Richard Shepherd had worked as an accountant and taught himself programming on a ZX81 in his spare time.
Due to the release of the ZX81's successor ZX Spectrum in April 1982 the company had to switch to the new machine.
A major step for the company was when retailer WHSmith ordered the adventure Transylvanian Tower for its stores in February 1983.
At this point Richard Shepherd quit his daytime job and focused on the software company.
Richard Shepherd's finance utility, Cash Controller, was the first Spectrum program to be designed to work with the ZX Microdrive.