The Queen of Spain and La Portegna

One of our clients La Portegna has been given the royal approval by the Queen of Spain, Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano, spotted carrying her La Portegna Clutch.

Client News: MPB in America!

The largest online marketplace for trading used camera equipment across Europe, mpb.com, has started to trade in the US.

This platform, staffed from MPB US Inc's Manhattan office, will allow photographers and videographers to buy, sell and exchange high-end used camera equipment across the US.

The US expansion for mpb.com comes after they successfully raised $3 million in Series A funding earlier this year. The funding was led by London-based private equity firm Mobeus Equity Partners.

Matt Barker, CEO, created mpb.com in 2008 with a graduate loan, where he then disrupted the online marketplace by redefining the way photographers and videographers buy, sell and trade equipment.

His innovative approach in developing a unique custom-designed technology enabled mpb.com to sit in the middle of all transactions, ensuring accurate pricing and removing all risks for buyers and sellers.

Over the last 8 years, mpb.com has grown from trading in the UK, to across Europe and finished the last fiscal year with a revenue run rate of over $12 million.

In addition, mpb.com staff have almost doubled in all departments, including a large expansion of their tech team with the recruitment of highly skilled software developers.

"MPB is built on innovation and the desire to offer a better solution for trading used camera gear. Our dedication to developing custom-built technology for the best customer experience has enabled us to grow faster than ever," said Matt Barker.

"We're excited to start shaking things up here in New York. It's vibrant, ambitious and it's where some of the world's best photography is created."

About MPB

mpb.com is a global marketplace for trading high-end used photo and video equipment. Differentiating itself from other camera companies, mpb.com offers both buy and sell services through the same platform and deals directly with all users.

The sophisticated platform technology ensures that pricing is always optimal, creating an unrivaled sell-through rate and zero stock risk.

mpb.com is privately owned and was founded by economics graduate Matt Barker. They currently employ 49 people across their offices in New York, USA and Brighton, UK.

A rapidly-growing tech business, mpb.com ranked in the 2014 Deloitte Technology Fast 500, the 2015 Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 league tables and are finalists for the 'Digital Business of The Year' Award in The Amazon Growing Business Awards.

Facebook!

We are on Facebook, we will be putting up a few more snapshots of agency life and eCommerce info!

If you would like to follow us, please head over to our page here

Thanks
5xThinking HQ

15 Minute Meetings

So I have a confession, I believe, I can do any meeting in under 15 minutes (This was considered unheard of when I worked in Italy)! Yes sometimes you need longer to work through particular ideas and strategies but these are working sessions and should not be confused with a meeting.

Meetings are for making decisions, agreeing plans which is followed by the detail and implementation. "Real work" can be carried out after the meeting. A friend recently told me about a particularly stressful launch, which had gone wrong, the team implemented daily meetings, however no detail was allowed to be exchanged during this meeting. If anyone got into detail they were told to go and discuss it with the relevant people and report back with the conclusion. Facts and plans were dealt with in the meeting, now how.

The key is to know what you are trying to find out during a meeting and stick to it. Everyone should be able to give a answer quickly and succinctly even if it is "I don't know, need to speak to x". Then the next meeting you can review again with the answers, so you can make decisions.

I am a sticker for it at 5xThinking, we have to much to do for our clients so can't spend hours meeting and discussing.

New Office!!

So 5xThinking HQ has recently moved into our new office and it is coming together nicely. We are by the canal in London Fields in a re-stored shipping container!

Here are a few snaps. Come and see us if you are in the area: Studio 42, Containerville!

Award Winning Clients: Monreal London

Our favourite luxury sports brand, and client, Monreal London has just won Best Website in the category of Leisure, Sport and Travel at the annual Ecommerce Awards 2016.

5xThinking worked with Monreal London earlier this year to help develop a digital business plan, online strategy and complete a full website review. We are super excited for the whole team at the London HQ of Monreal and pleased the judges recognised all their dedication and hard work. 

Monreal London was founded in 2012 by German-born designer Stefanï Grosse and has gone from strength to strength, taking authentic sportswear shapes and details are transformed them into clean, modern and sexy clothes with fresh and futuristic touches. Stefani approaches every Monreal London collection the same way she would a fashion collection. The only difference: performance comes first.

To see the award winning Monreal London website please click here.

To understand more about how we might be able to help your online business please email info@5xthinking.com

Update: 5xThinking New Clients and Team Members

It has, as usual, been a while since I last updated the blog, even though I always promise to do it more regularly. I need to stop, the promising, at least.

However, we have been super busy. We have moved into a new office, a re-purposed shipping container in London Fields, with views over the canal. Recruited some new  key personal; Ed, heading up our digital offering, concentrating on running our clients digital marketing and Ellie who is our new Head of eCommerce running and managing some key clients websites.

We have also been won some new clients, the luxury flower company Flowerbx and the best slipper company this side of Egypt Mahabis, not to mention a very new one Bardou who we started with 2 weeks ago. All are going well and I will give you a update on each in the future.

We also successfully finished a couple of projects for N.Peal, Carolina Herrera in NYC and Monreal London, more on that in the future.

Did I mention one of long standing clients MPB also raised 2.1 Million to help expand into the US and Germany so we are running on all cylinders.

If you would like to join us either as a client or team member do drop me a line! Or come and visit us in our new shipping container at Studio 42, Containerville!

Why?

I realised very recently that the question Why? is not asked enough in business meetings and more importantly, when it is, the answers are not interrogated.

I was talking recently to my business partner about a new client win, a new company who are awesome :) (more info on soon). They are relatively new and my business partner just said to me at the end, so Why are they doing this?

It hit me, out of all the people I had discussed it with, he was the only one who wanted to know why they were doing it, not revenue potential, length of contract, time commitment but actually Why this company was starting this business? Luckily they have a great business plan and are offering a service (& solving a problem) which is needed!

It made me think, WHY should be the first question we ask ourselves at the beginning of every meeting.

1)WHY are we having this meeting and do we know what we want to achieve from it?

The simple idea will streamline us and stop us from waisting time and ideas and plans which we do not need.

Then we can move all meetings to my dream of a  meeting never lasting longer then 15 minutes.

It's been a while

I seem to start every blog post with "I will do better". However, this time I will (or maybe not). Their are many reasons why I have not been posting but mainly it has been down to work. I have so many ideas for blog posts and now I need to actually sit down and write them. Most of all I want to start my feature "Adventures in eCommerce" looking at how much fun you can have in this great business and also giving practical information on implementing great revenue generating practices but also some anecdotal stories of the adventures I have had along the way and what I learnt and how it shaped my thinking.

However back to business, So far 7 months into 2016 it has been a good year for 5xThinking we have worked with some amazing clients:  Neom Organics, Carolina Herrera, N.Peal to name a few and also changed our direction slightly, more of that in the next post as soon as all is confirmed.

One of the biggest achievements was helping MPB raise 2.1 Million to help launch into the US and other European markets, read more here

On other news I got Married in Bologna, Italy. So not a bad year so far.

Here is a Friday record choice for you from Local Natives:

2016: New Favourite Music

The one the only Har Mar Superstar is currently all over our office stereo. His new one Youth Without Love is fantastic and written by Julian Casablancas from the Strokes!!

Quiet

It's been quiet on here for a while! However we will be updating it very soon with exciting news. We have changed quiet a bit at 5xThinking in our first year and have a number of exciting projects coming up we want to tell you about.

Including a new Luxury Evening Wear brand 5xT are helping to launch with one of the Middle East's most exiting retail groups. A new CRM tool which is almost ready to launch in Beta and a few other projects which are coming out in 2016!

I am also making a promise to blog at least once a week including a full review of our first year in business from where I thought we would be compared to where we are...

We have also just updated our website (Finally) 5xthinking.com so please check it out.