Brains against brawn
Article Date: Sep 08 2006
“The main limitation on our international growth isn’t cash – it’s management time,” says Kearon. “Because our ‘factory’, the Brighton operations base, is already built, we only need to open sales offices, and the infrastructure is incredibly cheap. A 30-person office can do tens of millions of pounds worth of billings. But finding the talented people to manage the overseas business and working with them to build the client base is the issue for us. The people are key. We need to find entrepreneurs and it’s incredibly difficult. If someone brilliant came along, we’d consider opening an office specifically to back them, even if the location wasn’t one we’d planned to cover yet – they are as rare as that.”
Hand in hand with international expansion is the need to ensure BrainJuicer maintains its lead. “Our competitive advantage using our online research tools will eventually be eroded. So we are looking to go beyond the established boundaries,” agrees Kearon. “We have recently set up experimental web-cams in families across the world, and we have started conducting ‘juicers’ (the BrainJuicer term for an opportunity to participate in product research) using mobile phones. It’s a first – there are twice as many mobiles in the world as there are internet PCs.”
Kearon concludes: “I have always felt that at some point in the future my talents and my entrepreneurship will run out; at a certain size BrainJuicer will need a different leader. I hope I will spot it when the time comes. I am watching to see what happens with James Dyson, whom I find an inspiration as an entrepreneur. My primary motivation, personally, is innovation itself. I’m an inventor who has commercialised my invention. Financial success is important as a way to measure success – to prove that it was a good idea, a worthwhile invention. I believe I have found a better way to do something, and now I want to battle to get it accepted.
“It will require a huge amount of patience to see the results we are aiming for – another ten years at least. But I think we can wait that long. It seems as if every small market research agency here at the moment just wants to be bought up by one of the major marketing conglomerates. But I’m not interested in seeing an agency’s cheque book. I want to change the status quo, not become a part of the establishment.”
This article was originally published in Masterclass magazine.
