40 Minnesotans on the Move: Luke Bucklin
Finance & Commerce special edition
Follow your bliss, his father had said, and you will succeed. If money is any measure of success, then Luke Buckling, co-founder and president Sierra Bravo Corp., is on cloud nine.
In five years, the Web development company in Bloomington has leveraged the $165 in saving from its three founders to gain $6.4 million in 2008 revenue. Last year, it was named to Inc. Magazine’s annual list of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies, ranking 556th.
Sierra Bravo’s rapid rise stems from Bucklin’s ability to flip it business model. The company began by integrating decades-old, legacy computer systems to continue using them but not be impaired by their limitations. But Bucklin noticed Web development work was becoming a staple of most projects. So he began hiring more Web developers and around 2007, the company formally launched the Partner Program. Through this, Sierra Bravo “rents it nerds” out to ad agencies and marketing firms to execute their creative solutions for clients.
And because Sierra Bravo is not interested in the creative aspect, ad agencies are more comfortable partnering with them, said Patty Henderson, senior director of strategy at Minneapolis-based magnet360.
There is no “push/pull over who is driving strategy and who is directing creative on this project,” Henderson explains.
Bucklin, 38, has proved this business model in more than just dollars and cents. Sierra Bravo won a Microsoft-sponsored national design contest in March by partnering with Minneapolis-based interactive agency Zeus Jones, beating teams from Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New York.
But Bucklin is no resting on his laurels. Expanding from it Bloomington headquarters – or “Nerdery” – Bucklin wants to see nerderies spring up in other major American cities.
It’s never been “our intent to grow into a seven-person shop and then do that for the next 15 years,” he says of Sierra Bravo, which now employs 83.Media Contact
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