We are thrilled to announce that Student Beans has been listed in The Sunday Times Tech Track 100, a list of the fastest-growing private tech companies in Britain.
The Tech Track 100 is a league table which is compiled annually, recognising and celebrating British tech companies that have achieved the fastest-growing annual sales over the last three years.
Student Beans are proud to be ranking in at number 83. Having achieved success without relying on venture capital, the company’s position is a true testament to the resilience and determination of the team driving Student Beans to new heights.
Here, Student Beans MD, Mike Eder answers our questions:
How does it feel to have Student Beans included in The Sunday Times Tech Track 100?
Aside from the fact that this is a great acknowledgement of everyone’s hard work over a sustained period of time, for me personally, I remember The Times’ Tech Track 100 being on the kitchen table growing up. Back then I would have never dreamt of being able to work for one of those businesses, let alone having one I created included in the line-up. Over my time with the business, this is a real highlight and I’m most proud of the fact we’ve grown sustainably.
How has Student Beans achieved this growth?
There are 4 key pillars to our success:
1. Our product:
We are committed to creating a world-class product and have seen the importance of investing in an amazing engineering team that continue to challenge and develop it in a way that I never thought possible.
2. Our culture, based on our values:
We are all accountable
Choose positivity
Be humble
Deliver results that wow
Strive for simplicity
3. Our people:
The team’s persistence and grit is a true testament to how far they have helped me grow the business. I’m proud to be surrounded by such talented people who surprise me on a daily basis, our journey hasn’t come without hurdles yet our people have the most amazing ability to climb, jump and bash through them.
4. Our ambition:
We challenge the status quo and our international expansion is a testament to that, having never raised any external finance to expand our small business into one that’s now experiencing global growth, it’s almost unheard of – we got told it couldn’t be done but we’ll continue to stay humble! Following the success of our US and Australian expansion, we look forward to launching new offices in Asia and South America in the coming year.
How will you sustain this growth and what’s on the road map?
Looking ahead Student Beans will continue to focus on its global growth, talent and technology. We will continue to invest in what works, adding 200+ people to the business over the next two years, developing our presence in new countries and investing in building out our Marketing, Sales, Engineering and R&D teams. We care passionately about our people so it’s really important that we look after them, that said, we have a new focus around learning and development. This focus is helping us to put in place a dedicated team who will ensure that we are providing the right level of training on a global scale, supporting our fast-growing business.
At this moment in time, we even have 2 huge office moves taking place in London and Manchester, with an extra 15,000 square foot of custom-designed space, ensuring our growing team have the right environment to progress and evolve.
You’ve touched upon your culture but how will you maintain this throughout your growth?
Embedding and living by our values is key, something some businesses struggle with but not us! A personal highlight for me is meeting all new starters and sharing how our values came about. These values are also a reference for our recruitment process, ensuring we hire the right people and that they know exactly how we’d like them to contribute to the business from the offset.
It’s true that you can’t underestimate the magic of your people! When things go well, most businesses believe that relates to their values, but they need to remember, that needs to shine through when things also go wrong – we have made some mistakes over the years but we’ve acknowledged that and owned it, that’s why we’re achieving success. We support our people because that’s the only way we win, we understand that we’re all accountable for our success and our loses, it’s what encourages us to pull together when striving for greatness.
Do you strive to deliver results that wow? Join us – We are hiring 100+ people over the next year in all functions – marketing, engineering, product, design, finance, sales, operations and Voxburner in London, Birmingham, Manchester, New York and Melbourne. View our current vacancies today!
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