"Timing plus execution is everything"
Martin Moszczynski is the Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Olinqua – an Australian-based digital solution designed for the hospital workforce. Olinqua’s systems use the power of unified communications and modern app technologies to enhance the real-time effectiveness of teams focused on helping patients.
Martin is a technology visionary and Dean’s List alumni of Melbourne Business School, who has worked with large clients spanning various public and private sectors both in Australia and internationally, in a diverse career spanning over 20 years. Martin’s specific areas of focus include data analytics, human-machine interfaces and rapidly emerging technologies like VR and AI.
Prior to Olinqua, Martin has held many digital leadership positions, as the CTO of CarePage, Reporting and GIS Manager for Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services. Martin’s passion for the connected environment and connected workforce solution across various sectors outside of health – agriculture, education, retail – is demonstrated through his other founding technology company Omnesse, of which he is a founder and CEO.
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Table of Contents
Before we begin, our readers are interested to know about how you got started in the first place. Did you always want to be where you are today or was it something you were led to? Share with us your journey.
Martin Moszczynski: I’ve always been an entrepreneur of some sort or another, and for the most part, in enterprise software.
For me, software powers how the world works and how big companies achieve things. Most of the things we do day in, day out also involve more enterprise software than we realise. From scanning your ticket on the tram to making a phone call. As a colleague said to me today “software is the backbone of today’s modern society.”
When it comes to healthcare software, you can say I slipped on a banana skin, fell into digital health and never came out! Despite not having a healthcare background, I was and still am, fascinated by the increasing technical applications and possibilities of software in health.
Tell us a bit about your current focus. What is the most important thing that you’re working on and how do you plan on doing it?
Martin Moszczynski: Our current focus at Olinqua where I am CTO and Founder, and as CEO of its parent company, Omnesse, is on scaling our business and technology to the next level, and the next level after that.
That’s a big, hairy and audacious goal. How do we achieve that? Well, there’s no one plan, instead there’s a lot of moving parts and doing the right thing to each of those moving parts at the right time, and then maybe double taking on some parts because we need to react in an agile way to an unforeseen circumstance.
But our focus – to scale to the next level and the one after – that’s the bigger picture that excites and energises.
Some argue that punctuality is a strength. Others say punctuality is a weakness. How do you feel about it, please explain.
Martin Moszczynski: I think punctuality is a strength when people have it. The saying does go if you’re not 5 mins early you’re late! I admire people who have this strength and just live by that mantra, managing to carve out enough time between things to be that person. Punctuality shows respect for everyone in the room.
As I am answering this out loud, I can see the look my team are giving me about punctuality, now everyone here is laughing.
Which prompts me to admit straight out that punctuality is not my strength. I’m like a doctor, by the time 3:00 comes, your appointment is 40 mins late because everyone else has been one minute late. I also pounce on opportunities. When a meeting finishes 2 mins early, I go “Aha!” here’s my chance to do that thing… which turns out to be a 15 min thing.
Knowing and acknowledging what you want to improve on though provides an opportunity for self-challenge and improvement and I’ve tried many things to overcome my “un”punctuality.
My advice for those who suffer the same affliction, get an EA [executive assistant] or surround yourself with people who hold you accountable, those who can go, “right, cut!” and support you get to the next meeting, appointment, or commitment on time as much as possible!
How important is having good timing in your line of work and in the industry that your organization operates in?
Martin Moszczynski: Timing plus execution is everything. As a technology company that focuses on connecting the healthcare workforce and their environment through one platform, Olinqua hasn’t changed its fundamental product in 5 years.
Five years ago, the market wasn’t ready for our product but now it is, and hospitals are starting to see its power as a solution for connecting disparate systems, improving workflows and communications.
So, the only thing that has changed is time. If we are doing what we are doing in 5 years’ time, there would already be an Olinqua in the market.
Founder of Virgin Group, Richard Branson, states “Timing is everything in life, and it’s particularly crucial in entrepreneurship. People often equate success with luck, but it usually comes down to impeccable (and carefully mapped out) timing”. Do you agree with this statement? Please answer in as much detail as necessary.
Martin Moszczynski: I think there are two scenarios here when it comes to timing and entrepreneurship. The first is the one that we experience here at Olinqua and maybe one that most entrepreneurs can relate to.
I think sometimes it is just luck, defined though as preparation meets opportunity. I think some entrepreneurs, including myself, was already doing their thing anyway and then right timing comes along and you get that success factor.
So, you need to do the pre-work first and foremost, then be in the right place at the right time.
On the other side of the coin, you have the people who can genuinely see market trends from their perspective, knowing that if they prepare something here and now, in 2, 3, 4 years’ time it is going to be massive. That’s the real movers and shakers – the Facebooks and Canvas – who combine skill and timing!
As a leader/entrepreneur/CEO, how do you decide when to put the pedal to the metal and when to take a break? How do you time the key moments in your career?
Martin Moszczynski: For me, the pedal belongs on the metal, so I kind of stuck mine down, and lift it when I know I need it, and not wait for holidays or leave to come along. The trick to that is you need to know yourself and your trigger points and do something about it when you need to.
That, I believe, help time the key moments in my career.
On a business level though, I believe that businesses should take a break when they take a hit and regroup together to decide on what’s the next step, when’s the best time to do this again or if you need to change your product, value proposition, services.
Branson also states “If you’re starting to feel like you’re just going through the motions and losing sight of why you started, it might be time to take a break”. But how do you decide when to take a break?
Martin Moszczynski: As mentioned before, on a macro level, I think it’s important for businesses to pause when they take a hit, so they can regroup and look at all the factors without the pressure of a ticking clock and innovate again and/or make the tough decisions.
On a micro, personal level, as a Founder and CTO of a company (Olinqua) and CEO of a bigger parent company (Omnesse), I practice what I believe most professionals I know: work hard, play hard.
To re-iterate, the key ingredient to that mantra though is to know your trigger points and do something, go somewhere, get outdoors or do whatever you know will recharge you, before you go down the slippery slope of burning out. That requires knowing yourself and respecting your capabilities and limitations simultaneously.
“Timing can be everything when starting up. It can be the difference between building a thriving business and not” How has good timing helped you achieve success in your career or business? Are there any particular examples from your career that you would like to share?
Martin Moszczynski: As a health technology provider focused on creating a one workforce, one platform solution for hospitals that more often than not have disparate systems to communicate on and work with, Olinqua was early on the digital health connectivity scene.
We started as a small bootstrap start-up with a bunch of enterprise software professionals developing and testing the solution in the market on the side. As a result, we didn’t have 6-12 months timing to succeed or fail. Instead we had longevity to go down the path of identifying and solving the problems in health as a domain.
Consequently, we were on the scene before the market was prepared for a digital workforce solution, which meant we were having conversations with people who weren’t ready but kind of knew what they wanted. This helped to feed back into our product development which defined our trajectory, so when the timing was right in the market, we had already done those years of pre-work, giving us a head start.
The moment where the market was ready, it was pretty exciting and Olinqua started taking off from the same values that we had been presenting for years.
“When you’re thinking of starting up, ask yourself: ‘Is the community I want to serve ready for this idea?’ It could make all the difference!” Would you like to add anything to this piece of advice for all the aspiring entrepreneurs?
Martin Moszczynski: I think that if the community is ready for it, someone is already doing it. I think the aspiring start-ups are the ones where the community is not ready for it, so you can do the pre-work because you can tell when they will be ready. That’s what kept us at Olinqua going, that blind faith that the community will be ready even when we are.
COVID forced many businesses to adapt fast, some did so successfully, others failed, it was a lot due to good or poor timing. What are some of the big lessons you’ve learned during the pandemic?
Martin Moszczynski: Teams work better when they get to catch up in person every once in a while. Having people geographically separated for an extended period of time had bigger consequences on team dynamics than I thought, and it affected me too.
Being a technology company, we have been fortunate as our type and style of work lends itself to remote or hybrid working environments already.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Martin Moszczynski: Resourcing, especially in Australia, it’s an extraordinarily difficult job market to be in for a tech company. It’s not a secret that software developers and IT professionals are in high demand and short supply here due mostly to the global pandemic and closed borders.
And there is also noise, something that scale up companies in any industry I think face. There are many small companies out there trying to make their mark and as we are in such a thriving start-up/scale-up ecosystem it can be hard to standout as an early-stage company.
Your insight has been incredibly valuable and our readers thank you for your generosity. We do have a couple of other bold questions to ask. What fictional world would you want to start a business in and what would you sell?
Martin Moszczynski: A world challenged by something that prevents its people from moving freely, feeling safe and living their best life and then being able to create an accessible and powerful solution for that.
I realise this is not a fictional world because this is the world that we are living in now but this scenario is also the basis of actual fictional worlds.
Wayne Enterprises is not only a green company but also supports the activities of Batman to protect Gotham and its citizens. Stark Enterprises helped create Ironman’s suit who in turn was instrumental to ruining Thanos’ “eliminate half the population with a finger click” plan.
The famous Star Fleet world was about protecting the Federation and go where no man has gone before to “sell” diplomacy and keep peace in the universe, and so on!
Before we finish things off, we would love to know, when you have some time away from business, what is one hobby that you wish you could spend more time on?
Martin Moszczynski: Mountain-biking.
That’s my play-hard balance to working hard!
Mike Weiss, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Martin Moszczynski for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Martin Moszczynski or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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