Quoin started as FabHab, a prefabricated housing venture with a financing model attached, built by a team formed on an MSc at the University of Edinburgh. I was its first CEO. These days I describe the role as founding partner and product consultant, because the job changed as the company worked out what it was.

My side was product. Before anything could be designed there was a proposition to settle, and settling it meant choosing what the venture would defend and what it would let go. So the early work was strategy and direction rather than screens, and it brought the platform discipline from the hospitality years into a new domain.

The name changed with the proposition. FabHab described a building method, and a quoin is the cornerstone that keeps two walls true to each other, which is nearer to what the product was trying to do for a property decision. I was a registered director until December 2022, and the company trades today as Quoin Systems. A first venture that keeps going without you is a better outcome than most of them manage.