Behind Novatura: turning university bonds into a thriving digital solutions venture

They say the people you meet at University can be as just as important as the things you learn.

This is definitely true for Southampton-based digital solutions provider Novatura, which has its roots in a university project the founders completed together last year.

“It all started from a coursework project,” explained James Harcourt, Co-Founder of Novatura.

Novatua was formed after the founders worked together to create an app, pictured.

“The project went pretty well, but one of the best things to come out of it was the relationship between us.

“We recognised we have pretty complementary skills and a similar level of ambition – there was a clear minimum level of work needed but we all went above and beyond.”

A year later, James, along with Niall Morrison, Max Taylor, John Baker and Thomas Mitchelmore, would go on to form Novatura.

“We’re focused on bringing hard value through some form of digital reformation,” said James.

“That could be streamlining processes, saving people time and money, or perhaps the face of someone’s brand is technical and they need someone to work behind the scenes to tie loose ends together. Consultancy is a big part of what we do.”

“We’ve got the skillset to turn our hand at most things people would bring to us, but we typically cater to clients who identify that their processes are taking too long. They wonder if there’s a digital step they can take to speed things up, which is common in SMEs and local businesses.

“Another group includes those seeking to integrate one system with another. It’s really about efficiency and innovation.

“For example, maybe their engineers are carrying out a job then emailing across the data to someone who has to manually take this and enter it into a spreadsheet.

“We can come in and take out the extra steps, saving them time and allowing them to reallocate resources to where they’re better used.”

One of the business’s most recent projects involved creating and deploying a web dashboard for a skiing competition.

James explained: “We’ve deployed a system which allows the admins to see who’s signed up, who’s registered and assign team captains with email and Whatsapp integration. They can manage the whole event from one place.

“They were doing all of this by hand. Taking down personal information and logging it into spreadsheets – it took someone hours every day to do it, someone whose time was very much better spent elsewhere.

“They saw the value in their time and realised that what they were doing shouldn’t take that long, so there’s an obvious return on their investment.”

For any startup the early days are about proving your idea and your abilities, and this is no different for Novatura.

As James explained: “This period of time for us is really about proving our worth, we’re trying to get through that survival phase.

“We’re currently mostly working out of a university café – we’ve pretty much become part of the furniture at this point.

“We’ve talked about an office and while it’s not a priority it’s definitely something we want to achieve in the long term.

“Ultimately though, our ambition is to achieve a work/life structure where we’re both flexible and comfortable.

James onstage at the University of Southampton foundership showcase. Image: WhatAboutTheAsh

“Most importantly, we want to have fun. We want to work together, to build, design and create and avoid getting stuck doing the same thing over and over again. With this we’re always building something new.”

And it’s this collaboration element which James thinks is among the most important aspects of the business.

“We’re a group of friends who have complimentary skills and similar ambition.

“How we collaborate as a team is how we also aim to collaborate with our clients.”

• https://novatura.co/

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