Celebrating 10 Years of F5 Solutions — A Q&A with Managing Director, Eric Bowden

Pictured: The Computer Hobbyist setup circa 1994

This month marks an exciting milestone for us — our 10‑year anniversary!

To celebrate, we sat down with our Managing Director, Eric Bowden, to reflect on the journey, the challenges, the wins, and what the next decade might look like.
Below is the full, unedited Q&A.

When you started tinkering with PC’s all those 30 something years ago, did you ever think that someday in the future you would have your own IT business?

laughs
Not really, no, because it always started off as a hobby, so no. It was the furthest thing from my mind at the time.

How did it become a hobby in the first place? 

It was just one of things where I understood computers quite easily, whereas everyone around me (and people I worked with) really struggled to understand how they worked. I found it was almost like second nature, really.
So, it was work that got you into computers in the first place then?
Yeah, I was just helping people in the office from time to time and I guess that’s how it progressed.

How did F5 Solutions come into existence?

Well, after being in the computer industry and playing with computers in a number of positions where I was responsible for looking after computer departments and networks, it was a natural progression. When I was finally made redundant at the last firm I was working for (they no longer needed or required a computer department), it was the next logical step in my evolution as a ‘computer guy’.

What was the mission of F5 Solutions? What were you aiming to achieve and how was it going to be different to other IT companies?

The mission for F5 Solutions was really trying to provide small businesses with cost effective solutions that just seemed to have been beyond their reach for so long. The technology and the infrastructure was there but no one wanted to take these small businesses on board and provide them with a ‘one-stop-shop’; a simple solution that gave them an enterprise class platform so that they could better grow their business without being held back by IT infrastructure shortfalls.
That’s ideally what we’ve set out to do, and I think that we’ve done quite well in achieving that for many small businesses.

How have things changed since starting the business back in 2011?

Well, we used to be a break-fix IT support business, which is fine for some, but we didn’t see the value in staying this way for us or for our customers. We branched out into Managed Services early on and in the last five years into Business Cloud Solutions that really give our customers a complete service offering.
I guess we now offer more of a flexible, subscription-based service to our customers rather than that break-fix, day-to-day service and this allows our customers to get on with what they do best without worrying about their computers or how much support will cost them.

What does this 10 year anniversary mean to you? How does it make you feel?

laughs
Well, firstly, I didn’t even realise that we were here! It was quite a shock to find out that it had been 10 years already which kind of says that you really do have fun and time does fly when you do the things you love. So, excited, really.
This is, I suppose, another turning point where we look to develop further and to expand the business into different areas. It’s also a good time to make sure that we’re still looking after the little things and the customers that have been there with us from the beginning.

If you could go back in time to the day that you decided to start F5 Solutions, what advice would you give yourself?

There’s not a lot that I would tell myself, I think we’ve done it fairly right.
I suppose, not to fear what you’re doing when you know deep down inside that it is the right thing. Trust in your gut. Whatever you plan to do in the next ten years, to not be afraid. One of the other things I would tell myself is to let go of the baggage. Some customers will hold you back so don’t be afraid to let them go because you will find out soon enough that doing so will help you grow faster.

The next burning question is, are you a typical computer nerd?

laughs in computer nerd
Um, I couldn’t be farther from a typical computer nerd and I hear this a lot. A number of people, including customers, find it hard to believe that I am a computer guy. I think I have that ‘friendly mate down the pub’ sort of personality where I get along with just about anybody and look, I really don’t like sitting in dark, back rooms hammering away at my keyboard, that’s just not my thing.
I prefer to be out there on the front line talking to people, finding out what drives them and what drives their business. I’m also really into V8’s, I do all my own mechanical work and I fix things around the house. I guess I’m a DIY guy through and through.

But you must like playing computer games and stuff, right?

Yeah, look, there hasn’t really been a lot of time for that over the last ten or fifteen years. I did used to like playing things like Doom and Wolfenstein and a lot of those FPS (first-person-shooter) games back in the nineties and early noughties. Now it’s more stepping away from the computer, like, I don’t like playing games on a computer anymore.
What is your preferred platform then?
I now prefer to play an Xbox. If I’m gonna do it, I’ll sit down in front of a huge screen and yeah, play the Xbox.
So what are you playing on the Xbox these days?
Um, mainly car-related games, really, because that’s what I’m into! Forza Horizon 3 and now 4, any of the Forza racing games as well as some of the Need for Speed games (I have them all) but yeah, I enjoy playing racing car games.

How has F5 Solutions been affected during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Initially, it didn’t really affect us at all and then there was a bit of a shift where all of a sudden a lot of our customers wanted to work from home so there was a massive increase in productivity. Overall though, it didn’t really worry us too much because we have such a diverse base of clients. We don’t just have retail or wholesale clients, we have customers from across the board and thankfully none of them truly had to close or shut down. They were all still operating to some degree. And most of them have continued to grow during the pandemic so that’s kept us busy as well.

How have F5 Solutions helped their customers during this difficult time?

I think with so many of them having already been setup with a Business Cloud Solution, like a complete solution, it allowed them to do whatever they wanted to do from wherever they wanted to. Even for those with a different setup, we were able to put in place what they needed to keep going. Whether they wanted to be in the office, whether they wanted to work from home, everything was secure and it was safe and it was just easy.

We really just tried to simplify everything as much as possible because that’s what we do; we run on a principle of K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) because the last thing we want our customers to do is worry about how complicated something is (especially during the pandemic) or for us to be burning time on fixing something we’ve put in place because it was over complicated.

It just makes good business sense, not just for us, but more so for our customers.

What are some fond memories from the last 10 years here at F5 Solutions?

Ah, there’s lots of moments that happen day-to-day. We’ll get phone calls from customers where you take the call and they will say ‘oh, it’s okay, I’ve sorted it out’ and that always gives me a bit of a laugh because it’s something they just had a blank on and forgotten how to do.
A lot of the times you get to talk to a customer and like magic, just my voice alone will suddenly make whatever it was that was broken, work again. They’re the ones I always get a good chuckle from and I say, ‘well, we’ll send you a cardboard cut-out of myself and you can just sit it next to your computer to solve the problem next time, or just chat to it, you know’. It’s a bit of fun, and I’m here for it.

There have been a lot of scary moments over the years that have turned into fun moments because I’m not perfect and I make my own mistakes. They’re just dumb mistakes and you give yourself a backhanded slap and carry on. But yeah, you learn from those things and you have a bit of fun doing it.

I really enjoy those times where you have a customer on the phone, and they’re adamant that something’s wrong with their computer because it simply won’t turn on. I remember one time where I spent a good five or ten minutes getting the customer to check the cords on the back of the machine, making sure they were all plugged in. Of course the one thing I hadn’t asked them to check was whether or not the power cable was in fact plugged in at the wall. Finally, I ask them to trace back to the power point and just double check and make sure it’s plugged in and suddenly, there was silence for a few moments before the customer tells me they have figured out what was wrong – they’d unplugged the power cable so they could plug their heater in that morning.

Again, another funny moment with apologies all around but that’s okay, these things happen. We’re not just here for the hard stuff!

And finally, where do you see F5 Solutions in 10 years from now?

In 10 years time? Hopefully three times the size we are now, with the plans we’ve roughly drawn up for the business over the next couple of years and the platforms we have in place allows us to be flexible without compromise.

We’re looking to expand and develop, maybe opening up branches in other states. Additional staff, possibly a small shopfront somewhere maybe in a small town where we can help locals get on with using computers and making life easier because that’s what it’s about and I still love what we do!

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Closing Thoughts

Ten years is a huge milestone and this Q&A captures the heart of what makes F5 Solutions special: passion, honesty, humour, and a genuine commitment to helping people.

Here’s to the next decade.