As the business charges forth with its international strategy, Llewellyn says it has been a challenge to navigate different languages and legislations.
The acquisition of 12Designer meant 99designs could take on a presence in Germany without having to create a site from scratch.
“What Eva [the 12Designer founder] had done was raise some money from a Spanish-based incubator, so she had actually gone already with 12Designer into a number languages.
“She was in French, Italian, Spanish, German and English, so when we met, she was trying to do all of that on a shoestring from Berlin.”
Llewellyn says the business then officially went into France and they hired a Paris-based staff member to manage it.
“We then launched in Spanish and we service Spain from Berlin, but we hired a Spanish woman that has moved from Berlin to Madrid and she goes backwards and forwards.
“We service Latin America from the US at the moment, but now we are able to service Latin America from Brazil [via the acquisition of LogoChef] which is exciting.”
The strategy of localised sites and local expert staff appears to be working, with Llewellyn saying the fastest-growing markets are the localised markets.
“Brazil is going off like a cracker. But one caveat is that the Brazilian banks have changed the payment rules on us, which has made it a little bit more difficult for our Brazilian customers. They’ve actually changed the way in which they handle international credit card transactions.”
Tackling international expansion has not come cheaply for 99designs, and Llewellyn says it is a “long-term investment”.
“It [the cost] does slow you down a little… there is more regulation but at the same time for us it is delivering growth.
“A lot of the markets are reasonably small, and you’re going off a small base, so you think ‘awesome month-on-month growth’, but it will be some time before it will catch your established markets.”
In addition to growing internationally, creating new products, such as the recently launched platform Swiftly, is part of the 99designs grand plan.
“Swiftly is all about small designs being done fast. We have a sub-sector of our design community, and build a special workflow engine so that designers get an opportunity to turn around the work in a small about of time.”
To reach the bold ten-year goal, Llewellyn knows his trip to Melbourne will be just one of countless flights across the world.
“There is no doubt that it adds to your workload… it means that I now have to go to Europe a few times a year to be with that team. I was in Brazil in August and then back here.
“I wake up and there are people working, I go to bed there are people working. There is not much time off, from answering calls internationally. But I love what we are doing, I love our journey.
“Graphic design is a $100 billion global industry. We are only a scratch but we’ve got a long way to go.”
Melinda is a business writer and editor and helps companies to bring their brand stories to life through her small business, Oliver Content. Melinda was previously the content manager for KPMG Australia, an editor of SmartCompany, and spent many years as a journalist.
