Tomorrow, Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated retelling of the Odyssey arrives in cinemas, and one of the oldest stories we have will meet a new generation. It is a story I know well. Long before I joined ECI’s Commercial Team, I studied Classics, and while we tend to remember the monsters and storms, beneath the spectacle, it is a study of resilience, the tale of one leader trying to make it home against immortal will and mortal temptation.
In our 50th year, having backed more than 250 businesses, the theme of resilience continues to feel close to home. Growth is rarely a straight line. The companies that have the most successful stories are rarely the ones that dodged every storm, but those that pulled through despite the odds and were stronger for it. Here are five key concepts from the epic tale of Odysseus and what they might teach us about building businesses that last.
1. Nostos (Homecoming): Never lose sight of the mission
Everything Odysseus does bends towards one fixed point: Ithaca and getting home. The landscape might change, but the destination stays the same. CEOs will recognise this – markets shift, and strategies change, but the core reason a business exists, its “why”, is what keeps it steady when everything else is in motion. Bionic is a good example of this. When we backed it, the mission was simple: help Britain’s small businesses get a better deal. Almost everything else was reinvented, as a telephone-based energy broker became a multi-product digital marketplace across energy, insurance and finance. We also see this in the Tech for Good businesses we back – not only does the mission drive the strategy, but it also motivates employees and helps them retain top talent. For example, Peoplesafe’s focus on worker safety across their products – whether that was on their commute, when working remotely or in lone worker situations. Know your Ithaca, and keep sight of it even when things change around you.
2. Metis (Cunning): Strategy beats resources
Christopher Nolan described Odysseus as “an amazing strategist and a very wily person”, and the Odyssey is careful about the kind of intelligence it admires. Homer’s Odysseus is not “sophos”, learned or wise. He is “polymetis”, a man of many wiles: resourceful, quick, able to solve the problem in front of him with whatever is to hand. That distinction travels well into business. The strongest companies are not always the ones with the most capital or the biggest teams, but those able to think on their feet and problem-solve quickly. We see this in many of the companies we’ve backed, where they face much larger incumbents. It isn’t likely you will be able to outspend such a rival; however, you can out-think them, focussing relentlessly on a particular target customer, or building a better service that services a need ignored by larger competitors. They are the ones who make better choices and use the tools they have more cleverly. Auction Technology Group is a good example. Rather than pushing more spend into the traditional auction world, where it had its origins, it backed a simple but powerful insight: that the future of auctions was online and data-led. It built the marketplaces and the technology to match, turned a smart idea into a category-defining platform, and in 2021, we took it public on the London Stock Exchange, realising our remaining shareholding in 2024, generating a 4.4x return.
3. Atē (Folly): Don’t be tempted by the easy route
The Lotus-Eaters, Circe, Calypso and the Sirens all try to pull Odysseus off course, and the danger is not always obvious. The Sirens sing the sweetest song of all. In business, the Sirens are the easy answers, and success often depends on saying no more than yes, and on interrogating what looks attractive rather than taking it at face value. One of our investments, Avantia, does this very deliberately through OKRs, the objectives-and-key-results framework popularised by Google. It sets three a quarter, and leaders from across the business have to debate and agree on the top priorities that make the cut. Its CTO, Dan Huddart, has said that implementing OKRs forces you to prioritise, which requires commitment but can be hugely valuable. That discipline keeps a whole organisation pulling in one direction, rather than chasing every passing opportunity. Knowing what to say no to is as valuable as knowing what to say yes to. Another area where this is common is M&A; deciding which acquisitions not to do is often just as important as the ones you do acquire. Duncan Painter, the Founder of ClarityBlue who went on to pursue c.30 acquisitions at Ascential plc before joining ATG, put this succinctly: “It’s not something we would want to do too often, but we have pulled out of a couple of deals where we’d spent six to nine months on them, on the last night. We don’t see that as a failure. We see that as making the right choices.”
4. Homophrosunē (Like-mindedness): Build the team that stays the course
Odysseus gets home in part because the people who matter stay loyal: Penelope, Telemachus, even his old dog Argos. Long-term success depends on that kind of trust, because culture is what drives commitment. But the Odyssey tells a subtler story about teams too. Most of Odysseus’s crew never makes it home. Some are reckless and do not listen. Others are lost precisely because he does not trust them: they open the bag of winds because they have no idea what is inside, and he keeps the danger of Scylla to himself. Trust, in other words, runs both ways, and a more open or trusting Odysseus might well have reached Ithaca sooner. The best businesses understand this. At MiQ, they described this two-way communication as radical transparency, creating an open and inclusive culture became a genuine driver of growth. Mark Eastham, CEO of Avantia, puts it well when he says a good leader is one who asks the right questions rather than always having the right answers. Teams that trust each other and leaders who are open with them tend to go further and faster.
5. Moira (Fate): Control what you can
Storms, gods and sheer luck shape Odysseus’s voyage. Poseidon sends the waves, and no amount of seamanship stops them. Leaders face the same truth. You cannot control interest rates, geopolitics or regulation, but you can control your culture, your strategy, your talent and your execution. Tusker is a clear illustration. It couldn’t control changes to BIK tax rates, interest rates, used-car residual values or a pandemic-hit car market. What it could control was its response: the decisive pivot to electric vehicles, the strengthening of its leadership team and the rebuilding of its technology. It was those controllable choices, not the weather, that carried it through to a sale to Lloyds Banking Group. When the storm comes, and it always does, the businesses that endure are the ones that pour their energy into what they can change.
