Stephen Ufford is a veteran technology entrepreneur, but he doesn't consider himself a techie. He's an ideas man.
"I love gadgets and I love to learn on the job," said Ufford. "Being an entrepreneur was a natural fit."
Thanks in large part to his parents, Ufford's road to entrepreneurship started in his teenage years. After graduating high school, he was given two choices: enrol in university and continue getting financial support from his family – or move out and make it on his own.
Ufford chose the latter.
He co-founded his first company, iQuiri.com, which made consumer scores and credit reports available online, then sold it in 2003.
In 2004, Ufford founded his second company, NDS, which was bought out in 2006. He also sold his third company, Pharos Global, a consumer identity management firm.
Learning to start and sell his companies was a difficult lesson at first, said Ufford. He thought he was in love with his first startup. But after starting his second company he realized his real love was the startup process itself. For Ufford, being an entrepreneur is all about the chance to start the next company.
"There is nothing else but entrepreneurship I could have done. With this job, you never know what happens tomorrow," said Ufford.
"After tasting that, it's hard to walk away from."
These days, Ufford is running his fourth venture, Trulioo, a company that specializes in Internet identity verification by offering online businesses software tools to verify their users. By verifying users, said Ufford, a host of potential problems, from trolling to bullying to bogus five-star hotel reviews, can be avoided.
Separating regular people from the fraudsters will be a critical component of the future online experience. And Trulioo will be the service to do it.
