Talking about how and why I built Matter – From The Ground Up!

Earlier this year, Christina Hsieh, Matter’s founder, was happy to be invited to join a group of fellow female entrepreneurs to talk about paving their own way in the construction industry, in SymTerra’s webinar ‘From The Ground Up!’.

Along with host Sarah Crawley and guests Katie Kelleher and Caroline Niven, Christina gave her insights into the challenges of starting a business. Here are some of the highlights she shared.

What made you decide to start Matter?

“In the first part of my career, I thought if I got to work for the best engineering company, I’d be happy forever. I’ve learned so much from all the companies I’ve worked with, including AKT, Buro Happold, Arup, Consbee and Expedition Engineering. I’ve worked with lots of fantastic people on amazing projects. But after I’d achieved that, I still felt there was something missing. I didn't feel I could completely match my personal life and my life goals with the work I was doing. And so I decided it was time to try something different. To see if I could actually create that environment that would bring my life and my work together.”

What were the main challenges of setting up Matter?

“One of the advantages of working for such good companies is you never need to worry about where to find your clients. It took me about three or four years pondering setting up a business – I kept asking people, where do you find your clients? How do you find your projects? Nobody could tell me. So it took me a while, and it was trial and error, trying loads of random things, going to loads of bizarre events, and slowly finding my way.

If there was a mentoring network that could help people, it would be really great. Because I really struggled alone, almost giving up in the first step, finding my clients and learning how to network.

Another challenge is that being a female in the construction industry is being in a minority. It is hard to match the image of a typical engineer, especially when it comes to sales, and to build trust. But I like to see it as an advantage. Now I just don't care, because why should people think engineers should be a certain prototype? We are now in a time of recognising diversity, where everybody's different, so it's getting much, much better.”

How do you use social media and what value do you get?

“When I was trying to do our marketing plan, the advice was to be a personal influencer and to promote your company in that way. But I decided to take a slightly different approach, because I'd gone through the exercise of what do I really want to get out of this business. And through my branding and marketing exercise, I realised that I'm actually in this because I want to see if I can create a culture and a company with the values I believe in.

I want to be in a supporting role for the company, Matter. What I really want is to leave a legacy and an impact, to show the industry that we can do things differently, and to create something that was missing when I worked for other companies. I want to see if I can actually make it happen.

Our social media platforms are not about sales. They’re all about sharing what we believe is good practice, and how we can help people, even if it’s just getting one idea of how to do things differently, to make your project better. Along the way, not only do you learn something, but you also get to know us at Matter better. I tried so hard to do social media myself and ended up getting nowhere, so now I have a fantastic team to support me, and they can express what Matter is much better than me. I’m the one who gives the energy, and they help me to express it.”

What advice would you give to potential entrepreneurs?

“When you become an entrepreneur, it’s much harder than working for someone else. You will get pushed over. You will have loads of people wanting you to do all the things you don't want to do. The advice I would give is to find out what you want to do in life –what do you enjoy most? Work has to be part of your life, without letting it become your life. It's a subtle difference, but when you become an entrepreneur, is very easy for it to get all mixed up together.

It’s very important to keep reminding yourself what you’re in this for. There are loads of good books out there – I recently read a book called ‘Your Next Five Moves’ that comes up with a list for you that you can go through. I really recommend it because it also talks about different personalities – whether you’re an entrepreneur or an intrapreneur. You have to know yourself first, because not everybody’s the same.

I don’t believe running a business is for everyone. Everybody can run a business, but whether you’re going to enjoy it or not is another thing. So it’s better to know what you enjoy first. Being an entrepreneur can be quite lonely sometimes. The good thing is you don’t have a boss anymore. But it means there’s no one to teach you anything. You have to teach yourself.”

Thank you to SymTerra for producing such an interesting discussion.