2021 Fluvio Company Annual Report, Reflection and Lookahead
WRITTEN BY DEVON O’ROURKE, FOUNDER & MANAGING PARTNER
Growth in the technology marketplace, positive economic performance, and the continued erosion of traditional models of employment led to a strong second year for Fluvio.
We believe in transparency, and while we are a private company with no obligation to report on performance, we have decided to provide the public with insight into our business. Transparency serves as a mechanism for holding ourselves accountable. This report may be valuable for those that are interested in learning from our experience in order to more effectively build their own businesses, as well as those that are invested in our future as a client or partner. Ultimately, we believe sharing these details will help grow the product marketing, consulting, and technology ecosystems, and in turn, propel Fluvio forward in the coming year.
Key Metrics
Highlights
In 2021, Fluvio experienced strong demand for technology product marketing consulting services from startups and small businesses (SMBs) all the way through to enterprise corporations. To support that demand, we invested in employee growth as well as company culture and benefits. In Fluvio’s first year in business (2020), we utilized contract consultants (from the Fluvio Consultant Network) to fulfill client engagements. In 2021, we pivoted to a full-time W2 employee workforce and invested in hiring talent from premium consulting and technology companies such as Deloitte, Accenture, Oracle, Cox Automotive, Headspace, and A Cloud Guru, in addition to launching company benefits such as unlimited PTO, shared workspace reimbursement, health, dental, and vision insurance as well as a 401k offering with an automatic 3% company contribution and profit-sharing element. Solely leveraging company revenue without outside investment, we were able to add eight total roles to the company (six filled, two open) in 2021.
While 2020 was a year of testing and validation, 2021 provided momentum and the confidence to establish product-market fit. Without any significant business development or marketing investments, we grew our client base 200% year-over-year (as measured by Monthly Active Clients in December 2021 vs December 2020) and annual revenue 210% year-over-year. Additionally, Fluvio’s website now ranks #1 in Google search results for queries ‘product marketing consulting’, ‘product marketing consultant’, and ‘product marketing consultants’. In December, we obtained trademark approval from the USPTO for ‘Fluvio’. This positive momentum has helped solidify ourselves in a leadership position within a niche space (product marketing consulting) that we believe will continue to grow in 2022 and beyond.
Reflection
As the Managing Partner, I’ve personally dedicated time to review and reflect upon Fluvio’s performance in 2021 and have attempted to identify the key drivers behind our success in order to effectively plan for 2022 growth.
Principles & Habits
Upon founding the company in 2020, I established three core principles that act as the compass for employee hiring, onboarding and development, in addition to guiding each client engagement and work product. This year, we added a fourth principle and have continued embedding these principles into every decision we make collectively as a team, as well as individually. I strongly believe that our principles have been critical to the formation of our business practices and culture, and we will continue to build upon them as we grow and evolve.
In Q3 2021, we launched our first semi-annual performance review process, and as a part of that rollout, each Fluvio employee established individual habits they would like to form. Much like company principles, but a layer down (individual-level vs company-level), I believe habits provide a framework to make better decisions and evolve one’s skill set. To create a successful habit program, we started by formally acknowledging and documenting individual habit formation goals. Moving forward, we will routinely put them into action and measure ourselves against them during each performance review period.
Relentless Focus on People & Impact
We identified three focus areas for 2021 and graded ourselves each quarter to ensure we kept on track. These areas consisted of 1) Hiring & up-leveling, 2) Hyper-focus on enterprise clients and prospects, and 3) Scale through standardization.
As previously mentioned, employee growth was, and continues to be, the core priority for the business. I personally commit significant time each week building connections with potential employees, prospects, and partners in order to construct a strong network. This responsibility doesn’t just rest with me, it involves every employee at Fluvio. As we grow, it is our collective responsibility to foster connections within our communities and enhance our company perception with potential colleagues and collaborators. In Q3 2021, we launched a number of initiatives aimed to up-level and empower our talent. Notably, we launched a product marketing core certification program for new employees through our partnership with Product Marketing Alliance, and established a monthly lunch and learn series to serve as a forum for training, sharing of ideas and processes, and to continue to build a sense of connection amongst Fluvio employees. As these sessions evolve, we will incorporate third-party subject matter experts as guest lecturers. Ultimately, our focus on hiring and up-leveling talent led to strong team growth in 2021, as we added eight new roles to the company, offered one promotion, and finished the year with a 100% Employee Happiness Score (measured via Gusto surveys).
Employee growth allows us to significantly increase our client base. In doing so, we accelerated our learning curve and established a more refined ideal client profile - B2B enterprise SaaS. While we continue to focus on our enterprise segment, we believe there is future upside within our startup and SMB segment as we build and scale processes and templates that will allow for a lighter, more efficient service offering. However, we expect our focus on enterprise will continue throughout 2022. We plan to more deliberately go-to-market with startup and SMB offerings by 2023, as we advance our template and process installation services.
Lookahead
While we are excited about our growth and the opportunities ahead, we acknowledge there are potential headwinds that we must prepare for.
Challenges
While continued erosion of traditional models of employment have created demand for Fluvio services, this trend may also present challenges in our ability to hire and build culture. With work becoming increasingly dynamic, distributed, flexible, and digital-first, Fluvio is not only in a position to learn how best to cope with the complexities of team and culture building, but may be able to lead the charge given the nimbleness of our organization. Tools like Slack, Recess, Miro, Gusto, and G-Suit (Google Slides, Google Docs, Google Meet, etc.) will continue to play a large role in keeping our employees engaged and instilling a sense of connection and belonging. While these tools have shown signs of success, we don’t believe anything will replace the effectiveness of connecting in-person and will therefore invest in semi-annual or annual company retreats beginning in 2022.
Another potential risk to the business is the possibility of a market slowdown that could reduce hiring budgets and the appetite for third-party services. The past year has been a period of exceptional market strength; particularly, within the technology space. And this high-growth period is not isolated to just the public markets. For example, according to Siliconrepublic.com and Crunchbase, there have been more new startups valued at $10 billion or above (decacorns) than in any prior year, and double the number created in 2020 (which held the previous record). In total, 30 companies have been newly valued at a decacorn valuation in 2021. This contrasts with half that count at 15 in 2020 and five new decacorns in 2019. While we understand that a market downturn (or correction) may decelerate new business opportunities, we believe that given our current position (minimal competition, healthiness of client accounts, and strong prospect pipeline) we are equipped to successfully handle this potential headwind.
Opportunities
We foresee the demand for product marketing talent to continue to outpace supply. A Korn Ferry analysis estimated a global talent deficit of 85.2 million workers by 2030, predicting a skills shortage that could result in $8.452 trillion in unrealized annual revenue. The demand for skilled workers - particularly, in product, sales, and marketing roles within the technology industry - is growing, with seven in 10 employers globally saying they are struggling to find workers with the right mix of technical skills and human capabilities (2021 Global Human Capital Trends Report). As more companies build and scale product marketing departments, we expect demand for both strategic and tactical product marketing consulting services to continue to rise given the low supply of talent and increased demand for all levels of product marketing expertise.
Additionally, we continue to see opportunity in our partnership with the Product Marketing Alliance and their portfolio of brands (collectively, The Alliance) to drive revenue and innovation. Much like Fluvio, The Alliance has experienced exceptional growth in their first few years of business. Trusted by companies in the top 50 of Fortune 500’s list, like Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Dell, and Facebook, The Alliance is now home to 70,000+ community members, 10,000+ paid members, 4,000+ course alumni, 100,000+ event attendees, and 45,000+ report owners - all within their first two years of business. Given the complementary nature of our products and services, we believe we have only scratched the surface of how we may work together to grow the product marketing, professional development, and technology ecosystems.
In order to unlock the upside of these opportunities, we are committed to growth and scale; albeit, in a sustainable manner. We will continue to reinvest revenue back into the business with a focus on hiring, building networks, adding new clients, and exploring new services. While projecting revenue and planning capital allocations can be difficult, we feel confident in our ability to forecast based on historical data and industry trends, and we believe there are significant benefits to growing and scaling our business, including:
Mitigating risk. The more clients we onboard the more we minimize the impact of those that churn.
First to market doesn’t guarantee victory. We were first and maintain our leadership position in a niche market. However, history indicates this doesn’t translate into long-term success. We want to take advantage of what could be a small timeframe to grow with little competition so that Fluvio is ubiquitous with product marketing consulting for prospects and potential employees.
Generating more work products will accelerate quality. In many ways, each client engagement for Fluvio is equivalent to a software release for a SaaS business. The more work we complete, the more refined our processes/templates become and the more our consultants become competent and confident in our services.
To support this growth, we are committed to building a horizontal organization using a Principal pod structure (below) in order to maximize visibility and encourage participation in key decisions. The initial rollout of this structure has proved to be effective in 2021 and we believe it will be scalable over the next several years. We plan to add one to two new employees each quarter in 2022 with the assumption that Monthly Active Clients continue to grow at the same pace.
Final Outlook
Given our strong performance in 2021, we are confident we are focusing on the right areas and will continue to prioritize hiring and up-leveling talent, mastering our enterprise offering, and refining our startup and SMB services through templatization and standardization in 2022.