When Randall Makin tells the story of RedEye, it doesn’t start with venture capital, a polished pitch deck, or even a clear business plan. It starts with frustration.
As an engineer in the coal mining sector, he was constantly slowed down by the same issue: finding the right drawings. “There was one job where it took six hours just to locate the drawings—and only 15 minutes to actually fix the problem,” he recalled. That moment crystallized something obvious to him but invisible to the software giants: a huge amount of time and money was being wasted on an overlooked problem.
“No one else was going to solve this. The big guys didn’t care. They were building tools for engineering companies. We just wanted a simple tool for the people that used the drawings.”
And so RedEye was born.
Reluctant Entrepreneurs
Starting a software company in Australia, with little tech experience, wasn’t exactly a safe bet. Makin admits he lacked confidence at first, which is why teaming up with a co-founder was essential. Together, they decided to jump in anyway.
Their early approach was a mix of determination and naivety. They famously walked into Sequoia Capital in Silicon Valley without an appointment, hoping for a meeting. Instead, they were turned away by the security guard—though not before using the restroom. “We took a crap at Sequoia. That was the start of our entrepreneurial journey,” he laughed.
Despite the missteps, there were also bold moves. Choosing to build in the cloud—before it was widely accepted in mining—turned out to be one of the smartest strategic calls they made.
Fighting for Every Customer
The early product was rough, held together with what Makin calls “band-aids and sticky tape.” But it worked well enough to solve the problem. And that was enough to win trust.
One of the first clients handed over $100,000 to build out the system. “Nowhere near enough money to do the job,” Makin admitted, “but we worked through Christmas and made it happen.”
The value proposition was simple: stop wasting time finding drawings. In industries where downtime costs $100,000 an hour, saving even 20 minutes mattered. By serving end users directly, rather than design firms, RedEye found an opening that the big players ignored.
Fighting for Capital
Securing funding was more challenging than expected. “All the clichés are true—a thousand coffees, a thousand polite conversations in the U.S. that never went anywhere,” Makin said.
Eventually, RedEye raised capital in Australia, but Makin warns that raising too early can be more of a burden than a blessing. “It’s distracting. Until you’ve got traction and real clients, you’re better off bootstrapping.”
He also learned that governance and listening to experienced voices were essential. Early on, RedEye’s board ballooned to nine people, each with different demands. “I didn’t even understand the role of a chairman back then. Instead of focusing on building the business, I was trying to keep investors happy.”
Building a Forever Company
Unlike many founders who build with the goal of selling, Makin thought differently. “I wanted to build a forever company. The problem RedEye solved is a forever problem. It’s been around for 100 years, and it’ll be around for 100 more.”
Still, investor pressure eventually pushed toward an exit. The process was gruelling—18 months of due diligence, more than 650 technical questions, and forensic-level scrutiny. Makin’s takeaway: transparency and clean governance from the very beginning make all the difference.
Even though he didn’t want to sell, the journey reshaped his thinking about what it takes to build and scale a business.
Lessons Beyond RedEye
Today, Makin sees parallels between his journey and the challenges facing professional services firms—law, accounting, consulting, engineering. The biggest difference between services and product businesses, he argues, comes down to valuation.
“Services get valued on EBIT multiples. Software and IP get valued on revenue multiples. That changes everything,” he said.
For firms tied to billable hours, the lesson is clear: create IP around workflows, build unique data sets, and empower specialists to innovate. That’s where long-term value lies—not just in projects, but in assets that scale.
Key Takeaways
- Start with the customer’s pain point. The best innovations come from problems you’ve experienced firsthand.
- Don’t raise capital too soon. Bootstrapping forces focus. Venture money is distracting without traction.
- Governance matters. Understand the role of boards and listen to people who’ve done it before.
- Aim for IP, not just services. Services scale linearly; IP scales exponentially.
- Think in decades, not exits. Building for the long term creates resilience—even if investors eventually push for a sale.
- Empower specialists to innovate. Generalists keep the lights on; specialists build the future.
- Networks create moats. The more stakeholders you connect, the harder it is for competitors to replace you.
The RedEye journey shows what can happen when overlooked problems are tackled with persistence, creativity, and a willingness to challenge the status quo. For founders and leaders in any industry, the insurgent mindset isn’t about reckless risk—it’s about solving problems others ignore and building companies with the resilience to last.
Find out how by contacting Matt Tice at mtice@insurgencegroup.com or Rondo Moses at rmoses@insurgencegroup.com.