Using AI & Building Mission Critical Tech Products with Phil Parkinson & Josh Nicholson (Shape.tech)

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Well, hello and welcome to the Super Connector Show, where
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I'm delighted to be joined by Phil Parkinson and Josh
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Nicholson of Newcastle-based software development agency, Shape Technical Consulting, or Shape.Tech
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for short, which they started just over five years ago
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in 2021. So Phil, Josh, how are you? Thanks for joining.
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Very well, thank you.
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Yeah, good.
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Thanks for having us.
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No, it's great. It's great. Phil, can you start by
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just describing what it is that you do at Shape
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and who your typical or your ideal client is?
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Yeah, so at Shape, we are a bespoke software development agency.
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We work with SMEs and founders specifically or managing directors
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of these companies to help build internal tools, client-facing applications
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that are sort of mission critical.
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So software that that company runs their.
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Entire operations from or really critical parts of their business,
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whether that be just automating simple process flows or whether
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it be building an entire custom CRM to fit their
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business bespokely or a client-based application that they.
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Want to take to market.
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But the critical aspect is where our sweet spot is.
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We work with people who.
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Understand the need to have software that works and that
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is built to a high standard so that it can
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handle those critical workflows and not just be, you know,
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fragile or built.
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To a standard that doesn't really live up to the
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importance of that. Yeah.
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Amazing. So Josh, is there anything you want to add
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to that about, because I think most, well, a lot
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of businesses now, if they're not tech, that tech enabled
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or they're very heavily reliant on technology. So what, what,
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what are the typical clients that you work with or
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your ideal clients that you work with?
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I was just going to add to what Phil said
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that kind of often where we sit is that people,
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business owners have kind of got to where they are
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with kind of off the shelf tools and just kind
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of do like patchworking stuff together to.
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Get their business off the ground and get a bit
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of revenue in the door.
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And that has worked for them until they get to
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a certain amount of size or staff. And where we
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see it and where people often engage us is that
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they want to kind of double the amount of staff,
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but that's going to double the amount of subscription costs
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they're currently paying for their platform or onboarding a new
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member of staff means that they need to now learn
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10 different bits of software. And often people speak to
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us before they scale and they say, well, you know,
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this is a lot of cognitive load for this platform.
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new staff member offered me to go and basically train
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three different sites in the UK, um, how to, how
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to do this thing. So often what, where we come
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in is we come in and we do a bit
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of consultation on, okay, how do we, uh, kind of
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either integrate these things together better, or we usually build
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a platform that consolidates these processes often.
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In a better way.
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Um, and in the long run, um, so that they're
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not basically just at the mercy of these SAS companies, um,
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increasing their prices or whatever, which obviously increases the kind of,
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or decreases the risk for those businesses and also increases
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the kind of intrinsic value of their business because now
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they've got a digitized process that captures their.
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Kind of core workflow.
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Yeah, okay. Now that makes sense. Yeah, because I know,
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I mean, the promise of SaaS software, subscription-based software is
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that it's going to be low cost, but like the
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price can... very quickly get prohibitive, you know, particularly if
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you're scaling and you happen to pay per seat for
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your company as well. So, yeah, so people understandably might
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go for these, what they think are low cost, but
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if they don't have a thorough understanding of how it
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all fits together or how it could be done in
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a smarter way, that's where you guys can come in.
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Not just then, you can come in earlier just to
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tell people what's available and how it can all integrate
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with each other.
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Often a SaaS product is the best fit.
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We wouldn't come in and tell somebody to spend a
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hundred grand on a software project when they could spend,
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you know, a hundred pounds a month for, you know,
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however long that would be the much better option for them,
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but not the kind of company that's going to kind
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of feed someone misinformation because it'd be more beneficial for us.
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We try and be open and honest as we can
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with what the best solution is.
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But going back to our kind of ideal customer, it's
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people who are kind of five to 10 staff looking
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to grow. And I think around that kind of bottleneck
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where you've got 10 people all billing on a monthly
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per seat basis on multiple bits of software, that's where
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you might start to see the benefit of maybe building
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something of your own.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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That bespoke element is important.
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You know, if you, if you run a business that's really,
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you know, repetitive that lots of businesses in the same
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industry exist and they all do it in the exact
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same way, SaaS products are great for that. But if
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you're in a niche business or your business does it
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in a specific way that makes your business better than
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all your competitors because of the workflow that you have
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and the SaaS products on the market don't know that workflow,
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therefore you can't use them. That's where we built, you know,
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that's the sweet spot for us is those niche industries
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that haven't had a SaaS platform built because there isn't
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the billion dollar market share available to the SaaS company
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because there's only a few.
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That's where we come in and really help.
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Often people end up signing a SaaS contract and in
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their onboarding call, all it is is them telling them
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they need to change their process to fit the SaaS market.
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Yeah, which is not ideal. I think you mentioned something
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a bit earlier as well about the bespoke software technology.
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can make the company more valuable as well particularly if
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you if you're looking to raise investment or maybe exit
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in the future if you've got your own bespoke products
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then then that is more appealing than being reliant on
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lots of other um external companies that you that you're
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paying subscriptions through to um okay cool like you might
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not be able to say who although i think they're
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listed on your website are there any case studies you
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can suggest uh mention or examples of the type of
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things that you've done for certain.
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Companies yeah you know talk about there like uh our
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first client our longest standing client is a client out.
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Of the out of the us called book your block and.
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They are in it and this is a perfect example
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what we're talking about that bespoke software element they are
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in a really niche industry in the us to do
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with hotel sourcing for youth sport events and tournaments where
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there's teams involved and the teams attend multiple different events
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throughout the year, all run by different organizers. And it's a,
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it's a really weak niche market that doesn't really exist
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in the UK. So it was kind of hard for
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us to understand it initially, but we came in at
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consultancy basis before, before we did any software development and
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they want to know what tools on.
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The market could fit them. And, you know, as a consultancy,
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we went and looked at the.
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Market and tried to use some off the shelf SaaS
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platforms for their purpose to save, you know, to save
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them money and make them more efficient. And every platform
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we tried to use, they would come back and say, well,
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it doesn't work for this reason or for that reason.
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And it was having to create workarounds and.
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It just didn't fit their workflow and their market because
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nothing was built for that specifically. They could only scale
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by hiring more. Hiring more staff to do more manual work,
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to do more copying and pasting between Excel spreadsheets or
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manually editing of rows to make sure that things weren't
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getting counted as duplicates when they shouldn't have been because
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emails were shared from event to event and loads of
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limitations just meant that the only way forward from then
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was to build out their own platform to allow them
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to do what they wanted to do and allow them
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to scale and that's what we helped them do we
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sort of built it in our sort of process that
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we've now followed five years which is iterative software development
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where they told us the core problem and we built
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a solution for that, you know, formed a sort of
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minimal viable product of what they wanted to build and
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what that worked. And they scaled that their business doubled
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in the first year after working with us due to
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being able to scale their outreach and their sort of
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process without having to double their headcount. Then we're like, well,
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if that's worked so well, what's, you know, the next
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thing that's really now blocking us is this aspect and,
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we then added that feature on top.
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And we've done that now as an ongoing partner for five.
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Years and seen their business grow every year due to that.
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And the team's grown and the revenues have grown.
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The software has grown dramatically, but it's been every feature
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has been bespoke to them exactly in the workflow that
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they need for their industry. And that's sort of our biggest,
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perfect example case study of that aspect.
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But it's been a great project to work on, really interesting.
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A niche industry that prior we.
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Had no knowledge of, but that's the joy of being
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an agency is you get to see all these different
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industries in practice.
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Amazing. Yeah, no, that's a great example. We'll come back
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to it about the fact that it's a US-based company
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that you're working with as well, and you're based here
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in the northeast of England. So that's cool. We'll maybe
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talk about how that came about. But when you explain that,
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that's like sort of, So obvious how that's going to
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save them time and effort and probably quite a lot
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of frustration as well. It must be so complicated. and
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a bit of a logistic nightmare to organize all that
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but the time that you've saved them they can focus
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more on the on the fun stuff or the growing
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the business and um like say the outreach and spending
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more time with the the teams the clubs um the
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fact that they've saved time and the being able to
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make more money, of course, they're going to want to
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keep working with them. That's what any businesses want to do.
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So that's a great example.
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Because, you know, as part of an ongoing relationship, which
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is the sort of desired outcome on these sort of
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engagements is that we are an ongoing partner for five years,
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is that we now have such a deep understanding of
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their business model and their business overall that we can,
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you know, rather than them coming to us with ideas
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of what they want to do and how to fix their,
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you know, the limitations they have, we can sometimes see
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it before they can because we can see the usage
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within the app. We can see process bottlenecks before they
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happen because we're having to write them in code. It
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becomes very obvious where the blockers are that can go
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back to them and provide really good insight just on
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a consultancy basis to help guide them along the journey
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of transitioning from a purely service-based business to now they
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refer themselves as more of a technology company because this
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this tool is now so ingrained in their workflow and
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allows them to do what they do.
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I think that's one of our kind of core skills
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as a company is our ability to understand. And that
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is often understanding to particularly in some of the cases,
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we understand the core business and the workflows better than
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the staff or the CEOs, because we have to understand
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it in a way that we can tell a computer, which,
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you know, as much as people might say otherwise has
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no brain. And you have to explain it in such
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simple terms and break it down in a way that
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you understand it so well that you can digitize it
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and make it simpler. And I think that's what really
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kind of sets us apart is that we're really, me
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and Phil are really good at that. We're really good
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at understanding and we're really good at understanding what exists
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and what could exist and then explaining back to the customer, okay, well,
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you might not know this thing's possible, but we understand
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your business and we understand the tech. And we could say,
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you know, with this new piece of technology or this
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new process, we could build you. We could take you
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from here to here. And then that's going to mean
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that you're 10 times more efficient. And often that's just
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something that they've not even thought of themselves.
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Yeah, that's it. Yeah, exactly. So were they, did they
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have anyone in-house that was technical when they came to
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you or not?
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No, the founder, Mark, he's a technical person. you know,
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he's technically, he's sort of data driven. So he's a
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data guy, likes the numbers and likes crunching that and
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understands where the limitations are from just, you know, how
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much can be done manually. And, you know, in order
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to scale, he needed to automate, needed to understand the
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data more and access the data. But they had no
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one in-house that could do any of the sort of
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just even simple automation stuff. When we joined, they weren't
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even using Excel spreadsheets.
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They were sending one-at-a-time emails to all these teams and hotels.
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manual process. But now they're, you know, now they're all.
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Very techie because they use a platform that's custom built
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around their needs. They, you know, they can, you know,
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kind of like their own service desk. They use the platform.
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If they spot something that's sort of slightly inefficient for
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the way they want to do it, they can send
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us a pretty detailed feature request. And they're all now
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in that mindset of how to, you know, this, this
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task I've done it five times today.
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Can we automate it? Can, you know, how, you know,
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for the, if it's, if I'm.
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Spending, half an hour every day doing this task and
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it's the same task, I can go speak to Shape
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and have it automated and now I'm saving the business
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30 minutes of my time every day that, as you said,
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I can go do more of the fun stuff, the
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important stuff, the client relationship building, the stuff that actually
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moves the business forward rather than copying and pasting between
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spreadsheets and emails, which a lot of businesses get stuck in.
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Amazing.
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Well then, it makes total sense as well because then
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they can focus on what they've really love and what
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they're best at and they can trust you to focus
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on the technology and they know that you're always going
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to be up to date with the latest trends and
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the new developments. So with that in mind, I've been
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working in tech and software for a long time, right?
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I know I don't look old enough, but about 15 years, right?
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And a lot has changed in that time. But how
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would you say the environment's changed for you in the
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last few years? particularly in terms of like the different
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options that businesses have. So, you know, you can outsource,
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you can use offshore developers, freelancers, you can do it yourself.
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There's AI now. So what have you noticed?
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It's been an interesting 12, the last 12 months, I
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would say.
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It seems to.
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Have accelerated, doesn't it? It really sped up.
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I think, you know, two years ago, you know, people
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were talking about it, but it hadn't really proven itself.
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ChatterPetit hadn't really, you know, hit the ground, people hadn't
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seen just how quick that sort of feedback loop was,
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and sort of developers and software agencies were sort of
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still the sort of de facto standard. If you wanted
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to get something built, the only option was to go
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to a software development agency to do it properly. And now,
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you know, people's perception of that may have shifted slightly that,
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you know, the billions of dollars that's been spent from
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AI marketing to tell CEOs and people that you don't need.
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To pay all this money.
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AI can build it all for you for next to
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nothing has been one of the biggest, you know, changes
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in the last 12 months. But, you know, that's, you know,
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we think that that's probably not, it'll be short lived
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in the scheme of things, you know, you know, give
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it 12 months and people will realize and come full
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circle that, okay, if we, if we want mission critical,
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if we want something built to a high standard, the
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expertise that you get with people who've done it before
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you know josh and i've been building software for you
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know over a decade but without ai and that's where
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the judgment comes in that's where the expertise lives that
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now that we get access to ai we are just
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faster but we still have all that judgment all that
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expertise um that makes you know working with software development
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agency like shape you know if it is an important
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aspect of your business a no-brainer you can't get ai
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to give you a guarantee that you're iso compliant or
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you're you know secure to a certain standard there's no
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one held accountable to that if you want someone held
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accountable to that you need to be to a certain
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compliance regulation um and you want to be able to
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ring up the phone when something is not working and
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have someone fix it or be responsible for that the
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only way to get that is by working with an
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industry um i'll let josh talk a little bit about
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like how we sort of you know, how we compare ourselves,
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not to others, but the different options that currently exist.
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Yeah, I can do.
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So, well, we're just talking about 12 months, but I
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think if we go back like five years when me
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and Phil were just starting out with Shape, the kind
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of domain.
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Options were like, if I was, you know, our ideal customer,
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like we.
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Were speaking about, then I was thinking about maybe getting
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some software built to replace the kind of processes that
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I've built up over time.
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The options were kind of, well, I could hire a
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developer in or I could hire a dev agency like Shape.
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And that was quite a simple choice.
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And recently that choice has become much more complicated, especially
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as Phil mentioned with different types of marketing and changes
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in the kind of software landscape.
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Now the options are obviously different.
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You could hire a freelancer, you could hire in-house, you
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could hire an agency, you could go offshore, you could
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then maybe do it yourself with AI, which is quite
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an interesting option that I think if you spoke to
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us five years ago and said everyone's going to think
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they can write software in five years' time, we probably
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would have laughed at that option.
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But now, unfortunately, nobody saw it coming.
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That is kind of a reality and I think So
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there's obviously pros and cons to every option. And what
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we're kind of finding is that people with AI, it's
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kind of like it's a double edged sword. The kind
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of layman can get super, super far with it and
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they can basically build.
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A very, very good prototype.
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But we have not seen yet anyone manage to, you know,
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I'm hoping to be proven wrong, anyone managed to build
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something who didn't have prior software experience from nothing to
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a totally production-ready app that's like GDPR compliant.
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Is secure, all these things easy to maintain. It can
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be scaled up and down.
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All of these kind of extra things that are kind
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of additional to just the writing code part is where
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MinerPill's experience comes in.
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And what we kind of, we've been finding recently.
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Actually, which is interesting is a lot of our inbound clients,
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they have kind of, they've come, people come to us
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and say, oh, I've built this up and it's kind of,
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it's kind of 80% done. And I just need somebody
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who's an expert to finish off that final 20%.
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And they say, oh, you.
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Know, I've built it in base 44. I built it
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just using Claude. And they say, oh, can I, can
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I send it to you? So we have a look
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at it and kind of all, First of all, kind
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of all the claims that AI said, oh, it's secure. Uh,
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it's for a hundred users a day or whatever. It's,
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00:19:53.740 --> 00:19:57.859
it's just misinformation. It's just not, it's not just the
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whole code is in one file. It kind of looks
391
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like a really great piece of software, but just.
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Under the hood, it is just a Frankenstein's monster of
393
00:20:06.230 --> 00:20:09.839
lies essentially. Uh, And then we kind of come.
394
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Back to them and say, look, you know, AI's told
395
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you this, you're 8% of the way there. You're kind of,
396
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all you've really got is a really, really good prototype.
397
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And this is a great starting point for us because
398
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five years ago, what we'd have to do is somebody
399
00:20:24.059 --> 00:20:25.960
comes to us with an idea and then we have
400
00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:28.440
to spend a lot of time sitting down with them,
401
00:20:28.940 --> 00:20:31.380
kind of teasing that idea out of their head because
402
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it doesn't exist yet.
403
00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:34.039
And that was a big challenge.
404
00:20:35.400 --> 00:20:37.660
But now somebody can get ideas out of their head
405
00:20:37.700 --> 00:20:40.059
in a really easy way and just show us like
406
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this is basically what I want and that has allowed
407
00:20:44.220 --> 00:20:46.309
us to jump a lot further in the process a
408
00:20:46.349 --> 00:20:50.470
lot quicker because we're not spending kind of eight weeks
409
00:20:50.509 --> 00:20:52.890
sitting in meetings going maybe it could work like this
410
00:20:52.930 --> 00:20:54.390
maybe it could work like that they can just go
411
00:20:54.410 --> 00:20:57.250
no in the ideal scenario it will work like this
412
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and basically show us this prototype but then the kind
413
00:21:01.930 --> 00:21:05.599
of The bad news for them is that unfortunately what
414
00:21:05.619 --> 00:21:08.480
they've got doesn't really go very far in the world of,
415
00:21:08.980 --> 00:21:11.220
you know, solid software, something that's going to be secure
416
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and something that they can take to market and scale
417
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to thousands of users. And that's why there is still
418
00:21:18.609 --> 00:21:21.750
a place in the market for the software development.
419
00:21:21.410 --> 00:21:22.829
Agencies, because.
420
00:21:24.069 --> 00:21:26.289
You just can't, as far as we may get there,
421
00:21:26.569 --> 00:21:29.779
but as of yet, you can't go from no software
422
00:21:29.819 --> 00:21:32.579
experience to an app you can launch globally.
423
00:21:33.250 --> 00:21:36.069
Yeah no totally totally agree i mean i've spent a
424
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like in the past i used to work at a
425
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very big software company which uh big green software company
426
00:21:42.119 --> 00:21:45.599
in newcastle um and i was uh i was in
427
00:21:45.619 --> 00:21:47.799
the marketing team but we were very closely with the
428
00:21:47.880 --> 00:21:51.059
development teams as well and many many years ago i
429
00:21:51.099 --> 00:21:53.730
was trained as a software developer so like i realized
430
00:21:54.109 --> 00:21:56.190
i'm not a very good software developer i can do
431
00:21:56.210 --> 00:21:58.049
it but i'm not very good at it but uh
432
00:21:58.980 --> 00:22:02.859
but I really admire and respect developers and what they
433
00:22:02.900 --> 00:22:09.400
can do. So yeah, AI tools are good. And like
434
00:22:09.539 --> 00:22:12.940
you say, you can knock up a prototype and something
435
00:22:13.039 --> 00:22:18.569
quite useful to show more tech savvy people who can
436
00:22:18.650 --> 00:22:23.430
take that and make it more robust and secure and compliant.
437
00:22:25.269 --> 00:22:27.369
And you're probably gonna have to do that if you're
438
00:22:27.390 --> 00:22:29.990
wanting to turn that into a into a business and
439
00:22:30.049 --> 00:22:34.380
sell to an established company, they're probably going to want
440
00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:37.279
to know that it's done safely and securely and done
441
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properly before they're going to bring it in into their system.
442
00:22:40.980 --> 00:22:42.380
Well, that's the thing.
443
00:22:42.500 --> 00:22:45.819
Your business depends on this bit of software and it
444
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is kind of a mishmash of AI and not a
445
00:22:50.210 --> 00:22:53.529
lot of critical thinking or somebody's actually sat down and thought,
446
00:22:53.589 --> 00:22:55.509
you know, I need to understand how this is going
447
00:22:55.529 --> 00:22:58.619
to work. so that when it breaks, I know where
448
00:22:58.690 --> 00:22:59.630
it's broken and why.
449
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If you don't have that.
450
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Understanding and a mission-critical piece of software, when it breaks
451
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at 2 or 3 a.m. and the client's on the
452
00:23:06.970 --> 00:23:09.009
phone to you, getting you out of bed to sort
453
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it out, and you say, oh, it's broken because I
454
00:23:13.670 --> 00:23:16.079
didn't really take responsibility for this thing.
455
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And just had AI build it, they're not very happy.
456
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Building stuff to the production-grade standard that.
457
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we are kind of.
458
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The agenda we're kind of pushing is that it's really
459
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important kind of that there are some great use cases
460
00:23:34.589 --> 00:23:38.690
for AI that we're building a small personal project, or
461
00:23:38.710 --> 00:23:40.710
you just want to like coming off the ground, you know,
462
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it is amazing for that.
463
00:23:43.230 --> 00:23:46.359
Yeah. I know there's like, I'm sure, I'm sure you
464
00:23:46.420 --> 00:23:50.140
are as well, but there's, I know some very senior,
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developers and CTOs who are using it, using AI tools
466
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to develop ideas. I heard a great example of a
467
00:24:01.490 --> 00:24:04.170
guy who I met in Leeds at a big event
468
00:24:04.190 --> 00:24:06.880
down there, and he was saying he got brought in
469
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to an existing business to pitch for some work. And
470
00:24:11.559 --> 00:24:14.359
he basically came in with a prototype that he'd knocked
471
00:24:14.440 --> 00:24:16.559
up in, I think, Claude. And he was just like,
472
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is this what you want? And the client was like, yeah,
473
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that's pretty much exactly what we want. He's like, right, great,
474
00:24:21.960 --> 00:24:24.930
we'll go away and develop that now. But it saved
475
00:24:24.950 --> 00:24:27.309
them a lot of time of backwards and forwards and
476
00:24:27.849 --> 00:24:29.529
not being clear on what they wanted. He could just
477
00:24:29.609 --> 00:24:33.950
visually show them what it would look like, but then
478
00:24:33.990 --> 00:24:35.390
they had to actually build the thing.
479
00:24:36.950 --> 00:24:39.259
So we do a very similar thing, which I'll let
480
00:24:39.299 --> 00:24:40.460
Bill tell you about.
481
00:24:40.940 --> 00:24:43.579
It was exactly what I was going to say. That
482
00:24:44.180 --> 00:24:46.940
forms exactly part of our process now. As Josh mentioned,
483
00:24:46.980 --> 00:24:51.490
before we'd spend you know, four to eight weeks in discovery, planning,
484
00:24:51.750 --> 00:24:55.869
you know, design, creating wireframes, prototypes, making sure that we
485
00:24:55.910 --> 00:24:59.410
understood the client's requirements fully before putting any sort of
486
00:24:59.430 --> 00:25:00.869
pen to paper, so to speak, when it came to
487
00:25:00.910 --> 00:25:03.819
writing code. And that process took a lot of time
488
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and therefore, you know, had a cost associated with that
489
00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:08.359
time when it came to projects.
490
00:25:08.460 --> 00:25:10.140
And now we have.
491
00:25:10.019 --> 00:25:13.670
A sort of discovery phase, which includes the use of
492
00:25:13.750 --> 00:25:16.779
AI assisted prototyping so that we can go from a
493
00:25:16.839 --> 00:25:19.559
meeting with a client over 30 minutes to an hour,
494
00:25:20.059 --> 00:25:23.180
having them explain the problem, go to a prototyping tool,
495
00:25:23.759 --> 00:25:26.480
build out a prototype for them that we can then
496
00:25:26.519 --> 00:25:28.480
present back to them and say, look, this is what
497
00:25:28.500 --> 00:25:32.039
we think would fit your problem. If this is a
498
00:25:32.059 --> 00:25:36.250
good enough fit for you, work with us and refine it.
499
00:25:36.980 --> 00:25:39.789
And then at the end of that refining process, using
500
00:25:39.809 --> 00:25:43.009
the AI to really be quick in that feedback loop
501
00:25:43.759 --> 00:25:46.619
that prototype becomes the requirement list, which is a way
502
00:25:46.660 --> 00:25:52.160
more detailed, specific requirement list than a document of requirements
503
00:25:52.259 --> 00:25:53.420
in an Excel folder or.
504
00:25:53.339 --> 00:25:56.559
A Word document with no sort of visual links to it.
505
00:25:56.660 --> 00:25:58.519
You know, giving the client the ability to click through
506
00:25:58.539 --> 00:26:01.579
a prototype, see their process mapped out, might not be
507
00:26:01.619 --> 00:26:06.660
perfect in the prototype, probably won't work because it's AI prototyping,
508
00:26:07.279 --> 00:26:10.380
but it allows them to see what the end product
509
00:26:10.440 --> 00:26:12.900
will look like and say, if you build me this,
510
00:26:13.240 --> 00:26:14.420
I'll be happy and it will.
511
00:26:14.279 --> 00:26:14.980
Do what I want.
512
00:26:15.640 --> 00:26:18.180
That's really, you know, sped up that process. It's cut
513
00:26:18.220 --> 00:26:20.599
down what used to be eight weeks into, you know, to,
514
00:26:21.259 --> 00:26:24.240
you know, reduce that cost, that burden on the client.
515
00:26:24.819 --> 00:26:27.920
And it's ending with a better product earlier in the
516
00:26:27.980 --> 00:26:31.500
process as well, because it had that refining, that iterative step,
517
00:26:32.380 --> 00:26:36.049
that feedback loop is so fast now that it really
518
00:26:36.069 --> 00:26:39.049
does help with that sort of onboarding of new projects.
519
00:26:40.640 --> 00:26:44.720
Awesome. Love it. So, I mean, we've touched on it already,
520
00:26:44.759 --> 00:26:47.180
but I was going to ask a bit about maybe
521
00:26:47.200 --> 00:26:50.720
the challenges for all these new options in AI and
522
00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:54.799
other things for you guys internally. Have you had to,
523
00:26:55.880 --> 00:26:58.539
not necessarily upskill, but you've had to learn lots of
524
00:26:59.019 --> 00:27:03.369
other things that maybe you didn't need to before? Has
525
00:27:04.009 --> 00:27:06.930
that been difficult, keeping on top of new trends and
526
00:27:07.170 --> 00:27:08.589
new tools?
527
00:27:09.349 --> 00:27:12.940
Every 30 days, I think a new model comes out.
528
00:27:12.960 --> 00:27:15.960
Evaluate whether or not it is worth upgrading to, worth
529
00:27:15.980 --> 00:27:18.839
the extra token spend or costs associated.
530
00:27:18.859 --> 00:27:23.359
I think tech has moved fast. Even before AI, every
531
00:27:23.400 --> 00:27:26.069
week there was a new and shiny coming out.
532
00:27:26.140 --> 00:27:29.210
So I think just working in this industry, you just
533
00:27:29.390 --> 00:27:32.049
have to be used to it moving quickly and having
534
00:27:32.069 --> 00:27:36.190
to adapt. So in a way, it hasn't changed, but
535
00:27:36.289 --> 00:27:38.930
obviously also in other ways it has changed.
536
00:27:39.309 --> 00:27:44.069
We benefit from being a smaller agency is that there
537
00:27:44.109 --> 00:27:47.119
isn't hundreds of us to upskill in a new tech
538
00:27:47.140 --> 00:27:49.859
when it comes out and we work very closely together.
539
00:27:49.880 --> 00:27:55.299
We have an all-hands meeting daily with everybody in the
540
00:27:55.359 --> 00:28:01.230
company and that allows us to have that iterative learning
541
00:28:01.609 --> 00:28:04.690
just internally in the business. Yesterday, one of the teams
542
00:28:04.730 --> 00:28:07.789
at work and they came across something that helped them
543
00:28:07.890 --> 00:28:10.849
or made their process, their workflow during their job better.
544
00:28:11.289 --> 00:28:13.700
The next day they can tell everyone about it, share it.
545
00:28:13.809 --> 00:28:16.069
And if we all think that's a good thing, we
546
00:28:16.109 --> 00:28:18.710
can all implement it the next day. That, that feedback
547
00:28:19.450 --> 00:28:22.859
improving that 1% daily on what we're doing is so
548
00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:27.619
quick that although everything is changing fast, we're also changing
549
00:28:27.660 --> 00:28:30.259
fast with it. And, you know, as a, as a
550
00:28:30.299 --> 00:28:32.940
small company, we don't have layers of management and sort
551
00:28:32.960 --> 00:28:36.160
of hierarchy that has to get approval for, one layer
552
00:28:36.180 --> 00:28:38.180
below the next and above the next.
553
00:28:38.579 --> 00:28:40.440
You know, if there is a new tool or a
554
00:28:40.480 --> 00:28:42.789
new way of doing it and we all agree.
555
00:28:42.609 --> 00:28:44.990
That it's better, we can try it out and give
556
00:28:45.009 --> 00:28:47.730
it a go and sort of find that out way
557
00:28:47.750 --> 00:28:50.250
faster than, you know, a larger company would in the
558
00:28:50.269 --> 00:28:50.789
same space.
559
00:28:51.450 --> 00:28:51.690
Yeah.
560
00:28:52.150 --> 00:28:56.990
Doing kind of staff workshops where we're basically, we worked
561
00:28:57.019 --> 00:28:59.059
for a little while under the assumption that everyone was
562
00:28:59.099 --> 00:29:01.700
just using AI and using the AI in the same
563
00:29:01.720 --> 00:29:02.160
way that.
564
00:29:02.359 --> 00:29:04.309
I was using it and Phil was using it. And
565
00:29:04.329 --> 00:29:05.289
our other staff were using it.
566
00:29:05.410 --> 00:29:06.990
And then we had a bit of a workshop and
567
00:29:07.619 --> 00:29:10.759
came to the conclusion that actually everyone was using it
568
00:29:10.799 --> 00:29:11.900
in a slightly different way.
569
00:29:11.940 --> 00:29:15.420
And some were more efficient than others. And some led
570
00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:18.289
to very different results. Some were much better, some were worse.
571
00:29:18.789 --> 00:29:22.089
And I think having that kind of constant rotative time
572
00:29:22.309 --> 00:29:25.769
to kind of join up on it and have a
573
00:29:25.829 --> 00:29:29.349
re-sync and just speak about openly what worked for us
574
00:29:29.430 --> 00:29:32.019
and what worked For somebody else that we might not
575
00:29:32.019 --> 00:29:36.170
have thought of, because everyone's getting information from, you know.
576
00:29:36.170 --> 00:29:37.970
Five different places.
577
00:29:37.539 --> 00:29:39.750
And just having that time to to bring that all
578
00:29:39.769 --> 00:29:42.130
together and discuss it, um, and say, oh yeah.
579
00:29:42.150 --> 00:29:43.950
You know, I'm doing that as well. I think that's actually,
580
00:29:44.029 --> 00:29:44.670
that's really good.
581
00:29:44.769 --> 00:29:48.009
And then telling the rest of the team that maybe aren't, um,
582
00:29:48.250 --> 00:29:50.289
that was really helpful for us because we did work
583
00:29:50.329 --> 00:29:53.170
under the assumption for probably slightly too long that everyone
584
00:29:53.210 --> 00:29:55.250
was just doing the same thing when of course they're not.
585
00:29:56.589 --> 00:30:00.660
Yeah. I think that's a, just, um, highlights another benefit
586
00:30:00.700 --> 00:30:03.099
of companies working with a company like yours as well
587
00:30:03.119 --> 00:30:05.559
you know if they if they can focus on what
588
00:30:05.599 --> 00:30:08.029
they're experts in and they can trust you guys to
589
00:30:08.049 --> 00:30:11.009
have that like culture of learning like if you're always
590
00:30:12.450 --> 00:30:15.569
individually wanting to learn new things and collectively as a
591
00:30:15.609 --> 00:30:19.890
company and you're sharing best practice and new insights that
592
00:30:19.910 --> 00:30:23.259
means you're always up to date and and then the
593
00:30:23.279 --> 00:30:26.940
client benefits from that as well yeah.
594
00:30:27.019 --> 00:30:29.630
You're just not talk there about the benefit of a.
595
00:30:29.630 --> 00:30:32.950
Company being able to trust us and focus that we
596
00:30:32.970 --> 00:30:36.990
know what we're doing in our industry, in our context window.
597
00:30:37.690 --> 00:30:39.789
We talked before about what the options are for different
598
00:30:40.150 --> 00:30:42.730
companies now when it comes to building software.
599
00:30:42.829 --> 00:30:44.009
One of those options now.
600
00:30:43.890 --> 00:30:47.750
For people is one developer with a lot of AI
601
00:30:47.789 --> 00:30:49.970
credits can go a lot further than that one developer
602
00:30:50.049 --> 00:30:50.829
used to be able to.
603
00:30:50.890 --> 00:30:52.920
So now more and more companies are.
604
00:30:53.930 --> 00:30:55.710
Come to us with a project and they say, you know,
605
00:30:55.839 --> 00:30:58.420
to be transparent, we are looking at our options of
606
00:30:59.180 --> 00:31:01.740
working with you guys or whether we just take that
607
00:31:01.799 --> 00:31:04.940
money and hire someone in-house to be our in-house developer.
608
00:31:06.619 --> 00:31:10.440
And that is becoming an option that people are weighing
609
00:31:10.500 --> 00:31:12.079
up more and more. And I think always have done,
610
00:31:12.119 --> 00:31:14.059
but the cost of it in the past used to
611
00:31:14.099 --> 00:31:16.460
be higher because you have to hire in a team
612
00:31:16.500 --> 00:31:18.869
of five developers. And now, you know, you might think
613
00:31:18.880 --> 00:31:21.029
you can get away with two developers and a lot
614
00:31:21.049 --> 00:31:25.369
of AI. but there's that point of, you know, that
615
00:31:25.420 --> 00:31:27.480
business is really good at what that business does.
616
00:31:27.990 --> 00:31:29.990
And if you're going to hire in a software team,
617
00:31:30.710 --> 00:31:32.569
you're now changing from a.
618
00:31:32.609 --> 00:31:35.829
Service-based business in whatever industry or, you know, whatever business
619
00:31:35.869 --> 00:31:39.269
it is to now you have, you're now a technology
620
00:31:39.289 --> 00:31:42.569
business and you have to understand all of the nuances
621
00:31:42.609 --> 00:31:46.049
and complexities of being a technology company and owning software
622
00:31:46.089 --> 00:31:48.549
from end to end. And, you know, as Josh supports,
623
00:31:48.589 --> 00:31:52.069
not just writing the code, it's infrastructure, it's, observability is
624
00:31:52.109 --> 00:31:53.990
making sure that everything's running you know if you've got
625
00:31:54.789 --> 00:31:56.910
someone if you've got an in-house team and then something
626
00:31:56.930 --> 00:31:59.089
goes wrong at 2am can you ring your in-house developer
627
00:31:59.109 --> 00:32:01.029
at 2 in the morning are they compensated enough to
628
00:32:01.069 --> 00:32:03.109
be on call to that degree where's.
629
00:32:02.950 --> 00:32:05.470
Your support list and that's.
630
00:32:05.349 --> 00:32:08.609
Often why we're the better choice in those scenarios is
631
00:32:08.650 --> 00:32:11.490
that the business gets to focus on what they're really
632
00:32:11.509 --> 00:32:14.230
good at what they what they sell what they do
633
00:32:14.279 --> 00:32:17.799
what they provide and they can know that they've left
634
00:32:18.019 --> 00:32:20.619
the software to a company that's really good at software
635
00:32:20.849 --> 00:32:22.750
and really good at that. And it allows them to
636
00:32:22.789 --> 00:32:25.910
have that separation that means they're not getting distracted and
637
00:32:25.950 --> 00:32:28.410
they can concentrate on what makes them really good and
638
00:32:28.430 --> 00:32:30.369
what brings in them the money, really.
639
00:32:30.849 --> 00:32:35.190
And people don't have to worry about what their software
640
00:32:35.230 --> 00:32:35.670
team's doing.
641
00:32:35.869 --> 00:32:38.470
We worry about that and they can worry about what
642
00:32:38.519 --> 00:32:41.019
their sales team's doing. And we worry about it as well.
643
00:32:41.079 --> 00:32:43.819
It keeps me up at night making sure that everyone's happy.
644
00:32:43.839 --> 00:32:45.190
We're very good at worrying about it.
645
00:32:47.009 --> 00:32:49.869
There's nothing wrong with that. It means that you're on
646
00:32:49.910 --> 00:32:53.869
top of things. So I know you don't just work with, well,
647
00:32:54.230 --> 00:32:56.990
you work with established companies, but you work alongside established
648
00:32:57.089 --> 00:33:00.509
tech teams as well, sort of like to augment them
649
00:33:00.569 --> 00:33:04.230
and sort of give them extra capacity. Is that right?
650
00:33:04.789 --> 00:33:05.369
Yeah, we do.
651
00:33:05.490 --> 00:33:08.279
So it's not our biggest portion of the business, but
652
00:33:08.339 --> 00:33:13.279
it is often sometimes where clients will say, we are
653
00:33:13.359 --> 00:33:15.200
short on hands for a particular project.
654
00:33:15.240 --> 00:33:17.369
They don't want to have to.
655
00:33:17.390 --> 00:33:19.390
Hire in a new member of staff on a permanent
656
00:33:19.410 --> 00:33:22.069
role if the contract's only for three months or four months.
657
00:33:22.769 --> 00:33:25.589
And that's where we come in. We work part of
658
00:33:25.609 --> 00:33:30.190
a network with other dev houses or with clients that
659
00:33:30.279 --> 00:33:32.140
already have a team and they just need extra support
660
00:33:32.160 --> 00:33:34.220
for a short period of time where we're sort of
661
00:33:34.279 --> 00:33:37.299
pre-vetted and we roll on and off depending on when
662
00:33:37.339 --> 00:33:41.299
they need us. So it's sort of a more flexible arrangement. It's, oh,
663
00:33:41.319 --> 00:33:42.859
we need it for the next two months. Have you
664
00:33:42.900 --> 00:33:44.940
got anyone free? And we can sort of jump in
665
00:33:44.980 --> 00:33:47.440
because they've already done the due diligence. We signed that
666
00:33:47.480 --> 00:33:49.700
contract ahead of time so that when it comes to
667
00:33:49.740 --> 00:33:53.579
the point of, oh, I need extra hands tomorrow, there
668
00:33:53.640 --> 00:33:56.960
isn't that lead time of three months of negotiation and
669
00:33:57.079 --> 00:34:00.250
all that sort of stuff of figuring out the details
670
00:34:01.210 --> 00:34:05.329
and comparing different providers of the service. We've already spoke
671
00:34:05.349 --> 00:34:07.470
to them. They already have vetted us. We've already passed
672
00:34:07.490 --> 00:34:10.190
the tests and they get to just give us a
673
00:34:10.210 --> 00:34:12.150
little bit of notice and we can roll someone onto
674
00:34:12.190 --> 00:34:12.449
the team.
675
00:34:15.050 --> 00:34:17.769
That's a smart way of doing it. A few years back,
676
00:34:18.230 --> 00:34:20.429
I spent a bit of work in tech recruitment, and
677
00:34:20.449 --> 00:34:24.329
I know how difficult it is to find permanent hires,
678
00:34:26.070 --> 00:34:30.909
but also freelancers as well, or contract-based. It can be
679
00:34:30.949 --> 00:34:34.050
very expensive bringing people in to do that, and difficult
680
00:34:34.090 --> 00:34:37.090
to find what you need. But if companies are more
681
00:34:37.170 --> 00:34:42.340
open to collaboration and bringing in other established teams, external
682
00:34:42.360 --> 00:34:45.469
companies to work alongside them, even if just for a
683
00:34:45.489 --> 00:34:47.630
short period of time, I think that's a smart way
684
00:34:47.690 --> 00:34:52.630
of doing it. Also, you're busy doing your other work,
685
00:34:52.670 --> 00:34:57.150
your other projects, and you can join if you've got capacity.
686
00:34:57.210 --> 00:35:00.329
But there's other companies where they hire loads of people
687
00:35:00.369 --> 00:35:02.610
and then they have people just sat on the bench
688
00:35:02.969 --> 00:35:07.000
doing nothing. And one thing I know about a lot
689
00:35:07.039 --> 00:35:09.679
of good developers is they hate just being on the
690
00:35:09.719 --> 00:35:10.690
bench with nothing to do.
691
00:35:11.230 --> 00:35:13.949
Worst feeling when i when i when i finished university
692
00:35:13.989 --> 00:35:16.090
it was one of my first jobs with big corporate
693
00:35:16.190 --> 00:35:19.469
software development consulting and i was the being on the
694
00:35:19.510 --> 00:35:21.420
bench and they had a different name for it they
695
00:35:21.440 --> 00:35:25.079
called it on the beach the bench on the beach
696
00:35:25.119 --> 00:35:27.960
on the vacation and you know everyone on on the
697
00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:30.960
bench just was sat twiddling thumbs just you know itching
698
00:35:30.980 --> 00:35:33.400
to get on a project so they sort of roll
699
00:35:33.460 --> 00:35:35.619
off and on that we work with a few other
700
00:35:35.639 --> 00:35:39.010
companies to do it really helps and and you know Also,
701
00:35:39.090 --> 00:35:42.210
just like, you know, economy wise, like it helps, you know,
702
00:35:42.489 --> 00:35:45.769
UK businesses helping UK businesses sort of carry that burden
703
00:35:45.829 --> 00:35:48.750
or share that burden of, you know, the employment in
704
00:35:48.769 --> 00:35:51.130
the UK and sort of making sure that when that
705
00:35:51.170 --> 00:35:54.440
work does come in, they're not immediately thinking, oh, I
706
00:35:54.460 --> 00:35:57.590
need extra hands. I'm going to offshore it because. whatever
707
00:35:57.739 --> 00:35:59.690
they can say, I'll give that work to someone in
708
00:35:59.710 --> 00:36:02.010
the UK. We'll keep that, you know, we'll keep that
709
00:36:02.030 --> 00:36:04.070
relationship in the UK. We'll keep the economy in the
710
00:36:04.190 --> 00:36:07.949
UK stronger by sharing the capacity between everyone, because there is,
711
00:36:08.369 --> 00:36:11.380
there is enough to do that. But it's often finding
712
00:36:11.400 --> 00:36:15.920
the vetted, trusted people where that relationship's already pre preexisting.
713
00:36:15.980 --> 00:36:18.320
It can happen at the right lead time. That's where
714
00:36:18.340 --> 00:36:19.320
the complications lie.
715
00:36:21.840 --> 00:36:23.659
We'll talk about it in a bit about the, um,
716
00:36:24.460 --> 00:36:27.099
importance of a network and a community around you as
717
00:36:27.119 --> 00:36:29.659
well but uh just something that's point of your mind
718
00:36:29.699 --> 00:36:33.679
is it doesn't just have to be like large companies
719
00:36:33.739 --> 00:36:36.409
bringing in small companies it could be you guys might
720
00:36:36.449 --> 00:36:38.250
have a bit of work where you actually need to
721
00:36:38.289 --> 00:36:41.230
bring in a bigger a bigger resource to support you
722
00:36:41.269 --> 00:36:43.750
as well but you could still be the lead on
723
00:36:43.769 --> 00:36:46.469
the project and why why i'm thinking of that i
724
00:36:46.510 --> 00:36:49.400
think There's a couple of companies I'm aware of who
725
00:36:49.880 --> 00:36:52.519
have quite big teams or have had big teams and
726
00:36:52.559 --> 00:36:56.219
they're finding it difficult now with the new or the
727
00:36:56.260 --> 00:37:00.699
growth of AI adoption where they're finding it harder to,
728
00:37:00.719 --> 00:37:05.929
because they've got large overheads, they're getting pressure to reduce
729
00:37:05.969 --> 00:37:08.730
the price of their work as well. They're maybe not
730
00:37:08.789 --> 00:37:11.989
getting as much work. So they would actually probably benefit
731
00:37:12.030 --> 00:37:16.860
from some smaller companies bringing them in or passing some
732
00:37:16.900 --> 00:37:22.000
work over to them. So have you noticed any of that?
733
00:37:22.019 --> 00:37:27.260
Are you getting pressure to reduce your prices or people saying, oh,
734
00:37:27.300 --> 00:37:29.619
we can just do that ourselves? And you know they can't,
735
00:37:29.699 --> 00:37:31.199
but they think they can.
736
00:37:32.239 --> 00:37:35.889
Yeah, we notice it. It's a tricky space.
737
00:37:36.250 --> 00:37:39.909
We've always, for the past five years, we've always been
738
00:37:40.110 --> 00:37:41.380
the biggest competitor to us.
739
00:37:41.389 --> 00:37:43.150
There's not been another agency in the UK.
740
00:37:43.190 --> 00:37:45.389
It's been Oh, well, I can go offshore and have
741
00:37:45.449 --> 00:37:46.630
it built for a fraction of the price.
742
00:37:46.750 --> 00:37:50.489
Why would I do that? And this, you know, the
743
00:37:50.510 --> 00:37:52.699
rise of AI has only made that problem.
744
00:37:52.420 --> 00:37:56.000
Worse because you've now got the offshore companies that were
745
00:37:56.059 --> 00:37:59.760
already cheaper are now promising it at even more of
746
00:37:59.780 --> 00:38:03.389
a fraction of the price because the mentality or the
747
00:38:03.409 --> 00:38:06.090
sort of like the way that they work is different.
748
00:38:06.530 --> 00:38:08.489
They sort of just say, we'll get it done.
749
00:38:09.989 --> 00:38:13.010
Regardless of the standard or the output, it'll be done
750
00:38:13.070 --> 00:38:16.150
to whatever you ask. And they on purpose leave it
751
00:38:16.190 --> 00:38:19.670
vague so that they can deliver something quickly, cheaply, and
752
00:38:19.690 --> 00:38:21.260
it won't be perfect, but they'll say, well, I did
753
00:38:21.300 --> 00:38:25.179
what you asked. Where when we work with a client,
754
00:38:25.199 --> 00:38:27.079
we spend a lot of time in that discovery phase,
755
00:38:27.400 --> 00:38:31.840
making sure that often people don't know what they need
756
00:38:31.860 --> 00:38:33.440
to have. And we spend a lot of time in
757
00:38:33.460 --> 00:38:35.500
that discovery phase, making sure that when we do build
758
00:38:35.539 --> 00:38:38.000
the thing, the thing is built to exactly what they
759
00:38:38.039 --> 00:38:39.429
need and it will be fit for purpose.
760
00:38:41.099 --> 00:38:43.599
And now that, you know, that price comparison or that difference, if.
761
00:38:43.559 --> 00:38:45.719
You are, if you are basing it purely on price,
762
00:38:45.760 --> 00:38:49.019
that gap is only widening with people promising more and
763
00:38:49.059 --> 00:38:52.619
more with AI and more and more small, really small
764
00:38:52.639 --> 00:38:56.320
businesses cropping up every day, you know, globally, but also
765
00:38:56.340 --> 00:38:59.619
in the UK of people who freelancers and, you know,
766
00:38:59.699 --> 00:39:01.690
one man bands that have sort of said, well, with AI,
767
00:39:01.710 --> 00:39:04.130
I'm now as good as a team of six.
768
00:39:04.510 --> 00:39:08.230
But from our experience, you know, Whether that's true is
769
00:39:08.429 --> 00:39:10.030
up for debate still.
770
00:39:10.570 --> 00:39:12.230
But because it is just one of them and they
771
00:39:12.250 --> 00:39:15.329
don't have overheads and they are able to quote a
772
00:39:15.329 --> 00:39:17.510
lot less price. And if price is the thing that
773
00:39:17.550 --> 00:39:21.809
people are comparing on, it's a challenging thing to be
774
00:39:21.849 --> 00:39:25.530
compared against, which is why we don't. If price is
775
00:39:25.550 --> 00:39:28.670
the most important de facto thing for someone coming to us.
776
00:39:30.179 --> 00:39:32.559
then they're not right for us because we want to
777
00:39:32.599 --> 00:39:34.500
work with people who understand that this is a critical
778
00:39:35.039 --> 00:39:38.219
aspect of my business and I can't afford to go
779
00:39:38.900 --> 00:39:43.760
for the cheapest option. What's that saying? Buy right or
780
00:39:43.780 --> 00:39:46.639
buy twice. If you go cheap, you go do it cheap.
781
00:39:47.269 --> 00:39:49.050
then often you just have to do it again. And
782
00:39:49.349 --> 00:39:53.630
we've got a client that we brought on this year who.
783
00:39:52.389 --> 00:39:54.679
Did exactly that a couple of years ago.
784
00:39:54.719 --> 00:39:58.780
They went offshore, built their MVP, built their base platform
785
00:39:59.559 --> 00:40:02.239
at a cheaper cost because at the time it made
786
00:40:02.300 --> 00:40:04.579
sense for them or they thought it was a like-for-like
787
00:40:04.599 --> 00:40:06.139
solution that they were.
788
00:40:06.039 --> 00:40:06.900
Comparing it against.
789
00:40:06.980 --> 00:40:09.360
And then two years later, they got to a point
790
00:40:09.400 --> 00:40:13.900
where that development house offshore has walked off the job because.
791
00:40:13.719 --> 00:40:15.360
That was the contract. We build it, we give it
792
00:40:15.380 --> 00:40:16.570
to you, you now take it over.
793
00:40:17.139 --> 00:40:19.860
They hired someone in-house, but they're not a technology company,
794
00:40:20.039 --> 00:40:22.599
so how would they know who to hire that could
795
00:40:22.820 --> 00:40:27.610
take over this project, this code base, and then realize
796
00:40:27.650 --> 00:40:30.269
that they couldn't, and they didn't have the resources in-house,
797
00:40:30.309 --> 00:40:32.630
and they didn't have the expertise in-house, and then they're
798
00:40:32.650 --> 00:40:36.429
reaching out to us asking, look, guys, will you please
799
00:40:36.489 --> 00:40:39.750
take this over and help us get out of this
800
00:40:39.769 --> 00:40:42.860
situation that we've put ourselves in because we didn't buy
801
00:40:42.880 --> 00:40:47.409
right the first time? It is... is definitely something we're
802
00:40:47.449 --> 00:40:51.570
seeing people are sort of more, they expect more for less.
803
00:40:52.449 --> 00:40:55.650
And what the hard thing is, is that we're already
804
00:40:55.690 --> 00:40:56.809
doing more for less.
805
00:40:56.909 --> 00:40:59.719
You know, we are faster than we were, you know,
806
00:41:00.099 --> 00:41:01.860
probably two to four times faster than we were.
807
00:41:01.880 --> 00:41:04.420
I'm not going to be audacious and claim that we're
808
00:41:04.420 --> 00:41:06.639
10 times faster, a hundred times faster, like other companies
809
00:41:06.699 --> 00:41:10.079
might do, but we're definitely, you know, twice as fast
810
00:41:10.139 --> 00:41:13.130
or four times as fast in some spaces. Um, And
811
00:41:13.150 --> 00:41:16.130
because of that, we're already delivering more value than we
812
00:41:16.250 --> 00:41:20.510
ever could have per pound coin spent, so to speak.
813
00:41:22.119 --> 00:41:24.079
That's what we just have to try and get across
814
00:41:24.099 --> 00:41:25.000
to clients that we work with.
815
00:41:25.019 --> 00:41:28.239
And I think our current clients understand that and are
816
00:41:28.260 --> 00:41:29.280
great clients to work with.
817
00:41:29.900 --> 00:41:31.659
Yeah, often they've been burned before.
818
00:41:32.099 --> 00:41:36.130
And that leads into our ideal customer profile as somebody
819
00:41:36.210 --> 00:41:39.869
who's seen the benefit, maybe had it not go as
820
00:41:39.909 --> 00:41:42.349
well as they wanted to previously, but now want to
821
00:41:42.389 --> 00:41:45.750
come back. to us where, you know, we can do
822
00:41:45.809 --> 00:41:48.630
it right with all of our experience and process that
823
00:41:48.650 --> 00:41:50.090
we put in place over the years.
824
00:41:51.110 --> 00:41:53.070
Yeah, well, that's what you want, isn't it? You want
825
00:41:53.090 --> 00:41:55.880
people who, like, it's not just about price. It's like
826
00:41:55.900 --> 00:41:58.400
they actually value and appreciate what it is that you
827
00:41:58.420 --> 00:42:02.380
can do. So they might be technical or non-technical, but
828
00:42:02.400 --> 00:42:04.639
at least understand what it is that you can do
829
00:42:04.679 --> 00:42:10.440
that they can't do for whatever reason. I mean, I guess...
830
00:42:11.619 --> 00:42:15.639
I get bombarded with messages from people who are like, oh,
831
00:42:15.659 --> 00:42:19.039
we're an AI powered whatever. And it actually turns me off.
832
00:42:19.139 --> 00:42:23.079
Like if someone leads with AI powered something, I'm like,
833
00:42:24.010 --> 00:42:26.199
I'm just like, and then I look at who they are.
834
00:42:27.219 --> 00:42:28.929
Usually I don't, but if I do look at them
835
00:42:29.170 --> 00:42:32.070
and they've like, they've got no experience, they've got no
836
00:42:32.150 --> 00:42:35.349
credentials behind them. They're just, it's like the wild west.
837
00:42:35.369 --> 00:42:38.070
They're just trying it on and thinking let's somebody might
838
00:42:39.010 --> 00:42:42.380
go for this thing. but that's where a company like
839
00:42:42.400 --> 00:42:46.650
yours who's got experience and real credentials behind you is
840
00:42:46.750 --> 00:42:51.289
much more attractive to work with you guys than someone
841
00:42:51.309 --> 00:42:51.630
like that.
842
00:42:52.389 --> 00:42:55.769
We tried when, you know, back in the last year,
843
00:42:55.789 --> 00:42:58.409
I came, you know, got that hype and everyone was like, oh,
844
00:42:58.429 --> 00:43:01.639
we're now, you know, adding AI to every product and,
845
00:43:01.719 --> 00:43:04.159
you know, every company is now an AI powered company
846
00:43:04.199 --> 00:43:05.539
and everyone's doing AI.
847
00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:07.539
You know, we kind of got the same as you.
848
00:43:07.659 --> 00:43:11.090
I've just like got, turned off by everyone being AI
849
00:43:11.130 --> 00:43:14.880
powered that we tried to stay clear of it from
850
00:43:14.920 --> 00:43:18.380
a branding perspective because you felt like everyone and their
851
00:43:18.420 --> 00:43:22.179
dog was an AI powered something with less than a
852
00:43:22.199 --> 00:43:25.820
year's experience because they've just set up shop and we
853
00:43:25.860 --> 00:43:28.610
tried for a while to stay away but everyone also
854
00:43:29.659 --> 00:43:33.329
because of the hype wants AI in their business and
855
00:43:33.349 --> 00:43:35.889
it's a hard line to draw where.
856
00:43:35.769 --> 00:43:37.500
Do we cut cut it off.
857
00:43:37.539 --> 00:43:37.780
Yeah.
858
00:43:38.039 --> 00:43:39.539
I think, I think it's got to be in there
859
00:43:39.639 --> 00:43:42.239
and like, but don't lead with it. So like, I
860
00:43:42.440 --> 00:43:46.139
just assume now that every technology company is going to
861
00:43:46.159 --> 00:43:48.079
use AI or know how to use it.
862
00:43:48.670 --> 00:43:49.050
Yeah.
863
00:43:49.309 --> 00:43:51.650
The companies are just, that, that is the cell. We
864
00:43:51.730 --> 00:43:56.230
are AI. So use us. That's, that's not enough. It's
865
00:43:56.269 --> 00:43:58.849
like me saying I'm an, I'm an oxygen powered.
866
00:44:00.269 --> 00:44:00.739
Human.
867
00:44:01.010 --> 00:44:03.159
I just assume you are like, yeah, I mean, I
868
00:44:03.179 --> 00:44:04.539
might not be, I might be a, I might be
869
00:44:04.579 --> 00:44:05.719
a cyborg or something.
870
00:44:06.199 --> 00:44:11.320
But yeah, We went to that green company in the
871
00:44:11.380 --> 00:44:13.079
Northeast you were talking about. We went to a networking
872
00:44:13.099 --> 00:44:16.760
event there that was about AI adoption. One of the
873
00:44:16.780 --> 00:44:18.820
guys had a slide. I don't remember the company, so
874
00:44:18.840 --> 00:44:21.940
I can't quote him, unfortunately. It was an interesting slide.
875
00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:24.219
It was talking about how there was a pyramid of
876
00:44:24.300 --> 00:44:27.000
stuff that went into a business and technology. The bottom
877
00:44:27.039 --> 00:44:30.880
layer was this data layer of all your company data.
878
00:44:31.159 --> 00:44:33.199
Then the one above that was process. Then there was
879
00:44:33.239 --> 00:44:37.639
a layer above that which was technology and the digital
880
00:44:37.699 --> 00:44:42.510
adoption of that process. So that digital transformation piece that
881
00:44:42.610 --> 00:44:45.630
used to be the hype before AI. So before AI,
882
00:44:45.789 --> 00:44:50.349
everyone wanted to digitally transform their business. And he was
883
00:44:50.389 --> 00:44:53.739
talking about how you can only really truly benefit from
884
00:44:53.949 --> 00:44:57.920
adding AI into your business if you have done the
885
00:44:57.960 --> 00:45:00.500
bottom three layers. And if you're a business that is
886
00:45:00.539 --> 00:45:05.030
still very manual, still very copy and paste, hasn't digitized
887
00:45:05.070 --> 00:45:07.329
their workflow, hasn't gone through that digital.
888
00:45:07.010 --> 00:45:11.210
Transformation yet, which there's a lot of businesses that still haven't.
889
00:45:11.429 --> 00:45:13.650
A lot of people in companies still struggle to open
890
00:45:13.690 --> 00:45:17.320
PDFs and edit PDF documents. If you haven't done that
891
00:45:17.360 --> 00:45:20.059
digital transformation piece and you try and add AI in
892
00:45:20.099 --> 00:45:25.719
on top of disjointed workflows, no fundamental underlying business data
893
00:45:25.860 --> 00:45:28.909
or process documents to explain to the AI what it's
894
00:45:28.929 --> 00:45:31.340
supposed to do or how it's supposed to work, The
895
00:45:31.440 --> 00:45:34.000
best output you can sort of hope to gain from
896
00:45:34.079 --> 00:45:39.099
AI is that it generates a report like text document
897
00:45:39.139 --> 00:45:42.500
for you from a prompt or it writes an email.
898
00:45:42.190 --> 00:45:44.329
Response to a client for you from a prompt.
899
00:45:44.929 --> 00:45:48.389
But past that, you won't really see much. And there's
900
00:45:48.409 --> 00:45:52.210
like a portion of businesses that are adopting AI with
901
00:45:52.289 --> 00:45:54.849
all the costs and complications that live with it.
902
00:45:56.059 --> 00:45:57.880
And aren't seeing much.
903
00:45:57.940 --> 00:46:02.519
Return on investment or process improvement or efficiency gains because
904
00:46:02.539 --> 00:46:04.239
they haven't done those first three layers yet.
905
00:46:04.719 --> 00:46:06.349
And that's what we're now working with.
906
00:46:06.409 --> 00:46:07.710
You know, when people come to us and say, I
907
00:46:07.730 --> 00:46:10.170
want to add AI to something, I'm like, well, what
908
00:46:10.190 --> 00:46:12.369
are you adding AI to? Are you adding AI to nothing?
909
00:46:12.550 --> 00:46:15.010
Or are you adding AI to a preexisting process that
910
00:46:15.030 --> 00:46:18.889
you've already digitized? And if that's the case, great. But
911
00:46:18.909 --> 00:46:21.030
if you haven't done that first step, then, you know,
912
00:46:21.059 --> 00:46:23.480
that's what we also offer. We help that digital transformation
913
00:46:23.519 --> 00:46:26.630
piece automating those workflows and putting this stuff in place
914
00:46:26.650 --> 00:46:30.110
digitally to allow AI to work to its best.
915
00:46:30.130 --> 00:46:32.489
I think there's a misconception with that as well.
916
00:46:32.530 --> 00:46:35.489
A lot of founders think, oh, let's slap AI on
917
00:46:35.570 --> 00:46:38.090
and that's going to add value. But kind of thinking
918
00:46:38.250 --> 00:46:41.679
about it from our perspective as a software company, you're
919
00:46:41.699 --> 00:46:42.659
actually just adding a.
920
00:46:42.659 --> 00:46:45.679
Dependency to another company that you have no control.
921
00:46:45.360 --> 00:46:50.179
Over into the app that if they triple, 10x the
922
00:46:50.199 --> 00:46:54.849
price and you haven't built some underlying valuable piece of technology,
923
00:46:56.530 --> 00:46:58.550
if they then pull the plug or they nearly triple
924
00:46:58.570 --> 00:47:00.789
the price and you then need to increase the price
925
00:47:00.809 --> 00:47:03.369
of your customers or your overhead shrink because of that,
926
00:47:04.090 --> 00:47:08.070
that's a consideration that people aren't really connecting the dots on.
927
00:47:09.429 --> 00:47:12.710
I think there's a few things going on. There's like
928
00:47:12.750 --> 00:47:15.090
the hype. There's definitely a lot of hype, which is
929
00:47:15.489 --> 00:47:18.260
like there'll be loads of CEOs and leaders everywhere that
930
00:47:18.280 --> 00:47:21.199
are just saying, we just need some AI. And it's like, well, why?
931
00:47:21.260 --> 00:47:21.340
Yeah.
932
00:47:21.800 --> 00:47:24.039
Why do you need AI? There'll be people below them going,
933
00:47:24.360 --> 00:47:26.519
what for? What's it going to do? It doesn't matter.
934
00:47:26.539 --> 00:47:28.599
Just put some AI in it, right? There'll be a
935
00:47:28.619 --> 00:47:33.710
bit of that. And then there's definitely, have you heard
936
00:47:33.750 --> 00:47:36.829
of the SaaSpocalypse? Have you heard of that?
937
00:47:37.469 --> 00:47:43.840
We're well acquainted with the SaaSpocalypse.
938
00:47:43.969 --> 00:47:46.960
I am aware of some companies who previously would have
939
00:47:48.210 --> 00:47:50.110
had a lot more interest or a bit more support
940
00:47:50.170 --> 00:47:52.130
for what they're doing but now they find it very
941
00:47:52.150 --> 00:47:56.909
difficult to get some follow-on investment because they're a sas
942
00:47:56.949 --> 00:47:59.190
company like a very good sas company and they've got
943
00:47:59.369 --> 00:48:02.860
clients and customers and they're making money but now the
944
00:48:02.900 --> 00:48:06.260
investors only want to put money into ai companies they
945
00:48:06.280 --> 00:48:08.059
don't want to put money in the sas companies it's
946
00:48:09.239 --> 00:48:12.679
well you can see people chasing the money on there well.
947
00:48:12.579 --> 00:48:14.949
It's interesting because i think I think some investors are
948
00:48:14.969 --> 00:48:17.250
coming full circle. We've got some friends that are sort
949
00:48:17.269 --> 00:48:20.429
of angel investors and stuff. And, you know, eight months ago,
950
00:48:20.489 --> 00:48:22.260
they kind of came to us and said, look, you guys,
951
00:48:22.389 --> 00:48:23.289
as a software.
952
00:48:22.980 --> 00:48:26.059
House, you're screwed. You know, AI is writing its own code.
953
00:48:26.099 --> 00:48:28.780
It's reviewing its own code. What are you going to do?
954
00:48:29.340 --> 00:48:31.539
And then only like two months ago did they come
955
00:48:31.579 --> 00:48:35.079
back around full circle and say, oh, yeah, this isn't
956
00:48:35.280 --> 00:48:37.530
what it was promised to be. We're now looking to
957
00:48:37.570 --> 00:48:40.590
invest in companies that are AI proof is what they're
958
00:48:40.650 --> 00:48:41.289
calling it.
959
00:48:41.309 --> 00:48:42.769
That's good. Yeah, that's good.
960
00:48:43.309 --> 00:48:44.309
A lot of that space is.
961
00:48:44.250 --> 00:48:47.090
They're looking for companies that are worth something without AI
962
00:48:48.389 --> 00:48:50.570
with AI are great but if AI doesn't go the
963
00:48:50.610 --> 00:48:53.070
way everyone's hoping and prices double or whatever that there's
964
00:48:53.110 --> 00:48:56.659
still some intrinsic value in whatever they've built and whatever
965
00:48:56.679 --> 00:48:58.940
they've brought to market so it is something I remember
966
00:48:58.960 --> 00:49:01.699
we were at an investors talk a while ago and
967
00:49:01.719 --> 00:49:03.719
there was everyone in the room was an AI powered
968
00:49:03.760 --> 00:49:07.440
something and everyone given hundreds of thousands of pounds of
969
00:49:07.480 --> 00:49:08.260
investment for this.
970
00:49:08.260 --> 00:49:10.860
AI whatever it was.
971
00:49:10.260 --> 00:49:11.860
And And then it was only a few months ago
972
00:49:11.880 --> 00:49:14.039
that we were at another one and they were saying, yeah,
973
00:49:14.059 --> 00:49:17.489
we're looking at people who haven't built an AI powered something.
974
00:49:17.530 --> 00:49:20.050
We want something that is you know AI enabled on
975
00:49:20.090 --> 00:49:20.650
top of.
976
00:49:21.730 --> 00:49:24.530
A bespoke model or bespoke data set that you're using
977
00:49:24.570 --> 00:49:27.340
that no one else has access to because everyone's got
978
00:49:27.380 --> 00:49:29.780
access to it and somebody else could just build it
979
00:49:29.800 --> 00:49:31.900
or use a prompt to build it and it's not
980
00:49:31.920 --> 00:49:32.679
really worth a lot.
981
00:49:33.320 --> 00:49:36.159
Yeah I mean of course it's just trends isn't it
982
00:49:36.219 --> 00:49:38.099
and it's like I mean I've been around that long
983
00:49:38.199 --> 00:49:44.329
now but it's like not that long ago, everything was blockchain. Yeah. Data, or,
984
00:49:44.650 --> 00:49:47.829
you know, you name it, there's like, SaaS, obviously, probably,
985
00:49:48.630 --> 00:49:52.199
about 15 years ago, yeah, about 15 years ago, that's
986
00:49:52.320 --> 00:49:56.980
when SaaS was still, still fairly new-ish thing.
987
00:49:57.699 --> 00:49:58.039
Yeah.
988
00:49:58.280 --> 00:50:00.699
So, or cloud, you know, I spend a lot of
989
00:50:00.719 --> 00:50:03.519
time trying to educate people what cloud-based software was, or
990
00:50:03.539 --> 00:50:08.530
what SaaS software was now. Yeah, so it's, it's just
991
00:50:08.590 --> 00:50:10.800
weird how things happen, but, I think it goes back
992
00:50:10.840 --> 00:50:14.090
down to you just want to create a business that's
993
00:50:14.210 --> 00:50:17.710
genuinely useful to people, that actually makes their lives easier
994
00:50:17.869 --> 00:50:20.550
and can help them save money or make money. If
995
00:50:20.570 --> 00:50:22.829
you can do that, in a way, it doesn't really
996
00:50:22.869 --> 00:50:24.769
matter what technology you use. You want to use the
997
00:50:24.809 --> 00:50:30.769
best technology available to help people achieve their aims. And
998
00:50:30.989 --> 00:50:33.800
if AI is in the mix, great. But if it's
999
00:50:33.860 --> 00:50:37.360
just doing it for the sake of it, then, yeah,
1000
00:50:37.699 --> 00:50:38.340
that's not enough.
1001
00:50:38.980 --> 00:50:39.500
No, it's not.
1002
00:50:41.500 --> 00:50:45.079
Awesome. Well, I know you are still advocates of AI,
1003
00:50:45.079 --> 00:50:49.710
of how to use AI well. And so you've built
1004
00:50:49.789 --> 00:50:53.349
a community of people who want to know how to
1005
00:50:53.449 --> 00:50:56.889
use AI well. So it's agents.ne.
1006
00:50:57.469 --> 00:50:57.989
Yeah.
1007
00:50:58.349 --> 00:51:00.739
Talk a little bit about that and why you set
1008
00:51:00.760 --> 00:51:01.059
that up.
1009
00:51:02.300 --> 00:51:05.909
One kind of thing is, we've seen a lot with
1010
00:51:05.929 --> 00:51:07.989
the kind of addition of AI. And if you don't
1011
00:51:08.010 --> 00:51:11.630
work in software, you're probably not super, super aware of it.
1012
00:51:11.980 --> 00:51:14.159
But as well as like these tools that, you know,
1013
00:51:14.199 --> 00:51:16.940
you can just talk to chat GPT and it will.
1014
00:51:16.840 --> 00:51:17.440
Build you an app.
1015
00:51:17.519 --> 00:51:20.260
There are kind of tools that we use a bit
1016
00:51:20.300 --> 00:51:23.309
more kind of the next level advance to that, which
1017
00:51:23.369 --> 00:51:26.090
is kind of like what we would call AI assisted development.
1018
00:51:26.909 --> 00:51:29.510
So it allows you to basically develop an.
1019
00:51:29.510 --> 00:51:32.210
App while having oversight over code that's getting written and
1020
00:51:32.230 --> 00:51:33.510
kind of direct it.
1021
00:51:33.610 --> 00:51:34.340
And that is kind of.
1022
00:51:34.300 --> 00:51:37.340
What, We are advocates for, you know, we're obviously advocates
1023
00:51:37.389 --> 00:51:39.510
for the kind of prototyping side, but then building something
1024
00:51:39.550 --> 00:51:42.530
production ready. AI can be leveraged by people who know
1025
00:51:42.550 --> 00:51:46.730
what they're doing to produce more output. When writing code,
1026
00:51:46.789 --> 00:51:49.070
AI is really, really good at writing code. And like
1027
00:51:49.250 --> 00:51:53.400
I mentioned before, you can have a freelancer who can
1028
00:51:53.440 --> 00:51:55.619
now do the work of maybe like five people because
1029
00:51:55.639 --> 00:51:57.420
they know what they're doing and they can delegate to
1030
00:51:57.500 --> 00:52:00.000
their kind of team of AI agents. And it's not
1031
00:52:00.019 --> 00:52:03.099
a perfect world, but you can do a lot more
1032
00:52:03.159 --> 00:52:05.840
volume and a lot, A lot of writing code used
1033
00:52:05.860 --> 00:52:08.880
to be just kind of writing like line by line,
1034
00:52:10.300 --> 00:52:14.670
very kind of specific code. And a lot of the
1035
00:52:14.710 --> 00:52:18.269
kind of thinking part was, it was kind of 50-50.
1036
00:52:18.349 --> 00:52:21.730
It was like 50% thinking, 50%, like writing an essay.
1037
00:52:22.090 --> 00:52:23.269
You can think about the things you're going to say
1038
00:52:23.289 --> 00:52:24.380
in an essay, but at the end of the day,
1039
00:52:24.389 --> 00:52:25.690
you've still got to sit down and write the words.
1040
00:52:27.579 --> 00:52:30.139
With AI, we can do a lot more of the thinking,
1041
00:52:30.159 --> 00:52:30.440
and it's.
1042
00:52:30.400 --> 00:52:33.320
Probably like 80% thinking, and then we can create kind
1043
00:52:33.340 --> 00:52:33.880
of different.
1044
00:52:33.679 --> 00:52:36.659
Processes that we can then give to AI, and AI
1045
00:52:36.679 --> 00:52:39.880
will do it a lot faster because at a certain speed,
1046
00:52:40.360 --> 00:52:43.980
AI can do multiple things at once, using different agents and.
1047
00:52:44.699 --> 00:52:46.800
Doing all sorts of complicated things.
1048
00:52:46.880 --> 00:52:48.860
So what we're kind of seeing with that problem is
1049
00:52:48.900 --> 00:52:54.469
that companies like ours are essentially hiring less and less
1050
00:52:54.510 --> 00:52:57.860
junior people because in a company, what would normally happen
1051
00:52:57.880 --> 00:53:00.360
is you would have the senior person would do all
1052
00:53:00.380 --> 00:53:02.840
the thinking and then they would create like a set
1053
00:53:02.880 --> 00:53:06.219
of tasks that then needs to be given to junior people.
1054
00:53:06.340 --> 00:53:07.719
And then that was how they would work. They were
1055
00:53:07.739 --> 00:53:08.179
at the ranks.
1056
00:53:08.409 --> 00:53:10.369
I would join a company and I would maybe spend
1057
00:53:10.869 --> 00:53:13.730
my first week changing the color of a button from
1058
00:53:13.769 --> 00:53:15.590
blue to red. And that would be a great kind
1059
00:53:15.630 --> 00:53:18.730
of onboarding junior tasks for me. Um, I can do
1060
00:53:18.769 --> 00:53:21.550
that in a fraction of a second. Um, and we
1061
00:53:21.590 --> 00:53:24.500
don't even need to think about it. Um, So the
1062
00:53:24.539 --> 00:53:27.349
problem that's now created is, well, as a company, why
1063
00:53:27.369 --> 00:53:30.829
would I now spend, you know, £ 30, 000 a year on
1064
00:53:30.869 --> 00:53:34.670
a junior person to do the job that AI can
1065
00:53:34.710 --> 00:53:37.050
just kind of just do for me?
1066
00:53:37.920 --> 00:53:41.099
So that's kind of why that was one of the core.
1067
00:53:40.900 --> 00:53:45.440
Reasons, but not the only reason behind starting Agents.me and
1068
00:53:45.460 --> 00:53:47.440
the kind of focus behind it.
1069
00:53:47.440 --> 00:53:49.250
Or the original focus that we've kind of.
1070
00:53:50.210 --> 00:53:54.199
Been Pivoted along the way as everything does. But the
1071
00:53:54.239 --> 00:53:56.989
original focus of it was right. Okay, well, we've got,
1072
00:53:57.250 --> 00:54:00.409
you know, all of these junior people now who have
1073
00:54:00.429 --> 00:54:03.809
trained as software developers, they've gone to university, they've dedicated
1074
00:54:03.869 --> 00:54:06.090
their time to learning how to do this stuff.
1075
00:54:07.130 --> 00:54:10.019
But now they can't get hired because Why would they
1076
00:54:10.059 --> 00:54:10.550
get hired?
1077
00:54:10.739 --> 00:54:13.050
Because, you know, as a small team, it doesn't really
1078
00:54:13.070 --> 00:54:16.369
make sense for us to hire a junior person. And
1079
00:54:16.469 --> 00:54:18.550
I'm sure, you know, you've seen the news. I don't
1080
00:54:18.570 --> 00:54:21.570
know how true it is, but there's been lots of, well,
1081
00:54:21.590 --> 00:54:23.429
there was lots of layoffs due to AI. I think
1082
00:54:23.469 --> 00:54:25.530
some of them have now been rehired, but there was
1083
00:54:25.570 --> 00:54:29.090
definitely this kind of rhetoric as well that, oh, you
1084
00:54:29.139 --> 00:54:30.400
can cut your staff off.
1085
00:54:31.579 --> 00:54:33.539
In half. And there is a bit of truth in
1086
00:54:33.559 --> 00:54:35.099
that because you can, you can do more.
1087
00:54:35.119 --> 00:54:38.079
Uh, but especially for juniors, that was where we saw, uh,
1088
00:54:38.639 --> 00:54:42.090
people were paying the price for that because the junior
1089
00:54:42.130 --> 00:54:45.610
person's work can now be done by AI because it
1090
00:54:45.869 --> 00:54:49.989
was kind of trivial stuff. So the other thing behind agents.ne
1091
00:54:50.010 --> 00:54:54.489
is that it's a, it's a community based, um, thing, uh,
1092
00:54:54.550 --> 00:54:58.550
in the Northeast, um, which, is an AI community, an
1093
00:54:58.570 --> 00:55:03.699
AI builders community with a specific focus on upskilling people,
1094
00:55:04.420 --> 00:55:07.099
whether that's juniors or just people who haven't had a
1095
00:55:07.119 --> 00:55:13.119
chance to work with kind of AI development processes to
1096
00:55:13.239 --> 00:55:16.909
upskill them through a program with a kind of agents.
1097
00:55:17.010 --> 00:55:18.909
I need stamp of approval to say.
1098
00:55:18.929 --> 00:55:24.329
I've gone through this program with experts in AI assisted development.
1099
00:55:25.199 --> 00:55:27.440
On how I can go from what I learned at.
1100
00:55:27.409 --> 00:55:31.969
University to now also producing a higher volume and higher
1101
00:55:32.010 --> 00:55:33.869
quality of work using AI.
1102
00:55:34.449 --> 00:55:37.030
And gaining that experience that they are now.
1103
00:55:36.949 --> 00:55:39.449
In this kind of catch-22 that they can't get because
1104
00:55:39.909 --> 00:55:41.610
they can't get a first job and then to get
1105
00:55:41.650 --> 00:55:43.610
a better job, you have to have a job to
1106
00:55:43.650 --> 00:55:47.469
get the experience. But no one's hiring me because everyone's
1107
00:55:47.510 --> 00:55:49.349
just using AI to do the jobs that I would
1108
00:55:49.369 --> 00:55:50.190
do if I got hired.
1109
00:55:50.789 --> 00:55:53.380
So it's a very tricky and complicated process.
1110
00:55:54.349 --> 00:55:57.070
So that is kind of what we're trying to tackle
1111
00:55:57.090 --> 00:55:57.469
with Asians.
1112
00:55:57.510 --> 00:55:59.920
Do you want to add anything to that?
1113
00:56:00.139 --> 00:56:03.360
Yeah, I think we saw it even internally, like our
1114
00:56:03.440 --> 00:56:06.519
junior team, as we spoke about, we assumed that they
1115
00:56:06.559 --> 00:56:10.269
were using AI the same way that we were as seniors.
1116
00:56:11.190 --> 00:56:13.909
And what we found was that they weren't. And then
1117
00:56:13.949 --> 00:56:15.849
when we told them what we did as seniors and
1118
00:56:15.869 --> 00:56:19.340
they just did it, it didn't work because... What we
1119
00:56:19.380 --> 00:56:22.280
had learned over five years of building without AI was
1120
00:56:22.320 --> 00:56:26.340
this ability to read code and use judgment to sort
1121
00:56:26.360 --> 00:56:28.639
of say this is good or bad code. And a
1122
00:56:28.659 --> 00:56:31.260
junior developer who hasn't had five years of experience of
1123
00:56:31.340 --> 00:56:34.329
seeing lots of different code bases working as part of
1124
00:56:34.349 --> 00:56:37.789
a team before, AI would write them 50 files worth
1125
00:56:37.829 --> 00:56:40.329
of code or a couple thousand lines worth of code.
1126
00:56:40.929 --> 00:56:43.190
And it would be too much for someone without that
1127
00:56:43.230 --> 00:56:44.190
judgment to.
1128
00:56:44.590 --> 00:56:46.670
Skim read or even read in depth.
1129
00:56:46.449 --> 00:56:50.969
And understand and sort of censure And that, that judgment
1130
00:56:51.010 --> 00:56:53.610
piece is, you know, now becoming more and more important.
1131
00:56:54.070 --> 00:56:56.190
And we saw it in real time in real time.
1132
00:56:56.250 --> 00:56:57.489
And we worked, you know, it's not.
1133
00:56:57.409 --> 00:56:59.449
Just shape that sort of started and started and we
1134
00:56:59.469 --> 00:57:01.679
work with, uh, with Ryan and Kieran as well. And
1135
00:57:01.719 --> 00:57:04.760
they saw it in their company, um, where juniors just
1136
00:57:05.019 --> 00:57:08.139
didn't have that prior experience to see the difference of
1137
00:57:08.179 --> 00:57:12.510
good and bad code. Uh, you know, as employers, it
1138
00:57:12.530 --> 00:57:14.489
started to make less and less sense for us because
1139
00:57:14.510 --> 00:57:17.099
we can give a mid-level engineer or a senior. you know,
1140
00:57:17.119 --> 00:57:18.780
a little bit of extra time just to sort of
1141
00:57:18.820 --> 00:57:21.840
prompt more AI agents to do it. It makes less
1142
00:57:21.880 --> 00:57:24.360
and less sense to sort of go through that training period.
1143
00:57:24.400 --> 00:57:25.559
But we're very aware that.
1144
00:57:25.929 --> 00:57:28.849
If those juniors don't exist and don't get trained, then
1145
00:57:28.889 --> 00:57:31.750
we've got a bigger and bigger skills gap that already exists.
1146
00:57:33.150 --> 00:57:35.070
And Agents.NEU is built with these.
1147
00:57:34.909 --> 00:57:38.699
Sort of cohort of like group learning and teamwork and
1148
00:57:39.460 --> 00:57:42.460
community building to sort of upscale and train people and
1149
00:57:42.480 --> 00:57:45.539
give them that work experience with a stamp of approval,
1150
00:57:45.579 --> 00:57:48.409
as Josh said, that those people doing the cohorts can
1151
00:57:48.510 --> 00:57:50.210
take that, add it to their CV, and when they
1152
00:57:50.230 --> 00:57:52.210
go for a job interview, can talk about how they've
1153
00:57:52.309 --> 00:57:55.230
used these tools, have gained that experience, have gained that
1154
00:57:55.269 --> 00:57:59.480
judgment from learning from others, more senior people, to sort
1155
00:57:59.539 --> 00:58:04.219
of help the tech community, but also the wider problem
1156
00:58:04.320 --> 00:58:07.219
of the fact that young people, especially at the moment,
1157
00:58:07.239 --> 00:58:10.050
we've got one of the highest levels of young people
1158
00:58:10.090 --> 00:58:11.980
in unemployment, or the.
1159
00:58:11.690 --> 00:58:14.570
NEET category, there's millions of kids.
1160
00:58:14.329 --> 00:58:17.840
Who are non-employment educational training and that and agents.ne is
1161
00:58:18.119 --> 00:58:20.920
how we thought as a small business we could help
1162
00:58:20.960 --> 00:58:23.159
that you know we don't have the budget to hire
1163
00:58:23.489 --> 00:58:26.570
five new juniors next year but we do have the
1164
00:58:26.630 --> 00:58:29.550
time to give back to our local community you know
1165
00:58:29.690 --> 00:58:32.550
and we work with Newcastle University in Northumbria to give
1166
00:58:33.449 --> 00:58:37.610
placements and internships to people and we've ran an apprenticeship
1167
00:58:37.650 --> 00:58:39.840
before but you know we're small we can only do
1168
00:58:39.889 --> 00:58:42.940
so much but agents.ne we can hopefully give back to
1169
00:58:42.980 --> 00:58:47.199
more and allow for more help and hopefully help the
1170
00:58:47.260 --> 00:58:48.199
local community grow.
1171
00:58:48.860 --> 00:58:49.139
Great.
1172
00:58:50.139 --> 00:58:52.769
Well done for doing that. I think it is important. Definitely,
1173
00:58:52.829 --> 00:58:56.949
like you say, having spent some time in recruitment, I
1174
00:58:56.969 --> 00:59:01.650
know even the companies I was working with, they would
1175
00:59:01.690 --> 00:59:03.389
have liked to bring in juniors, but it just didn't
1176
00:59:03.409 --> 00:59:04.969
make sense to them. They just said, we've got too
1177
00:59:05.010 --> 00:59:07.710
much work on. We're just the time it's going to
1178
00:59:07.730 --> 00:59:09.969
take to train them up. We haven't got the capacity.
1179
00:59:10.159 --> 00:59:12.800
to do that. We're just the mid-level or senior developers.
1180
00:59:12.900 --> 00:59:17.119
But if every company's after the senior or the mid-level developers,
1181
00:59:18.179 --> 00:59:22.460
the competition's even greater. It's just harder to fill those roles.
1182
00:59:23.599 --> 00:59:26.780
If there's a way for companies like yourselves and others
1183
00:59:26.980 --> 00:59:32.380
to get involved in supporting junior new entrants into the market,
1184
00:59:32.980 --> 00:59:36.280
upskill them, give them skills that's going to make them
1185
00:59:36.360 --> 00:59:38.949
more employable and more attractive to a company, then that
1186
00:59:38.969 --> 00:59:41.610
can only be a good thing, not just for the region,
1187
00:59:41.670 --> 00:59:45.530
but for the country as well. A bit of a
1188
00:59:45.590 --> 00:59:49.570
hotbed for technology anyway. I think the North East is known,
1189
00:59:49.590 --> 00:59:53.210
the North East of England is known as being full
1190
00:59:53.230 --> 00:59:58.400
of very good technical people. But yeah, anything we can
1191
00:59:58.440 --> 00:59:59.559
do to grow that is a good thing.
1192
01:00:00.889 --> 01:00:02.929
I was going to say that I think long term
1193
01:00:02.969 --> 01:00:05.780
it will be good for the industry as well, because,
1194
01:00:05.840 --> 01:00:08.460
you know, in 10 years time, all the top senior
1195
01:00:08.480 --> 01:00:10.239
developers will potentially some.
1196
01:00:10.139 --> 01:00:10.920
Of them will retire.
1197
01:00:11.420 --> 01:00:13.579
And we don't want them retiring or companies on them
1198
01:00:13.599 --> 01:00:15.820
retiring with all the knowledge that they've gained throughout their
1199
01:00:15.840 --> 01:00:18.280
time at that company. That's probably not written down somewhere.
1200
01:00:18.320 --> 01:00:20.949
I know we try and document as best we can.
1201
01:00:21.030 --> 01:00:22.510
But at the end of the day, there is just
1202
01:00:22.550 --> 01:00:25.579
knowledge that it's just. in the ether and is learned
1203
01:00:25.639 --> 01:00:29.500
just by osmosis and all those people retire and you
1204
01:00:29.519 --> 01:00:33.420
haven't hired anyone new to reabsorb that information by.
1205
01:00:33.320 --> 01:00:36.219
Working with those people, then there is going to be
1206
01:00:36.260 --> 01:00:39.960
a very kind of sticky situation where they don't have
1207
01:00:39.980 --> 01:00:41.039
the capacity.
1208
01:00:40.619 --> 01:00:43.550
And the knowledge has all disappeared somewhere and that will
1209
01:00:43.570 --> 01:00:44.619
not be great for the industry.
1210
01:00:45.119 --> 01:00:47.050
No, no. So if people want to find out more
1211
01:00:47.070 --> 01:00:49.289
about that, I know you've got a, well, you did
1212
01:00:49.329 --> 01:00:50.940
an event, was it in July? You did a.
1213
01:00:50.929 --> 01:00:51.010
Yeah.
1214
01:00:52.570 --> 01:00:54.730
Then you've got a LinkedIn group as well, is that right?
1215
01:00:55.349 --> 01:00:59.289
Yeah, we've got a LinkedIn group, a LinkedIn page, both
1216
01:00:59.349 --> 01:01:05.039
under agents.ne, just spell that like that, the website, agents.ne.uk.
1217
01:01:05.440 --> 01:01:07.139
We ran our event in July. It was a great
1218
01:01:07.159 --> 01:01:10.059
launch event. We had over 120 people register. A lot
1219
01:01:11.219 --> 01:01:13.440
of people turned up for that day, and the feedback
1220
01:01:13.460 --> 01:01:16.619
was really positive. A hundred percent of people said that
1221
01:01:16.659 --> 01:01:19.960
they were definitely attend again. And, you know, we had
1222
01:01:20.000 --> 01:01:22.340
some larger companies in the region that I can't name
1223
01:01:22.360 --> 01:01:25.340
yet because it's still finalizing stuff, sort of asking if
1224
01:01:25.360 --> 01:01:27.960
there's ways that we can, they can work with agents
1225
01:01:27.980 --> 01:01:29.739
that I need to sort of form part of their
1226
01:01:29.780 --> 01:01:31.940
talent pipeline. You know, a lot of the bigger struggle
1227
01:01:31.980 --> 01:01:34.050
to get juniors to apply because they don't want to
1228
01:01:34.070 --> 01:01:35.090
work for a big company anymore.
1229
01:01:35.119 --> 01:01:36.530
The mindset has changed.
1230
01:01:36.719 --> 01:01:39.349
Younger people want to work for smaller companies and they
1231
01:01:39.389 --> 01:01:41.030
want a way to sort of work with agents that
1232
01:01:41.050 --> 01:01:44.230
I need to get younger people in agents that I
1233
01:01:44.250 --> 01:01:45.769
need and then hire.
1234
01:01:45.730 --> 01:01:46.730
From people who have.
1235
01:01:47.530 --> 01:01:50.949
and that's been really positive and our next event is
1236
01:01:51.050 --> 01:01:53.539
in October I think it's October 7th we've got our
1237
01:01:54.059 --> 01:01:55.820
first cohort kickoff I think we've got.
1238
01:01:56.179 --> 01:01:59.420
Six groups of six people who are all going to
1239
01:01:59.460 --> 01:02:03.360
be building out a solution using AI and technology to
1240
01:02:03.400 --> 01:02:05.820
sort of build a solution in different formats and sort
1241
01:02:05.840 --> 01:02:07.159
of learn from each other and it should be really
1242
01:02:07.360 --> 01:02:07.980
really good to see.
1243
01:02:08.599 --> 01:02:11.909
Awesome well done well we'll share the links to that
1244
01:02:11.969 --> 01:02:17.960
underneath this well done definitely you know I think Even
1245
01:02:18.000 --> 01:02:20.940
the big companies, I've seen that where they struggle to
1246
01:02:20.960 --> 01:02:24.739
hire talent, but if they get involved in more community-based
1247
01:02:24.800 --> 01:02:29.090
activities and events, either as speakers or mentors or sponsors
1248
01:02:29.150 --> 01:02:33.809
or hosts of the events, it does make people more
1249
01:02:33.849 --> 01:02:35.670
inclined to want to work with them if they get
1250
01:02:35.710 --> 01:02:38.820
more involved. So if anyone in a larger company is
1251
01:02:38.840 --> 01:02:40.659
watching this or listening to this, I would encourage them
1252
01:02:40.679 --> 01:02:42.559
to get involved with you guys and what you're doing.
1253
01:02:43.900 --> 01:02:46.900
just we'll finish a bit now. I know you're based
1254
01:02:46.960 --> 01:02:49.760
in the Northeast and you've got clients all over the
1255
01:02:49.820 --> 01:02:53.570
country and overseas, but why, why do you think it's
1256
01:02:53.610 --> 01:02:58.389
important to, to, um, grow the Northeast community or, or
1257
01:02:58.469 --> 01:03:00.929
what are the strengths and weaknesses of being based in
1258
01:03:00.949 --> 01:03:01.949
the Northeast? Do you think?
1259
01:03:02.949 --> 01:03:03.170
Yeah.
1260
01:03:03.369 --> 01:03:05.469
I mean, you know, one of the main reasons we
1261
01:03:05.489 --> 01:03:07.519
want to be based up here and think it's important
1262
01:03:07.539 --> 01:03:09.539
to be up here is Josh and I met up here,
1263
01:03:09.739 --> 01:03:12.280
you know, I'm from Newcastle, I'm from South Shields.
1264
01:03:12.960 --> 01:03:15.940
Um, And Josh isn't, he's from the South. I'm from
1265
01:03:15.960 --> 01:03:16.900
London originally, yeah.
1266
01:03:17.059 --> 01:03:20.480
So, you know, two people very opposite ends of the country,
1267
01:03:20.519 --> 01:03:22.179
but Josh and I both met on our first day
1268
01:03:22.199 --> 01:03:23.519
of university.
1269
01:03:24.179 --> 01:03:25.820
And we then sat next to each other every day
1270
01:03:25.880 --> 01:03:29.369
for university. And when we finished university, we both.
1271
01:03:29.239 --> 01:03:31.510
Kind of sat there and everyone on our course sat
1272
01:03:31.530 --> 01:03:32.750
there and said the exact same thing.
1273
01:03:32.769 --> 01:03:35.690
Oh, great, I've now got my computer science degree. Where
1274
01:03:35.710 --> 01:03:36.650
do I get a job?
1275
01:03:37.070 --> 01:03:41.440
And 95% of the course said, all went to London
1276
01:03:41.619 --> 01:03:43.820
because that was the only option, you know, the only
1277
01:03:43.920 --> 01:03:46.000
place that those jobs existed at the, you know, the
1278
01:03:46.039 --> 01:03:49.090
salaries that people were wanting and expecting were down South.
1279
01:03:49.550 --> 01:03:51.289
The opportunity didn't exist up here.
1280
01:03:51.929 --> 01:03:55.670
And it's so unfortunate because the universities are good.
1281
01:03:55.710 --> 01:03:56.730
The talent is good.
1282
01:03:57.369 --> 01:03:59.949
People come up to university from down South and love the,
1283
01:04:00.190 --> 01:04:02.159
they love the Northeast, you know, they love having access
1284
01:04:02.179 --> 01:04:05.989
to the countryside, the beach, the city, um, And yet
1285
01:04:06.010 --> 01:04:08.070
as soon as they finish university, they have to leave
1286
01:04:08.190 --> 01:04:11.340
because the opportunity is here. And that's why for us,
1287
01:04:11.389 --> 01:04:15.360
it's important that shapes, you know, founded and headquartered in
1288
01:04:15.380 --> 01:04:17.699
the Northeast of England so that, you know, when we,
1289
01:04:18.019 --> 01:04:20.460
you know, get work, whether that be with other Northeast
1290
01:04:20.480 --> 01:04:23.019
businesses and we want to work with more of them, um,
1291
01:04:23.360 --> 01:04:27.769
or we bring in work from outside the region and overseas,
1292
01:04:28.469 --> 01:04:30.730
that money comes back into this local economy and we
1293
01:04:30.750 --> 01:04:34.389
get to provide more jobs and better jobs, um, for
1294
01:04:34.670 --> 01:04:36.750
people who are sort of graduating and want to be
1295
01:04:36.789 --> 01:04:38.789
based up here and want the benefits of the North.
1296
01:04:38.650 --> 01:04:42.489
East of England. It didn't previously exist.
1297
01:04:42.570 --> 01:04:44.469
That's one of the reasons we found the shape and
1298
01:04:44.630 --> 01:04:45.690
why we wanted to be up here.
1299
01:04:45.710 --> 01:04:49.170
I think, yeah, the North East has an incredible history
1300
01:04:49.190 --> 01:04:53.309
of kind of industry and hard work and jobs that were,
1301
01:04:53.550 --> 01:04:56.769
you know, not a job everyone wanted to do. My
1302
01:04:56.869 --> 01:05:01.179
granddad was a pitman in Doane, going down the mines,
1303
01:05:01.239 --> 01:05:05.559
and then we had pit buildings. and all sorts of
1304
01:05:06.079 --> 01:05:10.559
heavy industry jobs. But now, obviously, that has kind of
1305
01:05:10.579 --> 01:05:12.380
fizzled out, and there isn't much of that anymore. But
1306
01:05:12.400 --> 01:05:17.019
there's still definitely the culture of hard work, hard graft,
1307
01:05:17.300 --> 01:05:19.380
and kind of getting.
1308
01:05:19.159 --> 01:05:20.400
Stuff done to a high standard.
1309
01:05:21.139 --> 01:05:24.010
And it's a shame that now there doesn't seem to
1310
01:05:24.050 --> 01:05:27.239
be the opportunity for that.
1311
01:05:28.610 --> 01:05:28.969
Culture.
1312
01:05:29.090 --> 01:05:30.989
So I think that's why it's really important to try
1313
01:05:31.010 --> 01:05:33.590
and at least bring the opportunity so that we can
1314
01:05:33.750 --> 01:05:37.809
once again see the hard work, culture shine in the
1315
01:05:37.849 --> 01:05:38.230
North East.
1316
01:05:40.110 --> 01:05:42.329
Well done for doing that. That's a big part of
1317
01:05:42.369 --> 01:05:45.489
what I've been trying to do for the past 10
1318
01:05:45.489 --> 01:05:48.500
plus years through my business is to shine a light
1319
01:05:48.559 --> 01:05:50.559
on great things happening in the North East of England
1320
01:05:50.619 --> 01:05:56.480
and retain talent and attract talent and encourage more collaboration
1321
01:05:56.519 --> 01:06:00.519
within the region and other regions as well. And as
1322
01:06:00.559 --> 01:06:05.659
well as on business entrepreneurship and technology and digital. I'm
1323
01:06:05.699 --> 01:06:09.030
really into history as well and regional identity and all
1324
01:06:09.070 --> 01:06:11.949
that sort of stuff. And definitely, if you look throughout history,
1325
01:06:11.989 --> 01:06:14.670
what the North East has been really good at, not
1326
01:06:14.690 --> 01:06:20.190
just the hard work and community, is problem solving. The
1327
01:06:20.230 --> 01:06:25.539
region's been really good at innovation, invention, problem solving. And
1328
01:06:25.559 --> 01:06:29.719
we're still doing that to this day. People are getting
1329
01:06:29.760 --> 01:06:33.980
the solutions and getting them people who can fix really
1330
01:06:34.019 --> 01:06:37.500
hard problems here. But what's happened through our history is
1331
01:06:37.539 --> 01:06:39.900
we've tended to have to move outside the region to
1332
01:06:39.940 --> 01:06:43.280
make it successful. Things have been invented here, but they've
1333
01:06:43.300 --> 01:06:45.500
had to go somewhere else to be sold or to
1334
01:06:45.559 --> 01:06:49.539
be scaled. What would be really good is if we
1335
01:06:49.559 --> 01:06:52.519
could have more companies still based in the North East,
1336
01:06:52.559 --> 01:06:55.280
but sell into the world, which happened in the past,
1337
01:06:55.920 --> 01:06:58.960
and more and more companies outside of the region in
1338
01:06:58.980 --> 01:07:01.019
the UK and around the world who are coming to
1339
01:07:01.059 --> 01:07:06.110
the North East. for for this and opening a satellite
1340
01:07:06.150 --> 01:07:08.010
office as well they could still have the head office
1341
01:07:08.030 --> 01:07:11.829
somewhere else but open a satellite office or an innovation
1342
01:07:11.869 --> 01:07:14.610
center in the region i'd love to see more of that.
1343
01:07:15.170 --> 01:07:17.210
No definitely yeah why do you think that is that
1344
01:07:17.250 --> 01:07:29.820
people often have to move out of the northeast i definitely.
1345
01:07:25.780 --> 01:07:30.119
Think there is like a um almost like a psychology
1346
01:07:30.159 --> 01:07:33.199
of a region or like a like a long deep-rooted
1347
01:07:33.219 --> 01:07:40.530
uh psyche because when way back in when was it
1348
01:07:40.530 --> 01:07:43.369
2015 i worked for tech north which was a government
1349
01:07:43.429 --> 01:07:46.190
organization set up to it was part of tech city
1350
01:07:46.269 --> 01:07:50.909
and um uh it was all about promoting the north
1351
01:07:50.949 --> 01:07:52.780
of england is a great place to start go tech
1352
01:07:52.800 --> 01:07:56.099
business so it was like liverpool manchester leeds sheffield whole
1353
01:07:56.559 --> 01:08:01.150
sunderland newcastle So I was community engagement and partnerships manager
1354
01:08:01.190 --> 01:08:03.719
for the whole of the North of England, right? So
1355
01:08:04.360 --> 01:08:06.900
every week I was traveling around these different areas and
1356
01:08:06.980 --> 01:08:11.280
trying to understand what made the North the North, why
1357
01:08:11.300 --> 01:08:14.079
it was different to the South, what was unique about
1358
01:08:14.119 --> 01:08:17.380
different region, right? And we did spend quite a bit
1359
01:08:17.399 --> 01:08:21.859
of work early on understanding the different history and tradition.
1360
01:08:22.039 --> 01:08:24.880
And it is still to this day, going back hundreds
1361
01:08:24.899 --> 01:08:30.550
of years, Manchester has always been really good at selling.
1362
01:08:31.109 --> 01:08:34.890
It was like a commerce hub. So people would go
1363
01:08:35.170 --> 01:08:37.369
make things, invent things in other regions, but they'll go
1364
01:08:37.409 --> 01:08:40.649
to Manchester to sell them. Or they'll go to London
1365
01:08:40.710 --> 01:08:43.970
for the money. They'll go for the finance. Even somewhere
1366
01:08:43.989 --> 01:08:48.569
like Sheffield, there's a tradition of making and inventing coils
1367
01:08:48.649 --> 01:08:52.359
and springs and brackets and little things, like small little workshops.
1368
01:08:52.939 --> 01:08:55.909
It's part of a larger supply chain, but they're not
1369
01:08:55.979 --> 01:08:58.760
very they haven't been very good at selling that to
1370
01:08:58.779 --> 01:09:02.539
the world it's just weird how still to this day
1371
01:09:02.600 --> 01:09:05.579
that's still affecting what's.
1372
01:09:05.420 --> 01:09:08.079
Going on I think the North you know we're quite
1373
01:09:08.840 --> 01:09:10.649
shy is the wrong word but we don't shout about
1374
01:09:10.909 --> 01:09:13.029
the great stuff that we do sometimes I think that's
1375
01:09:13.050 --> 01:09:15.670
you know the Americans have got a great they love.
1376
01:09:15.529 --> 01:09:17.529
Shouting about everything that they do oh yeah oh yeah
1377
01:09:17.789 --> 01:09:19.590
yeah London's the same.
1378
01:09:20.510 --> 01:09:27.090
Manchester, Mancunian swagger. It's good, but it's kind of annoying sometimes.
1379
01:09:27.130 --> 01:09:30.270
They're very good at telling me how great they are.
1380
01:09:31.569 --> 01:09:36.359
Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. Shy Ben's getting out, definitely.
1381
01:09:36.840 --> 01:09:41.119
We need to be less shy. I think what we've
1382
01:09:41.159 --> 01:09:44.659
definitely become a lot better at in the last 10-15
1383
01:09:44.699 --> 01:09:49.470
years is inside the region. sharing how good we are,
1384
01:09:50.010 --> 01:09:52.350
but I think we still need to be better at
1385
01:09:53.550 --> 01:09:56.520
going outside of the region and selling the Northeast to
1386
01:09:56.529 --> 01:09:56.939
the world.
1387
01:09:57.640 --> 01:09:57.920
Yeah.
1388
01:09:58.420 --> 01:10:00.460
We need to do more of that. Definitely.
1389
01:10:00.920 --> 01:10:02.520
We, I mean, we've seen it, you know, we're part
1390
01:10:02.560 --> 01:10:05.449
of Dynamo Northeast, the sort of tech ecosystem up here and,
1391
01:10:05.479 --> 01:10:08.079
you know, they're great, really supportive. You know, we come
1392
01:10:08.100 --> 01:10:10.619
to your events, Paul, the platform, and, you know, we
1393
01:10:10.680 --> 01:10:13.010
see at all these events, whenever we talk to people,
1394
01:10:13.069 --> 01:10:16.840
like there is definitely a sort of Northeastern camaraderie of,
1395
01:10:17.520 --> 01:10:21.420
everyone wanting to help everyone else do better in the Northeast.
1396
01:10:21.439 --> 01:10:24.090
And I think it's just, you know, there's only so
1397
01:10:24.119 --> 01:10:27.810
far that internal Northeast helping each other out can go.
1398
01:10:27.829 --> 01:10:30.890
If we, if we want to scale, it's about helping
1399
01:10:30.909 --> 01:10:34.390
each other to make that step out and sell, you know, one,
1400
01:10:34.510 --> 01:10:36.569
one at a time. Exactly.
1401
01:10:36.710 --> 01:10:39.210
Which is what you're doing. And definitely, I mean, the
1402
01:10:39.510 --> 01:10:42.850
platform events are great. I'm obviously biased, but like the,
1403
01:10:42.909 --> 01:10:46.170
the big events, the UK startup and scale up week events.
1404
01:10:46.189 --> 01:10:48.250
I've had people travel from all over the UK and
1405
01:10:48.289 --> 01:10:50.829
around the world to come to these events because there's
1406
01:10:50.869 --> 01:10:54.229
nothing like that anywhere else, right? But then that's another
1407
01:10:54.250 --> 01:10:58.010
reason why I'm doing these podcasts and videos to try
1408
01:10:58.050 --> 01:10:59.930
and shine a light on companies that are here in
1409
01:10:59.949 --> 01:11:04.590
the region, nationally and internationally. And I have, like in
1410
01:11:04.630 --> 01:11:07.890
recent months, I've been getting a lot more US viewers
1411
01:11:08.010 --> 01:11:12.649
and listeners to the podcasts and the videos. If I
1412
01:11:12.689 --> 01:11:16.079
look at the LinkedIn website, live interviews when they go
1413
01:11:16.100 --> 01:11:19.279
out the the top audience is obviously northeast but then
1414
01:11:19.319 --> 01:11:23.859
it's london as the second so um it's you know
1415
01:11:24.000 --> 01:11:27.819
i think not just me but me and others including
1416
01:11:27.840 --> 01:11:30.949
yourselves if we can collectively do a bit more to
1417
01:11:30.989 --> 01:11:35.250
fly the flag for the northeast nationally internationally and whether
1418
01:11:35.270 --> 01:11:37.930
that's individually or en masse i think we can do
1419
01:11:38.510 --> 01:11:43.649
do more and more of that definitely Awesome. Right. Love it.
1420
01:11:43.930 --> 01:11:45.770
So if people want to find out more about you guys,
1421
01:11:45.829 --> 01:11:49.600
obviously they can connect and follow on LinkedIn and your
1422
01:11:49.640 --> 01:11:52.699
website is shape.tech. Yeah.
1423
01:11:53.079 --> 01:11:53.279
Yeah.
1424
01:11:53.340 --> 01:11:56.859
Easy piece. www.shape.tech. And then we go by shape.tech for short.
1425
01:11:56.880 --> 01:12:00.539
You can find us pretty much anything under shape.tech or
1426
01:12:00.579 --> 01:12:03.920
shape tech UK on and surround and stuff like that.
1427
01:12:03.979 --> 01:12:06.439
But LinkedIn's the easiest place to get us. Yeah.
1428
01:12:06.680 --> 01:12:09.569
Amazing. Okay. Is there anything else you want to share or?
1429
01:12:09.590 --> 01:12:15.329
No, I think, covered everything yeah yeah if if if
1430
01:12:15.569 --> 01:12:19.189
software is really important to someone's business and they don't
1431
01:12:19.470 --> 01:12:22.029
feel like they are happy enough to just have it
1432
01:12:22.289 --> 01:12:24.930
ai build it and trust that it works then you
1433
01:12:24.949 --> 01:12:27.170
know give us a call we do a free sort
1434
01:12:27.189 --> 01:12:31.869
of discovery plan uh discovery launchpad session um for everyone
1435
01:12:31.909 --> 01:12:34.989
so you know if anyone's even half interested in what
1436
01:12:35.100 --> 01:12:37.779
potentially they could do for their business if they automated
1437
01:12:37.819 --> 01:12:38.880
a workflow if.
1438
01:12:38.840 --> 01:12:41.859
They added ai into it you know just reach out,
1439
01:12:42.140 --> 01:12:43.079
have a chat with everyone.
1440
01:12:43.680 --> 01:12:46.899
Amazing. I love it. Phil, Josh, thank you very much.
1441
01:12:46.970 --> 01:12:49.869
Really enjoyed that and love what you're doing. So keep
1442
01:12:49.890 --> 01:12:52.529
going and excited about the future. Thank you.
1443
01:12:52.550 --> 01:12:55.579
Cheers. Thank you. Bye.