Business Matters caught up with entrepreneur Joanna Reynolds, MD of SaaS marketing specialist Bordeaux & Burgundy to discuss the company’s rapid growth and plans for overseas expansion.
Tell us about Bordeaux & Burgundy
Bordeaux & Burgundy is a hyper-marketing agency dedicated to helping B2B SaaS companies become unicorns through creative solutions to support rapid scale. We work with companies from Series A+ to IPO/Acquisition and we partner with internal marketing teams to dramatically increase marketing output, to achieve real growth through demand generation.
Our CEO, Alfie Dawson, founded the company on the basis of his previous experience in the same space. This means we’ve always approached marketing as a long-term investment, combining creativity with a strategic focus on commercial growth. At Bordeaux & Burgundy, we understand the unique demands of scaling a funding-backed business and work closely with our clients to ensure consistent, high-quality output that delivers real results.
We’re fortunate to be working with interesting global clients on their unicorn status journey (In fact, we recently overshot as one of our clients reached Centaur status!).
What sets the company apart from its competitors?
What sets us apart is that we truly understand the challenges that high-growth companies face and have built our solution around this. We prioritise speed, efficiency and most importantly, the ability to scale rapidly to meet the demands of a high-growth business – something exemplified in our 10-day turnaround time.
What challenges do B2B companies face when looking for marketing?
In-house departments find it harder to scale at speed, this creates multiple challenges in itself, including a lack of output and the overall ability to do an end-to-end campaign to generate demand. We solve all of these challenges in one solution and can increase output by 10 times regardless of team size.
More so, we ensure all of our decisions are data-driven, provide transparent reporting and adapt at pace – another element that companies can find challenging when operating at scale.
How to manage talent/hiring in a scale-up?
I think it’s important to hire the right people at the right time for the right roles – and to be consistent with your hiring efforts. To do this, it’s crucial to stay up-to-date on evaluating whether your teams are serving clients in the best possible way and determine what additional talent or resources are needed.
In managing talent, I always think it’s important to provide access to colleagues and maintain open communication across the agency. Providing information, feedback, access to the latest tech/MarTech or to industry events to keep your team engaged, motivated and always in the know, should always be a part of this process. It’s also very important to keep your team focused, not only on what they need but also on the bigger picture of the business and client goals – are we keeping the foundations of our agency in mind and always pushing for more?
Lastly, give your employees the tools they need to take ownership of their roles, including the right knowledge, technology and flexibility to do their jobs. You need to trust your people as you hired them for a reason.
How important is diversity to company culture?
I think that in scaling a company, diversity happens naturally. When we look to hire, it’s based on talent, experience and the best fit for the company and our values. As a global company, we have a diverse mix of talent, cultures, and backgrounds across continents and as we look to further our growth, we’ll only become more inclusive.
Where do you see your company in the next three years?
Taking more clients to Unicorn Status, IPO, and acquisition. This naturally leads to growth in all areas for Bordeaux & Burgundy and where I see the company expanding in the next three years. We have our sights on global expansion, team expansion and further – scaling the agency while hitting key milestones with our clients. There’s a lot to come from Bordeaux & Burgundy.
Read more:
Getting to Know You: Joanna Reynolds, MD, Bordeaux & Burgundy
