Tuesday, 19 April 2022
A uniquely innovative and creative company, 3D issue specialising in digital publishing software, was set up in Donegal by entrepreneur and CEO Paul Mc Nulty after returning to his roots in Letterkenny from the USA. After taking a role with a local advertising company, Paul realised that there was a more efficient, effective and innovative way of expediting the sales process through the application of flipbook generators and this Paul recalls was “essentially my road to Damascus. I spotted a service that I could deliver and 3D Issue was born”.
Since their formation, Paul discussed how fortunate they were that “the product we created was validated immediately by the market and sales came in thick and fast which allowed us to grow organically”. From humble beginnings of providing a single product to their clients, Paul has been able to expand their service and product offering to better address the needs of their target markets.
Local and regional support agencies were significantly influential for the growth and development of 3D Issue over the years as Paul states “Both Enterprise Ireland and the Local Enterprise Office were very supportive of us while we grew, they provided us with numerous grants and project funding that allowed us to develop our products and team”. Local collaboration and networking are also important to the 3D Issue ethos as they avail of the services of other local businesses to create their software.
As a company which specialises in creating software that helps publishers maximise the content experience readers have when consuming content, they are acutely aware of a challenge publishers come up against where material is not adapted or responsive to the mobile audience “readers may have to pinch and pan out just to read a sentence”. The newest offering 3D Issue have developed for their clients is called ‘Experios’. Paul describes the product as “the evolution of our service to clients. Experios addresses that need by creating platform that allows publishers to convert their publications to responsive experiences without having any design or coding skills”.
Though physically based in Donegal, the business primarily deals with an international client base in regions including the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia. The geographic distance is a challenge that is easily overcome by Paul and his team at 3D Issue Paul discusses the primary challenge being “Time difference is the only hindrance to us”, a challenge easily overcome by the staff.
3D Issue was one of the early adopters regionally of remote working practices. Paul shares his thoughts on how they have embraced the new method of working “We were always comfortable with remote working as many of our engineers have always been remote. From the start, we have always had remote workers”. Due to their established experience with remote working and leading remote teams, when the pandemic hit in 2020, 3D Issue were able to migrate to a fully remote environment seamlessly.
Similarly, 3D Issue have adopted a modern ‘4 Day Working Week’ model for their employees. Paul explains that this “was born out of a retention strategy. Prior to Covid-19, I could see that there would be an emerging shift in how people were working”. The aim was to build a better culture within the business and create an environment where their staff were more efficient, productive and invested. The results of this shift speak for themselves with across the board increases in productivity, development, sales and a more refreshed workforce.
The future for 3D Issue is ever expanding with plans to take on more sales and marketing staff, with the intention of as many based in Donegal as possible. An online expansion is also on the horizon with constant refreshing and redesigning of the new website to be launched soon. Paul explains how he believes that “constantly innovating, testing and altering the website and various calls to actions is always top of our agenda”.
