2007

amazee.com

• 2007: Started with Angel Investor - Drupal 5
• 2009:
  • Bad Growth
  • Danger of Death ☠️

Can we get a white label amazee.com?

White label amazee.com

• 2009: 3x white label
  same amazee.com Modules
  other Theme
• 2010: Drupa 6 Sites from scratch

Amazee Labs Zurich

• Branding differentiation of amazee.com
• Many clients, many learnings 
• Focus on Drupal (that's what we know)

Amazee Labs Zurich

• 27 Employees in ZRH and Remote
• Servicing mostly CH clients
• Drupal 8, React.js

Today

How many visitors does my website have?

Amazee Metrics

• Need from Amazee Labs Clients
• Not only Drupal
• Different Business Model
• Protecting Amazee Labs
• Privately Financed by owners of Amazee Labs ZRH
• New CEO from 1st day

Amazee Metrics

• 7 Employees in ZRH and CPT
• Servicing mostly CH Clients with Analytics, SEO, SEM, Marketing Automatization

Today

2014:

• Amazee Labs ZRH grew to ~18 Employees
  • 2 Remote in San Antonio, TX, USA (no Visa)

• City-Review: Austin in Top 3

Amazee Labs Austin

2014

Amazee Labs Austin

• Privately financed by Owners of Amazee Labs ZRH
• New CEO 1st Day
• Finding new clients in USA: 😭

Amazee Labs Austin

• Amazee Zurich culture ⚔️ Austin CEO
• 2015: Austin CEO removed & handed responsibility to Team

Amazee Labs Austin

• 7 Employees in ATX
• Serving US Clients
• Drupal 8, React.js

Today

2014:

• 2 Founders moved to CapeTown for personal reasons
• Network and Community very interesting

Amazee Labs Cape Town

2015

Amazee Labs Cape Town

• 2015: Start with two local employees
• Own legal entity
• Privately financed through Owners
• CEO: Owner of Amazee

Amazee Labs CapeTown

• 11 Employees
• Serving Clients in SA and CH
• Drupal 8 & React.js

Today

• 2009:  
  • Clients need to host in  🇨🇭
  • Built hosting platform for ALZRH, ALCPT, ALATX, AM in 🇨🇭 🇺🇸 🇿🇦
• 2015​:

amazee.io

2016

amazee.io

• End 2015:
  • Betatest with other Swiss Agency
• 2016:
  • Shadow-Bookkeeping within Amazee Labs ZRH

amazee.io

• 2016: Hired CEO
• May 2016: Official Launch
• 1. January 2017: Spin-Off in own Company

amazee.io

• 7 Employees
• Completely remote 🇺🇸 🇪🇸 🇨🇭 🌍
• Clients all over the world
• Docker based Drupal+ Hosting (Node.js, Elasticsearch, etc.)

Today

• 2015: ALZRH started using Scrum
• 2016: Some clients: 😩
• 2016: Idea for Kanban & Maintenance

Amazee Labs GMT

Global Maintenance Team

2017

Amazee GMT

• 2017: Shadow Bookkeeping within ALZRH
• Former Freelancer as Lead of Team

Amazee Group

Today

Amazee
Holding AG

Two Types of Growth

1. Bigger with same Service & Location
2. Diversification

Reasons for Diversification

Diversification

1. Service (Amazee Metrics, amazee.io)
2. Location (Austin, CapeTown)

Our Approach

1. Not forced
2. Listen to Teams, Clients, Market
3. Does it fit to our overall strategy?
4. Gutfeeling & Heart

Challenges of Growth

• $€£
• High Complexity
  • 6 Board Meetings every 3 Months
  • Travel, Billing, Legal, etc. 
• Culture- & Communication Differences
  • "Now Now" in South Africa

Multi Companies

• Own Companies & Brands allow Focus
  • Marketing & Branding, Hiring, Employee Identification
• Confused Clients
• Confused Employees
• Monthly Group Meeting
• Group Handbook

We are still Humans

• Humans like Humans
• Face2Face Meetings are 100x more worth then flight costs

Culture is extremely important

• Leadership needs to exercise culture
• Hiring: Culture Fit more important then Skills

Allow Communication

• Slack with 95% open Slack Channels
  • also with clients
• Good Video Call System

Don't plan too much ahead

• No 3 Year Plans (still dream)
• 1 Year Strategy
• 6 Months Planning

Delegate

• Delegating starts with yourself
• Give Trust
• Open Doors - Any Time
• Lead by objective

Find Symbioses

• Billing & Invoicing for ALZRH, AM, ALGMT, ALCPT done by a single team
• Group wide Licenses, Software, Tools
• Sync Meetings across Teams (Devs, Marketing, PM, ...)

Time Zones

• Pro and Con at the same time
• Do-not-disturb is your friend

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.

-- Henry Ford

Michael - michael@amazee.com - @Schnitzel