Situation

Craig Alexander Rattray was introduced to two enterprising Computer Science students through a fellow University of Strathclyde Enterprise Partner.

Task

The initial idea for the start-up company came from a cross-university “Hackathon”, where several universities collaborated to tackle a real-life technical challenge for an external organisation. This idea was developed and transformed into a novel consortium made up of Computer Science and related discipline students, in tandem with Craig Alexander Rattray and a fellow Enterprise Partner, allowing the technically talented students to harness the business skills and contacts from the two business partners.

The students had already worked with a number of highly prestigious companies through part-time projects whilst studying and through their own personal companies. However, they did not have the team, business and commercial insight, or the finance to take on larger projects individually.

Action 

The company was initially set up as a company limited by guarantee and on a co-operative basis allowing students to both carry out work and potentially join the consortium as associate or full members, but has since become a limited company in preparation for new investment.   

The company has initially secured projects to the value of c300% of the first year budgeted turnover, and the founding directors have been joined by six full-time employees and various part-time students, with numbers anticipated to continue to increase.

Whilst not only paying in excess of the “Living Wage”, the company offers students relevant part-time experience and an ability to stay with the company for the longer term.

Craig Alexander Rattray was heavily involved through the set-up phase and the initial development of the enterprise and negotiated a working capital facility with a local bank to allow continued growth and employment of new staff, and to allow the business to take advantage of various opportunities, before handing over responsibility for all financial related matters