One of the founders of insurance sites LifeDirect, Quotemonster and Trade Me Insurance is launching a new venture, which he claims will deliver a digital boost for New Zealand businesses.

Conor Sligo, alongside co-founders Fran Bellingham and Martina Saville, has unveiled Virtual Product People. The new venture aims to connect talented techies with businesses hungry for a digital boost. The idea is that Virtual Product People will match businesses with the right specialists for the right stage of their digital journey. They will provide one-off or ongoing services, including product strategy and management; concept validation and rapid prototyping; user research and experience; digital design; analytics and data science; conversion rate optimisation for online sales platforms; and website and mobile app development.

Natural sectors will be insurance, fintech, health and eCommerce but they will also be a logical fit for a range of SMEs, Sligo said.

“The sweet spot will be helping companies with lean product validations,” Sligo noted. “It could be any business which wants to use tech to scale.”

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“Our clients are typically organisations with under 50 employees,” Saville noted. “All have a need for a digital presence or product, ranging from brochure sites, to sites with a product element (like an online sign up for an offline service), to complex digital products, like tools, ecommerce sites and marketplaces.

“The best part about our work is building relationships with passionate founders and business owners, and making a real difference to them,” Saville added.