YABA - Connecting Business Angels
YABA may be best known for matching entrepreneurs with investors, but what's less common knowledge is its power to bring together angel members in new business ventures.
Intuitive Business Intelligence Ltd is a prime example of this. The company was started by YABA members Tony Bray and Roger Stocker and evolved from an initial discussion at an investment forum in 2009.
Tony and Roger had previously been in competition, owning highly successful document management software companies. They met regularly at awards ceremonies and sold their respective companies within a few weeks of one another in 2007.
Roger joined YABA in 2009 to take advantage of the networking opportunities and reconnect with the business community. It was at his first investment forum that he bumped into some familiar faces, one of which was Tony.
“YABA was invaluable to me for its networking opportunities,” says Roger. “I was interested in the propositions on offer, but the connections I re-kindled and the new ones I made were instrumental in the formation of this new venture.”
With a common goal of creating a market-leading business intelligence solution and with their wealth of commercial expertise, Roger and Tony decided to start a business together, launching their Intuitive Dashboards product in January this year.
Knowing that most company directors spend too much time sifting through reports looking for quality business information and not enough time focused on growing their businesses, Tony and Roger’s software solution helps to address this issue. Intuitive Dashboards links to the existing data within a business, providing a consolidated viewpoint of key business information, depicted in a graphical dashboard format. Business owners and managers can easily view potential performance issues and spot trends and opportunities they might normally miss.
“We consulted a number of investors to find out what information they needed,” says Roger.
“There is a huge market for our product and we’ve made sure that the software is cost-effective and can be implemented quickly, so that businesses can reap the benefits of our dashboard within a matter of hours as opposed to months for other business analysis software.”
Both Tony and Roger are now employed full-time promoting their product, but plan to continue attending YABA events because, as Tony says, “The networking opportunities are a valuable part of being a YABA member and networking remains an important aspect of the way that we intend to build awareness of our products.”
