We design and build distributed architectures and scalable solutions with an emphasis on low-latency, high-throughput and fault tolerant components.
We specialise in trading and betting solutions.
We have a wide-range of technology experience enabling us to select the right technology for the problem at hand.
Our experience allows us to apply solid principles to modern solutions and technologies.
A firm of like-minded, highly motivated individuals that have worked together for many years. Understanding the importance of teams and with our proven track record of delivering innovative solutions, we help mentor existing development teams in software design and quality. We not only help architect, design and deliver systems, but also help to drive new and exciting revenue opportunities.
At GrownUp Consultants, we use our depth of expertise to bring your project back on track.
Our approach enables us to take a different look at your systems. We analyse the systems from the outside looking in, rather than the inside looking out. Once we have identified the problem areas, where possible, we will make the most out of existing project resources, and help to design and deliver a technical solution which will bring your systems back to a valuable business asset.
Building the right foundations for any start-up business can be the most important decisions you make. Making the right technology choices and implementing solutions which work with strategies which help you grow are paramount for any entrepreneur looking to succeed.
GrownUp Software's rapid development programme accelerate's the software development phase of your growing business. We will design and develop the software building blocks, to enable future rapid development in a consistent and scalable manor.
As a company expands, it will often outgrow the original systems. What used to work, can no longer handle the shear volume of requests or transactions and this can hinder company growth. Grownup Software understands web scale, and are experts in delivering low latency, high frequency systems which encourage business growth and development.
Our consultants architect, design and build systems that will grow with the business so that it can reach its full potential.
The discovery phase covers both business and technology. From a business perspective we aim to understand the business vision, goals and objectives, key milestones, the key stakeholders and how success will be measured.
From a technology standpoint, the architecture, the technologies used, development methodology, build process and release management. We investigate, by asking relevant questions which drill down to fully uncover from developers, operations and management where the pain points are, what works and what does not.
At the end of this phase we present our recommendations, approach and a ‘plan of action’.
Commercial terms are then agreed; this can be either fixed price or time and materials.
This phase focuses on ensuring that the core building blocks are in place. We look at the build process, release management and environments, continuous integration testing, agile development methodologies, bugs, issues and risk management, coding, testing and documentation standards, operations monitoring and management and system performance metrics. This enables to create a concise development plan for the solution.
During this phase the solution is built. We start with a minimal end-to-end capability and re-iteratively continue to add functionality. We have regular status meetings and demonstrations with key stakeholders. We perform code reviews and continuously improve best practice across all teams.
Final deployment is not an after-thought; right from the Discovery phase we know our Go-Live deployment strategy. Our Foundation and Development phases build towards this goal. We ensure that the process has been fully tested and operations staff well trained. We provide full support during this period to ensure an smooth transition.
Throughout all phases we have kept in mind that the business will want to phase out our involvement and we strive to make this as painless as possible. To facilitate this we have ensured that the system is well documented, the code is clean and concise and the in-house development team have been part of the journey with full visibility, understanding of decisions made and a deep understanding of the internals of the system
Engagements with our customers have been at the interim level, or as a development team, which deliver large projects, and then hand back to the customer.
This organisation needed to scale their existing platform and reduce the cost per transaction. The system was using legacy technology, which was difficult to support and had too much technical debt, which would not deliver the technical solution growth needed for the business.
After a period of discovery, working with and mentoring the team in Ukraine, GrownUp Consultants re-designed the system from the ground up. The system was completely re-written, with the GrownUp team contributing to 80% of the re-written code.
This system project was fully documented and tested, and returned back to the business on time and within budget.
Darren Hudson, GrownUp Consultant talks about the project. “This was an interesting project to undertake. Not only was this a re-design of code which we developed to ensure the business value was the same and greater than before our engagement, but it was delivered during a period of civil unrest within Ukraine. This made for some interesting conversations!”
Matchbook is a sports betting exchange community, driven by cutting edge technology with an emphasis on offering value back to their customers. They are actively focussed on innovation and therefore constantly improve and enhance their platform to provide a better service for their customers. Matchbook’s vision is to deliver the best-in-class betting exchange platform so that users can have the ultimate online sports trading experience.
Matchbook’s legacy platform could not face the challenges of scale needed for their growing business. As customer volumes increased, the legacy Java technology could not cope with the added traffic coming to their platform and this was affecting their company vision of providing a best-in-class trading platform.
To solve this challenge, GrownUp Software were approached to lead the project and work with the Matchbook architects, engineers, testers, and designers, to deliver a best-in-class betting exchange platform. After going through the discover phase of the process to understand if there were any areas within the legacy platform which could resurrected, it was decided that a new, more efficient and innovative platform would be built.
GrownUp Software designed a new event driven, message based, architecture, with scale-up and scale-out capabilities, which enables the solution to adapt and grow within the platform. The project was broken down into discreet workable areas (Micro services) for each of the Matchbook team to own. GrownUp Software then concentrated on the over-arching framework.
During the project GrownUp Consultants managed each element of delivery from the design, code writing, implementation and staff mentoring.
The platform was delivered without any interruption of service and customers did not notice any change. However, the new platform allows Matchbook to scale their sports trading services with an expected increase from more than 300 million API requests, per day, to over one billion by the end of the year (2017).
At GrownUp Software we understand the business you are creating. Our wealth of experience allows us to apply solid principles to modern solutions and technologies.
With a proven track record in delivering innovative solutions which broaden business efficiencies across their network, we have been successful if developing a strong client base.
We understand the importance of teams and are able to mentor existing development teams in software design and quality.
GrownUp Consultant and Systems Architect
Darren has over 35 years of software design, development and integration experience.
Before starting GrownUp Software, Darren's most notable success was the invention of Diffusion, which is the flagship product still used by Push Technology - which supported major betting firms and sport betting exchanges enabling them to overcome the issue of stale prices and the delivery of timely information across all devices.
Darren is widely respected throughout the software development industry, and has been a board member of several technology companies, CTO of a financial FTSE-250 company, and holds patents in messaging methodologies and systems.
GrownUp Consultant and Systems Architect
Grant Specialises in low-latency, high throughput and horizontally scalable solutions. With over 35 years of software development experience Grant has delivered many concept-to-launch solutions including; Real-time predictive modelling SaaS platform, centrally controlled security device with hardware, client and server software. In addition, Grant delivered the first global telecommunications web services messaging platform.
Grant's reputation within the software development industry has brought him to receive extremely favourable reviews in the Financial Times, Sunday Telegraph and BA Life magazine.