Employee Empowerment: Turning a Service-Based Agency into a Co-op Products Company
Situation: I founded Bold Interactive, the eighth B-corp to be certified in North Carolina, in 2006. I had built a robust clientele of impactful organizations including non-profits, green companies, social enterprises, public education, and research organizations. Soon, the company found its niche in higher education, which displayed a stronger inclination towards data-driven decision making and a sizable budget for achieving significant goals. We rebranded to Verified Studios and gained a considerable reputation for cracking the code on scalable and affordable student recruitment winning industry awards and speaking at national conferences like SXSW EdX.
Task: After 15 years, my interests veered towards local community impact and equity work, the challenge then was to maintain the agency's momentum and relevance in an increasingly competitive market flooded with low-cost solutions and offshore talent. Recognizing our agency's storied 15-year history and diverse, talented team, my goal was to devise a strategy that not only honored our past achievements and shared mission but also facilitated a transformation into something fresh and innovative. My ambition was to form an employee run co-op that could step up, take over daily operations, and spearhead the transition to a more product-focused organization.
Action:
Employee Investment and Co-Op Transition: I invited the employees to become partners in the newly envisioned co-op for a very low buy-in relative to the company value. They would then leverage the profits from a recently-signed project to self-fund the transformation.
Identification of New Goal: In a series of meetings, the team collectively decided to democratize the best practices we’d developed over the past 15 years. We planned to create technologies that would be wildly effective, yet could be easily deployed and would remain affordable for colleges and universities across the country. This would be marketed under the brand Invisible.us.
Product Development: Over a year and a half, the team was able to capture and reinvest about $140,000 of profit to develop three unique plugins. Each plugin was targeted towards a specific aspect of higher education marketing: program centric marketing, prospect career exploration, and study abroad engagement.
Role Allocation: I served as the subject matter expert for the creation of the products and campaigns. Meanwhile, my partners were responsible for product design, product development, content creation, marketing materials, and marketing execution.
Sales Team Recruitment and Marketing Strategy: To bring the new offering to market, we recruited experienced sales professionals. We also devised a comprehensive marketing strategy to launch the plugins effectively.
Result: Invisible.us now stands on the cusp of launching these products into the market. The tools we have developed are set to save colleges and universities between $15,000 and $500,000 per website, while providing a foundation web experience that will provide superior returns on their digital marketing spend. Our switch to a co-op model ensures that all team members will share equally in the financial rewards of the company's future success.
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