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To say it’s been a big year for cross channel marketing company Signal would be a vast understatement. Aside from doubling its employee count for the third year in a row, the company has moved into a new, larger office space as well as expanded globally. But while the company formerly known as BrightTag readies itself for a new year of growth, CEO Mike Sands maintains that they’re still a startup. All this and more is part of the growing company’s success.
1. Stay a startup
Signal comes from humble beginnings, and Sands attributed much of their steady growth to maintaining the startup mentality. Almost five years later, they’ve grown to a point where many would like to strip them of that moniker, but he attested to its importance in their expansion. “I’m proud that we can be a startup and operate on a global stage,” Sands said. “We get to solve global problems in different ways but using the same platform.”
He also emphasized the importance of startup culture as their company culture solidifies, “There’s always both a can-do spirit and spirit of innovation that never ceases to amaze me.”
2. Go global early
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Signal currently operates offices in Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney, Sao Paulo, and London and plans to expand in Europe and Asia Pacific in 2015. With the nation’s busiest airport at your disposal, Sands says it should be the natural progression of business in Chicago, “Don’t just confine yourself to Chicago or the Midwest or the U.S. You as an entrepreneur can and should be out there tapping into the growth of foreign markets.”
3. Surround yourself with talent
The marketing company has moved into one of the city’s emerging tech hubs — 111 N. Canal. Sterling Bay’s rehabbed warehouse building in the West Loop has become a coveted space for growing tech companies and Signal was a natural tenant.
“There’s a concentration of amazing technology companies like Uber and Twitter and Gogo and Level3. There’s an incredible vibe and energy in this building.”
4. Invest in others
Signal has hired development talent from the program Dev Bootcamp, which provides a 19-week intensive crash course in coding. Their apprenticeship program helps these young developers continue learning after graduation and grow into successful employees with all the necessary skills to thrive.
5. Don’t go it alone
Sands praises fellow leaders Marc Kiven and Eric Lunt often and wasn’t afraid to say Signal’s success didn’t happen because of just one of them.
“Don’t go it alone as an entrepreneur, we can support each other, we can feed off each others ideas, we can build off each others strengths. being an entrepreneur is exhilarating but it can also be very scary.”
Sands also credits much of that incredible support to the Chicago startup community.
“Leverage the amazing capabilities the city has to offer. Entrepreneurs here are extremely generous people and tapping into the community of fellow entrepreneurs is a very rich and rewarding process.”
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6. Pay it forward
Just like Signal received support from the Chicago tech community, they like to pass along that generosity as well. Built In Chicago moved into part of Signal’s old space in River North, and generously donated furniture for our use. They had received similar help during office moves.
Signal currently employs 150 people and has over 10,000 customers including Orbitz and Allstate. They've raised $50 million in funding with investments from Yahoo Japan, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Baird Venture Partners and Google Inc. They’re looking to continue global expansion as well as their explosive growth in 2015.
