Ah, sort of a five six year cycle and every five 6 years they have to go and raise another fund and and they go through this really really difficult really complicated and you know hard process to try and raise a whole load of money and then they can breathe a sigh of relief for four or five years after that. Um. So it’s it’s it’s a very cyclical business. It needs results within four or five years so ah it’s not not good for a long play. Um data centers are typically 10 year plays so that it’s it’s quite complex. The relationship between p and and the data center industry. Um. But yeah, it’s it. Ah, you have to understand that there’s a different language It’s ah I speak sort of operational language and management language or whatever and and mps speak a different language.

Alejandro Cremades: So so then in this case for you I mean eventually there was like some obviously the war started and that kind of like disrupted. You know everything that you guys you know had going I mean we’re talking about an operation that was say worth about a billion you know at the time but what happened.

Guy Willner: Um, in a world now.

Alejandro Cremades: You know how was that thing for you. Um I know that you’ve disengaged you know with with with this but I’m sure it was not easy.

Guy Willner: No, it was a bit like going through dot com again bubble again. So you know here I was you know having built the business side spent what 1011 years building it and um and then you know we’d been in ah, an office in London with Jp Morgan and Lehman Brothers Not ah Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers Ah that was the first time around Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley ah in London to push the button on the float nasdack float this time and two weeks later the war started. So um, suddenly everything was off you know and I was being kind of made redundant from the company I founded. And I could see my bank account going down. You know I had a big mortgage and children and studying and stuff like that I was beginning to get worried because suddenly that I was expecting to take ah a chunk out of the equity out of the business in Russia and suddenly that just disappeared. Um, so.

Guy Willner: That’s ah that was a real shock and so I had to kind of pick up the pieces and luckily I had my kenyan business which I’d started a few years earlier knowing that emerging markets are always high risk and so I thought it was better have 2 than one and at that point there was ah an investor who came in.

Guy Willner: Who decided to invest in the kenyan business and then asked me if they could if I could advise them across Africa so I joined them as senior advisor on that and then on top of that pimco in Europe came in and said well we’d like you to help us with with western europe um with the plan we’re we’re doing. Ah. To roll out big data centers there. So I ended up from jettisoning sort of Russia to advising on Africa and western europe with two separate fee funds.

Alejandro Cremades: And so tell us about to the operation in Africa.

Guy Willner: So Africa you know every every you know I’ve just been doing data centers since 90 ninety nine but every country is different. Every culture is different and when you’re building up a team. It’s it’s always different. Um Kenya is is lovely place because you know the average age is like 21 ah, versus about 49 for europe so it’s a very young country. You know our head of hr was born in Ninety Ninety Nine um and young enthusiastic. Well-educated. Ah so it’s been really exciting. You know we built the whole data center. So it’s like a $50000000 project for phase one. Ah, we built the whole thing with local contractors. We had no ex-pas out there. Um, so that shows how sophisticated some of these countries are in across Africa.

Alejandro Cremades: And how is it you know also for you like when it comes to to to lessons you know because I’m sure that doing business in places like Russia or places like Africa it’s a little bit different from maybe the way that you would do business in the Uk or the way that you would do business in the us. So well. What are some of those differences that they that you encountered.

Guy Willner: I think the main the main difference is this is not a transactional world. Um, you know the the american way is you know I’ll get you know we’ll have a 250 page contract and if you don’t do what I tell you I’ll sue your pants off. Well you know, try and Sue Somebody in Lagos. Um, so it’s all about trust. Ah so it’s totally not transactional. It’s all about trusting people so the first thing you do if you go into a new country or new jurisdiction or whatever is to find people you really intimately trust and who are absolutely straight down the line and. Demonstrate to them that you’ll straight down the line as well and build a relationship and if you can’t do that then it just doesn’t happen.

Alejandro Cremades: So also you know like for now for you. You know? what’s what’s gonna be next day Guy Willner. You know you see an entrepreneur entrepreneur. Always an entrepreneur. It sounds like you’re keeping busy you know with advising but they but what are you thinking.

Guy Willner: I’m thinking I need to change because I’ve been doing data centers for far too long? Um, but at the moment that’s what I’m doing you know I’m on the board of a brazil data center company with Goldman Sachs as well. So I’m I’m sort of doing global. Um, but I’m I have no full time job anymore. Um, so I’m I’m just sort of. Sitting on boards and advising different p funds. So. That’s that’s quite much more enjoyable so I was out in Ireland a couple of weeks ago on the west coast getting my um getting my sale training in so getting my skipper’s license. Um, so I’m doing. Um, spending more time for myself which is nice and more time with the family which is nice as well.

Alejandro Cremades: So talk to us saying Guy Willner about Ai and the future.

Guy Willner: So ai in the future I mean if you look at the data center market started off in ninety nine with sort of little telecoms companies putting their telephone exchanges in buildings and then morphed into the internet where everybody from Spotify to you know to to meta wanted to put their equipment. Somewhere near the end user and that kind of carried on and grew up and then suddenly you had the cloud which was Microsoft and Google and Amazon and people like that bringing cloud compute so that was another type of data center big sort of regional hubs and then suddenly on top of that. Post covered. We’ve had Ai coming in and you know if you’re using copillot on in the office on your Microsoft as your service or whatever. Um the thing is it needs a lot of compute and so we’re beginning to run out of compute across the planet at the moment. So that’s. Story of digital infrastructure in general is there’s’s always a weak link somewhere. Um at the moment I think meta has bought half the annual production of Nvidia and that’s about three Gigawatts of ah of power energy needed to power those machines. But. Where ai takes us nobody really knows yet. The only thing that seems to be clear is the more machines that you’ve got the more intelligent your um product is going to be.

Alejandro Cremades: Now I Want to go a little bit deep into into a topic that you know is something that people don’t really think about it as much and that is work like work like balance right? I mean in your case you know we’ve talked about successes. We’ve talked about. You know lessons learner along the way you know when when shit hits the fan and you know it gets real too because it’s going to Happen. You know at the end of the day when you’re building startups Now you can’t you can’t be successful all the time. But when all of us sudden you know when perhaps you know like a painful moments happen I get I Guess you get to realize you know the stuff that you gave up.

Guy Willner: Yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: Right? You know in order to to do what you were doing and then you know you’re like my God you know we got there and for what kind of thing. So I Guess as you’re looking back right? I mean you’ve been doing this now for decades being in the venture world building companies. What have you really gotten From. Being able to balance the personal side with you know, being on a entrepreneurp.

Guy Willner: I think certainly from my experience I could write quite a few books about what I’ve done I haven’t been sitting behind a desk in London for for 30 years I’ve been out all over the shop with all sorts of different. You know in all sorts of different countries. So I mean that’s been fascinating that whole human. Adventure is is great. You know a couple of weeks time I’m doing a twenty fifth anniversary dinner for the founding of my first company and we’ve got about 30 of us coming together and and I haven’t seen some of these people for 20 years so that’s going to be really nice. So I think the relationships is the main thing. I think it is a difficult thing for an entrepreneur because if you are an entrepreneur you know certain qualities of character and necessary and some of them are things like shorts span of attention. You know you’ve got to get moving. You. You don’t have time to sort of get into the detail. You’ve got to build a team around you who you trust. And as a result you know it’s life life can be difficult. You know I say you know you ask me what I want to do next and I saw I’m going to calm down and probably do something else, but you know who knows I’ll get excited again. You know if I if I took three months off I’d be I’ll be going mad after three months I want to get onto a next venture. So it. It is addictive. To build big companies. The one the 1 thing at least that I did right from the beginning is when I first started my first business. My co-founder said yes I’ll join you as co-founder but on 1 condition I don’t work weekends and so i’ve.

Guy Willner: Hardly ever work weekends. You know I might take a plane on a weekend but it’s not very often, but my weekends have been kind of that’s it that’s it I’m off however as an entrepreneur you’re kind of thinking about the business twenty four seven that’s the only that’s the downside. You know you can’t put your pen down on it Friday and take a weekend off.

Alejandro Cremades: And from so now obviously as you were saying 30 years you know that you haven’t been behind a desk pushing paper and obviously a lot of stuff that you’ve learned along the way so talking about lessons here. Um, if I was to able to transport you. Back in time and maybe we’re going way back in time you know like maybe to that moment where you were giving your let’s say your notice and we’re talking about maybe like the I don’t know you know like let’s say the 90 s okay, late 90 s when you’re now thinking about entering the venture world. And let’s say you had the opportunity of stopping that younger Guy Willner: that was coming out of maybe Phillips after giving the notice and you’re able to stop that younger Guy Willner: and give that younger Guy Willner: on the spot. 1 piece of advice before launching a business. What would that be and why given what you know now.

Guy Willner: I think um as it’s your first business if you can take money off the table early and get on and do do another venture. Do it. You know, just move on. Don’t don’t hang on forever I think that’s probably.

Guy Willner: Ah, piece of advice. But then if I play it back. You know we did go through the dot Com bubble so it was it was tough. Um, yeah I don’t know I mean I I Definitely wouldn’t say don’t do it because ah it was amazing thing to do once you cross the line. You can never go back once you started you know started Businesses. So I don’t know I Guess um yeah I think it’s probably take take money off the table as early as you can I think that’s one of the mistakes Entrepreneurs make is that they’re they’re waiting for the big one and and if the big one doesn’t happen. They got nothing.

Alejandro Cremades: I Hear you so Guy for the people that are listening that will love to reach out and say hi. What is the best way for them to do so.

Guy Willner: Ah, on Linkedin I’m all over Linkedin with all my different projects.

Alejandro Cremades: Amazing there you go well Guy Willner. Thank you so much for being on the deal maker show today. It has been an absolute honor to have you with us.

Guy Willner: Thank you very much Ellen andro.

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