Partner Article

Ross Linnett talks about Recite Me Ltd

After overcoming his dyslexia and starting a successful web design business straight out of university, Ross Linnett developed a long-term vision for a product that would help dyslexic and visually impaired people to make full use of the internet. The Recite platform is the result, bringing together voice synthesis, assistive technology and web application development in a single product. Ross takes Bdaily behind the business.

What key challenges has your company recently faced?

Our key is product is a web accessibility platform that helps visually impaired and dyslexic people access internet sites. While this can be used on any website, a key focus for our business is the public sector, covering everything from schools to housing associations and local councils. The cutting back of government spending over the past year has therefore presented a major challenge to our team. Because the rules for disabled web accessibility in the UK are best practice guidelines, as opposed to legal requirement, it is not always seen as a top priority, even though visually impaired and dyslexic users represent more than 10 percent of the population.

What is your biggest achievement over the past 12 months?

Apart from bringing to market what we believe is the benchmark product for our sector, we have also worked hard to crack the Australian market, which has massive potential for the growth of our business. Unlike the UK, it is a legal requirement in Australia to make your website accessible to disabled users and, because our platform can be added to any new or existing website using a single line of code, its a simple and cost-effective solution to the problem. Working with support from UKTI, I have visited Australia twice to meet with potential partners and clients.

What is your biggest focus for the coming year?

The UK government has basically said that if companies dont act pro-actively to open up their websites to disabled users, they will legislate to force the issue. We believe that the current W3C guidelines covering this area actually offer a good roadmap to follow, but site owners simply arent aware of them, so a major priority will be to educate and inform our target market. This is not only about promoting the Recite platform, although thats obviously our key priority, but also to help improve things for all disabled groups. We see 2012 as the crunch year to advance the cause of disabled web users. Simple steps can really change lives and we want to make the web fully inclusive for everyone in the UK and beyond.

If you had to choose one top piece of advice for someone just starting out in business, or is currently operating within your industry sector, what would it be?

There are a lot of talented people out there with a lot of experience who are able and willing to help aspiring entrepreneurs. From Business Link to Entrust, the Princes Trust and the Entrepreneurs Forum, the North East is well served with organisations that can help, regardless of your business idea, the level of investment needed or the type of advice youre looking for. Id say find yourself the right mentor who has time to spend on you and your business idea. Its great to have someone to bounce ideas off, discuss your next steps with and go through any potential problems.

Can you share with us your view of the current landscape of business, in this region or generally and where your organisation sits within it?

The current landscape in Britain and especially in the North East is much tougher than five years ago, but conversely there is still more money in the region than say 15 years ago. With the right product and the right team you will always be able to be successful. We are in the fortunate position of launching a business into an innovative sector, with a concept that happens to be quite topical in terms of the growing importance of disabled access to the web, but weve also worked very hard to bring the right product to market and were working with some of the best business people from across the region to make it a success.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .