Conquering the entire world will require speed

Conquering the high-tech world–everywhere–is the goal of Joshua Bixby, 33, of Vancouver. Along with his twin brother Jonathan, he founded and runs Strangeloop Networks Inc, a company that makes Web pages run faster for large businesses in Canada, the United States, Europe and Brazil. It also works through partners in China and South Korea. Faster Web pages mean companies make more money–“people click more, stay longer, spend more money,” Mr. Bixby explains.

The high-tech business is “as much about the people” as about technology, he says, referring to his 40 employees. His six-year-old company appears perennially on lists of best employers to work for. Its growth is limited only by the need to develop relationships with clients and partners abroad, he says, which means face-to-face contact. And that takes time.

Mr. Bixby, who specialized in international development studies at the University of Toronto, ran two previous businesses with his brother, including one that offered the software tools to help governments and educational institutions build their own websites. His customers helped him see the connection between website speed and good business.

The high-tech business is “as much about the people”
as about technology, says Joshua Bixby.
Photo: Courtesy of Strangeloop Networks Inc.

Explain what you mean by “technology is as much about the people.”

All my intellectual property walks out the door every day, and comes in the next day. Which is different than most other companies. You’re building something that lives and breathes, and the heart of that, the key organs, are your people.

What challenges does that pose to a business person?

Your retention strategy and asset-management strategy are about people. Which is significantly more difficult, frankly, than when it’s about physical assets or moving money around or percentage allocations. The minute my people think they’re being treated like a commodity, that devalues them and they’re not interested in participating in the process.

How does your people strategy manifest itself?

By people having ownership. Not accepting the status quo. It manifests in an ownership across the entire business–understanding the core of the business, what we’re actually trying to do, which is to make Web pages faster, and constantly adjusting to make sure we’re meeting our client needs.

What do you look for in people?

Cultural fit is number one. We feel like we can teach some of the aptitudes. We can teach the skills. Our culture is one of being very open, one of a lot of conflict in the most positive sense.

Conflict in the positive sense?

People say what’s on their mind. They tell you if they think you’re wrong, no matter who you are. As the president, I get to experience that first-hand.

Explain how you encourage a culture in which people can say to the boss, “Look, you’re wrong.”

Somebody early on tests the waters. What happens? Is that encouraged? Does someone encourage it in public, and in private go and assassinate them? What actually happens? It has to be real for that process to continue. We encourage our people to identify root causes, get beyond treating the symptoms, and make decisions in a world of ambiguity. Think strategically, though you might get it wrong. You’re going to get it wrong a lot of the time. People are not afraid to take chances when we publicly state–internally–that we’re going to get things wrong.

How important is compensation?

I don’t think it’s very important. We look at surveys, but we probably fall in the middle–maybe the lower middle. You think you have these rational economic actors, but you have people who value other things more.

What is the secret of penetrating foreign markets with your technology?

We’ve learned a lot of hard lessons. We learned that you have to meet people face-to-face, and spend a lot of time on planes. A lot of time meeting with people. Direct contact. The same things as we do in our part of the world: Eat with people, break bread, have a drink, build long-term relationships. Another huge part of it is investment. We’re hiring people in those countries. We’re sponsoring contests in those countries. We bought iPads for all of the sales guys for one of our Brazilian partners. We wanted them to think about us.

What are some common mistakes?

There’s a tendency to under-invest in growth and to invest in the wrong places. We’ve hired consultants who say, “Hey, I’m going to do Japan for you,” and we realize that’s just not the way this works. It’s not about just using our partner or sales guy who might have an affinity with that culture to translate everything for us. On a typical trip to Brazil, we’ll attend 15 customer meetings. We demand to be in front of our customer.

What is your vision of the company’s future?

We ultimately want every Web page in the world to load in the blink of an eye–under 100 milliseconds. There’s a lot of work to do. We’re not achieving that with our customers today, and we’re certainly not on every website. We have some very large customers: Visa and Travelocity, Johnson & Johnson, Walmart. We’re still trying to conquer the world. There’s a lot of money to be made for our customers, and we’re going after it, nationally and internationally.

You want to conquer the world.

Indeed. The whole world, not just the North American world. We’re seeing as much business in Brazil, China and Korea as we are anywhere.

I sometimes wonder whether we have enough of that ambition in Canada.

I’ve spent most of my career out in Vancouver. There are incredibly ambitious people in the technology space who are trying to conquer the world. And they’re doing it.

This article has been edited for length and clarity.