MiHi Digital was created from a one-bedroom flat on the Exeter Quayside with just a single laptop. Five years later, it’s worked with more than 270 businesses across the world and its websites are seen by in excess of two and a half million people each year.
So how did that happen and what’s the story behind the business itself?
In 2013 Mark Worden had been working in marketing for a regional law firm for three years; he’d enjoyed it initially but there just wasn’t enough opportunity for professional growth. The time had come to make a decision; move to another role or take his chances and try to build something of his own.
He chose the latter and promptly resigned from his job.
What was waiting?
No clients, no business name or office. Just a whole lot of hard work.
In the first two months of creating MiHi Digital, Mark wrote more than a novel’s worth of helpful hints and tips for local businesses and it was these blog posts that were going to be central to the initial growth of the company.
But how do you get people to read them? For Mark the emergence of Twitter was the answer and traffic soon started to arrive at the newly designed website – first 20, then 50 and soon well above 100 visits were coming to the site each day.
With traffic came enquiries; in excess of £80,000 within the first nine months of trading.
The next step was to give these clients a great level of service in order to make sure that one client would become five, that five would become 10 and so on.
And that’s exactly what happened; clients began to tell other businesses and those businesses started to follow.
With just 18 months of trading the business had attracted more than a quarter of a million in enquiries, worked with more than 50 businesses and was bursting at the scenes. The time was right to introduce another member to the team.
Enter Amelia Chubb. Well known in the local area with her connections and work at a local newspaper. Amelia was to work for MiHi for the next two years and become a firm favourite with clients.
Amelia and Mark worked together for the next year before welcoming Ellis Taylor as the business continued to expand beyond expectation.
It was then just a short six months before moving into new offices, taking up two floors of a local Sunday School a few weeks before the Christmas of 2016.
From this new location MiHi Digital then set about further enhancing their reputation throughout Devon and Cornwall by offering free sessions that would sharpen the digital skills of local business owners.
To this day more than 200 businesses have attended MiHi’s digital skills.
In the first half of 2017 Amelia and Ellis both left the business to pursue their dreams further afield – Amelia in New Zealand and Ellis in the city of London.
With departures came opportunities; Joe Brearley joined from the marketing team at the Student Union of the University of Plymouth and was quickly followed by Lois Horsham who had spent several years in marketing and communications for nationwide food brand Ginsters.
The existing team have now been in place for more than a year and the business continues to go from strength to strength.
With growth above 20% and the agency now creating more than 40 websites each year the world really is the oyster for MiHi Digital.