We're a small company based in Malta, a small country in the European Union.
We started operating in 2008 when we noticed that leading school software providers (particularly SIMS and Blackboard) offered terrible solutions. There was a clear niche for a good online school management software. We were convinced that we could provide better software at a fairer price.
The original plan was to offer the software free of charge to schools and then ask parents to pay a small subscription fee to access the information online. Schools would benefit too as we would share the profit with them. Although it would have been a win-win-win (school, parents, us), we quickly realised that it was an unworkable idea.
We cold-called a few heads of schools and quickly landed our first presentation. We all remember it very clearly: We arrived 20 minute late because we were convinced that we had to turn up with business cards 'because we'd look more professional'... Overlooking our lateness, they listened carefully to what we had to say, liked it and, somehow, became our first client!
The one thing we did not want to do was to sell a 'half-cooked' solution so we spent the next 18 months working HARD on improving MySchool, tweaking it, simplifying it, adding stuff and removing some. No marketing, no selling just working on the product.... We spent a lot of time talking to administrators and teachers to understand what were their problems and how could we make their life easier (this aspect of doing work is the foundation of our mind set).
When we were convinced that MySchool was ready, we showed it to a few other schools and quickly landed our second new customer. We've build on that success to become the biggest school management software seller in the country.
We were originally based in London which is an amazing place and our home for many years. Malta however had a lot more to offer: The weather there is amazing, it's an English speaking country, property is relatively cheap, friendly people and 3 hours from London and Paris. Most importantly, however, it's in the European Union. That meant that the data we handled was protected by comprehensive data privacy laws and therefore made us more trustworthy - and trust is something a young company like ours desperately needed.
Before MySchool, Patrice (the managing director) was a London-based software consultant specialising in business streamlining and automation. He worked mostly for big companies like newspapers, banks, car-manufacturers and local councils. Sandra (quality assurance, user experience and documentation) was a project manager with a large software company. Before her last role, she was a software developer. Whilst developing MySchool a number (to many to be named) of education professionals were consulted including teachers, heads of school, special educational need co-ordinators (SENCO), parents, students