{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Force Tech Talks","title":"Force Tech Talk Episode 24 Pt1: The Founder Story, with Mike Salmon (Part 1)","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1472,"description":"Force Tech Talk Episode 24: The Founder Story, with Mike Salmon (Part 1)\n\nIn 1986 our founder Mike Salmon gave up the BMW, the good salary and the comfortable job for a desk and a telephone.\nThen he made around 100 calls a day for two years to build the company we know now as Force Technologies..\nIn the latest Force Tech Talk, Chris Dawes sits down with Mike to hear how Force Technologies began, and it is a story about risk, hard graft and knowing when to change course.\nA few highlights from Part 1 include:\nForce was the first distributor for Atmel, before Atmel even had production. Mike remembers watching the founder lay out a memory chip on a table with coloured pins. By 1991 to 1992 that one franchise was worth around a million dollars a year to the business.\nThen Atmel opened a European office and took the business direct. Losing the franchise hurt, but it opened the door to what Force does today.\nAround 1995 a defence customer needed an obsolete part that the original manufacturer had dropped. Mike found a compatible die, packaged it to match, tested it and supplied it. That part stayed in production for around 20 years.\nWhen counterfeit components started reaching customers, and even reaching aircraft, people came back to Force for parts they could trust. As Mike puts it, it took 30 years for the industry to recognise what the company had been doing all along.\nMike also reveals how his employment strategy may differ from others with a few stories of how our current team were hired.\n\nCatch Part 1 now; Part 2 will follow in a couple of weeks. ","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/ouzO5RlGDyVN36jsq-du3UTD0rlcs63tAu0iVqA2cJ8/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9kNTIx/ZTQ3Y2JjMzE0MjM4/MjA5ZDkzZmIyNmJk/OGIxMC5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}