Shane Meehan was working as Head of Marketing for a local authority when he was inspired to start his business. "I was bombarded by requests for council related photographs on a daily basis," Shane explains. "People from all over the world would phone the office looking for a photograph of a building, the Mayor or a council event and the process was incredibly time-consuming. It occurred to me how much easier it would be if we had a computerised database of photographs and media files which could be instantly accessed via the internet. The more I thought about it, the more I knew I had a legitimate business idea which would appeal to marketers across a multitude of industries."

Shane teamed up with web development experts, Anthony Kieran and Cecil Hetherington, to create Media Lightbox, a web-based digital asset management system which enables businesses to store, share and sell valuable media assets online.

"It's a user-friendly affordable solution for managing, storing, sharing, and selling large volumes of digital media assets such as images, video, presentations, and so on," Shane explains. "The system can centralise media assets and establish a systematic approach to storing files for a business of any type or size.".

Shane left his job at the end of 2006 and became a freelance consultant in order to set up Media Lightbox, but found that he still didn't have enough time to move the company forward. Being accepted onto the Transform programme changed that, as the funding he received meant he could step back from consulting and concentrate on developing the business.

"At last I could fully commit to Media Lightbox without worrying how I was going to pay the bills during the set up period" he says. "Transform also taught me about all the elements involved in running a business such as managing cash flow, understanding the legal implications, private fundraising, venture capital and product development. There is no doubt that the programme played a crucial role in getting us to where we are today."

Media Lightbox has already established a strong client base in both domestic and export markets and, within the next few years, Shane plans to develop the business to world leader status.