As I sit here in Mumbai sipping coffee this morning, I am reminded of my time 2 years ago. All I had to myself (no exaggerations on this one), was a single-man company that of course, found enough and more critiques (you’ll know if you were one of them) who rubbished the need for yet another analyst firm. Fast forward two years to today, most of these critiques are now friends, if not clients yet. And as they say, rest is history.
Greyhound turning two (btw, we love hashtags, so please use #GreyhoundTurns2) comes at a very opportune time. We have just closed a solid financial year and the mood is rightfully upbeat to share some great news with you all.
First Things First. Facts about us that you should know.
- We are now a passionate team of 20 specialists. Yes, 20 and specialists.
- Over the last 12 months, we recorded a humbling 4-digit growth rate. In case this is confusing, this points to XXXX% YoY growth (Happy to discuss specifics in a one to one discussion).
- Client list is now 60+. This is across both buy and sell side and with a healthy spread across the regions.
- We have received more than a dozen awards in the past 12 months. No, don’t worry, we are not letting this go to our head. We are a humble bunch and wish to keep it like that!
- Greyhound Research is part of the broader set of companies under the Greyhound Knowledge Group banner. Contrary to traditional belief system, NO, we are not running ourselves “too thin” or “losing focus”. All businesses under the group are complimentary and only help us better serve clients.
What do we believe sets us apart? Things that set us apart from the big boys in our space.
- High degree of focus on Emerging Markets. The 20 Greyhounders exclusively focus on Emerging Markets including Asia Pacific Japan (APJ), Middle East Africa (MEA) and Latin America (LATAM).
- Truly committal to not being vendor pets. Since inception, the company has not signed even a single dollar of vendor-sponsored research. Please read through some of our latest work to confirm this one. If you still have doubts, try offering us a cheque for a co-branded white paper. 🙂
- Investing in knowledge-sharing and peer-to-peer networks. Greyhound Golden Gate, an exclusive community of IT Decision Makers in Emerging Markets and our latest initiative #ONTrigger elude to the same.
- We love our employees and invest in them. No, our business model is not hiring the cheapest people in town and running a sweatshop (yes, someone did think of us like that!). To share with you, all of our employees are well paid and come with handsome credentials.
- Our values are our holy grail. We strictly follow three values here at Greyhound – Quality (in all deliverables), Access (being there when our clients need us) and Humility (in the end, we are all human beings, aren’t we 🙂 ).
Have we hit the home run yet? Yes, and No. 🙂
- Why Yes? With humbling performance from the latest FY (and over last 24 months), questions on our business model, financial viability and market acceptance have been put to rest. And with three acquisition offers so far, there is ample reason for me to believe we are doing this right. 🙂
- Why is this reassuring and positive? We are NOT investor funded, prefer to bootstrap and operate lean – this to ensure we can build a sustainable business from client money. This also allows us to focus on the doing things right than simply churning out numbers to fan the fancy of investors.
- Why No? Putting our performance over last 24 months behind us as a milestone, we are cognizant we have work ahead of us to help us further refine our game.
- So, what’s our plan? At the outset of 2015, we started out on an ambitious journey and code-named it Project Catapult. As part of this, we have been making one key announcement (at least) every single month so far. One of the key announcements we made earlier this year was the establishment of Client Centricity Team. This team ensures we don’t take the traditional pushy sales approach and instead offer a more holistic solution to our clients and hence a better working experience.
- What to expect in the remainder of 2015? Expect the remainder of the year to be full of surprises and hopefully the Greyhound team will have enough WOW moments for you!
To summarize it all, below are few quotes that I recently posted on social media platforms – I use the hashtag #EntrepreneurQuips to share strands from the Greyhound journey that I strongly believe in.
“Passion over Sleep, People over Profits.”
“Running a self-funded business is much like being a single parent. You are all-in, without exceptions.”
“Man with a vision, but alone, can at best think. Same man with a supporting team will, to least, execute with excellence.”
Once again, thank you all for your support. Here’s to many more such years ahead!
Cheers,
SVG
