DBAH Case Study | MyNestBox

My name is Dr Henry Crosby Ph.D. and I am a co-founder and the CEO of MyNestBox Limited (formerly known as ‘AI Owl Limited’). I would like to start by telling you how MyNestBox came to be and then I will tell you a bit about what we do…

After many years of servicing the property industry as a data scientist and machine learning engineer, I found myself coming up with idea after idea after idea for new products and services tangentially related to my work. Unfortunately, these ideas were usually targeted at markets outside of the focus of my employer, so I was never able to bring them to fruition. I found myself getting itchier and itchier to implement them, so I made the leap - MyNestBox was born!

MyNestBox’s inaugural day lay just one week before the arrival of my firstborn and in the second week of the UK’s first lockdown in April 2020. Although the timing wasn’t opportune, when you are ready to start a business, you’re just ready. Nothing can stop you.

My first step was to return to my roots as a PhD graduate in data science. I accepted a contract supporting the University of Warwick’s Institute for Global Sustainable Development, and created for them an open-source tool to help the public to undertake complex spatial sampling techniques to support the provision of healthcare in African and Asian slums.

Alongside this, I was awarded funding to receive support from Tim Morgan of SouthWestern Venture Capital through the Digital Innovation Business Acceleration Hub (DBAH), which I found through SETsquared Bath after a bit of Googling. Tim’s initial remit was to help me figure out how to go about the challenge of starting an ambitious, high-growth technology startup in the prop-tech space. He has continued to guide MyNestBox ever since and has been the most invaluable advisor I could have ever hoped for.

By September, the government’s Innovate UK department had offered a grant for me to build a team to create MyNestBox’s first official product. Over the next two months, I was introduced to the most insightful software developer and entrepreneur, Adam Rogers, that I had ever met. We had the good fortune to work together on a fun side-project, and he shortly after joined MyNestBox as co-founder and CTO. Adam’s previous startup experience in the beer industry has already proven to be an added bonus, too.

Meanwhile, we also set about raising a “pre-seed” round of investment to match the grant offered by Innovate UK. We oversubscribed the round in just 5 weeks, and MyNestBox formally began trading on the 2nd November 2020.

So, what have we been up to in the last two months? Well, mainly, we have been:

1. building our initial backend infrastructure;

2. talking (a lot) with members of the property industry and prospective home buyers;

3. building proof of concept products, and

4. recruiting some of the most exceptional talent I could ever have imagined joining our team.

Adam and I are now joined by our outstanding central services administrator, Robert Crosby and our incredible first full-time technical employee and data engineer Liam Steadman. We also have an exceptional team of consultants and advisors: Tim Morgan (SouthWestern Venture Capital), Adam Tsakalidis (Queen Mary’s University of London and the Alan Turing Insititute), Matt Drysdale (Ducie Avenue) and Andrew Cox (previously the Head of Investor Relations & Corporate Development at Globalworth Real Estate Investments Ltd). The progress that this small team has made thus far is unbelievable, so this is a public thank you to all you have done so far!

Now what?

MyNestBox has a very clear vision to make land and property buying informed, simple and enjoyable. We are already working on this by using data analytics, science and machine learning to search for, assess and value Sites. We intend to create our first product by mid-2021. Watch this space via www.mynestbox.co.uk!

Before I head off, I would like to leave you with the biggest challenge that MyNestBox have faced to date: remaining focussed. Regularly, we are faced with a number of interesting and potentially profitable opportunities, but the fact is that they are not “opportunities” unless they help us meet our vision - ultimately, they are simply interesting and exciting distractions. Tim Morgan, who is our business advisor and my DBAH mentor was the person to first instil those wise words into our business.

The support from DBAH was absolutely invaluable for my team and I and I’d highly recommend anyone starting out on their business journey to take advantage of business support programmes such as the DBAH.

The DBAH is a business support programme which is fully funded through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The support is bespoke and tailored to your business need. Learn more about the programme and apply to participate in the programme via the online registration form, https://www.dbah.org/.