Start Software's 20th birthday - a week to remember

By Director Robin Bennett (& AI)
October 2026

Some of the memories from our Celebration Week

Editor’s Note: Twenty years ago, code was written line by line in Microsoft Access and Visual Basic 6. Today, we are deep into the era of agentic AI. It felt only fitting that this 20th-anniversary retrospective was drafted collaboratively by Robin and Start Software’s AI assistant, looking back across two decades of software, friendships, and global adventures.

On 20 September 2006, Start Software officially came into being.  That's 20 years ago.  People often say "I can't believe it is that long ago" when reflecting on a milestone like this, but actually it does feel like two decades have passed! The difference in our working methods then and the world of software development now is extraordinary.  

To mark our big birthday, we've just had a week of celebrations with colleagues travelling from Australia, Indonesia & Kosovo to the UK to meet, eat and talk about our history and our future.  The week's events included axe throwing (really), a two-day trip to Amsterdam for World Summit AI, and a visit to Anfield to watch Liverpool play Man City.  What a week.

We don't take any of our success or longevity for granted.  This is a family business, and all colleagues are treated like family.  We are grateful for every client who has chosen to spend money with us, and for all of the partnerships we've built and adventures we've had along the way.  Our new software platform (which will replace Alpha Tracker - do ask for a demo!) has its first trial users, and we have plans to restructure the business and build again to ensure we are here for our wonderful customers in 2036, 2046 and beyond.

Thanks again from everyone at Start Software.

Our Story

We began through an amicable split from our sister company Start Technology when I decided to start a dedicated software company and leave the hardware & networking side in the capable hands of James Guestford and Ian Groves.  Start Technology has been transformed into the absolute powerhouse that is now Start Tech (massive congrats, Ian & team). When we branched out on our own, we set up camp in Lasyard House in Bridgnorth, Shropshire with a simple mission: build reliable, bespoke software that genuinely solves operational headaches for businesses.

Where it all began: Lasyard House, Bridgnorth, 2006.

I'd been coding professionally since I'd been a teenager (with even a brief spell on TV explaining how the first home computers worked!). Back then, everything ran locally on Windows desktops. We built bespoke systems for logistics, manufacturing, and environmental consultancies, including our desktop "Tracker" software for asbestos surveyors. We were lucky to form partnerships with brilliant clients who believed in us from day one, including many clients who still use our services today, 20 years later.

The Cloud Leap: Alpha Tracker & Going Global

By 2011, the writing was on the wall: the world was moving to the web and mobile devices. We took a bold leap, rebuilding our core platform on Alpha Anywhere to create Alpha Tracker.

Surveyors could suddenly ditch the paper clipboards, capture data on tablets on site, and produce 200-page UKAS-accredited reports before they had even driven home.

Truly in the cloud: running Alpha Tracker at 39,000 feet on an Emirates A380 in 2013
 (somewhere between Dubai and the UK)

Alpha Tracker took us around the world. We welcomed Judy Key in Adelaide to lead our Australian and New Zealand operations, formed business partnerships in North America, and proved that a software house rooted in Shropshire could support critical operations on every continent — even at 39,000 feet on an Emirates flight with in-flight Wi-Fi!

Our links with Alpha Software, the creators of Alpha Anywhere, took us to the States, introduced us to businesses around the globe, and to some amazing people including the Rabins brothers and the inventor of the spreadsheet and coding legend, Dan Bricklin. 

OERCA, Clive Ponder & The CTT Family

Software is really about the people you build it with and the problems you solve together.

Through our partnership with Alpha Software users Mark and Todd in the US, we re-wrote OERCA — specialized animal record management and zoological welfare software now used in world-leading aquariums, marine parks, and wildlife centres across the globe.

OERCA: animal management and veterinary software protecting wildlife across the globe.

In May 2020, our story took another big step forward when business partners Clive Ponder and Bob Massey invested in Start Software, bringing us even closer to the CTT Group family. Clive was a force of nature - an entrepreneur with boundless energy, warmth, and ambition - and had been a business partner and friend of mine for decades. We lost Clive late in 2024, but his vision and generosity continue to inspire us every single day as we work alongside Andrew Houston, Bob and the wider CTT team.

Celebration Week: 10 Days, 5 Countries, 1 Family

To mark our 20th birthday, we decided to do something truly special. Between 3 and 13 October 2026, we brought our global team together in the UK and the Netherlands:

• Falah, Bonggo, and Ferry flew in from Indonesia.
• Fatbardh (and his wife Fortesa) travelled from Kosovo.
• Judy and family joined us from Adelaide, Australia.
• CTT's Alex and family member Connor joined us in the Netherlands.

This meant - for the first time - that almost the entire Start Software team was together in one place.  Tina, Leanne & Jaime were sent presents instead of attending - you were missed, and thank you for being part of our team.

Our custom 20th-anniversary T-shirt back, featuring cartoon avatars of the entire 17-strong team.

We spent days working together in our Telford e-Innovation Centre office, threw axes in Shrewsbury (congrats Jamie!), celebrated together over meals, and boarded the Eurostar and EasyJet for Amsterdam.

Nine of the Start Software team representing in our custom blue & gold 20th-birthday shirts at World Summit AI 2026, Amsterdam.

Nine of us attended World Summit AI 2026 at the Taets Art and Event Park — immersing ourselves in the very latest frontier models, autonomous agents, and AI engineering that are already shaping the next generation of our software.

To round off an unforgettable 10 days, 12 of us headed to Anfield on Sunday to watch Liverpool take on Manchester City from the Brodies Lounge, before one final late-night table football tournament at the Knowsley Inn.

Liverpool v Manchester City at Anfield: 12 of the Start Software team in Brodies Lounge for the grand finale.

Looking Forward to the Next 20 Years

From a desktop MS Access database in Bridgnorth in 2006 to cloud platforms running across Australia, New Zealand, and the US, and now to full-stack, AI-driven applications built in weeks rather than years - technology changes beyond recognition.

Our 2026 offices at the e-Innovation Centre

What hasn't changed is the ethos: look after your clients, invest in your team, stay curious, and enjoy the ride.

Thank you to every client, colleague, partner, family member, and friend who has been part of our first 20 years. Here’s to the next chapter!

Celebrating 20 years of Start Software—and looking ahead at World Summit AI!

What better way to celebrate 20 years of Start Software than a trip to explore what the next few years might bring?  We're having a full week of celebrations and events to mark our 20th birthday (watch out for another blog post next week), starting with a trip abroad for some of our team.

Our team headed to World Summit AI in Amsterdam (@WorldSummitAI #WSAI) this week, swapping our usual surroundings for conference stages, demonstrations and a chance to explore the latest developments in artificial intelligence.

And we certainly made ourselves easy to spot!

The Start Software team at World Summit AI, sporting our special 20th anniversary T-shirts

AI is already an important part of how we work at Start. We use it to help develop software, explore ideas and improve customer support.  AI is being used within Alpha Tracker now and customers are using AI to work with Alpha Tracker.  Taking time together to see what’s happening across the wider industry helps us think about where we can take that work next.

A packed auditorium at World Summit AI—plenty of interest in where AI is heading!

For our customers, the opportunities are practical: reducing repetitive tasks, making information easier to find and giving people more time to do the work that needs their expertise.

Our own AI-powered Helpdesk is one example. It helps us resolve queries more quickly and flag recurring problems, so we can track whether their underlying causes have actually been addressed.

Of course, with a team of software developers at a technology conference, the laptops were never going to stay closed for long…

There’s always time to open a laptop—even between conference sessions! Dan & Judy featured

The visit was also a chance to get the team together - from the UK, Australia, Indonesia and Kosovo, share ideas and look beyond our day-to-day projects. This unusual view captures the gathering rather well!

A different perspective on the team—and a memorable photo from our Amsterdam visit.

And then there were the robots. A humanoid robot with its robot dog companion is certainly a change from the people you normally meet at a software conference!  Physical AI was a big topic at the conference showing how far the AI world has come over the last decade.

Twenty years ago, we began building software to help people run their businesses. The tools available to us have changed enormously, but that purpose remains the same.

Here’s to bringing fresh ideas into our next chapter—and perhaps leaving the robot dog in Amsterdam for now!

PS This was the back of our celebration t-shirts...

All smiles (nearly) at NORAC! Kim & Jamie are ready to talk Alpha Tracker and our new software platform... codename "Elements"

Kim & Jamie are at the NORAC Conference in Manchester today, and their photos give us a little flavour of the day: a room full of asbestos professionals, our Alpha Tracker stand ready for visitors, and two smiling faces (well, one... that's as close as we get to a smile from Jamie!).

Kim & Jamie

As we mentioned in yesterday’s post, they’re there to answer your Alpha Tracker questions, hear your ideas and give you a look at our brand new software platform.

Kim at the Alpha Tracker stand — coffee and chocolates at the ready!

Whether you already use Alpha Tracker in your asbestos consultancy or want to find out how it could help your consultancy, pop over for a chat. Bring along that “how do I…?” question, tell us about a task you’d love to make easier, or ask for a quick demonstration. Kim & Jamie can also arrange a longer live demo for you in October.

Delegates gathering in the conference room

Events like NORAC are a valuable chance to listen to the people using our software and hear about the challenges facing asbestos consultancies. Those conversations help shape what we develop next.

If you’re at NORAC today, come and say hello — and don’t leave without asking to see what’s new!

Support Desk Performance: September 2026

Our Support Desk team solved 881 support requests during September 2026. This represents a return to typical volume following the quieter month of August, and is consistent with the number of tickets resolved in the same period last year.

Across the Start Software product family—including Alpha Tracker, Greenfield, and ecoScribe—we completed 89.78% of all requests within their target response and resolution times. For high-priority requests, this figure was 94.19%.

Our year-to-date performance is as follows:

• 8,076 total requests solved.
• 7,433 completed within target response and resolution times.
• 1,423 high-priority requests completed within target times.

Compared with August, the team handled a significantly higher workload, resolving 141 more requests than the previous month. Despite this increase in volume, our efficiency improved, with the percentage of requests completed on time rising from 87.28% to 89.78%.

The majority of requests this month related to Alpha Tracker, which accounted for 629 of the solved tickets. We also saw steady activity across our other products, including Greenfield. From a regional perspective, the UK desk handled 695 requests, while our Australia and New Zealand teams resolved 174.

The most common themes for support this month involved data queries and server disk space management. We have also focused on document production queries and addressing software bugs identified during use. Our team added 13 new articles to the knowledge base this month to assist with self-service and identified 106 further opportunities to improve our documentation and automated help systems.

We would like to thank our Support Desk team for their hard work during a busy month and our customers for their continued feedback and cooperation.

If you require technical assistance, please contact the Support Desk in the usual way or visit our support page: Start Software support.

Heading to NORAC? Look out for Kim & Jamie from Alpha Tracker!

Kim and Jamie are heading to the NORAC Conference tomorrow, Thursday 1 October, at the Manchester Marriott Victoria & Albert Hotel. If you’re going too, make sure you say hello!

Jamie & Kim at NORAC 2026

Whether you’re already an Alpha Tracker user or simply curious about what our software could do for your asbestos consultancy, they’d love to chat.

Ask them anything about Alpha Tracker. Bring your questions, share your ideas, or tell them about that everyday task you’d love to make easier. It’s a great opportunity to talk through how you work and what you need from your software.

And if you’d like a sneak peek at what’s new, ask Kim and Jamie to show you our brand new software platform! We’re excited to give you a look and hear what you think.  They can also book you in for a live demo in October.

We always enjoy catching up with clients and meeting new people from across the asbestos industry. Those conversations help us understand your challenges and shape what we develop next.

See you at NORAC — and don’t be shy about asking for a demo!

AI and Alpha Anywhere: Robin shares practical tips in latest Alpha Software webinar

Can AI help you understand an unfamiliar Alpha Anywhere component, improve your Xbasic code or check the design of a running application?

Start Software’s Robin Bennett has just presented a webinar with Alpha Software showing how to put AI to work on real Alpha Anywhere projects. The recording will be available on YouTube in a few days, so keep an eye out if you missed the live session.

Robin ready to present

Robin started with a look back at his June 2023 webinar, in which he demonstrated creating a universal database generator with ChatGPT and Alpha Anywhere.

Three years ago! Back when Alpha webinars were 50 minutes long and we were experimenting with free AI tools. These days, Start Software’s monthly AI spend runs into four figures — a reflection of how much these tools have become part of our everyday work.

Robin even wondered whether that early demonstration meant he could claim to have invented “vibe coding”. We’ll leave that debate to the historians!

This time, the focus was on practical ways Alpha developers can use AI, including:

• Planning an application: turning an idea into suggested screens and a database structure, using a travel and memories app for a 30th wedding anniversary as an example.

• Improving Xbasic: asking AI to review code, suggest optimisations and help investigate errors, including errors supplied as screenshots.

• Reviewing API code: exploring improvements to an existing REST API, including authorisation with a separate API key for each operation.

• Understanding a component: supplying an Alpha Anywhere UX component saved in JSON format and asking AI to explain its behaviour and identify possible bugs.

• Checking design consistency: using ChatGPT’s agent capabilities to navigate a web application and review its screens.

These are useful starting points for anyone maintaining or developing an Alpha application. AI can help you investigate unfamiliar code, explore an idea and spot things that deserve closer attention. Developer review and testing remain essential.

At Start Software, that work builds on experience with Alpha Anywhere stretching back to 2011. We develop and support business applications worldwide, working across Alpha Anywhere, Alpha TransForm and Alpha Cloud.

UPDATE: The webinar is now on YouTube for you to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqxx2qGed9E