Member Article

Young Newcastle developers take on ecommerce giants and aim to create jobs

Three young North East developers have launched an ecommerce platform for web developers that aims to simplify the creation of retail sites for clients, and now hope to create jobs as the business takes off.

Moltin is the brainchild of Jamie Holroyd, 26; Chris Harvey, 21; and Adam Sturrock, 23 who are based in Newcastle and are currently embarked on the ignite100 startup accelerator programme.

The trio have previously worked for web development agencies and have now stuck out on their own to develop their software development toolkit which has piqued interest in New York and London.

Moltin comprises an API and SDK (software development kit) which provide the framework for developers to use in building ecommerce sites.

Co-founder Jamie Holroyd said: “We’ve all spent time working on ecommerce projects within agencies, and found a lot of flaws in current platforms. It would become a nightmare each time the client asked for a minor update to their site or Paypal changed.

“The aim was to create a system that made it as easy as possible for developers to do ecommerce websites and apps.

“Moltin means everything is hosted with us and is up to date so you don’t have to worry about security or stability - it’s all taken care of at our end.”

The idea was devised six months ago over lunch and has since taken on a life of its own after the trio applied to become part of the ignite100 programme.

Jamie added: “The ignite100 programme has really helped us. We’ve been to New York and London, and spoken to the likes of Twitter and Foursquare. They’ve given us a lot of advice on how to run a business and how to develop the product further.”

Despite their young ages, the team are no strangers to the technology sector. CTO Chris Harvey established a server hosting business at the age of 11, and Moltin’s main sales lead, Adam Sturrock is also a developer - a key advantage when selling to other developers.

Now Moltin plan to raise investment and take on three more staff early next year across their sales, design and development functions.

Jamie added: “The ecommerce space is pretty crowded but there’s nobody really doing anything like us. At either side we’ve got big ebay-owned solutions like Magento and in the consumer market you’ve got the likes of Shopify.

“We carve a path between the others, offering a good mix of security and flexibility - and ultimately removing the headaches that other platforms give developers.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .