The answer then, as in Zermatt: “We took small steps and walked together.”
Today, of course, there are no such risks. Far from the changeable conditions of a Swiss Alp, Mr Lukies is indulging his lifelong passion at the SNO!zone skiing centre in Milton Keynes. Having first taken to the sport on a family holiday aged only 3, he has since racked up the equivalent of a year on the slopes. His father ran a farm near Bishops Stortford that is now run by Mr Lukies’ brother, who as a child represented Britain in the downhill only club.
The dark clouds have lifted over the business, too. A pioneer in the field of mobile payments, it was name checked by the Chancellor during last month’s British trade mission to India. “It is great to see an entrepreneurial and innovative British company like Monitise exporting its skills and expertise to India and creating new, strong partnerships here,” George Osborne said. The depths of recession might seem so much longer ago than a mere 18 months.
Indeed, Monitise is now on such a sound footing that it was able to raise £31 million in fresh funds to aid its global expansion, with investors queuing up to back the placing. Visa, which has identified mobile payments as its next big growth area and Mr Lukies’ start-up as its formal development partner on a global basis, upped its stake to nearly 15 per cent and has placed Elizabeth Buse, head of Visa’s operations outside the United States, on to the Monitise board.
Monitise’s Mobile Money service is now offered by almost all Britain’s high street banks and is on the cusp of becoming a mass market service. It is adding 100,000 new customers a month and derives almost half its revenue from people using the service, as opposed to licenses.
Mr Lukies admits that mobile banking has, at times, looked in danger of failing to live up to its promise, but believes nonetheless that the mobile phone will, one day, act as a remote control for people’s money. And opinion is swinging behind him. While it took four years to get the UK business going — he founded it in 2003, first as a division of Morse, the IT services company — its burgeoning US business took 18 months to establish and its new operation in Asia Pacific should be up and running within a year.
If there are parallels to be drawn between skiing and entrepreneurship, one, surely, is thrill-seeking. At least in the case of the 36-year-old Mr Lukies. “I massively enjoy the adrenaline rush, whether it’s jumping out of a helicopter on skis [which he and his elder brother Jonathan did to provide a stunt and some footage for a television show] or running a company.”
But despite breaking a few bones while skiing, it is nothing compared with the punishment he took playing rugby. “[Skiing’s] great escapism and less physically intimidating than having 15 guys sitting on your head. At least the slopes aren’t intentionally trying to hurt you.” A promising amateur rugby player who turned out for Saracens and London Irish, he still counts Austin Healey, the former England player and now television commentator, as one of his best friends.
Mr Lukies also lived in Australia and played for teams in the Canberra area, but a series of injuries, most worryingly to his back, put paid to any ambitions to take the game further. “Rugby was different Down Under,” he adds. “It was quick and fast and you don’t lie on the ground. And the Kiwis break your fingers to get to the ball.”
Even that brutality provided a lesson for him that would be valuable in the cut-throat world of getting a start-up off the ground. He spent 2½ years working on a deal with a big bank, only for a mobile phone company to stymie it at the last minute. “That set us back six months, but you just have to get on with it,” he said. A bit like being hit by a shuddering tackle and dumped on your backside.
Monitise, which recently hit the two million customer mark, has long since dusted itself down and barrelled headlong back into the fray. It has launched an iPhone app, entered the Indian market and become Visa’s official mobile development partner and Mr Lukies argues he is not ready to pause for breath. “I feel that the boulder is getting to the top of the hill but if I stopped and reflected on it all, I’d get vertigo.
“When I was playing rugby, I was always too knackered to watch the scoreboard. It’s only when you hear the whistle that you stop smashing the ball up and making tackles.”
But today is about skiing, not rugby, so the analogies from the top of the SNO!zone slope drift inevitably to the children learning to ski around him. “Kids are not afraid to fall because they’re only so far off the ground.” Similarly a young company such as his when the setbacks duly came and went.
Then he sets off down the Milton Keynes slope one last time, complaining that it’s a bit slow for him. And presumably it’s not snowing hard enough, either. It would make it more exciting.
CV
Born September 26, 1973
Education Bishop’s Stortford College, Hertfordshire
1993 Played rugby union in Canberra, Australia
1994 played for Saracens development squad and Middlesex county, then joined London Irish
1995 worked for a local publishing company delivering magazines and then selling advertising space
1998 joined the sports hospitality company ICM to lead a team in Malaysia for the Commonwealth Games held in Kuala Lumpur that year
1999 in Amsterdam for ICM for Euro 2000 football championship
2000 co-founded ePolitix and built nearly 50 MPs’ websites
2003 founded Monitise after meeting Steve Atkinson (then chief architect at Vodafone)
2004 gained funding from Morse to establish Monitise and signed joint venture with Link
2007 demerged from Morse on to the Alternative Investment Market as an independent company
2009 Visa invests in Monitise and forms a global alliance
Family Married to Helen
