In the day-to-day running of IOD — whether it’s answering Slack messages from our operations team or fielding incoming queries about our services or the reconciling of invoices — I can easily forget that only four years ago there was no IOD, no “process,” no “pipeline management,” no Slack channels needing tending to, no Asana tasks to prioritize. There was just me, Ofir, operating a one-man consultancy called IAmOnDemand.
I didn’t work all alone back then. I had a few freelancers I contracted with; trusty editors that supported me in my content creation for tech startups. But when I think back to that time–when the business I ran was mainly just me–I’m astounded at how far I’ve come, and how much the company I founded has grown in such a short period of time.
When I reflect on the recipe responsible for our growth, I realize that the main ingredient has been people. Not just the addition of more people, but of talented people, kind people, professional people. People I can count own to run parts of the business I ran entirely myself four years ago.
Perhaps even more consequential is how the people involved in growing IOD work together, with respect, in harmony, as well as with trust of and for each other. Whether that’s members of our core team or our freelancers or the tech marketing professionals we support daily.
A mission that IOD adopted early on and we still hold dear is that we are simply people connecting people to people. More specifically, we are seasoned professionals connecting tech experts to tech marketing professionals and vice versa. In this strange and difficult year called 2020, that mission and the machine we’ve built to execute it, has served us and our clients well, as have our process, rules, and company culture.
What do I mean by “we are people connecting people to people?”
First, I mean that at our core, IOD is about people. Sure, what we produce is a product called “tech content” or a deliverable called “content research and topics.” However, our premise is that good tech content requires the contribution of smart, capable people: specifically, tech experts, tech influencers, and experienced editors. Whether it’s a blog post or an e-book or an editorial calendar or a tweet, we believe that quality content comes from one person sharing what they know in a way that’s useful and meaningful to someone else.
In the tech industry this is more important than in other industries as high tech is more complex, truly requires hands-on knowledge to explain, and even then, is often difficult to convey in a way that’s accessible to beginners.
Second, IOD is about people connecting people. When I started this business, I did so because people I knew in real life needed help. Marketing professionals I knew couldn’t produce blogs that the tech people I knew wanted to read, they couldn’t build a predictable cadence of content. I bridged the gap. Four years later, IOD is doing this exponentially. We are helping marketing meet tech and tech meet marketing in order for them to collaborate to publish high quality stories and messages about their cloud-related products and solutions.
Third, IOD is about people connecting people to people. This year, with our own IOD tech content and our growing community of tech influencers, we have reached tens of thousands of people monthly via our blog and social media channels. Of course, we publish tech content in large part to promote our company’s expertise — this is one end-goal. But, we also want to cultivate our position in the greater tech community as a contributor to something larger than just us, to a conversation that encourages innovation and fosters positive change.
End-to-end tech content for tech professionals.
In the same way I was once a contractor who became a company founder, IOD is a company that strives to provide thought leadership and to be a pioneer in merging two skill sets: tech and marketing. Internally, this means we work as a team, and we strive to work harmoniously. Externally, this means we contribute to the conversation and to the larger tech community, through information sharing, mutually beneficial partnerships, or boosting the voices of others.
It’s not just about us. (This is a core value at IOD.)
2020 has been an unforgettable year on both the personal and professional levels for most of us. I feel grateful for my life, my health, my family, this business, and my colleagues. In 2021, from a place of gratitude and hope, I’m aiming to expand my contribution and that of IOD. To that end, if there is some way you think we can contribute to amplifying your voice in the tech industry or supporting your professional growth, please feel free to reach out to me on Linkedin. We are stronger together than we are alone.
