Tech visionary urges firms to empower staff

The co-founder of the world’s first visual discovery browser has urged firms to empower their staff to help drive growth.

Jess Butcher of Blippar told delegates at the Entrepreneurial Scotland summit of the challenges as her company moved from a start-up to an accelerated growth business.

She said Blippar began to rapidly scale at the same point she had her first child.

In that period, the business went from around 30 staff to a workforce of 150 and Ms Butcher said she later realised that her maternity absence had actually forced her to empower the team around her.

“I was a typical entrepreneur who wanted to own and make every decision,” she said.

“That was the luxury of the start-up years, you could do that.

“But that is not the case when you are on maternity leave.

“What I learned is I had to empower the people behind me in my absence.

“When I came back I realised that if I kept that earlier mentality I could never have scaled up my area of the business.

“It was then that I was for empowering people in business.”

Despite having scaled, Ms Butcher said Blippar’s journey was far for complete.

She said the company’s ultimate vision was for Blippar to “become a verb” and be part of people’s daily lives.

Blippar co-founder Jess Butcher.