We recently reached a huge milestone in our business story - the 10th birthday of Green Custard! With the date being too special to celebrate on just a single day, we're sharing lots of exciting stories and knowledge with you throughout the year to mark a decade of innovation.

This month, we give you an insight into the journey of the business in the ever-changing world of software through the eyes of our founders, James and Jonathan. Whilst interviewing them separately, we had to smile as they gave us almost identical answers - a true sign of synced-up success!

So here we have it, a question for each year of Green Custard's life so far ...

1. Why did you start Green Custard?

We are entrepreneurs at heart, so initially Green Custard was born to explore our own start-up ideas. We wanted to experiment in the mobile space too, so wrote a game called Extreme Sheepdog Trials which was really rather fun!

Since then the business has morphed into helping other people with their businesses, which is equally as satisfying.

2. What has been Green Custard's greatest achievement to date?

We're most proud of the team we've created and retained here at Green Custard. They are incredibly capable and at the top of their game, but also a lovely bunch of people.

3. What has been Green Custard's biggest challenge in the last 10 years?

Establishing our identity. This is a lot harder than it looks, particularly in those formative years when the company evolves greatly and you learn so much. We're proud to now have a set of values which are intertwined in everything we do.

4. If you had a time machine, what would you tell your 2009 selves?

Focus and take calculated risks. The temptation is to earn money wherever you can, whether or not the work is core to what you do. Sometimes it's better to survive on a little less money, but spend your time on the bigger picture / long term.

5. What is your favourite part about running Green Custard?

The variety of problems we solve and applying our creativity to come up with suggestions/improvements that the customer hasn't even considered.

6. What is the best piece of advice you have received in the past decade?

"It's not what you do, it's what you choose not to do..."

7. Who should we be watching / who do you admire in the software world?

The young in general, they will do things differently and not be scared to tackle big issues. A great example of this is when we heard at Google I/O about the teen who developed ML for breast scans.

8. The software industry has evolved greatly over the past decade, what's been the biggest surprise?

The variety of problems that can be solved with AI / Machine Learning (especially when you consider that it's just a giant polynomial). Ten years ago many would never have thought that so much would be solvable using computers.

9. What changes do you predict in the world of software over the next 10 years?

More distributed control and ownership, ML and IoT to really start to address global challenges.

10. What does the future look like for Green Custard?

On our current trajectory, we'd have to say great! We're really looking forward to growing more and achieving some of our longer-term goals like giving back to Cambridge and the wider community.

Watch this space for more articles in our 10th-anniversary celebration series. In the meantime, thank you to all of our customers, team members and partners for being by our side throughout our journey so far. Here's to the next 10 years!