Tenant Interviews: Caspian Psychology

We sat down with one of CodeBase's Hotdeskers, Johnny Mitchell, for a chat about his company Caspian Psychology and basing himself from CodeBase Stirling the past couple months. 

What's the nature of your business? 
We develop digital and non-digital interactive games for organisations based on clear leraning objectives. These games help organisations achieve their learning objectives through the principles of gamification.

What are your plans for growth? 
Currently we have developed three interactive team games that are facilitated by our partners. In the near future we plan to develop short stand-alone apps and games that require no facilitation and can be played in the employees’ own time, but still linked to clear learning objectives. 

Why did you choose CodeBase? 
I tried out hotdesking and found that I really enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere and the friendliness of the staff. The location is also excellent, the coffee is good and there is table-tennis! 

How has being based here helped you? 
It’s been great for meeting a range of people that are working in different, but related industries. I think these contacts will be useful to me in the future. The staff at Codebase have also shared their contacts and knowledge with me which will help me as I grow the business.

Tenant Interviews: Seymourpowell

We find out more about some of the innovative digital companies who call CodeBase Stirling home. To launch the series we get to know our very first tenants, Seymourpowell and chat to the company’s Scottish Lead, Craig Bunyan.

Left to right : Craig Bunyan, Chris Doughty, Terance Grippon

Tell us more about Seymour Powell and the work you do.
We are an innovation company specialising in 3-dimensional product design; transportation; digital experience; ethnography, trend analysis and research; brand creation and structural packaging. We were founded in 1984 by Dick Powell and Richard Seymour. Since then we’ve been helping make things better for people and businesses by observing, understanding and innovating across a huge range of products and experiences. Some of our milestone projects include: The first Cordless Kettle (Tefal-Calor); the first pocket sized mobile phone (Nokia); the first commercial Space ship interior (Virgin Galactic); the first modular and ethically produced mobile phone (Fairphone).

Your HQ is in London - does the work you do in Stirling differ from that in London?
We like to talk about SP as a collection of experts, we are proud of the fluidity and flexibility of the people who work for us.  This ethos of flexibility means that every project involves the people best suited to delivering the best results. Subsequently, our team in Scotland work seamlessly across the projects which are being tackled by the company, in the same way that people in London work on projects won and managed from the Scottish office. Having said that, the main expertise sitting within our Scottish team is related to Digital experience design, as such, we tend to pursue, win and execute work in that area from this office.

What kind of clients do you work with?
Right now, our team in Scotland are working with Lego, SuperDry, Stirling Council, Diageo, PepsiCo.

What attracted you to CodeBase Stirling?
For the past two years we have been based out of a rural setting to the west of Stirling.  Whilst that space had tremendous aesthetic and lifestyle appeal, we found that the isolation from other creative agencies as well as the transport logistics was detrimental to our team’s development. CodeBase offers our team the opportunity to be embedded in a vibrant community of like-minded people.  

Tell us about the advantages of working here?
Ready access to good coffee! That, and having ready access to talented and motivated, freelancers. We will have possible partner companies literally on our doorstep, and we’ll be supported by the fantastic staff from the CodeBase team, working to promote everything which goes on within the facility.

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www.seymourpowell.com

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Questions : Barry McDonald, CodeBase STL - Events and Community, @TPMBarry

Answers : Craig Bunyan - Seymour Powell Ltd, 

SeymourPowell are currently on the hunt for a Digital Experience Specialist to join their Stirling team.

CodeBase Shorts: Care Sourcer

Care Sourcer are the kind of company we love in CodeBase: they've got the domain expertise, are keen to learn and the drive to succeed. Following from their recent £500k seed round, they've grown the team (and their office!) and we took some time to catch up with them about their experience so far in CodeBase.

Andrew McGinley and Andrew Parfery, Founders, Care Sourcer.

McGinley: Care Sourcer is the UK’s first care comparison matching website. We have created a marketplace that makes it simple and easy for care seekers to connect to care providers, which currently doesn’t exist in the sector just now.

Parfery: We got into Care Sourcer originally because we ran our own care businesses. Together we employed over 400 staff and delivered over a million visits a year within care home services, and we really saw firsthand how the sector was in crisis and crumbling, and there were two main problems really. The first one was providers could not get a steady stream of clients outwith of low marge and local authority contracts, and the second problem essentially was that people looking for care, really could not find that care provider easily or quickly. So we came up with the concept of a market pace for care, if you like the ‘Right Move’ for care, and launched the UK’s first care comparison and matching website.

McGinley:The reason we came to CodeBase is that we had to start understanding a bit more that we were going to become a tech business. I did a tour with Oli and I instantly thought “I need to be in this environment to help grow this business”.

Parfery: Both of us are non technical founders, we have expertise in care but none whatsoever in tech and that was one of the key driving factors for us wanting to be in CodeBase, surrounded by 90 odd companies that are very focused on technology solutions, and we would say that we would not have made the progress that we have made had we not been in CodeBase surrounded by those people. The advice really covers the full spectrum of a startup and what a startup might have to go through and consider so, for instance, there are people in CodeBase who work for one of any of the 90 companies who are on hand and very able and willing and happy to share their time and expertise with you. From the former CTO of SkyScanner who’s on the same floor as us, to the people who actually work for CodeBase, and more specifically on that, they’ve been able to guide and advise us as to when to raise money, how much equity to give away in relation to that investment, through to being able to put high quality VC’s in front of us for us to pitch our ideas to. So there is the whole advice around the product and the technical aspect as well as how to actually grow that business and both have been exceptionally helpful for us as non technical cofounders ensuring that we don’t make big mistakes along the way.

McGinley: What CodeBase has helped us is to be ambitious and by being ambitious with this advisor we decided that we want to be the biggest care matching website in the UK, so we want the best, we need to work with the best.

Parfery: It’s about shooting for the stars, so it’s about realising that just because you’re from a small country doesn’t mean that you can’t be a huge company and the ambition to go and do that is fostered in CodeBase.