Technology created in a silo will rarely hit the mark when launched into the market.
It is vital to gather feedback on your plans, product or services from a wide range of people if you are to create something which has value and serves a real need.
Liam Fulton is CTO and co-founder of Frame, a West-Yorkshire based technology and data science business aiming to hit £1 million in revenues by the end of the next financial year.
Before setting up the business with Hannah Bratley he studied a PhD in Particle Physics at CERN before building and running the data science teams at webuyanycar.com, Dee Set and CarFinance247.
Despite the highly impressive CV, Frame may not have enjoyed its success to date without some good old-fashioned chat.
“Talk about what you are doing and building with as many people as possible,” Fulton advises other up-and-coming tech leaders. “Feedback in our first year from friends, colleagues, customers and our wider network was key in making us the business we are today, and finding a formula that works.”
Build, test, iterate
In Fulton’s view, a good tech entrepreneur “knows the balance between build and testing the market”.
“Lots of tech entrepreneurs build too much, then go to market and realise the fit isn’t right,” he tells TechBlast. “The key is to build a bit, test it rigorously with customers and then iterate.”
Frame was established in 2020 and headquartered in Slaithwaite, but works with clients across the UK and internationally. Its team of end-to-end data and computer vision experts – including engineers, scientists and developers – work across two core divisions: consultancy and solutions.
In its first year, revenues stood at £61,000. They grew to £453,000 last year and resulted in a 641% increase in gross profits, with no outside investment.
“The consultancy team works with clients in numerous ways to help them overcome their specific data-related problems, including designing and implementing bespoke data engineering pipelines, building pricing optimisation algorithms and delivering custom computer vision modelling which can be used to improve sales,” explains Fulton.
“The solutions team provides clients with a range of ‘off the shelf’ API products that are customisable to meet their needs. Examples include data resourcing, strategy and custom data science project support.
“Over the past few months, we have also been heavily focusing on honing and rolling out our Better Images product which helps eCommerce sites sell more by automatically improving their image quality.”
Making a difference
Frame works with a broad range of clients in the banking and finance, retail (both bricks & mortar and online), logistics and distribution sectors. Its broad client roster includes Halfords, MPB, NatWest, Sorted Group, ECO Surv and Smart Data Foundry.
Fulton says his in-house experience at the likes of webuyanycar.com allowed him to understand what businesses want and need.
“I knew I could make a difference. It also gave me a fantastic grounding and the foundations on which to launch Frame alongside Hannah. We’ve never looked back,” he says. “Every client we work with comes back for more as they are amazed at the results we deliver and the speed with which we execute their projects.
“We are acutely aware of the commercial challenges that our clients face and it’s our job to help them overcome them. That stays at the heart of everything we do.
“The Better Images product is also enabling us to target the millions of eCommerce sites that operate in the UK. The response to it has been fantastic so that is going to be a real growth area for us over the next couple of years.”
Biggest challenge
He says the biggest challenge to date is finding the right talent at the right time to carry out project work.
“In the early days, it was hard to forecast what resources we needed but now we are able to effectively upskill or hire accordingly,” he says.
“In the next five years, we will probably double the size of the consultancy team just based on the consistent demand and retention we are seeing.
“On the Better Images side, we want to improve the visual online shopping experience for everyone and have a goal of improving the images of one million products in the next five years.”
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