Dom Satur is Co-Founder and Principal Consultant at ‘madtech’ company Alligator Solutions Ltd. A seasoned professional with almost two decades of experience in digital marketing and ad technology, Satur began his career with roles at global agencies including OMD, Mediacom, and Razorfish. At Flashtalking, one of the UK’s most successful adtech startups, he held various senior positions over a 10 year period, specialising in solutions engineering, ecosystem integrations and business development.
Here, Satur reveals which individual has inspired him most in his career…
Who is your digital hero?
Paul Cunningham, the founder of Flashtalking.
What have they done to win hero status in your eyes?
Paul is probably the most successful UK adtech entrepreneur you’ve likely never heard of. He took Flashtalking from 0 to global, bootstrapped without taking a penny of investment. He made Leeds the global development hub, creating quality jobs in the north of England and also sent 20 somethings from the UK to work all over the world, opening doors and broadening horizons (mine included!).
Under Paul’s stewardship, Flashtalking built a better platform than was on offer from the competitive set of buy side ad servers, which included the mighty Google and Microsoft at the time. Few lasted the course but Flashtalking is still going strong today, 23 years later, thanks to the foundations laid down by Paul and his senior team. Flashtalking is a true global ad tech OG…built in Yorkshire.
How has their heroism helped drive digital?
I think any UK adtech startup could take a leaf out of Paul(and co-founder Dan Freeman’s) Flashtalking playbook: Don’t be distracted by the latest adtech fad, focus on being the very best in your category, hire great people and trust them to do a great job. Treat agencies as allies, not enemies. Promote talent from within and build a culture where staff rarely want to leave.
What are the biggest challenges in digital we need another hero to solve?
The biggest challenge in digital is energy consumption because digital needs power. Someone needs to crack fusion or carbon capture or ideally both. Otherwise we are totally f****d and the match rates of first party datasets will become completely immaterial. Solving the energy needs of our (almost entirely) digital future would be about as heroic an act as one can imagine!
What is your most heroic personal achievement so far in digital?
Starting Alligator Solutions wasn’t heroic, but I think it was brave given the market dynamics at the time! And, it’s certainly the thing I’m most proud of professionally. The feeling you get from winning even the smallest piece of business when it’s your name above the door is 100x the kick I ever got from any of the client wins I was involved in when working for someone else.
If entrepreneurship is something that appeals to you and you see an opportunity then my advice would be as follows, find an amazing co-founder (like I did) to go on the journey with…and go for it!
