Member Spotlight: Nightingale HQ

Today we’re shining the spotlight on Technology Connected Members NightingaleHQ.

Tell us a little bit about the background of your organisation?

Nightingale HQ is an online platform that supports businesses in overcoming the core blockers to successful AI adoption, they include strategic alignment, internal skills gaps, and execution of projects including the critical data infrastructure that underpins successful AI implementations. Our platform integrates three core products AI Direct, AI Learn and AI Connect. AI and automation offer huge time and cost savings, as well as growth benefits to businesses at any stage of the maturity cycle, but many are behind in getting started. We help businesses to kickstart and accelerate their AI and automation journey.

What have been your proudest achievements and biggest challenges so far?

Definitely our first customer was a great achievement and also building our team. We have a great bunch of creatives and technical people surrounding us and that’s really satisfying. We’re also really proud to have won an Innovate UK grant and developing GoSmarter.ai. In terms of challenges, we have had to pivot after about a year when we were first pitching AI to the SME market. We’re passionate about AI and we know it can make a huge difference to making smaller organisations more competitive, but SMEs are not in the early adopter space around AI and don’t yet see the need for it. We’re now aiming at the enterprise market and having success. The one exception to this is our new GoSmarter.ai project which is funded by Innovate UK and helps SMEs adopt AI but through the lens of automation and doing it at a tactical level rather than a strategic level. We support SMEs to adopt six-core automation tools to help them automate tasks and processes across their business, saving them tons of time. It can be as straightforward as automating searchable transcripts on presentations to implementing your own no code FAQ chatbot. SMEs can sign up at www.gosmarter.ai

What do you think the biggest advantages of being a tech company in Wales are?

We see a lot of misconceptions about Welsh businesses because we’re not in London, but we have a fantastic tech ecosystem and a lower cost of living. We also consider ourselves as a global startup. While our roots are firmly in Wales and there is tons of opportunities here we are also based in Ireland, and actually our first customer was a public institution for infection research based in Germany so AI knows no borders.

What would you like to see happen to the industry in Wales and beyond?

It would be great to see more support around helping SMEs and larger-scale businesses learn about the value of AI and automation to their company. We spend a lot of time demystifying AI and this really need to happy at a wider national level. It’s just as critical as tax or funding requirements and actually the benefits can visible really quickly. We spend a lot of time talking to customers about the quick wins that AI can bring their business and it’s about a mindset and a willingness to jump in.

What does your organisation have in store for the future?

We are building out the platform now with parts of AI Connect live and the other inactive development. We’re more than doubling our technical capacity and will have all three parts working on the platform by the end of the year. Whilst we’re building the full platform, we are growing an active customer base who we’re delivering prototype solutions to.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

To stay nimble and agile and where possible try to automate.

What is one piece of advice you would give ?

Spend more time selling and understanding your customers. The first year, we made the mistake of not getting out into the market and talking to enough of our target market. This meant we positioned ourselves wrong, and we did the famous pivot, but it meant that it’s only been this year that we’ve seen success. If we started talking more last year, we could be a lot further along. Of course, there are no certainties in start-up land.