Tinkering and tea: Meet one half of Nebula Labs
IT’s widely known that Dylan McKee likes tea, so it was no surprise that he ordered a pot when we met for a chat in Flat Caps Coffee, a very Instagram-able coffee shop in Newcastle.
“Your stickers are cooler than mine,” he said whilst opening his similarly defaced Macbook.
I disagreed. Mine lacked (and still does) a Nebula Labs-branded cosmo sticker.
Nebula Labs was incorporated on August 1, 2017 by co-founders Dylan McKee and Nic Flynn, who were 21 and 22, respectively, and fresh out of university.
The tech-duo received mentoring through their first six months of business by a foundership program run by Newcastle University, where Dylan studied BSc Computer Science.
The 23-year-olds, who both went to Whitley Bay High School, specialising in mobile app development and bespoke software for likeminded individuals, offering innovative software to forward-thinking businesses and ambitious entrepreneurs.
“Nic and I have always been the ‘geeky’ ones in our friend group,” Dylan said.
“One Christmas I got a 3D printer — this was one of the first ones you could get — so at a New Year’s party that year, me and Nic sat in the corner and I told him all about it. His eyes lit up.
“My parents aren’t really techy but my Grandad was, in a mildly interesting way. He passed on his old computers to me and I took them apart then put them back together.
“I was fascinated with how something like a tv can be so little but open up a new world.
“Then one year I got an iPhone for Christmas. I thought, can I build an app for this? Turns out, I could.”
After only a year, the company has thrived, grew in size, and worked on an array of interesting projects, each different from the last. Not least, the Great Exhibition of the North steam engine installation, which featured whistles sounding throughout Newcastle at 1pm daily.
“I’m not really sure how we came to do the steam engine installation. The artist just sent us an email through our website. I can’t believe we even replied to it because it seemed absolutely barmy.”
Durham-based artist Steve Messam approached the company to help create an echo of steam engine whistles around the edge of the city, paying tribute to local heritage.
“Of course, making things sound at 1pm has been done before, but the tech and electronics was completely new to us. No one’s really made whistles sound like a steam engine travelling before.
“I’d done a bit of electronics in school and sixth form but nothing like the scale of what we did. It was so intense standing at Central Station with all the artist’s family and friends, and the BBC, on the launch. But it worked, and it’s worked every day since.
“It was really exciting and great to do more with the Internet of Things. It’s definitely allowed us to be more creative with what we can do in future.”
Although the pair are far from their American counterparts in Silicon Valley, a start-up and tech-for-good ethos remains a big part of the company. Dylan modestly revealed his goal: to improve the way we live.
“We don’t do anything that’s the same over and over — we like to constantly be innovative and solve problems. That’s how we do our best work.
“We’re currently working on a project to enable pop cards to be used on the Metro. It’s massive having to work with Tyne and Wear Metro and Nexus.
“This still isn’t life-changing, but it does make things a lot easier for people.”
The company has just finished working with the Gym Plan App, a Newcastle-based virtual coaching app with personalised plans, to integrated conversational features into Siri following Apple’s iOS 12 release.
Siri, what’s my next exercise?
At the time of the interview, Dylan was sworn to secrecy with this project but revelled in his creative industry.
“You have to be adaptable and able to learn. The project I’m working on right now [the Gym Plan App update], the tech was only developed in June.”
The update allows users to see their next workout, start it and swap out exercises using Siri. The company has been praised for utilising iOS 12 so quickly.
“Things are changing all the time,” Dylan finalised.
So what’s next for Nebula Labs? Follow them on Twitter for updates.
