"Four years after founding Plastic Mobile, my business partner, Sep Seyedi and I found ourselves at a crossroads.
By this time, our start-up had grown from an idea we hatched at 30,000 feet on a flight to Mexico into a 25-person mobile agency with a sprinkling of mobile apps under our belt. Our company had done pretty well so far, but our sights were set on the moon.
The launch of the iPhone had unleashed unprecedented demand for mobile applications, causing CTOs, CMOs and CEOs in boardrooms everywhere to huddle around the glow of an iPhone screen, explore the App store for the first time, and pronounce that they too, had to develop a corporate app. Sep and I knew if we could just angle the company into the right position, we could break into a newly-forming jetstream of revenue opportunities that was building around the new mobile market. With the right strategic moves, we could propel our company ahead. But how?
“If we could just angle the company into the right position, we could break into a newly-forming jetstream of revenue opportunities.”
No one on our team really knew that much about how to grow the business properly. That's why, on an April morning, we flew to NYC, walked into a Chelsea loft space with a picture-postcard view of lower Manhattan and sat down for the first time with Heather Thomas. We walked her through our credentials, case studies, aspirations—and the once-in-a-lifetime revenue opportunity that lay before us. Then, we asked her, "Can you help us grow our business?" As it turns out, she could—more so than we ever imagined.
Heather took stock of our marketplace opportunities, our marketable assets, and came up with a plan to propel our growth. The marketable assets we presented her with were a bit limited, but Heather wasn't fazed. Like one of those chefs that appear the cooking show, Chopped, Heather knew just how to assemble our somewhat rudimentary basket of ingredients together into a compelling creation.
She knew that we should lead with our best work. The next time we visited her in New York, we decided to go for a walk. As we climbed up the stairs at 14th Street at the Standard Hotel onto New York City's elevated park, the High-Line, Heather interviewed us about our most marketable project. One of our clients had just won a Webby-award for the Best Mobile App, beating out bigger competitors like Walgreens, Target and Gilt Groupe. But we hadn't marketed this great news properly yet—and weren’t sure how to turn it into a business development showpiece.
Twenty feet above the Manhattan streets, Heather took our fact-filled account of the project and re-packaged it, transforming it from a case study into an exciting “case story.” By the time we walked down the stairs again at 20th street, we had a suspense-filled, strategic narrative ready to take to the external world that conveyed not only our capabilities but also our company’s special DNA.
Heather then rolled up her sleeves to help us launch this "case story" into the marketplace and use it as a showpiece for our networking, business development and marketing efforts. She helped us get our story out into the world by helping us to secure sponsorships at our industry's most important conferences from Chicago to San Diego. She didn’t just spout theories or hand us PPT slides from her desk like many other strategists out there—she actually flew to the conferences with us and taught us how to work the conference floor and maximize the face-to-face opportunities we had.
“She didn’t just spout theories or hand us PPT slides from her desk like many other strategists out there.”
She also set up a series of meetings for us in the coffee shops of New York and on the phone with some of the most important thought-leaders, analysts and influencers in the mobile space. Before each meeting or presentation, she would coach us on how present our story and refine our message to make the best impression.
Soon after these efforts, we could feel that the trajectory of our company began to pick up some momentum. As a direct result of Heather’s efforts, we found ourselves the subject of a few small-scale, but important feature reports and articles. Our work got a featured as a “best-in-class example of UX design” by an influential analyst, an accolade which gave us a stamp of credibility with clients who may have otherwise been hesitant to trust a start-up. We even got written up in a major industry book, Outside In. And we won the affection of a few important industry influencers who began to track what we were doing.
As a result of these initial efforts, we began to notice an uptick in the RFPs and bottom-line business opportunities that began to come our way. While some of these initial pitch opportunities were a bit out of our reach, they were great learning opportunities for us to practice our swing. Amid the flurry of each pitch deadline, Heather worked into the evenings to coach our team so we could arrive at a place of clarity on what the client needed and our strategy to win. And “win” we did.
As we slowly built our our own business development and marketing team, Sep and I asked Heather to mentor and coach our young team. Having Heather on board enabled us to hire younger, less expensive talent with confidence, because we knew Heather could guide them. And mentor them she did. Heather taught the entire team how to do what she calls “Think Before we Ink,” helping us to become more strategic when planning and pitching. She also provided input into hundreds of decisions our team had to make week-to-week, from what new strategy to try, to how to improve our elevator pitch for our website.
“We began to notice an uptick in the RFPs and bottom-line business opportunities that began to come our way.”
Growing a company is never just just a forward-moving effort. Growth happens in fits and starts, and sometimes you take one step back before you can step forward again. We were certainly no exception and had ups and downs to our business. But we were tenacious, and few years later, it was clear we were doing something right, as we entered another stage of growth.
Our once minimal visibility had grown dramatically, our revenues had doubled, and we were considered a real player to beat in our space. Our growth had been so strong—we eventually posted 100% year-over-year growth—that we began looking to get acquired. Again, we called upon Heather. She connected us to Winsome’s M&A partner, who helped us attract the attention of a large marketing agency network, Havas. Havas ultimately invested in and acquired our company—one of our dream goals from the first day we started.
Today, we find ourselves in a whole different stage of growth. Our revenue has quintupled. We’re now part of a network of companies 19,000 people strong. We work with many dream clients who once seemed out of reach. And we have a strong and capable business development and marketing team. Through it all, Heather has been an integral part of our success. Although we have made the transition from being a “start-up” to being a bit more of “grown-up” these days, we still engage with Heather, and continue to soak up her great advice and mentoring. She's a true strategic partner who has made a big impact on our company. Our entire approach to growth is modeled after what she taught us.
“Heather has been an integral part of our success ... Our entire approach to growth is modeled after what she taught us.”
If you're a fast-growing company with strategic ambitions to grow, I highly recommend that you hire Heather. She's a great strategic advisor and mentor who isn’t afraid to roll up her sleeves to ensure your success."