It was a real pleasure to meet Lara & Josh at our Making it Happen event on entrepreneurship in November. They shared their experience as graduate entrepreneurs with everyone who came to the event and kindly offered to put their words together in a blog.
Lara:
“GearedApp first started life in 2013. Our team came together whilst working on a course group project during our Masters degree at Edinburgh Napier University. Our team, which consisted of 5 eager computing students from varied backgrounds, clicked immediately. We decided to develop a prototype mobile app for the Edinburgh capitals ice hockey team. On completing this, we decided to take our work to the owner of the team, and he too was excited by the potential of what we were doing.
The owner, Scott Neil decided to seek funding so that we could continue developing the app, and it struck us that this was a real business opportunity. On the success of this group project our mentor at the time encouraged us to get involved with other small commercial projects through Napier, and we began developing our skills and portfolio.
With a growing portfolio and our first clients, we decided to seek advice from the business support at Napier, Bright Red Triangle. This opened doors for us, and we started to receive real business advice and support that was invaluable to us at the time, including business development Internships, Incubator office space, Advice on starting a company and useful sources of information and support. All of this prepared us for the reality of running a business.
With Napier’s help, we have grown from a small team of forward thinking masters students, to being recognised as one of Edinburgh’s leading mobile app development companies. We have developed solutions across a variety of sectors, including Health, Sport, Food & drink and Tourism. Not only that but we receive an increasing number of recommendations and referrals from clients who enjoy our energy, transparency and our accessible and inclusive approach to development.
Not only did Napier help us get our feet off the ground, but Napier continues to support us as we grow and is a constant source of support and advice. We often work with academics at the university, we have hired Napier students, Napier continue to provide us with business space and equipment and advice and support where needed. They also provide valuable introductions to contacts at Scottish enterprise, business gateway, innovate UK etc.
Over and above this, Napiers BRT gives us access to a community of other student and graduate businesses, which is really invaluable. Of course in return we like to give back and help support other businesses who find them selves facing the same problems that we once did.
Going forward, we are looking forward to working with larger companies and developing enterprise solutions. With a growing team and skill base, we hope to become UK’s most influential mobile app development company.”
Visit Geared App to see the business for yourself.