How Malcolm Brechin created Invent Group

‍Hi Malcolm! What's your elevator pitch?

Invent Group helps organisations turn big ideas and new technology into things that actually work. We bring together strategy, AI, data and digital expertise to build smarter products, stronger systems and better ways of working.

It's about cutting through complexity, moving faster and using technology where it genuinely makes a difference, improving how organisations perform today while creating the capability they need to grow tomorrow.

Why does the market need it?

The market isn't short of consultants who can tell you what to do, technology providers who can sell you a solution, or developers who can build what you ask for. The problem is that these often happen in isolation. Strategy stops at a recommendation, technology is introduced without solving the underlying problem, and products are built without a route to adoption or scale. Organisations can also become dependent on external partners to maintain what has been created, and the long-term business case gets overlooked. 

We take a different approach. We bring strategy, product thinking, AI, data, technology and implementation together around the problem that needs solving, rather than starting with a predetermined technology. We design, build and embed the right capability, and we don't consider the job finished when something launches. We make sure it works in practice, that people can use it confidently and that the organisation is equipped to develop and scale it over time.

We're not selling technology or creating dependency. We're building a capability that lasts.

Where is the business today?

I think we're in a very good place for an early-stage business. Invent Group is entering its next phase – moving from building capability to proving it at scale. We’ve just brought one product to the mass market – Bid King, an AI-powered platform that helps sales teams win work, faster. And we have a legal product, Vericase, and an education sector solution, Schools-safe, due for imminent launch.

They mark the beginning of a growing portfolio spanning different sectors and use cases. But our ambition is bigger than launching individual products. We're building an engine for repeatedly identifying opportunities, creating the technology to address them, and turning that capability into products and businesses that can scale.

What made you think there was money in this?

All of us have been in business a long time, particularly developing tech for the market and taking tech products to market. So we didn't start by looking for a market to chase. We started by looking at problems worth solving.

Working with organisations across different sectors, we kept seeing the same thing – complex, time-consuming processes, fragmented information and teams relying on systems that weren't designed around how they actually work. At the same time, AI was creating entirely new ways to solve those problems, but it didn’t mean businesses know how. That became the opportunity behind Invent Group.

Bid King, Vericase and Schools-safe are the first proof of that model. We believe they have real commercial potential and can become market leaders in the UK and then in other countries. That's where the money is.

What's your biggest strength?

We bring 25 years of experience building and scaling businesses, the resilience that comes from navigating multiple markets, and a proven track record of building technology across different sectors. But our biggest strength is what we do with that experience. We don't just identify opportunities, we have the capability to turn them into something real.

Strategy, product thinking, AI, data, technology, implementation and wider go-to-market mechanisms, all sit under one roof. That means we can take a problem from first conversation through to a working solution, embed it properly and, where the opportunity exists, turn it into a product that can scale. We're not tied to a particular technology, sector or predetermined solution.

What is the secret to making the business work?

A good idea is only the starting point. The real challenge is turning it into something people genuinely need, will use and ultimately pay for.

That means staying relentlessly focused on the problem rather than getting carried away by the technology. AI is moving incredibly quickly, and it's easy to build something impressive that doesn't actually create value. Our approach is to understand the problem deeply, build quickly, test in the real world, listen to the people using it and keep refining. Just as importantly, you have to know when to push forward and when to walk away.

After 25 years of building and scaling businesses, one lesson stands above the rest – ideas create opportunity, but disciplined execution creates businesses.

How do you market the company?

Our strongest marketing will be what we build and the results it creates. We're not interested in making noise for the sake of it. We want to demonstrate what Invent Group can do through the products we launch, the problems we solve and the value we create for organisations and partners.

As we bring our first products to a wider market, our marketing is evolving. We're combining targeted digital activity, PR, content and strategic partnerships with the relationships and reputation we’ve built in our professional careers to date. 

Ultimately, we want people to discover us through proof rather than promises. If we ‘invent’ products people want to use and create measurable value, that's a far more powerful marketing tool than telling people how innovative we are.

What funding do you have? Is it enough?

Invent Group has been entirely self-funded to date. That was a deliberate choice, and it has given us the freedom to build the business, develop our technology and bring our first products to market on our own terms. It has also created discipline. When you're investing your own capital, every decision has to stand up commercially, and that's a mindset we want to keep as we grow.

Do we have enough? We have enough to continue building and executing our current plans, but our ambitions are significant. As the portfolio develops and we prove the commercial potential of our products, we will look at external investment to accelerate that growth. For us, raising capital wouldn't be about funding an idea or filling a gap, but finding the right partner to help us scale something we have already built, validated and invested in ourselves.

Tell us about the business model

Invent Group operates a portfolio model, so there isn't a single business model across everything we do. Each product is built around a different market, customer and commercial opportunity, and its revenue model reflects that. Some are subscription-led, creating recurring revenue, while others are based on licences, usage or longer-term commercial agreements. 

Alongside our own products, we will also earn revenue by working with established companies that want to build intelligent systems to streamline complex workflows, in-house. For these projects, we charge consultancy fees quoted according to the scope of the project and the professional services required. 

What makes the model work is the shared capability behind it. Strategy, product development, AI, data, technology and implementation sit within Invent Group rather than being recreated for every new venture, so we can apply what we learn across the portfolio and become more efficient as we grow.

Our focus isn't simply on launching products, it's on building sustainable businesses around them. That means understanding customer acquisition costs, margins and the route to break-even from the outset, while being disciplined about where we invest and what we choose to scale.

What were you doing before?

Invent Group is really the culmination of what we've both been doing for the past 25 years. My background has been in helping businesses scale and taking products and technology to market across healthcare, legal, finance and procurement. I've held numerous director-level positions, which has given me experience not just in launching ideas, but in understanding what it takes commercially and operationally to turn them into sustainable businesses.

Sam brings the other side of that equation. He has built award-winning technology and mobile applications from the ground up across recruitment, healthcare, legal and education, and was previously a founder of a successful technology company. That combination of commercial experience and the ability to actually build the technology is a big part of Invent Group.

As for technology we find useful, we've always been early adopters, but AI has fundamentally changed what is possible. Smaller, experienced teams can now research, prototype, build and test at a speed that wasn't possible a few years ago. But technology isn't valuable simply because it's new. The most useful technology removes friction, solves a genuine problem or lets you do something that wasn't possible before, and that principle sits at the heart of how we build.

We also appointed a CSO (chief strategy officer) with the equivalent 25 years’ experience in design, brand and marketing. He has further bolstered the skills of our board and helps ensure the commercial, market readiness of the products we create.

What is the future vision?

To build Invent Group into a trusted partner that repeatedly turns complex problems and emerging opportunities into businesses and products that can scale. Bid King, Vericase and Schools-safe are the beginning, not the end goal. We want to shape a growing portfolio across different markets, while continuing to work with organisations and partners to solve problems, develop new ideas and create new ventures.

Ultimately, we want Invent Group to be known not for one product or one technology, but for our ability to see what's next and build it – testing, validating and taking each new invention to market faster, every time. 

‍