New Direction

Most of the blog posts on here won’t be about me — this is an exception. 2015 has seen a bit of a change around here. More focus & a new direction of travel.

For those of you that never saw it, the old website used to say:

We’re not sure what describes us best, we’re either “a cloud CFD developer that does CFD consulting” or “a CFD consultancy with it’s own cloud platform.”

Well, besides dropping the royal we, I’ve decided to focus on developing the consulting business. CFD Engine is definitely “a CFD consultancy with it’s own cloud platform.” It’s been difficult to make progress with a split focus.

As far as revenue is concerned, this has always been a CFD consultancy. The cloud platform is an in-house tool that started down the road of a consumer tool & then did a U-turn. But even if it never makes it directly onto the screens of customers, they’ll always benefit from it. It’s the cloud platform that’s broadly responsible my dinky overheads and entirely responsible for scalability. I can turn around more models, much faster than I otherwise could as a solo operator — it lets me punch above my weight.

I’ve spent a while looking back at recent customer projects & found that the most enjoyable ones are those that I did for small design teams.  I like their direct lines of communication. I like their short decision cycles. I like their adaptable approach. I also like understanding the business goals of the work I’m doing. Small teams seem to have less of an issue with ideas “not invented here”. They also seem to have less problem importing expertise when they need it. I’m sure I can deliver many times more value to a small design team than I can as a subcontractor or as part of a giant project team.


With all that in mind I’ve decide to focus on small design teams and target my CFD services. I’m particularly aiming at teams that are evaluating what CFD can do for them, their products and their business. 

So, to go with the new website, there are 3 new products/services that are squarely aimed at small design teams. There’s something for people not sure if CFD would be a good investment. Something for people who might otherwise be about to buy CFD software. And something for people who know what they need from their CFD. You can find out more about them on the homepage.

For the foreseeable future, I’m focussed on making my CFD consulting better, both for me and for customers. That will be changes to the cloud-platform to deliver more results, even quicker. Or front-end changes to make the services more delightful. Richer notification emails, better results comparison tools and eventually, collaboration are all on the roadmap. But most of all I’m keen to talk to small design teams so that I can evolve the new offerings to fit you guys.