Takeoff Media, One Tree and Portlike make up a business group that came to an end in 2014, when the latest line of business focused on analytics-based digital advertising was incorporated. Before the work had been on customized digital solutionsa; like application development and—going one step further—in software development in general.
According to the director of the business group, Ignacio Bazzano, the growth of the first company —Takeoff Media, which emerged in 2008 focused on customized digital solutions— occurred naturally and, at that moment, he found the possibility of offer clients a work team that collaborates in the development of a product together with the internal team that they had formed in their companies. That is the work of One Tree, and within this the focus is on e-commerce. By the way, Bazzano said that One Tree is a partner of Adobe Magento which is currently the leading e-commerce platform.
“We grew tremendously in this area, while Takeoff Media was also growing in the bespoke digital solutions vertical.”, said the director of the business group.
Later, when the companies were already operating as a digital agency, Bazzano understood that clients made them work in digital advertising and the like. Among these he highlighted e-mail marketing, salesforce and analytics; that were about to be certified as Google Analytics partners, and today Portlike —the group’s third business vertical— is the only certified company in Uruguay.
“We had a fairly advanced discipline in the digital advertising part, working with Facebook, Google”, explained the director of the companies. Then, They converted all that package of services that they had scattered between Takeoff Media and One Tree, and unified it in Portlike.
Thanks to the development of this business group that incorporated more and more business verticals, it went from having less than ten workers in 2008 to currently having around 250.
Regarding the team, Bazzano said that the geographical distribution of the various companies diversified over time: “Before the pandemic, almost all the development teams were in Montevideo. Today between 30% and 40% is outside of Uruguay; in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, United States“, Held.
As he explained, this is due to the fact that the competitiveness of people in all parts of the world began to match, which is why the business group decided to diversify its source of talent to other countries.
So much so that Takeoff Media, One Tree and Portlike opened offices —all of them, in a cowork style— in different parts of the world: Bogotá, Buenos Aires and the headquarters in Montevideo.
In uruguay, the business group moved to Sinergia Faro this monthbecause in this place they found the balance they needed to carry out their proposal.
Bazzano said that before the pandemic, Takeoff Media, One Tree and Portlike operated out of an office that had space for 120 people, and that during the pandemic it was left empty. The problem was that once the pandemic passed, the office did not fill up because people were very comfortable working at home.
Then, that giant office stopped making sense. “Sinergia made a lot of sense because we found a good balance to be able to develop comfortably with less square meters”, explained the director of the business group. “An office like Sinergia’s makes the hybrid value proposition much more attractive but with time in the office,” he added.
About the business
Just as there is geographical distribution of employees, Takeoff Media, One Tree and Portlike have an international client base.
According to Bazzano, More than 90% of the services offered by the different companies are for companies in the United States, or multinational companies that operate in the region.
Thinking about the future, the director of the business group said that as a company the challenge is to retain the best customers.
“Today, The portfolio of clients that we have gives us great pride. We are working for the AT&T telephone company and also with IBM, Harvard and Stanford universitiesbeverage giant AB InBev and entertainment companies such as the BBC globally, Spotify and HBO for the entire Latin American regionBazzano recounted.
In conclusion, he said that In the coming years, he expects the different companies to attract more customers. In this sense, he said that although the profitability of the business has fluctuated over the years, the trend is upward and he expects it to continue like this.
