So what's been our digital journey

Andy and I met whist working for a fantastic Agency called Tangerine.  Andy headed up the web development team and I was on the business development side.  We had 2 top guys who owned the business and with Design for Print, Print and "New Media" services it was a really good mix of services to offer companies.  The graphic design team were exceptionally good, and New Media really was new to the commercial world.  Content Management Systems were coming into their own, and Tangerine wanted to be at the cutting edge.  Andy had been working on web design and build for the previous 4 years, taking another business forward with web development, so when he moved to Tangerine it was a huge move in the market for them.  Tangerine started to heavily promote New Media (web design and build) offering a really strong CMS and Design solution.  Andy and Tangerine's work was put forward for awards and Andy and his team led by a forward thinking C-suite, took Tangerines New Media department to another level.

At the time i'd been working with the Sales Director and he'd been teaching me the design for print side of the business.  My account management side was already strong, so product knowledge wad the key learning curve for me, and work started to come in from my sales work and Tangerines leads from the great work already delivered within the business.  One day I got a call from the MD, asking me to start selling the website side of the business too.  He said there was a client in maidstone that wanted to talk about design for his website and creative work we do.  So off I trotted with my A2 portfolio folder, full of beautiful brochure designs and logos to see my first website client.  It didn't go well.... infact it went very very badly.  The guy was really nice and talked through what he wanted, I tried to show him some of the graphic design work we had done but it really wasn't relevant and nothing to do with web design.  My angle (in my head) was if we can show the graphic brochure stuff it will translate to web.  He asked a few technical questions that I couldn't answer and I didn't really know how the CMS side of thing worked... I was very unprepared.

I returned to the office and went straight up to see the MD "It didn't go well" was the first words I said, he replied " I know... he has just phoned me".  I felt so bad, I have never been so unprepared for a meeting.  He was really understanding as he always was.  I said to myself never again.  I want to know everything.  I started annoying Andy most days, hows does this work, how do you do that, I learnt everything I could so I would never be in that position again.  It worked. 

I started going to more and more meetings.  Having a digital portfolio on a laptop, with links to designs and  CMS demos.  I started to do less design for print and more web meetings.  I then was asked to move to the web team looking after sales and business development and all digital media quotes, plus account management.  I worked with the MD and we took that side of the business forward with Andy and his team creating some exceptional projects.

Andy and I decided we would like to venture on our own.  Tangerine wanted us to stay but understood that we wanted to spread our wings and we left to launch Pingala Digital.  I think the time I had with Tangerine shaped so much of what I do with Pingala.  The standards were high, processes were great and the people were brilliant. 

That was back in 2009.  We started from Andy's spare room, no clients, no portfolio, and I started to network everywhere I possibly could.  We started getting traction with a few new clients and after a couple of months we moved to an office in maidstone.  We spent 2 years in Maidstone before moving to Maidstone Studios, and have been here ever since.  Its a great location, our business and team have grown and shaped over the years.

When we started Pingala the business was 80% web and 20% software.  Id say the business has swung the other way, being closer to 70% software 30% websites. SaaS has grown a great deal and we've become real experts in mapping out client needs getting into a deeper understanding of their business, shaping and modelling systems and direction for software.  The team love the challenge, the processes are strong, and we are developing and designing some excellent pieces of software for clients.  Its a far cry from that first website meeting and I'm so thankful that I had the opportunity to move into the digital world at a point of real growth.  Cheers Andy, cheers guys..."

SpreeMonkey out