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Profile: Informavores

Informavores came to the attention of the IT industry and media in 2004, after winning the Technium Challenge Award. The company has developed Firefly, a unique product which allows ordinary computer users to create powerful decision-based software applications with no programming.

Using cutting edge technologies and practices based on work with CERN, Informavores empower the user by allowing them to "automate know-how without the programming".

Sali Earls spoke to Stephen Wood of Informavores to find out more.

What's the history of your company?
Informavores came out of two experiences. The first is the work that I did with CERN (birthplace of the web) in Geneva. Basically, I was working to procure their workflow system and, in the process, learned a lot about workflow systems and architecture. I later did some work with a company called StorageTek on a sales solution to help their sales force find the right server solution to meet their needs. It was a huge project and involved a lot of complex decision rules. So the idea of the product was to simplify decision rules using the approach adopted by workflow - drawing flow diagrams.

I started the company in Bristol and moved it to Wales following the Technology Wales conference 2003 - I was impressed by the scale of the conference and the promises of business support provided by Wales. I was first based in @Wales in Cardiff Bay and later moved to the Sony Technium.

The name of the company came from Xerox - the idea that in the information age, your ability to survive is no longer based on hunting and gathering food - rather it's about hunting down, using, manipulating and reusing information. So, in the modern world, if you're not good at using information - you won't survive - we've all become Informavores. Our idea is that Firefly is a tool to help your survival - much like a hammer or a spear was 1000's of years ago.

What unique products/services does your company provide?
Our company provides a product which allows organisations to automate processes and procedures. It often sounds a bit heavy going, but the applications are very practical. To give you an example, Firefly could be used to automate tax returns - the user simply goes through a question and answer exercise and the system provides the return at the end. The key to our technology is that the rules for the tax return are very simple to create - you just draw a 'decision tree' representing how the rules and calculations work. The amazing part is that it does not require any programming or techie stuff at any stage to get systems working on the desktop, web and smart device. This means that a tax consultant can manage the tax tool - the person who knows how it works. This is a step change from current systems development where the developer must first understand the system, check that it makes sense, and then start coding. Following that, you can look forward to intensive debugging, staging and installation. With Firefly you can be far more flexible as you can typically construct a system ten times faster. This means you can try ideas out - not overly specify things in the early stages when everyone is finding their feet. In addition, the specialist doesn't need to translate their requirement to a developer - they just draw the diagram.

So our software can be used for anything from complex accounting calculations, regulatory compliance, and financial assessments, right through to diagnostic procedures. It's all about making things simple for the person who has some specialist knowledge. We like to think Firefly will replace a lot of the tools that are provided using spreadsheets.

In addition to our approach, we have also created a technology which we're calling 'Insertion'. This technology allows you to deploy web applications in a safe way - i.e. a non-technical person is not going to bring down the web server because they messed something up. The big benefit is that the deployment takes only two mouse clicks. Instead of installing the application - you're inserting it onto our server (or your server). Our product manages the data, the logic, etc to make the whole process completely automated. We invented 'Insertion' to get over security issues, scalability, ease-of-use etc. We have also been featured by Sun Microsystems for this technology and we're pleased to be blazing a trail in this area of web services and grid computing. To our clients that means nothing, but we're proud of it anyway!

What's been the key to your success?
Good question. I don't know if I can say we are a success just yet. We have had some early wins with Vodafone and other large corporates, but we've got a long way to go. If I was to think of a single answer, it would be sheer stubborn determination. We work very hard, we think very big, we trade globally and we don't rely on other organisations to help. Starting a company is a bit like a battle - you need a good team around you that you can rely on when the **** hits the fan. There are plenty of people who will want to help - you need to choose those that can best make your business grow.

What one piece of outside technology (software/hardware/other) has benefited your company most?
Google. Without a doubt. Google is perhaps the fastest and most cost effective channel to market on the planet.

What one piece of advice would you give to start-up companies in your field?
Concentrate on sales and marketing, not technology. Don't listen to anyone who hasn't started their own company, and get yourself a ****ing good mentor - like mine. Be honest with yourself and your abilities. Be ruthless and proactive. That's a few pieces of advice... I could go on.

Where do you see your company going in the future?
Up.

Find out more about Informavores at www.informavores.com, or look at the company's products in more detail at www.fireflyspark.com

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