Partner Article

North East trio launch innovative web business

Ground Six Limited is the newest software development company in the North East, specialising in the development of both web & mobile applications. The company has been several months in the making, and the team are now ready to launch their first product into the App Store. We spoke to the executive team behind the business, Paul Slater, Martin Stanley and Sarah Armstrong to find out more about setting up Ground Six, creating the right company culture and bringing simple yet effective ideas to market.

Ground Six was born from the idea for one app, but when the brains behind the business; Martin Stanley, Roy Stanley and Paul Slater started discussing other opportunities it quickly became clear that what they had come up with was a good idea for a business.

A former businesses advisor for the creative industries, Sarah Armstrong was soon brought onboard as a third director to help with business development and taking products to market.

“The three of us all bring different experiences to the table, but we compliment each other really nicely,” Martin said.

Since then the firm has moved quickly, and Ground Six are now preparing to launch their first new app, aimed at businesses and salespeople looking to improve their performance.

“We are passionate about developing products which are user friendly and provide a solution to a particular marketplace.” says Sarah. “The first couple of products we have are aimed at the B2B market but another of our ideas that is currently under development is a lifestyle app which has mass market appeal”

“In software and certainly apps, it’s easy to be seduced by the product that you’re making, so we constantly remind ourselves that we need to keep things simple by focussing on the minimum viable product,” Martin adds.

While all three have previously been involved in the set-up of businesses, this project has been an especially exciting one due to the scale of the project and the support they have received in the process.

“We’re very fortunate in that we have an investor who is also a mentor and advisor to the company,” says Sarah. “That means we have the stability we need as a product development company and the financially backing to invest in the start up costs associated with setting up a new business”

Having strong external backing has allowed the team to focus inward, and all three directors have strived to establish a strong culture within the business. Taking on a wide range of staff, from seasoned experts to young apprentices, was instrumental to creating the right balance within the business.

“Creating the right culture for the staff was very important, so we spent a lot of time considering what our values should be, and what kind of organisation we are trying to establish.” Martin explains.

“We knew diversity was something we wanted from the start, and this includes people with a range of different experiences - ultimately we wanted a team who would be able to get round a table together and not for us to tell them what to do, but for them to tell us what we should be doing.

“And thankfully the team we’ve got in place are able to cope with that.”

Looking forward, the team now have ambitious plans for the future of the business and are aiming to double the size of the development team within the next year.

“The plan is to make a profitable successful product and to go on and make other successful products. We are also keen to build up partnerships with other people who have great ideas.” Sarah concludes.

“Everything we do must have a strong business model, and be able to make the product commercially viable so we can reinvest back into the organisation.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .