WHEN Jerry Yang, founder of Yahoo, irked shareholders by snubbing a $47bn (£24.1bn) bid from the mighty Microsoft last week, it was hard to credit that the internet search firm was only 13 years old.

Aged 35, Microsoft is getting on by comparison, but both firms provide stunning examples of the way in which changing technologies can create hugely valuable markets in double-quick time.

In this week's SME Focus, we look at the case of an American technophile who has made a successful business in Scotland by helping demystify technology.

After starting out with nothing more than a bright idea and a spare room, Chris Rourke's success suggests there may be something in the claims made on Wednesday by Microsoft managing director Gordon Frazer that hopefuls could start a firm for the price of a family holiday.

Name: Chris Rourke.

Age: 42.

What is your business called? User Vision.

Where is it based? Edinburgh and London.

What services does it offer? Usability, the science of making things easier to use. We make things like websites, software, mobiles, adverts, packaging, thermostats easy for people to use and at the same time more profitable for the businesses behind them.

Often it requires identifying and removing various hurdles to online transactions that makes a real difference. For example, with a leading bank we provided advice on the content and flow of pages for selling payment protection insurance.

The changes implemented have resulted in a five-fold increase in sales of the product and, of course, much greater profitability of that part of the website.

To whom does it sell? We sell to the UK and Europe, and our clients include the BBC, Nokia, HSBC, Auto Trader and Honeywell.

What is its turnover? £1m this year.

How many employees? Eleven and growing.

When was it formed? 2000.

Why did you take the plunge? It was time to spread my wings and go it alone. I had lots of experience and wanted to expand my knowledge and the innovative services I could offer - working for someone else means you're restricted by their goals to a certain extent. I wanted the freedom to create new markets for usability and explore what would take web and product development to the next commercial level and point of competitive difference.

I recognised that there was going to be a greater need for usability as more people used the web. Although usability has been important in software design, a key difference on the web is that the user (or customer) is in the driver's seat and if they find a site difficult to use they will just go to a competitor site.

With software, typically, the user is either being paid to use it (ie, they are an employee) or have already bought a software package and will work their way through the difficulties eventually.

With the web it is much more immediate and companies trying to establish themselves online were coming to realise the importance of an easy-to-use interface.

I set up User Vision just at the start of the dot.com bubble bursting and one of the reasons why the high-profile Boo.com site came to a bad end was that it was highly unusable. It did not support user's decisions as they shopped and instead concentrated on fancy, bandwidth heavy graphics. It provided a bad experience, customers stayed away in droves and the company crashed.

Although all companies have websites, those with highly-usable sites will benefit from greater traffic and use of the site, especially in fields where someone can transact through different channels. For example, with banking there are branches or call centres as options, however the web is the least-expensive channel and a usable site is a strong competitive advantage.

Similarly, with products and software, people naturally gravitate to the easiest to use ones and companies that invest in usability benefit from it.

What were you doing before you took the plunge? I am from Boston, US, but emigrated here in 1990, having graduated with my Masters degree in ergonomics in addition to earlier studies in engineering psychology in the US.

I came to the UK to investigate work opportunities here. I had been a student at Loughborough University in England for a year as part of my undergraduate education and really liked it, so decided to see what working here was like.

My first job, which I had for nine years, was as a usability consultant for a consultancy in London called System Concepts. I enjoyed the role of consultant because of the variety of clients. It allowed me to have the satisfaction of seeing people benefit from changes to the design of products, work environments or software.

I then worked as a usability expert in a software company, SPSS, in London. In that role the fruits of my efforts were several months, perhaps years away, and I realised that I missed the buzz of working with different clients and seeing the effect of change immediately. So I moved to Edinburgh, started User Vision and was soon joined by the other director, Emma Kirk, and we have grown the team together. I've basically spent the past few years building on my earlier consultancy experiences and refining them.

How did you raise the start-up funding? We didn't - we started up with nothing other than a home office and went out to find business, often by running training courses to create awareness and understanding of the benefits of what we do to companies, their customers, and more importantly, their bottom line.

What was your biggest break? Our first big contract was with the former Department of Trade and Industry. The project involved the complete redesign of the business support site Businesslink which provides business information to start-ups and business owners.

We were taken on in a strategic role, creating and running a new programme of activity and evangelising usability through the organisation.

We conducted research with people who were starting or running businesses to find out what they wanted online and how best to organise it.

The insights gained by consulting with the actual user base throughout the redesign was invaluable and the site is now far easier to use.

We beat several London-based competitors to get the project and the scale of it allowed us to take on our first full-time staff and move out of a home office into serviced offices - we haven't looked back since.

What was your worst moment? Walking into that first serviced office in Edinburgh one day to find the landlord had closed up shop and we had to be out within a week. We had to act very quickly to find new premises for the meetings and training courses we had set up with clients. We managed this, thankfully and none of our clients guessed the pressure we were all under to keep their projects moving along.

What do you most enjoy about running the business? So much. The freedom to create my own destiny, finding opportunities and moving fast on them. It's so exciting working with large clients Europe-wide and making a positive difference to their business. Most of all, working with fantastic people in our team who take their work and our clients very seriously and are passionate about what they do.

What do you least enjoy? The shifting sands of multiple projects. We have several projects on the go at the same time and if one or two need to change the dates for usability testing, that has lots of knock-on effects to other projects, our staff and resources. Project planning is a constant challenge with so many clients.

What is your biggest bugbear? Never having enough time for everything, but I think that's a complaint many people have.

What is your ambition for the business? To continue to grow on our success, building longer-term relationships with more clients in the UK and Europe and finding new and challenging projects to undertake that keep the team inspired and challenged.

What are your top priorities? Recruit more staff; expand our business in London; find new clients in Europe; outsource functions like finance and HR so we can focus more on the business and create innovative services.

What single thing would help most? More consultants, something we are working towards.

What could the Westminster and/or Scottish governments do that would most help? Do more to support small businesses in tendering. Often contracts go to large, known suppliers who are not specialists but offer volume and a "safe pair of hands". In fact, the adage "no-one got fired for hiring IBM" often seems true.

There are many niche players with specialist skills that bring value to government and public sector bodies, so there should be room for them in procurement.

What was the most valuable lesson you learned? A happy team is a successful team. We keep our team inspired and ensure that when we recruit we get a good mix of people who can work well together, and bring new skills we can all learn from and that will benefit our clients.

How do you relax? Ultimate Frisbee and cycling.