A startup’s  journey to
technical independence

The client

Cremorne Digital Hub (CDH) is a joint venture which helps Cremorne (and Victoria) thrive in the digital economy. It brings together venture capital with universities and government agencies, and has a commercial focus to drive innovation, jobs and investment in Cremorne.

The Cremorne Digital Hub provides:

• Businesses with custom project-based services, which connect them to the digital expertise, tech and partners they need to maximise their growth in the digital economy

• Entrepreneurs and founders with the funding pathways and networking opportunities required to design, launch and/or scale their startup in the digital economy

• Support for Individuals to take the next step in their digital career through mentoring and professional development

CDH was established to assist all members of the community to navigate the Victorian digital economy.

The engagement

When Midnite City arrived, CDH was as close to greenfield implementation as most consultancies get, which posed the question “where can we start delivering value?” Up until that point, the vast majority of the technical work was spread between CDH’s CEO and Artesian’s (one of CDH’s founding partners) support. CDH was akin to a recently funded startup, lean and hungry to deliver, but without the technical underpinning to make their desire a reality. In effect, CDH needed to start moving from the conceptual to the practical and set its tech capability on a more sustainable footing.

The solution

The first place to start was in properly defining the CDH technical strategy. Transforming CDH's vision into a documented approach would give them a stable basis from which to work and the flexibility to approach developing their technical stack appropriately.

Next was delivering CDH's revamped website. While their original website provided basic information, it did not reflect CDH’s new brand or extend through to its new offerings. We engaged and managed a digital agency to deliver designs for the site consistent with the new brand, dropping the first version of the homepage in time for the relaunch. The delivery of this website hit a number of KPIs for CDH’s funding, as well as providing a visual brand statement to the market that CDH had arrived.

With the website in play, we were able to start thinking about the other elements that produce value for CDH’s user base. We identified high impact items, and led the vendor engagement and selection process. This included writing board option papers and working with CDH’s legal team.

The final piece was finding and training a permanent employee for the Technical Lead role at CDH. At Midnyte City, we follow a co-sourcing model, which, in this case, meant transferring the job to a long term CDH employee. We assisted with the interviewing process, and once a successful candidate had been identified, we trained that individual, and handed over the strategy, delivery and support to them.

The results

CDH was looking for a reputable local partner who was capable of understanding its position within the market and its strong community connections. Midnyte City was able to bring the intangibles of its thought leadership and community network to bear fruit for CDH, resulting in several joint, co-branded events to help build CDH’s brand and reputation amongst the Digital-First companies who call Silicon Cremorne home.

In hiring and training our own replacement, we provided CDH with the confidence that they had the right individual and that individual was set up for success. One of our key values at Midnyte City is improving the state of the organisations we work with by upskilling the team. In this case, there was no team to upskill, but we were able to instill confidence in the CDH by hiring an individual who was both skilled and a cultural fit for the company. In short we supported CDH to take its first steps as an independent technology entity.