The Adaptavist Group partners with Akcela

As a technical leader with many years of experience in software engineering, agile, and security, I’ve been lucky enough to work in some great businesses local to me in Norwich, UK for over ten years. My experience has spanned many startups and has been heavily associated with the Norwich tech scene. In Norwich, we are fortunate to have meetup groups such as Norfolk Developers, Hot Source, and SyncNorwich. Since 2015, I have been a co-organiser of the Sync the City event, where participants build and launch a business in 54 hours. Joining The Adaptavist Group (TAG) in the summer of 2022 was exciting in many ways, but since joining I’ve been particularly fascinated by how I can help bring a much larger business together with what is happening and developing in my local city.

Throughout my career, I have been strongly encouraged by colleagues and leadership to get involved in local community events, hackathons, and beyond. Through these, I’ve met some fantastic people, one of whom is Tom Wood. Tom founded and ran a very successful company in Norwich for many years and has subsequently helped create Norwich’s only business incubator, Akcela.

I started some initial discussions in early 2023 with Tom to find out how TAG could get involved, as this seemed to be a good fit for both sides. Early discussions really inspired me to take this further, and presenting it to key stakeholders within TAG was a very easy pitch. There was immediate interest and longstanding ambitions to do more in local tech communities, both in Norwich and further afield.

The benefits of collaboration on both sides go far beyond our company purely supplying a sponsorship fee; this is a true partnership. 

With the phenomenal growth of TAG, we have a huge reach, even just internally, for any incubating business with Akcela. A lot of these businesses are just one or two people; TAG can offer advice, support, and potentially even connect the incubating businesses with customers. Flip this around and those tiny startups are fascinating for our teams, especially on the product side of the business. How have they built this on a small budget with limited people and time? What did they do to get the MVP out there? Which technologies did they use? How did they market the product? TAG employees are all curious souls with a passion for innovation. Often, as companies grow, innovation can be limited—but with a culture of curiosity at TAG, we are fully supported to explore and experiment and remain entrepreneurial.

Recruitment, too, is an area close to my heart—not in a fond way, but more in the sense of the heart palpitations I experience upon seeing some external recruiters’ fees for Y1 salary. It’s always bugged me, wondering how to do this better. Partnerships like the one we have with Akcela provide TAG with brand awareness in the local area and beyond. Get our name out there and we become a company people have heard of and actively want to join.  Every incubating business that we help (even a little) is a promotion for TAG and what we do. With one of the businesses within The Adaptavist Group being Brew Digital, an innovation studio based in Norwich, I know that our Akcela partnership can have a very tangible impact on their recruiting efforts.

Our Group brands also have software to market and sell. Akcela gives us an ‘in’ right at the beginning of a company: advise and help them get started on monday.com or Atlassian using our tools, and we have an opportunity to grow with them. Beyond growth in just software and tools, as a Group, we are always looking for further investment or partnership opportunities. With access to many incubating businesses through Akcela, we can consider specific partnerships, investments, or more, with any business we see a high potential in.

Along these same lines, we have excellent go-to-market knowledge that we can impart to incubating businesses. It's surprising how little most software developers or product people know about ecosystem development. Opening their eyes to Atlassian, monday.com, and beyond allows TAG to support expansion in different ways to our usual efforts.

My final thought on setting up this partnership is on expanding our knowledge of business incubation and acceleration overall. Can we apply this same model elsewhere in other cities or locations long-term? Norwich isn't big, but starting with Akcela, we have the chance to use this as a trial. We will have to hone our internal processes to support incubators like this, but the benefits far outweigh the time and mentoring we give.

After some hard work and great help from Neal Riley, Ruth Collett, and Chris Sherratt, I’m pleased to say the partnership with Akcela is in place. We have begun regular sessions with Akcela to focus on where TAG can help the incubating businesses.

One of these businesses is GoDesk, an adaptable ITSM tool that empowers service desk agents to automate tasks and enhance their productivity. A timely introduction to Salable (part of TAG) has positioned GoDesk as the inaugural external company to leverage Salable for its user management, licensing, and cost management. Furthermore, we are actively providing marketing advice to GoDesk as part of our ongoing mentorship commitment with Akcela.

Another is Tech Educators, a provider of instructor-led coding bootcamps. Tech Educators strives to enable individuals from diverse backgrounds to acquire the practical and personal skills necessary to shape their own future in the tech industry. TAG is currently engaged in preliminary discussions with Tech Educators to explore the possibility of hiring associate software engineers from their pool of graduates.

Finally, we have also started to introduce Akcela companies to some of the tools and products produced by TAG. Our Cloud Foundation team has created a product called Vortex: a highly flexible platform compatible with various AI providers such as OpenAI, Bard, and more. Vortex’s suite of features is designed to provide control, enhance efficiency, and improve observability. Early discussions are very promising, with clear opportunities to collaborate further with any incubating businesses using AI, and also with Tech Educators to empower people to work more easily with AI.