Evolve Assess joined Unseen in 2024, greatly complimenting the Group’s assessment and selection offering. We speak to Richard Anderson, Founder and MD of Evolve Assess about starting his business and how things have developed since the acquisition.

Can you tell us about the early days of starting your business? What inspired you to create Evolve Assess?

I do look back on the early days fondly: an “office” (which was in my small dining room), spending days upon days cold calling and sending email after email, just to try and generate some initial conversations – completely winging it. My wife had I had just welcomed our first baby to the world, which added another added layer of fun!

Did you always picture yourself as a Founder and business owner?

Yes, always. I think there’s a distinction between being a business founder and a business owner, too. For me, it wasn’t particularly about ‘owning’ the business, but a personal challenge I set myself to see if I can get something off the ground and fortunately it ended up working pretty well.

What was the biggest challenge you faced as a business before joining the Group, how did you overcome it?

I’d say there are two big challenges – one that’s probably ubiquitous among business founders, and one might be personal to me: cashflow and responsibility.

On cashflow: in the early days, I had one very scary moment when an invoice was late in being paid to us and it didn’t arrive until literally 2 days before I was due to pay my staff – it was a horrendously stressful time (and one I know many other business founders have gone through). Fortunately, it never came that close to the wire again!

On responsibility: when you’re working as an employee of a business, you never think (or at least I didn’t) about the huge responsibilities that business owners have – and that’s certainly a challenge. Whether it’s invoices (see point 1), security, performance… as the business founder/owner, you are the one that the buck stops with and it’s all on your shoulders.

“my life [is] so much easier, and it’s great to have other people to share challenges with and come up with solutions together.”

What was it that attracted you to Unseen? Was it the people, our values? Was it an exciting opportunity for growth?

Truthfully, it was the first conversation I had with Zac. I had known for a little while that I wanted to sell the business; I was very proud of what we had achieved, bootstrapping for 7 years and growing year on year – but there was no question we needed additional support. When I was first connected with Zac I got a great feeling right from the get-go. He was genuinely passionate about what we were trying to do.

I was inspired by the journey that Zac and the group had been on and hugely impressed by the companies already in the portfolio and the reputations that they have. And when I heard the vision for the future I knew for sure I wanted to be a part of it. When we started going through the due diligence process and I got to meet some of the other talented and passionate members of the group like John, James, Dee, Theo and Sean, and I knew that I was making the right decision.

How did the Evolve Assess team feel about becoming a part of the wider Unseen Group? Have any new members fit in well with existing ones? Do you think they have you learnt anything new, or taught the group anything?

I know that change can be a daunting proposition for people, but every member of my team was so positive and enthusiastic about the change. From the very first Unseen Group All Hands meeting we had, which gave them a chance to learn about the other businesses, they were completely sold. We’re lucky in that we have other companies in the Group who are in a similar sector, and we’ve already started collaborating together, and working closely with other group members, which – of course – makes me very happy.

Joining Unseen has been a real shot in the arm for Evolve Assess. Our team have learned so many new things that wouldn’t have been possible to learn beforehand: group organisational values, HR practices, a finance function, etc. The beauty of the Unseen Group is that they adopt and implement best practices that a large company would have, but have values and working arrangements very similar to the smaller businesses that they acquire, so it’s genuinely the best of both worlds.

There are some clear synergies between Evolve Assess and other companies within the Group. But what’s the personal growth been like for you?

I’ve had huge benefits personally: being able to leverage the massive amounts of knowledge and expertise across the group has been fantastic – working closely with the senior leadership team, the accounts team, and IT have made my life so much easier, and it’s also great to have other people to share challenges with and come up with solutions together.

Finally, what's next for Evolve Assess? What's the big ambition over the next couple of years?

To keep growing! We’ve been lucky enough to have year-on-year growth since inception, and there’s certainly no reason to think that will stop, as we continue to deliver ever-better assessment solutions to new and existing clients.

We can promise new functionality: enhancing our remote proctoring functionality and reporting suite to ensure that we are best in class test platform on the market. We’re hugely ambitious and we’re looking forward to welcoming more clients and solving more problems throughout 2025 and beyond. Watch this space!