Who would launch a new business in the middle of a pandemic?

This isn’t actually us, although I do own a Miniature Schnauzer . . .

We formed our company back in August 2019. Called Inevitech, its purpose was to develop cutting edge yet affordable technologies for the AEC sector, with our first major project to be the development of a virtual desktop service.

This was something we had been thinking about for a long time. Years in fact. Having worked within the industry for some time (my first ‘proper’ job as a project administrator was when we still had to print and fold hundreds of drawings by hand every day), we felt the realisation of moving to the cloud, for architects and others who depended on high performance workstations, was overdue. Other solutions on the market were expensive, often complicated in terms of licensing and frankly, out of reach of most companies that we knew. Our aim was to get the cost as close to the cost of a physical workstation as possible.

Around 18 months ago we pulled together a technical recipe that we felt had the potential to introduce both better performance than existing solutions and at a much lower cost. We wouldn’t be using the traditional technologies that others did: no VMWare, no Citrix, no Nvidia GRID. We had something different. Our secret ingredients.

Initial response to some early testing was positive from those who had prior experience of using virtual desktops. Revit usage was described as ‘one of the best remote Revit experience I have seen’ and ‘It's excellent, really excellent. Moving around a large Revit model is smooth.’ This gave us some real confidence to push on.

At that point our main concern was whether we would be able to persuade people to move to a virtual desktop platform. The industry was used to large open plan offices with users mostly wedded to their desks and physical workstations. Our solution called for a sea change: flexibility for workers and location, reducing office space, a better balance of work and staff wellbeing. We figured that was going to be a hard sell for many.

We were working through some early developmental issues when Covid-19 hit the UK and everything changed.

Now everyone had to work remotely. My other company (WIT) provides IT support to architects in Central London. We had to enable many companies and hundreds of users to suddenly work from home within a matter of days. It was an intense period, but successful. Using a mix of remote desktop technologies users were connected into their work-based machines from home and cracking on with their work as efficiently, if not more efficiently, as before.

It became clear very quickly that people could work remotely very effectively indeed. Absolutely, something was lost in the inability to meet in person where certain aspects of collaborative working are more productive, but much of the work: drawing, writing reports etc, was in many cases easier to produce without the constant distractions of an office space.

The sea was changing, ideas about how teams could be structured, how offices could be reconfigured, how work could change. What things could be like after.

Inevidesk now seemed like less of a slow burn prospect, but something that the industry might need immediately. Not necessarily to withstand Covid, but to support the evolutionary jump the pandemic had prompted.

We doubled down on the development, harnessed the hard truths of a steering group of architects and BIM consultants to help us refine the service, brought in designers for our branding, built the website and launched officially in September 2020.

In the months following we have been developing a PR strategy and attempting to ‘spread the word’; not an easy task when you are of our size and trying to get yourself heard in a world dominated by the big guns. It requires investment of time, money and a certain amount of nerve holding. And there is a long way to go.

We’re still locked down (I’m writing this in the evening after fitting in home schooling for my kids as well as my usual working day). The economy is taking a hit. People are understandably cautious about spending money. There is a lot of uncertainty and worry.

But there is also positivity. The vaccines, of course. A certain confidence that remains within the industry. We have clients winning new projects. There is a sense that things are going to turn out ok.

And people are thinking about the future. About how it will be different, how it can be better.

Just about everybody we have spoken to about Inevidesk is interested in it as a service, seeing the potential in a move towards a fully virtual desktop infrastructure. Budgetary caution remains, but we have a growing client base and a growing number of those who are planning to make the move a little way down the line.

Who would launch a new business in the middle of a pandemic? Well, I guess we did. Refusing to hide away and wait it out we have stuck to our guns, confident that our work is timely and will be of great value in the months and years ahead.