It was really exciting to get an award for Sustained Excellence at the EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2019. But while it was exciting for me personally (I’m not going to pretend it’s not fun to win awards…) what it really means is recognition and validation for our whole business, reflecting all our hard work and our commitment to sustainable growth.
Ever since Lee and I founded MiQ, we wanted to run a sustainable business, one that grew from the profit it made, not from external capital. That was a bit of risk. We’re a business working in an industry alongside bona fide tech giants, so getting clients to put their trust in you can be difficult, especially when we were just starting out.
But our sustainable strategy has paid dividends and set us up for long term success. I’m really proud that MiQ was profitable from its first quarter and it’s all down to the mantra that’s at the heart of our sustainability: we hire the best people and overdeliver for them. They overdeliver for our customers. Our customers keep putting their trust in us.
Because here’s the thing about our industry: it’s not that complicated. What clients want is what they’ve always wanted:
- Market-leading results
- Insights that let them learn about their business
- Consistent, robust service
- And transparent, trustworthy partners.
To be a business that can deliver that, you need two things: really smart technology and even smarter people.
We’ve worked really hard to develop the tech side. Unlike the tech giants in our space who focus on building rigid platforms, our proprietary tech is all built to create exact-fit solutions to the challenges marketers face. We abstract Big Data capabilities from media buying, then reform them into programmable services (APIs) that can be used and re-used to solve a whole host of marketing challenges.
But with tech alone, you can’t do anything. Human intelligence is what’s at the core of MiQ. Our hiring and retention strategy has two core pillars: to build a great culture where people can work hard and have fun doing it, and to over-deliver for all the company’s employees. That means great financial rewards – but also opportunities to lean, develop and have new experiences.
Once you do that, the great products and technology, the great customer service, the innovative ideas, the long-term clients and the growth will all follow.
And as we grow further, diversity has to be our focus, where people from all backgrounds and talents can come to MiQ and get the right tools and support to grow their career. Diversity isn’t just the right thing to do: it’s essential. More diversity leads to more diverse thinking which leads to more innovation and better results.
Over the next few years, we’ve got some big ambitions in terms of growth, but the key is always to do so in a sustainable way. And that means our strategy stays the same: hire great people, keep those people, innovate the best new products and then over-deliver for clients.
