Aberdeen safety firm eyes £1m milestone as global growth accelerates
An Aberdeen process safety engineer who 'always wanted to start his own business' is now leading a fast-growing company with clients across four continents and a £1 million turnover in sight.
David Jamieson founded Salus Technical six years ago after leaving his role at energy giant Equinor.
The 38-year-old has went on grow the business to 11 employees, more than doubling headcount in the past year.
Salus Technical now works with 80 software clients in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US and South America, and has supported around 30 engineering companies in the UK.
David has described his journey as 'fantastic' so far, despite being faced with challenges.
Salus Technical, based at Neo House, was founded just a few months before Covid hit.
David said: 'Our target this year is to reach £1 million and if you look at our past six months we are well on for that.
'I've always wanted to start my own business, I really loved the idea that you could just make a business up yourself.
'I worked as a process safety engineer for many years, and decided it was an area I could deliver on and thought it was worthwhile.
'It's been really difficult, because probably every single year I've been in business, there's been some sort of challenge to overcome.
'We were only four months old when Covid happened, so all our projects got cancelled, and the company making our software weren't able to support us anymore, so we had to press the restart button again.
'Even other things like, the change of government last year and the budget really slowed down a lot of things.'
David plans to keep developing the business and what it offers.
He said: 'We're at a million pounds, and that's half and half with engineering and software, so I would really like to get that software revenue on its own over the million pound mark.
'We're trying to improve our products so it appeals to a lot more industries and looking at what new software products we can build as well.
'That's the direction that we're trying to go, but we still want to maintain our engineering and services that we do very much here in the north-east.
'There's a lot of the challenges in the UK energy sector but we're obviously still proud to support UK oil and gas.
'Ultimately, all I want to do is grow my business.'
David took part in Opportunity North East's (One) business growth programme with a focus on insights into scaling marketing and funding.
Entrepreneurs and founders also gained direct access to investors, sector leaders and international market opportunities.
He said: 'The One business growth programme was very helpful.
'Speaking to other founders you find out that everyone has got similar issues and problems so it's good to share stories.
'The mentoring programme was also instrumental and transformative. It helped me as a founder to strategise better and make better decisions.'
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