They are the future for Glasgow and the West of Scotland's economy and are working hard to achieve success in the face of continuing economic hardship.

Many new businesses are struggling to take off because of the economic downturn, and this new column will offer advice for potential start-ups.

Each company will answer the same questions about their business and their answers will appear in the Evening Times each Wednesday.

This week we talk to Marco De Nichilo of Glasgow-based Swarmly.

Who are you?

I am Marco De Nichilo, Ayrshire (Kilwinning) born and bred.

I graduated in 2007 from UWS with a BSc Hons in Computer Networking. I graduated into a recession so I set up a small business for local IT support, but there wasn't enough money to be made in Ayrshire.

I still work at Gas Measurement Instruments in Inchinnan, but I want to build something of my own. As Steve Jobs said: "Put a ding in the universe."

My co-founder & CTO is David McNabb, a Glasgow-born family man, who holds a BSc Hons in Computer Science from Glasgow University. David is an independent IT consultant currently acting as Lead Solution Architect for a global bank.

What does your business do?

The premise of Swarmly is that more and more of us have and use smartphones to discover the places around us ... discovering and sharing places around us has never been easier.But have you ever wished there was an easy way to find out which of those areas/places/venue/events etc were bustling and buzzing?

We wanted to build a system that would let us use people's smartphones to automatically highlight busy places with an easy, flexible way for people to tag those venues or events with a description of what was going on there and also a positive, neutral or negative sentiment.

With enough users, we eventually build up a live map of what places are busy and what's going on around us in real-time.

Where are you based?

We are based in Glasgow. Mostly we work from home, but we go into Entrepreneurial Spark as often as possible due to the massive levels of free support and the infrastructure and support network built up around it.

How did you get started?

I have always been fascinated by technology and combining technologies to solve problems or find added benefits.

In late 2011, I built a simple prototype to make sure what I wanted to do was possible.

After I proved it was, I started looking for help to get the idea going. About a month later an old lecturer of mine told me about a newspaper story on guys launching a business incubator in Glasgow.

Those guys were Jim Duffy, Brian McGuire and Willie Haughey.

What is your background

Technical mainly. I graduated in Computer Networking, but I am currently a Software Development Engineer.

What is your top tip?

Only ever hire or work with people smarter or better than you.

How long has your business been running?

We started the company in January.

Has anyone helped you get started and how?

My family helped me cobble enough money together to build our minimum viable product.

Outside of that the only tangible help we have had (financial or otherwise) is from Entrepreneurial Spark, Jim Duffy, Lucy Rose Walker, Brian McGuire and Sir Willie Haughey.

What was your biggest mistake/or what would you do differently?

I wish I had started something sooner.

Where do you plan your business to be in five years time?

We want to be your go-to app when you want to know where is good and what is going on around you.

Contact: Marco De Nichilo

Website: www.swarmly.co

E-mail: hello@swarmly.co

Twitter: @swarmly