Moving on From IRIS and Staffology

In 2018, five years after exiting KashFlow, I found myself advising several SaaS companies. Among their needs was a requirement for a web-based payroll solution with a truly comprehensive API—something that I was surprised to discover didn’t seem to exist.

Driven by a mix of curiosity and boredom one afternoon, I decided to have a go myself. How hard could it be? It didn’t matter if it went nowhere – I was just curious as to what the challenges were.

Eighteen months later, I looked up from my laptop having created and launched Staffology Saas Payroll and grown a customer base spanning from small accounting firms to large tech platforms.
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LTNS!

Hello! It’s been a while – two years in fact – since I last posted here.

There have been a few random things that I wanted to waffle about so will hopefully find time to make some more substantive posts over the coming months.
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Au Revoir, Supdate

I may have mentioned once or twice how important I think it is to keep your investors updated on how your business is progressing. Read more »

Partnering with SaaS Companies

I often speak to founders who have a new SME-focussed SaaS product they want to bring to market, or an existing solution they want to grow.

Understandably many of them want to tap in to the installed base of existing and well-established vendors serving the same market and want to know how much commission they should be paying to make it worthwhile. Read more »

My Talk at London Tech Week

I regularly get asked to give talks about my story. I should take them as an opportunity to promote my book, but I turn down virtually all of the requests because I just don’t enjoy doing it.

One organisation I can’t say no to though is the Prince’s Trust, here’s why.

So when they asked me to talk at London Tech Week where they were announcing the launch of their new online platform, I did.

Here’s the video:

Ask Anyone Anything

What if you could ask anyone anything? (and get an answer)

Well, I’ve got good news for you: you can. Read more »

Entrepreneurship and Coding Courses for UK Prisoners

It’s been a while since I wrote my Entrepreneurs in Prison post – more than four years in fact.

But I’m pleased to be able to tell you about two big steps in the right direction.

HMP Ranby and CfE

Firstly, the Centre for Entrepreneurs has secured funding to run an entrepreneurship course in HMP Ranby. This comes shortly after the publication of the Inmates to Entrepreneurs report earlier this year.

I’m on the steering committee for this and am also hoping to be getting my hands dirty behind bars. This is just a trial, but I’m sure if it’s a success it’ll be rolled out to more prisons.

Coding at HMP Humber

Along with Michael Taylor, I’ve set up a Community Interest Company to teach coding to inmates. We will kick off with a pilot project at HMP Humber in early 2017. Michael should take all the credit for this as we wouldn’t have got to this point without his perseverance. We’ve also had a lot of help from Chris Redlitz and the guys at The Last Mile who have been doing this successfully for a number of years.

See Michaels post on the TechCity website for more details and to find out how you can help.

Sssh!

As if that’s not enough, I also have another project in the pipeline on this subject. It’s early days but I hope I’ll be able to tell you more about it in a few months.

It’s also worth noting – especially given the negative media angle on the Prison Service at the moment – how incredibly supportive and enthusiastic the Ministry of Justice and National Offender Management Service have been about making these programmes a reality.

I’m looking forward to seeing how our first graduates get on post-release.

Marketing: Do Too Much and You Learn Too Little

So your product is ready for prime time. The bugs are ironed out, the website is updated and your beta testers are happy.

Now it’s time to market it and get to eleventy gajillion users. Read more »

Punning on Prisoners

Due to my background, providing opportunities for prisoners is something I’m keen on. There are a lot of potential entrepreneurs in there.

I’m currently working on something around teaching prisoners skills relevant to the digital economy but was struggling for a name for the CIC we’re setting up. So I asked Twitter. Read more »

VATMOSS and Stripe

I remember when the VATMOSS stuff kicked in and how grateful I felt that I was out of the accounting software industry. Now that we’re getting close to having a billable tier for Supdate, I’m having to look even more closely at it. What a complete and utter mess! Read more »

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