Everything You Need to Know About The Delta
Having officially opened our doors in the latter half of 2018, The Delta has made significant inroads ever since and we don’t plan on stalling anytime soon. We’re a venture development company which operates on an international scale with offices in Cape Town and Berlin. The Delta is primarily a venture building company that co-creates businesses and products with leading corporations and entrepreneurs. Often is the case where we either assist in, or solely undertake, building ventures and products from the ground up. It may seem easy to read the above and still be left confused as to what we do: What are ventures? What is the difference between businesses and products? In essence, other companies have ideas, and The Delta builds them.
By definition, a venture is a new business, product or service that is regarded as promising enough that financial gain will follow its creation and/or launch. Ventures stem from ideas and it is these ideas that are seen to hold strong prospects and possibilities for growth. Based on this, these ventures are deemed as worthwhile opportunities to explore as the potential they hold could result in significant achievements being realised. At The Delta, we either build these ventures in the form of new businesses and startups, products and/or services within business where the need arises. Not only do we co-create ventures derived by external collaborators, but if the situation presents itself, we build ventures based on the innovation that our team sees and aim to work those organisations who we consider to be the best fit.
How do we go about our business? At The Delta, we acknowledge that ideas can only be so valuable and that is why we have developed an acute methodology which we follow when building new ventures: Validate, Design, Build, Launch. By following our developed processes, it allows our teams to bring these ideas to life through structured execution. When we take on a new venture we begin by validating the product or service idea and its assumptions. This is where our Venture Team is hard at work doing the necessary research and calculating the viability of possible idea concepts. The validation process culminates with conducting the design sprints, putting together the first iteration of prototype UI’ and having a clear understanding of what the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) entails. Here, our Product Team put their skills and expertise to practice.
We then move into the design phase of the venture where the brand identity is developed. This stage is all about the user experience (UX) and answers questions such as how the web and app design will look as well as what the user journey in the product will be. This is where our Design Team gets to illustrate their creative prowess and bring a product to life with colour, aesthetics and user journeys. Once established, the venture starts coming to life in its tangible form during the build phase with the technical mastery of our software engineers in our development team. Here, the system architecture is clearly delineated and the environments are securely managed for either in-house management or an eventual client transfer and migration.
When the MVP of the venture, or alternatively the next iteration release, is ready to go, our marketing team get the product into the right hands through market release strategies including gripping press releases, on air interviews with Delta team members and consistently executing structured social media releases that not only promote our ventures and products but also promote the Delta brand and philosophy. This four phase approach of seeing a product through from conceptualisation through to execution is illustrated below.
While we follow our methodology rigorously when it comes to venture and product journeys, we also remain cognisant of the fact that we are currently living through the technical revolution and as a result, agility in software development is not merely a requirement but rather a necessity. Given the current climate that we find ourselves in, it seems applicable to say that an agile way of work and an agile mindset are indeed essential items. At The Delta, we don’t do agile, we are agile.
So, why do we do what we do? Put simply, we believe in building ventures and products that matter. All ventures and products that we create are done so with the intention of servicing your business or product within. We like to adopt the mentality of building ventures that we ourselves would invest in. Our services see us involved from conceptualisation through to launch and for that reason, we aren’t merely service provider vendors but we intend on building partnerships with the organisations that we work with. This allows us to act as partners who can manage and continue to evolve the product alongside our clients.
Why us? If you’re a large corporate or a well established business but you’re struggling to find ways for your own venture departments (and ventures within) to take flight, The Delta offers a unique solution. Through our service offerings, you let us take the reigns on building your products. This allows your potential business and/or product idea to be born in a more free-flowing and agile environment: one where alternative thinking and lean product development can occur. We understand that structures and processes are in place and we acknowledge that Rome wasn’t built in a day and the transition to a more agile way of work isn’t easy. However, we also understand that these workspaces may not be the most conducive places for new prospective ideas to be formed and built — ones that require out of the box and innovative thinking in an agile manner — and that is where we offer a different route to building your business, keeping you alongside us every step of the way.
Life at The Delta
A company is only as strong as its employees and we recognise the fact that at the end of the day we’re all human and just like the rest of you, we naturally crave connections. That’s why we place such a high standing on enriching our work through enriching the people who get it done. Despite having only opened our doors in July 2018, The Delta team has rapidly grown over the last 20 months. We currently have over 30 full time employees with multiple freelancers assisting on projects where needed. Not only do these numbers help us get through the work that we do but it also fosters a collaborative learning environment whereby knowledge transmission and the sharing community are emphasised, highlighting the culture that we intend to create and live by.
Having offices both locally and abroad, as well as dealing with national and international clients, puts The Delta in a nutrient-rich bracket when it comes to the various individuals who ply their trade at the company. The team consists of globally experienced groups of individuals, each with a diversified skill set ranging from creative thinking, problem solving and innovation, to name a few. What do we all have in common? We’re problem solvers who recognise the room for development and growth and we’re enthusiastic about bringing ideas to fruition.
Our company is broken up into five key building blocks: : Development Team, Product Team, Venture Team, Design Team and the Marketing Team. Despite these different entities within The Delta, our teams do not function in siloed systems. Rather, projects involve and depend on resources from each and every team, implying that our organisational structure is not viewed vertically but rather horizontally — allowing us to leverage off the skills and insights from those working around us.
We aim to create a culture of community and belonging with all of our workforce forming part of our Delta family. We believe that our practices create a unique environment for working together. Whilst operating on our respective project, we conduct a company wide stand-up every Friday where we all get together and provide insight into what’s been keeping us busy. This lets those outside the project develop a holistic view of the company as a whole. We also believe in continuous learning and our biweekly ‘Delta Talks’ initiative allows us to learn more about ourselves as a company from in-house speakers as well as expand our industry knowledge with expert speakers covering topics in the start-up, lean and tech field to name a few.
This continuous and collaborative learning is further enhanced through The Delta’s intranet tools and technologies. Having these resources freely available has always been important but their gravity holds more weight now than ever in a time where we are all working remotely. This begs the question of how do we onboard, integrate and continue leveraging off one another? We use an intricate blend of workspace socials and platforms that allow us to recreate our in-office environments from home — allowing us to find innovative ways of operating.
Where are we now? Having grown significantly over the last 12 months, we still recognise the need for ensuring that our respective teams consist of individuals who are passionate about business, technology, and the innovation that is the merging of the two. We’re always on the lookout for talented individuals who can add unique value to our company and if you believe that is you then get in touch with us. We’re a young and energetic workforce and we’re building products that matter, aiming to make a positive difference as we continue on our journey.
Our rapid approach to scaling has meant that our look to those outside of The Delta needs to keep up. We believe that it is not only the work that you do that needs to maintain relevance with the times but also the marketing and brand identity that your company exhibits. This is why we have rebranded, putting across our new identity in a world where staying relevant is no longer an annual strategy plan but rather a day to day activity.
Whether it’s rebranding who we are as a company, developing products using revolutionary technologies, working on projects with clients from all walks of life, engaged in Delta book club or even a company stand-up on Zoom with the most peculiar choice of virtual backgrounds, life is never dull at The Delta.
