Any entrepreneur who says they have nailed every step on their business journey is telling a fib.
In recent years the number of tech founders opening up about previous failed ventures has increased, providing a refreshing look at an industry which loves to celebrate success.
Andy Peddar, 36, founded Deazy in 2018 with technical director Gus Chadney when his first venture, a hairdresser marketplace, fell flat.
“It was founded from the ashes and learnings of a previous startup,” he tells TechBlast. “The SalonBook failed largely because of challenges in finding the right development partner to build its MVP (minimum viable product).
“Deazy was born as a way to connect enterprises, agencies and VC-backed startups with the right development talent.”
Collective expertise
Based in Bristol, the developer marketplace platform connects enterprises, scaleups and some of Europe’s biggest agencies with high-quality development teams.
It works with handpicked teams comprising more than 5,000 developers around the world, providing broad technical expertise and greater capacity and flexibility.
“These teams offer unparalleled collective expertise across a wide range of popular languages and platforms. They’re also available for multiple engagement models, from full end-to-end project delivery to team augmentation, providing even greater flexibility for our clients,” says Peddar.
“There’s a crucial difference between Deazy and other developer marketplaces: they mostly connect businesses with freelance developers, but Deazy works with established teams. This gives a broader skill set and technical expertise, with capacity and flexibility to suit all needs.”
However building a business which helps companies source talent has proven tricky in itself.
“Scaling the team has been a challenge,” Peddar admits. “Founders tend to face two extremes when scaling: being too controlling and not handing things over, which makes it impossible to scale, or handing over too quickly to the wrong people who then slow any progress and prevent scaling.
“Early on in the business, I went too close to the latter. I made some poor hiring decisions, handed things over too quickly, and ultimately it prevented me from scaling Deazy sooner.
“I had to get back into the details, fix the problems, address the hiring mistakes head-on and then learn from them to build a great team that would enable us to scale.”
Solve a problem
He says founders must ensure that their technology addresses a problem worth solving. “History is littered with entrepreneurs who have a good idea in theory but, in reality, find that there is no great demand for that idea,” he explains.
“Founders must also stay laser-focused on the problem their business is addressing. Validate it with real users and potential customers, know there is a large enough addressable market and identify the users who will love it.”
Deazy has raised £6.25 million total funding to date, including £1.25m from three seed rounds via Haatch and Angel Investment Network, and a £5m Series A funding round in January 2022 from Puma Private Equity.
It was recently ranked the 13th fastest-growing technology company in the UK by the Deloitte Technology Fast 50. “We turned over more than £5m in our most recent financial year, while our annual turnover growth over the last three years has been 100%+,” says Peddar.
Upscale 8.0
Having started the year with 22 employees and now employing 32 – with an expected headcount of 50+ by mid-2023 – it was recently among 35 companies to be accepted onto the eighth edition of Tech Nation’s Upscale.
The six-month government-backed programme is designed to support and scale the most promising mid-stage tech companies in the UK, at a critical stage of their growth.
The companies will receive over 60 hours of support at world-class coaching sessions – delivered by over 20 expert scale coaches – attend networking events with key stakeholders, peers, corporates and investors, and have access to a range of online resources, designed to tackle fundamental scaling challenges around culture, talent, international expansion and financing.
“I am most excited about the opportunities for us to learn and develop as a leadership team. It will enable us to create the space to work ‘on the business’, learn from the experience of other talented start-up leadership teams, and build a valuable support network for this next phase of growth,” says Peddar.
2023 plans
On Deazy’s 2023 plans, he says: “Within the business, we feel like it is our time to shine. Enterprises face major capacity and capability issues and are increasingly willing to consider other ways of filling the gaps.
“In a world with a greater need than ever for development talent, Deazy is a platform to meet that need. I’d love Deazy to become the most trusted global developer marketplace by 2025.
“We’ve had a wonderful year, completing memorable goals and achieving rapid and sustainable growth. But what makes me most proud is the team that we have built. I feel humbled to have such an incredible team with a winning combination of experience, expertise, energy and fun.”
Cooper Parry, Cooley and Silicon Valley Bank will be Programme Partners for this year’s Upscale programme.