The Pebbletree success story is born of entrepreneurial flair and the strength to instinctively flex with market demands, according to Managing Director Janni Thornton.
The first manifestation of Sunderland-based Pebbletree's strategic intent can be found in Thornton's original plan to create something different in the comms space, something that could not be ignored by cost conscious businesses. Any shift in tactics continues to be catalysed only by a desire to give customers what they need, and Pebbletree's modus operandi has become a 'personality' that shows the company at its agile best.
Before setting up Pebbletree as a family business Janni and her husband Robert previously worked for blue chip organisations in IT-based roles. They wanted to own their own company so decided to grab the bull by the horns and start up a software development business in 2005 providing bespoke solutions. A bright idea in early 2006 sparked the Soho66 brand into existence, which is now a high profile VoIP provider.
In 2007 the husband and wife team worked out of their spare bedroom. That summer, they shifted up a gear as orders poured in, enabling Soho66 to secure a market foothold against all the odds as the recession loomed. The catalyst was the gulf that opened up for companies under siege from the worst financial crisis in living memory, that were picking up the pieces with ever-shrinking budgets. "Businesses wanted to cut costs anywhere possible to keep their head above water, and Soho66 offered an affordable, reliable telecoms solution that could help companies save in excess of 60-70 per cent on their comms compared to traditional providers," stated Thornton.
During 2007-2008, Soho66 generated revenue growth of almost 63 per cent and a year later 103 per cent. Unfazed by the biting recession Pebbletree spotted another growth opportunity, this time in Ireland. So Thornton established Goldfish.ie in partnership with a close friend and adapted the Soho66 cloud platform to suit the Irish market. Today, Goldfish boasts a customer base of more than 3,000 businesses supported by a team of seven located near Dublin. "Our ability to innovate and diversify without requiring the go-ahead from investors or a board has given Pebbletree the flexibility to build a successful core of brands," commented Thornton.
In 2013 Pebbletree launched another brand, Quvu (pronounced queue-view), a browser-based contact centre management system that enabled the firm to reach some of the largest users of telecoms. A year later the product received 'highly commended' recognition for Best VoIP Innovation at the ITSPA awards. Soho66 then snared the Best VoIP prize at the ISPA ceremony, and last year ITSPA awarded Soho66 the Best Business ITSP (medium enterprise) gong. "2015 was a year to remember for Pebbletree," added Thornton. "We were also crowned champions at the Echo Business Portfolio Awards after winning Employer of the Year."
Soho66 accounts for the majority of Pebbletree's 30,000-plus UK customer base. Although it primarily targets the SME market with cloud-based telecoms solutions, larger customers such as enterprises and contact centres are also switching to its services having opted to move their comms to the cloud.
The company now forecasts a 2014-2015 revenue increase of 21.5 per cent and expects this to grow to 31.5 per cent in the current financial year. Its team of 28 will also expand to more than 30 staff by 2017. "We have grown organically from day one, are debt-free, have no investors and have been operating at a profit from the outset," added Thornton.
Crucially, Pebbletree's early growth was driven by a combination of vision and can-do leadership rather than a pre-planned long-term business plan. "In the beginning, strategy wasn't something that we proactively followed," added Thornton. "It may have been an unconventional business model but we knew the foundations we wanted to build the business on, and added strings to our bow when and where we could."
The strength of this approach is reflected in Soho66's success despite having no dedicated sales team. Furthermore, before Quvu's inception Pebbletree didn't have a sales department. "We grew thanks to word of mouth and recommendations from our customers," added Thornton. "As a self-built family business there has always been a strong focus on customer service. We continue to adapt, innovate and diversify as we see trends and shifts in the industry and marketplace, and believe that this approach, alongside our customer focus, has justified the steps we have taken and the decisions we have made. This approach is the reason why Soho66 is rated as the highest ranked VoIP provider of any of our competitors on TrustPilot, from over 400 customer reviews."
Just as popular is Soho66's Reseller and Affiliate programmes, pointed out Thornton, who noted that the company works with 110 white label partners and 288 affiliate resellers. "We see resellers as an important cog in our VoIP machine," she said. "They provide a consistent, specialist, high level of service. If resellers maintain their customer ethos and provide the right solutions they will succeed in any market."
According to Thornton, Soho66 and Quvu are the primary growth areas as larger organisations realise the benefits of next generation communications. "The prospects for Quvu are huge," explained Thornton. "Some of the largest and most influential contact centres are switching their call management platforms onto the cloud and enjoying the cost savings. Internationally, Soho66 and Quvu have a chance to gain significant ground. With existing customers in the Irish, South African and Filipino markets we have the opportunity to build a strong global customer base. Although our services are used worldwide, we refuse to fall into a corporate way of working and believe investment in our platform, infrastructure and team is the best way of ensuring success."
Although Soho66 has built its customer base without a sales team, Thornton recognises the need to support the Quvu product with selling expertise. "With Quvu, the top priority is to continue to build the brand, develop the product, understand our customers' needs and adapt future releases to mirror them," noted Thornton. "By building all of our solutions in-house we can adapt and alter our priorities as the market changes. This gives us more freedom to innovate and the opportunity to work alongside customers."
Pebbletree has invested significantly to ensure that its platforms are as stable, resilient and reliable as possible by using a number of different data centres, each of them operating redundancy and failover fault tolerance. Pebbletree also carries out 24/7 platform monitoring across thousands of unique monitoring points allowing it to immediately detect a problem and rectify any issues. Aside from these investments, Pebbletree has created Simply66 as its own brand, a Virtual Receptionist service built and run in-house at the Pebbletree HQ. The company is also a fully fledged RIPE NCC member, giving it access to its own IP numbering.
The Pebbletree portfolio continues to evolve whenever the team spots a gap in the market, and the company's track record in such matters has earned it a reputation for entrepreneurial talent. "As with Simply66 and Quvu, we saw the chance to provide customers with a complementary product to Soho66, or in the case of Quvu, an evolution of the Soho66 solution," she added. "By tracking, understanding and dissecting the market and our competition we give ourselves the best chance of staying ahead of the game."
Thornton embraces Pebbletree's future with excitement and ambition and looks back on a decade well lived. "In a career with many highlights, celebrating 10 years of Pebbletree has been my biggest achievement," she said. "It is a special milestone for Robert and I, and it is testament to the risks we have taken and the decisions we have made since we started the business."•