This week we sat down with Northern Ireland’s Young Business Person of the Year finalist and Gekkoshot’s very own client – Ian Megahey from WorkPal. Ian has grown his business significantly in recent years, he now supplies his software – WorkPal to over 10,000 mobile workers across the world.
WorkPal is a cloud based field service management software allowing both online and offline working, designed to bring your field service operations into the digital era. We hear about Ian’s biggest successes and challenges running a business in Northern Ireland and gives his advice to anybody thinking of starting their own business.
Can you give us a brief overview of WorkPal and how it started?
WorkPal started in 2012 when a band of 3 companies approached us asking if we could build a platform to replace a pile of paperwork with a slick digital job management platform. And just like that WorkPal was born! We started with one software developer and 3 customers.
“Today – 10 years later, we now supply WorkPal to over 500 customers worldwide, across 10,000 mobile workers utilising our platform.”
Today- 10 years later we now supply WorkPal to over 500 customers worldwide across 10,000 mobile workers utilising our platform. WorkPal offers a growing feature and benefit set including job scheduling and dispatch, asset management, digital forms & certificates, parts & stock, invoicing, purchasing, reporting and so much more. We employ 40 people across our company and have a goal to double our workforce by the end of 2023.
image source: Love Belfast
What has been your biggest challenge as an entrepreneur so far?
I have learnt a lot throughout my time with WorkPal, one the biggest learning curves was building both the workforce and the culture within it. It’s always challenging finding the right people for the business.
“Northern Ireland has no shortage of talent. However it is such a competitive job market, especially in the tech sector”
Northern Ireland has no shortage of talent. However it is such a competitive job market, especially in the tech sector. I am very lucky to work with the amazing people we have in the WorkPal team. The culture and work environment has never been better with our brand new state of the art office and each and every person in our team plays a big part in making the company a brilliant place to work.
What has been your biggest success?
As I write this looking out at the WorkPal team I feel a real sense of success- as we have a growing, happy team all achieving amazing results.
“As I write this looking out at the WorkPal team I feel a real sense of success.”
Cultivating a supportive and inclusive workplace culture, growing the sales by 100% year on year and playing an integral role here is my biggest success.
Do you ever suffer from imposter syndrome or self-doubt? If so, how do you combat this?
I think everyone feels this from time to time. I always combat this by looking at how far we have come as a company! Simple as that. We’ve come a long way and I’m incredibly proud of that.
How has Gekkoshot helped your business?
Warren and his team from day one have formed an incredible relationship with us. They show us tangible results with SEO and have also created our awesome website.
“Warren and his team from day one have formed an incredible relationship with us.”
Having the ability to pick up the phone at a moment’s notice is brilliant, they are always on hand to help in any way they can.
What advice would you give to any budding entrepreneurs?
Have patience and trust the process. A trait of my generation can often be one of impatience. I myself have been guilty of this however over the years and I am far from mastering it!
“Have patience and trust the process.”
But I believe if you have patience you will see the fruits of your labour come to fruition. This goes hand in hand with “Trust the process”. To find out more about WorkPal click here