Tangible growth metrics like employee headcount and product sales help outsiders assess how well a company is doing from a financial perspective. But as an internal leader, you must also consider factors like team makeup and company culture.
In part two of a two-part series, we asked five New York tech executives what factors they think most contributed to their growth and what direction they plan on taking the company in 2020. They mentioned quantitative wins like expanding into larger office spaces, as well as more long-term objectives like fostering a positive work environment.
Building a business requires being two steps ahead at all times. While Benjamin Jones, founder and CEO of Ohi, is preparing for a year of rapid development, he’s able to reflect on how far the logistics company has come. In Jones’s case, he remembers working as a solo employee. He has recently secured an office space dedicated to a growing team, with whom he credits his success.
Tell us how Ohi got to the precipice of rapid growth, what the biggest factors contributing to its growth and success moving forward will be.
It’s been a crazy journey so far. Nine months ago, it was just me in a WeWork with a laptop. I had no employees and very little money. Now we’re working with numerous brands, having scaled our platform across NYC and LA, with thousands of orders flowing through our system monthly. And we’re finally moving out of co-working into our own office.
By far the biggest contributor to that success has been our team. It’s amazing how hiring top-quality people can accelerate the business. Everyone here has the mentality of focusing on their goals and exceeding them from all angles. As we go into 2020 and continue our rapid expansion, continuing to hire the best people will be my biggest focus.
It’s amazing how hiring top-quality people can accelerate the business.’’
What does growth look like for Ohi over the next year?
We expect 2020 to be a huge year for Ohi, as we continue to expand into new cities within the U.S. and demonstrate that our micro-warehousing platform can really replace the traditional, old-fashioned, 3PL. We have partnerships lined up with brands who’ll soon be offering same-day delivery to their customers and we’ll continue to build out our technology in order to enable a truly distributed fulfillment network.
I’m most excited about the experience that consumers will be able to have as we continue to expand. By the end of 2020, we believe that consumers will expect same-day delivery from the brands they work with, powered by Ohi’s technology.
While Teachable CFO Tabitha Hickman has her sights set on client expansion in the new year, she told us that the team is also working to keep current customers drawn to the online course platform via new product releases. It’s a significant task, but doable...considering the company plans to hire over 70 new employees this year.
Tell us how Teachable got to the precipice of rapid growth, what the biggest factors contributing to its growth and success moving forward will be.
In the past two years, Teachable has grown revenue by around 70 percent. Our headcount has more than doubled during that same time. Our success has been driven by the trajectory of the creator economy (our customers), strong product-market fit and, most importantly, the diverse and talented team we’ve built.
The number of creators seeking to monetize their knowledge continues to grow, as does the universe of people seeking to learn online. That provides a nice tailwind to our business. We’ve continued to innovate to support these creators, most recently with offerings that make it easier for them to get paid. I believe that the same things that got us to where we are will drive us forward: a market with supportive creators, our product and our team.
We’re projecting revenue growth of over 70 percent.’’
What does growth look like for Teachable over the next year?
We expect to continue and accelerate our growth in 2020. We’re projecting revenue growth of over 70 percent. While this is in line with historical trends, it’s obviously harder to keep growing at the same rate as we get bigger.
To drive this growth, we’ll be adding over 70 new team members in 2020, hiring for every department across Teachable. We will drive revenue by attracting more creators and helping the customers that we have become even more successful through new product releases. I’m particularly excited about some of the new features we are launching, including the ability to sell more than courses through Teachable, as well as tools that will keep our creators compliant with regulations like tax and privacy laws.
Google participated as an initial investor in Neverware’s 2017 Series B funding round. With that accomplishment, Director of Marketing Drew Darnbrough told us that the team is focused on expanding its platform both nationally and internationally in 2020, as well as generating greater global awareness.
Tell us how Neverware got to the precipice of rapid growth, what the biggest factors contributing to its growth and success moving forward will be.
We launched CloudReady in February 2015 as a desktop operating system aimed at U.S. K-12 education. We wanted to give budget-strapped schools a way to turn old, slow computers into fast and modern devices that deliver the same experience as a Chromebook.
Since then, we’ve closed a Series B round of funding led by Google LLC and have expanded CloudReady’s footprint across the educational world and enterprise space. We’ve seen that many organizations, particularly those with an eye to the future of computing, are eager to shed the hassles and expense of managing legacy Windows devices. Companies and institutions want something that maps how they view the future but is pragmatic enough to work in the present.
We’re committed to continuing the success we’re experiencing in education in the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific.’’
What does growth look like for Neverware over the next year?
As we look to 2020, we’re committed to continuing the success we’re experiencing in education in the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific. But we’re also focused on two other initiatives: increasing global awareness of the CloudReady brand and, in lockstep, growing our enterprise and overall consumer user base via our free home edition. In our first five years, we have developed, marketed and sold an operating system. In our next five years, we will be solidifying CloudReady as an operating system that offers organizations something unique and compelling: a highly secure, fast and modern OS that runs on any hardware.
In the company’s first year of business, Meero went from an idea to a 130-employee operation. Julien Zakoian, CEO of North America and CMO, told us that he emphasizes transparency and a positive work environment to retain talent as the platform for photographers evolves.
Tell us how Meero got to the precipice of rapid growth, what the biggest factors contributing to its growth and success moving forward will be.
When we first opened our New York office last year, we were focused on hiring candidates who were energetic, kind and collaborative to meet our goal of hyper-growth. Few companies are lucky enough to find a solid product fit for a new market and achieve hyper-growth, but we understood how critical fostering a positive working environment would be to our goals. I’m honored to say that we successfully grew from zero to 130 employees in only 12 months.
Transparency is another essential element in our growth strategy, as we aim to help employees understand what roles entail, why decisions are made and how they can develop as professionals. We’re committed to maintaining these values in 2020 to continue our trajectory.
We expect to double the size of our team to around 300 employees by the end of 2020.’’
What does growth look like for Meero over the next year?
Over the next year, our objective is to enhance our company culture initiatives and continue to make Meero a positive place to work. We expect to double the size of our team to around 300 employees by the end of 2020.
We pride ourselves on the diversity of experiences that our employees bring from all walks of life. I’m particularly excited to continue bringing new voices into our New York office.
Dan Westgarth, North America GM at Revolut Technologies, puts the company’s product above all. Below, he told us about the evolution of that product from a prepaid credit card to a full-fledged fintech platform. Westgarth measures growth based on how many active users are currently on the platform in addition to how many employees are needed to support that demand.
Tell us how Revolut Technologies got to the precipice of rapid growth, what the biggest factors contributing to its growth and success moving forward will be.
We started out with a fairly interesting product: a prepaid card with an investment-banking grade foreign exchange system. Our clients could load this prepaid card in pounds and exchange those pounds into euros or dollars using the interbank exchange rate. That product had never been developed before. Our business grew much faster than we expected. We got to 100,000 customers in a short period of time, which made us rethink our strategy, who we wanted our investors to be, how much money we wanted to raise and how big we wanted to build the business.
At that time, we expanded people, teams, offices, our footprint and our product. We decided to widen our offerings into a full financial services banking insurance suite through welfare investment products, credit and cryptocurrencies. The trajectory increased. As of today, we’re opening around a million depository accounts every month. I would say that what has made us successful so far is putting product first and solving real problems for our customers.
What has made us successful so far is putting product first and solving real problems for our customers.’’
What does growth look like for Revolut Technologies over the next year?
I measure growth by two metrics: the number of active users on our platform and the number of employees supporting that growth. The more customers you have, the more employees you need. Seeing customers use the product frequently is the most exciting part of that growth.
