Blog
Find out more about how we work with businesses, the latest tech and innovation, and what we’re doing in the community.
From vision to reality
Thursday, 18th February 2021
Taking an entrepreneur’s initial vision and turning it into a reality is something Rocketmakers excels at. A great example is the Innate Mood app. Innate Food founder Elsa Valentine approached Rocketmakers with an idea for expanding her healthy lifestyle business with a digital tool for supporting mental health. Her concept was an app for recording moods and emotions in video journals, which would provide users with insight into their emotions in future.
A 3-Step Process To Beat Those Bias
Friday, 12th February 2021
As a UX designer, I am constantly making decisions about how things should work, and what goes where. This is REALLY important - making correct decisions during UX design is crucial for a project’s ultimate success. Before making all of these decisions I have to gather lots of information. This means lots of research, interviewing end-users, conversations with the design team, and regular meetings with the client.
Going green at Rocketmakers
Thursday, 11th February 2021
The world of tech is often seen as the hero that will swoop in and save us all from the onset of the climate emergency. The phrase, “think of how many trees you’ll save by going digital and not using all that paper!” oft-uttered in the past by curmudgeonly office managers, exemplifies this attitude.
Health and wellbeing tech - from consumers to elite athletes
Monday, 8th February 2021
Using technology to make the world a better place has always been central to everything Rocketmakers does. This means that any project which helps people to be happier and healthier gets our full attention. Our work in this sector has spanned the gamut, from consumer-facing wellness apps, to helping the world’s top athletes reduce the occurrence of injuries.
How our UX designer found her dream job
Tuesday, 26th January 2021
Designing an excellent user experience (known in the industry as “UX”) has always been a priority for Rocketmakers. Software can be extremely innovative and well built, but it only becomes game-changing when it squarely meets a user’s needs. In July 2020 Rocketmakers added even more firepower to its design team with our newest dedicated UX designer, Holly Burn. We decided to catch up with Holly to learn more about her, what her first six months at Rocketmakers have been like, and find out why she thinks UX is so important.
Early stage funding for startups in the South West
Tuesday, 12th January 2021
With more and more people turning to entrepreneurship in the recent months, the topic of access to funding and finance has never been hotter. As the host and convenor of the Quarterly Investment Briefing since 2017 I have seen a gradual shift in the volume of people seeking equity funding for early stage businesses - read on to hear my thoughts on the early stage investment scene.
Software to create sustainable homes
Tuesday, 12th January 2021
Since its founding, Rocketmakers has always sought out projects which can make the world a better place - especially when it comes to the environment. One way technology can help is through systems which improve the sustainability and efficiency of utilities, from energy to gas to water. We have recently partnered with four clients from this sector, and are looking forward to working with more in years to come!
Life beyond startup
Monday, 14th December 2020
Briony Phillips spent much of her childhood in Bath, and took the chance to move back to the South West after a career change in 2016. Since then she has been active in a huge range of initiatives and organizations right across the sector, from the Leaders Collective she founded with Ben Shorrock of TechSPARK, to designing and delivering the Quarterly Investment Briefing to help local investors network, share and learn.
Seven resources for diverse start-ups looking for investment
Monday, 14th December 2020
At Rocketmakers, we are proud to promote diversity within the start-up companies and entrepreneurs that we work with. Sadly we see firsthand the difficulties that female founders and mixed-founder groups face when attempting to raise investment. In fact, just one in three British entrepreneurs are women and less than 1% of UK venture funding goes to all-female teams.
Rocketmakers Christmas Break
Monday, 14th December 2020
2020 has been a jolly busy year for the Rocketmaker's crew - we’ve welcomed 10 new people into the team, we’ve introduced new processes and approaches to help us with the transition to remote working and we’ve welcomed plenty of new clients and projects too.
Rocketmakers Top Tech Podcast Recommendations
Thursday, 3rd December 2020
We are big fans of tech podcasts at Rocketmakers, here is a list of our top recommendations.
Rocketmakers wins Best Tech Workplace award
Monday, 30th November 2020
Rocketmakers was awarded the Best Tech Workplace award at the Tech South West Awards on Thursday night. The Tech South West accolade is the second best-workplace-type award won by Rocketmakers in 2020, and the third in three years.
1300 homes to be decarbonised by consortium using Rocketmakers technology
Monday, 30th November 2020
A 68 partner consortium, which includes 26 social housing providers and is managed by Rocketmakers client Sero, has begun retrofitting 1,300 homes in Wales to drastically reduce carbon emissions.
Our server-side secret weapon
Monday, 23rd November 2020
CEO Richard Godfrey may be the public face of Rocketmakers, but it is fellow co-founder and CTO Keith Walker who is regularly pushing the boundaries of the company’s software development behind the scenes. Last week, Keith was happy to give us a few minutes of his time to explain one of the newest and most exciting developments from Rocketmakers ever - Orbit!
Interview with Rocketmakers Graphic Designer John Grigg
Monday, 23rd November 2020
John Grigg has been part of the Rocketmakers team since 2016 working in the role of graphic designer. He leads the way on design elements for clients and has been instrumental in developing the Rocketmakers’ branding over the years.
A to Z of Rocketmakers projects
Tuesday, 10th November 2020
Rocketmakers was founded in 2009, since then we have built over 30 apps, websites and software products for companies whether large or small, local or global. When we work with startup companies we will sometimes make an investment ourselves and those companies have seen over £40M equity investment between them.
Do Breathe
Thursday, 5th November 2020
Developing complex, innovative software doesn’t need to be stressful. Just ask wellness startup Do Breathe, who worked with Rocketmakers to develop a guided breathing app to help people get calm and centred quickly.
Five top tips for developers who want to work with us
Thursday, 22nd October 2020
On Thursday 22nd October, we hosted a lunchtime session as part of the Bath Digital Festival 2020.
UK IT Industry Awards Finalists
Saturday, 10th October 2020
Operated by the British Computing Society and Computing magazine, the UK IT Industry Awards date back to 1973, when they were known as the BCS IT Awards, and are the largest and most well-known awards in the technology industry.
10 lessons from the first 13 years of Rocketmakers
Thursday, 8th October 2020
Rocketmakers was co-founded by Richard Godfrey, Paul Cross and Keith Walker in 2007 and shortly afterwards they established their first start-up KoodibooK, a platform to allow individuals to design and publish their own photo books. Over the last 13 years, Rocketmakers has invested in over 40 start-ups and scale-ups.
