Digital innovation firm Enabled Solutions began as a two-man, home-based operation and is now celebrating almost 20 years in the game.
The Adelaide business and its team of 16 designers, software developers and business consultants, has taken on clients as close as down the road and as far as around the globe.
Over the past two decades it’s built relationships with some of South Australia’s most renowned businesses, helping bring them into the digital age by developing apps, software and digital experiences.
In 2016, Enabled celebrated a successful development with Adelaide-based Coopers Brewery involving the world’s first fully automated home brewing machine.
Through the BrewArt home brewing kit, home brewers can monitor their batch anywhere and at any time via a smartphone app.
Enabled also marked its place in the digital innovation space through its works with a string of other local companies, including Seeley International, Clipsal and the RAA.
The southern suburb-based agency developed the RAA’s app, myRAA, removing the need for members to carry a membership card and allowing benefits and competitions to be more easily accessed.
Enabled Solutions CEO Grant Hull says Adelaide’s size makes for great networking and business opportunities.
He also says the city is a perfect breeding ground for tech start-ups and entrepreneurs and that it’s becoming increasingly renowned for the sector.
“There is a tremendous amount of opportunity wherever you are in the world, but in SA there has always been enough work for us at Enabled,” Grant says.
“There seems to be a reputation building in SA and it’s reaching a point of substance.”
Adelaide’s brightest thinkers, budding entrepreneurs and innovation leaders are set to bring their ideas to the table in July through the city’s Entrepreneur’s Week and Hybrid World.
The Enabled Solutions team at the Malvern studio.
Grant co-founded Enabled Solutions with a university classmate in 1999 with little more than a desktop computer.
Their client base grew, as did their reputation for being one of the first movers in app development and mobile technology.
Grant’s brother Craig joined the business after some time and Enabled has since gone on receive a number of accolades in the tech space.
Recently, its internal culture book won an award of excellence in Corporate Communications Category at the 2018 Communicator Awards.
Grant also has strong ties to SA’s three universities, the University of Adelaide, UniSA, and Flinders University.
For the past four years he’s been a lecturer at the University of Adelaide’s annual Australian Tech eChallenge, which allows entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges and potential investors.
Grant says partnering with the state’s universities is not only a way for him to “give back” but also allows him to search for the next generation of potential employees.
“When you head up a business, you’re passionate about your own team, but you also think about how you can bring more great people on board, and working with the universities is one way to do that,” he says.
“Also, when you’re working with large businesses they don’t want you to play with their business, they don’t want mistakes.
“So (by working with universities) you can experiment with what works and what doesn’t – it’s a proving ground.”
Grant says many local entrepreneurs and tech-start ups launch their businesses in Silicon Valley in the US which is regarded as the global tech hotspot.
“A number of people go to Silicon Valley and raise enough capital before realising that rent is through the roof,” he says.
“There are opportunities here in Adelaide. I think we’re doing quite well here in SA. We’re self-sufficient inventors.”
Header photo: Enabled Solutions co-founders Grant Hull, left, and Craig Hull.
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South Australian News 