Building a national revenue line from zero, twice.
Before founding Eighty Twenty, our principal opened two US technology companies' Canadian markets as the first senior hire and built each into a material revenue line.
Situation
This is operating work, not a client engagement. Both companies were US-based and venture-backed with no Canadian presence. Each needed someone to own the full market entry: revenue, hiring, office, marketing, PR, and the P&L.
What we did
At a digital media company, as the first employee in Toronto, he built the Canadian advertising business and owned CEO-level relationships with the country's leading agencies, setting annual revenue commitments. At a programmatic video platform, as employee 32, he opened the Canadian market, built a 32-person team across sales, account management, and operations, and led enterprise programmatic agreements with global brands across North America and Europe. He was part of the founding executive team through the company's public listing and its later acquisition by a global software company, then led the Canadian business inside the acquirer.
Outcome
The first business grew to a team of more than 30 and $25M in annual revenue. The second went from $0 to $35M USD in Canadian revenue within two years, while the company grew to more than 600 employees. The same work on pipeline, pricing, contracts, and team structure is what Eighty Twenty now brings to clients.
Facing something similar?
Fifteen minutes. We’ll tell you whether the pattern matches and what we’d do first.