Today we’d like to introduce you to Mikel Bruce.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I started the company about 13 years ago. My background was in sales and marketing and back in the early 2000’s I saw that things were moving towards the Internet in just about every area and I wanted to get in as early as possible.
At first, it was just me and a web designer and I wore just about every hat and learned as I went. In 2010 we re-branded and we shifted our focus to using WordPress. We currently have over 20 team members consisting of designers, developers, project managers and marketing/sales specialists.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. The biggest challenge was when the recession hit in late 2008. It was like the bottom fell out and since I was trying to expand the business I was using debt to try to grow the business and got stuck behind the 8 ball.
It took a couple of years of extra hard work to get out of that situation but it was a very good learning experience in terms of how to deal with adversity and how to grow a business.
TinyFrog Technologies – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Our brand is unique and we get asked all of the time how we came up with the name. The story is pretty simple in that- I was trying to choose a name that most people would have a positive association with and most people do like frogs. There are many web design/development companies in SD. Beyond being known for quality work and service we are also known for our secured maintenance service. We are currently maintaining and hosting almost 600 WordPress websites.
WordPress can be particularly vulnerable to security issues when it is not properly maintained. Our program is essentially an insurance policy in that we take full responsibility for the sites that we do maintain. Another service that we offer which is very unique is one that we call Proposal Bildr. It is the only custom, web-based proposal service on the market. Essentially it is a program in which our clients can build and send custom proposals as actual websites.
As a web company, we had an idea several years ago that we wanted to send proposals and websites so we searched and couldn’t find a good option so we actually built it for ourselves. As our closing rates started to go up and our clients started commenting on the quality of our proposals we decided to offer it as a service to our clients.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
There are 3 factors that I use to define success:
1- Do I and everyone that I work with generally enjoy what we do. You can’t always be perfectly happy with the work that you do but to me, it is critical that one enjoys it most of the time. I continually monitor the level at which the people that I work with are enjoying their work and if I sense any issues that area I do what I can to address it right away.
2- Is there continuous growth. I am much more a fan of slow growth continuous growth vs explosive growth. I don’t really enjoy stress and slow growth not only reduces the worry that comes from not enough business coming in but also the greater stress that can come from growing too fast.
3- Balance- Everyone is different so balance is very subjective. I really do enjoy my work and it is a very high priority and I spend more time working than anything else- but it is 1 of 3 very important areas in my life. I also equally value my relationships (especially the relationship with my wife) and my spiritual practices (yoga, meditation, prayer). I also have many other interests that I need to make room for.
Contact Info:
- Address: 4455 Murphy Canyon Rd, Ste 100
- Website: www.tinyfrog.com
- Phone: 619.202.7542
- Email: mikel@tinyfrog.com
- Instagram: Mr. Mikel Bruce
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