Business in Vancouver's "How I Did It" feature asks business leaders to explain in their own words how they achieved a business goal in the face of significant entrepreneurial challenges. In this week's issue, Michael Wormald, founder of Evoda Group Digital Agency, talks about the challenges of being a small digital marketing agency trying to compete against large established companies and his decision to open a branch in Toronto in September.
"Prior to Evoda Group, I owned a mobile spa that did corporate events. I got a lot of lessons out of it, but that wasn't for me, so I sold it to one of my first employees. From Pure Mobile Spa I realized that marketing was a huge passion of mine. I always found digital technology fascinating. That's how I ended up creating Evoda Group because I saw a need in the marketplace.
"It's highly competitive, but we've taken the bloated, top-heavy agency model and we've stripped it of all the excess. We offer the large agency experience to the companies that, frankly, can't afford the Wasserman + Partners. We've got seven people [in Vancouver]. We're still a very boutique company.
"We shared an office space in North Burnaby with an established creative agency, SterlingKlor, who taught us the ropes and how large agencies operate. We took their model and stripped away the excess.
"Being younger and relatively new to the market, it was really difficult to get financing, so we started very much bootstrapped. We almost died before we got through our first six months. We were losing $10,000 a month in operating expenses and other business costs. We were one week away from closing our doors. Our sales guy was just not performing.
"As a founder and an owner, I need to take responsibility for sales. I fired the sales manager and took on sales myself. I went door to door, I did cold calling, and we went from doing $2,000 a month – which is absolutely nothing – to doing $12,000.
"I'm 27, so credibility was certainly a concern. I'm telling CEOs and marketing managers who've been doing their job for 20 or 30 years that they need to change their approach to a more digital, streamlined approach. But people understand that technology and innovation is a young man's game.
"Our first significant contract was Flight Centre Canada. It was a geo-targeted social media campaign. To date we've delivered 300 projects. They range from social media campaigns all the way through to large-scale social media applications.
"We've taken a number of risks and expansion decisions, like opening a branch in Toronto.
"I'm a strong believer that relationships are critical, and Toronto is the epicentre of business in Canada. It's not the creative hub in Canada, though, which was why it was an opportunity for us.
"We are able to bring to corporate Canada – which is in Toronto –the West Coast esthetic and design approach." •
