Squid40 | Why it came to life and where it’s going
Squid40 was a ‘thing’ before the name came, we re-branded in mid-2018 reflecting the innovative and progressive digital work is involved in. The grand goal was and still is to an extent, re-defining near-shore tech and product solutions to the UK, Europe and, in the near future, US.
I’m James Murphy — CEO and Co-founder of Squid40, and I live in Romania. I have lived here for four years now, initially for strictly personal reasons, but now our business, current achievements and amazing team is centered around the fact that we are a British company, with two Co-Founders, one in Romania and one in London where the majority of the client base is.
It’s a simple premise but allows us to really deliver on our goals.
Squid40 is a Digital Product and Software studio with offices in three Cities in Romania, Bucharest included — and Client Services and Project Management in London run by Co-Founder, Matt Breakwell.
Romania has awesome tech talent and an enviable STEM education path (OK, a blatant legacy of communism, and it’s translatable into loyalty and discipline). The majority of people here speak English to a very high level through study and as a part of Europe, Romanians are involved in a similar culture where the English language is dominant.
From a product, UX and Innovation perspective also, Romania is growing and there are some impressive references in recent years — just look at companies like Gameloft, Bitdefender and (Vector) Fitbit. The reality, however, is the cost is lower here than in Western Europe. Squid40 enables partner clients in the UK and elsewhere to access amazing teams of Product, Design, and Developers for a near fraction of a cost the same level and quality would cost in the home cities of our client businesses — more than this, these awesome people are operating as a full production studio, not a resourcing business, and deliver the same level as a homegrown team.
You can’t just put people in a room and expect ‘Magic to happen’, there have to be parameters, expectations, a belief system, and buy-in. At Squid40 we build all our teams around super stellar culture, DNA and Employer Brand that people are excited and proud to be part of. Our core values are empathy, collaboration, and self-accountability. These set us apart.
We hire profiles and mindsets, not skill-sets and our teams come 1st. We love what we do.
As our name suggests with Squid, we are Fluid, Transparent and Adaptable — we adapt to our clients and we have created a structure and ecosystem to support this and to be able to redefine how services here in Eastern Europe are delivered and received. (The 40 in our name is the dialing code for Romania)! Not obvious but a wink to our roots.
Perhaps one of the main and most important differentiators for Squid40 is that we are fanatical about communication and English is our operating language — having a British Co-founder living in Romania embodies this and gives confidence to our clients.
We believe in side by side delivery. This means our teams are cross-border, they travel to clients and clients come to spend time with us. We are changing the mentality to a business process where the emphasis prior was purely around cost — through Squid40, so much more is on offer.
Our model suits early stage businesses like start-ups and scale-ups, as well as innovating enterprises who want to work with agile and dynamic teams focusing on a solutions mindset, not specific delivery confines.
We often work with seed and first stage investment businesses and currently we work on MVP, MVPr, full-scale App and Web products as well as Platforms and Integrations — all with multiple technology stacks. Our 2019 is already taking shape with amazing start-ups and scale-ups — taking them to next stage investment or revenue goals.
We are super excited about where we are aligning, our team and the year ahead in 2019!
Bright skies ahead,
James
