If you grew up on a varied diet of Dallas and Last of the Summer Wine, you are not alone.
Bobby Ewing and Compo had equal billing in our house growing up. But fast forward to 2022 and the oil state and Yorkshire, my home county, may have more in common than you think.
Leeds is a celebrated and expanding tech hub, home to the likes of MarTech scaleup Bidnamic, while Austin is the fastest-growing city in the US and a second home to many leading West Coast tech businesses including Facebook, Google and Tesla.
So impressed was Bidnamic by Austin, it has now opened its first international base there.
“Our aim was to look for a natural progression from our hub in Leeds, which is known as a growing creative and tech hub in the North of the UK,” explains Adam Ellmore, head of sales for Bidnamic in the US and UK.
“The team attended a wide range of industry events across the US. As our US client base grew and we built strong relationships, Austin was suggested to us as an appropriate base that would suit our drive for growth amongst like-minded companies.”
Young & student population
The Google Shopping eCommerce marketing platform, which raised £4 million in investment from Gresham House Ventures in June, has hired 12 new staff (pictured above) for the US base, adding to a 100+ global workforce.
Ellmore expands: “Austin has a very young population. Texas State University also adds a large student population to the city, making it similar to Leeds in being a great city to advertise jobs and attract young talent.”
There will be a focus on expanding R&D for its AI-powered cloud platform as well as servicing and growing a US client base which now makes up 20% of its total customers. Ellmore says it is a “huge market” for Bidnamic, whose US clients include Volcom and fashion marketplace Garmentory.
Ellmore and Tom Stephenson – who have worked with the company since it was founded in 2018 – will lead the US operation, developing young talent and building on the 700+ retailers and brands the company has worked with over the years.
“Our focus turned to the US at the end of 2019 following rapid growth in the UK. In February of 2020 we attended our first US eCommerce event in California,” says Ellmore.
“The process to launch in the US was [then] affected by the pandemic. However, it’s not been a particularly difficult journey: hard work and a team effort has got us to this new chapter in the company.”
Newly incorporated Bidnamic LLC will be based at the Capital Factory, a collaborative hub and community for tech startups in Austin.
The team will be attending a number of industry events, including Shopify in Las Vegas, Etail, and GROW in a number of locations across the country.
Research your market
So what piece of advice does Ellmore offer to companies looking to launch overseas?
“Make sure there is a market for what you do first,” he says. “We have been working with US clients since 2019, with US-focused sales teams in the UK working late shifts to prove that there was a need for our services.
“Attend face-to-face events and get a feel of the industry challenges and trends, while building strong relationships with many different companies. This allowed us to confidently forecast what can be achieved with a sales team on the ground in the US.”
He adds: “With the scale of growth at Bidnamic we can’t rule out more international offices in the future – watch this space.”
Forget profits – focus on tech to survive the first 12 months