This digital agency tripled revenue since 2019 by using the Scaling Up platform

By Verne Harnish

Journey is an award-winning business design and technology studio focused on digital transformation. The company, based in Auckland, New Zealand, and London, and founded in 2003, designs and builds apps, software and platforms. 

Managing Director Dane Tatana, a former designer, started out at the company, formerly known as Journey Digital, as a consultant in 2014. He gradually rose from an account service executive to general manager and eventually to his current role. He bought into the business when the founder retired. 

In 2019, Tatana renamed the company Journey to focus more on its core offering and customers. He began working with Scaling Up Certified Coach Adrian Pickstock after they met at a Scaling Up seminar held by Entrepreneurs’ Organization in New Zealand. He recognizing he needed guidance in leading and scaling the company.

“Everything was just hard,” recalls Tatana. “We were constantly firefighting. There were client issues, people issues, trying to find profit, working month-to-month on sales, making sure we hit the wage bill, and chasing debtors.”

Today, despite a dramatic loss of sales during the pandemic, Journey is scaling rapidly. It has tripled revenue since the pandemic with roughly the same size staff. “We’re much more focused on our profitability and sustainability as a business,” says Tatana.

Building a winning leadership team

One key step for Journey was forming a leadership team. These executives meet with Pickstock monthly. This provides an opportunity to help each member grow as a leader and for Pickstock to bring issues to the surface that need to be discussed.

“This has been a massive learning journey,” says Tatana. “When people ask me about Scaling Up, I tell them it’s like what I imagine doing an MBA would be like–learning and working ‘live’ on your own business in a practical application of business principles.”

Prioritizing the core customer

A year after Journey Digital appointed Pickstock, Covid arrived—and by April 2020, business, “fell off a cliff,” says Tatana.

“Adrian was on the phone with us every day, coaching and guiding us through that process,” says Tatana. “The Scaling Up framework and Adrian’s work with us to that point meant we had the structure to make some big decisions.”

At the time, the leadership team had been focusing its strategic work on the company’s core customer, value proposition, 3HAG (3-Year Highly Achievable Goal) and BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal) for a year. Covid gave the leadership team an impetus to deploy the strategy they were developing quickly. 

They soon “fired” about 150 clients so they could focus on their core customer and began winning big client contracts in Dubai, Europe and the U.S. in industries such as healthcare, pharmaceutical, travel, aviation and government. Many responded to its new approach, summarized in the motto: “Solve and evolve: We help solve your problems now. So you can evolve for the future.”

The company also opened a London office. “With 70% of our revenue coming from overseas, it just made sense,” says Tatana. “I had a ready-made network for recruitment. And as it’s the opposite time zone, between New Zealand and London we’ve got coverage almost across the entire globe.”

Embracing execution

As the company scaled, monthly meetings and more frequent huddles helped to keep the team aligned. “Over time our meetings have changed, but the accountability of meeting with someone every month to make sure you’ve done the work is powerful,” says Tatana. 

Shoring up cash reserves

In 2019, Pickstock told Tatana that economists thought there might be a recession or a ‘wobble’ coming, so he should start putting cash aside. “We built up a couple of months in reserve, and six months later, Covid happened, and we were in a good position, able to use those reserves to not let anybody go,” says Tatana. The company has continued its focus on its cash position since then.

With growth on the fast track, Journey Digital’s theme for 2024 is “evolve to win.” The company has plans to productize some of its intellectual property, particularly in consulting, and to continue to build on its customer service, gathering deeper insights through new tools. The company is also progressing with a partnership strategy, teaming up with big technology providers to expand their offerings.

Tatana has found that being challenged by a coach, and by the Scaling Up platform itself, has been a valuable spark for growth. “The Scaling Up framework forces you to ask questions that take you from incremental change to transforming and evolving,” says Tatana. As a company that specializes in helping its clients with digital transformation, it is coming full circle and transforming itself—into a rapidly growing scaleup.