Thank you to our amazing team and clients for their collaboration and partnership over the years, allowing Mind Machine to make it into San Francisco Business Times’ Fast 100 Growing Private Companies in the Bay Area list. As part of this recognition, our CEO, Dean Zikria, was interviewed by the journal to find out the secrets that have made Mind Machine so successful, despite the negative economic headwinds.
What do you think fuels your company’s growth?
We have a stellar team, 90% plus of which have stuck with our agency since inception or when they came aboard. Our ability to attract and retain talent in uncertain economic times has been an enormous advantage. This stability helps us deliver consistent high quality strategies and campaigns to our clients month-after-month. Secondly, we are selective in which clients we do business with. We work with clients who produce life science offerings — medtech, biopharma, digital health, etc. — that are highly innovative, demonstrate clear efficacy and are safe to use. Our client selectivity has allowed us to leverage our capabilities in increasing awareness and sales and profitability for our clients.
In a highly competitive environment, how do you differentiate your products or services to attract and retain customers?
As the demand for our services grew, we realized that we could not bring on talent fast enough to engage new clients on larger projects. We started to onboard talent sooner than we actually required them. We would use their initial down time to teach them our tech stack — project management software, communication tools, etc. We had to spend capital on talent before they became productive. This increased our costs, but also allowed us to be ready to engage with new clients rapidly, which allowed us to win new work and be successful with these clients right out of the gate.
