2015 was a big year for LINQ Ltd. We made some big decisions the most important one being the transition from a Services company to a Product company. That required a number of changes. This pivot was going to require capital which led to a lengthy search for investment. Concurrent to this we used what little resource we had to develop a Proof of Concept (POC) for LINQ, the SaaS application we are developing. Our POC not only proved that we could build a product it also enabled us to test Quantic; our Development partners in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
It was around this time that we realised the power of LINQ. Up until now our product had been called Spatial.LINQ; recognising the company’s history in the spatial sector. We were now using the LINQ methodology well beyond those boundaries and as a result made the decision to change the product name to LINQ. In time, October 2015, we also changed the company name from Spatial.IQ to LINQ Ltd.
Throughout the first half of 2015 our plans and expectation of LINQ were growing, however it was not until July 2015 that we really got started. We raised sufficient capital to bring two new members of the team on Board; Jono Halse, our Lead Developer started first followed closely by Grant Reid, our Product manager. Over the months they have been assisted by numerous contractors who brought specific skills to building LINQ. For now though we remain a small corps of eight.
We challenged ourselves to build the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in one hundred days and while we slipped by a few; we launched LINQ into our Early Adopter Programme on 16 Nov 15. Since then we have moved to 2-week sprints and already added three more releases to LINQ Core. We have a product road map that will see this programme of development continue through our 2016.
As we look forward into 2016 there are exciting times ahead. Along with continuing to mature LINQ Core we will be introducing Proofs of Concept for a number of “Solver Pack” additions to that Core. Our technology roadmap describes LINQ Solver Packs which will support Human Resources, Resource Utilisation, Change Management and IT Project Integration to name but a few. We will also continue to develop our roadmap to include bigger ticket items that will enable LINQ to become the platform that supports a global information ecosystem.
The vision of a global information ecosystem has meant that we have thought globally since birth. We are excited by a number of opportunities already maturing in the USA, UK, UAE and Australia. By mid-2016 we expect to be adding to the LINQ team. This will include more Wellington-based developers, a sales and marketing team along with the necessary tech support staff to ensure our customers are well supported.
In writing this piece I have had cause to look back at what we have achieved and we have truly ‘moved the needle’ in our first seven months. In that time we have probably achieved 1% of LINQ’s real potential. Throughout 2016 we will accelerate our programme of work and look forward to sharing that journey with our growing number of partners and clients.
