An open letter from the Founder, President and CEO of Clickback.

To win anything is always an amazing experience.

But to rank #106 on the 2017 PROFIT 500 list and be recognized as one of Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies is an absolute honor.

And, I am humbled.

Because it got me thinking about what it took to build a business from the ground up.

Let’s just say, I’ve always been an extremely ambitious individual (I am sure other CEO’s can relate).

In fact, I’ve been an entrepreneur since my 20’s opening an Internet solution centre and store right after graduating from University in the late ‘90s.

This Internet solutions centre’s main focus was to help people, and small businesses, get onto the Internet and provide them training on how to use it.

Because (back then) the Internet was a newfangled concept which some thought wouldn’t last.

The centre was actually the first independent retailer in Canada to offer Bell Sympatico that was not a large box store.

This was the beginning of many “firsts”.

Later, in 1997, we became the first web development firm in Southern Ontario to offer e-commerce solutions and a 360-degree panoramic photo technology.

We were also one of the first three web development firms in Canada to offer an e-commerce shopping cart with real-time and secure credit card processing services.

Pretty crazy, right?

These firsts lead to some key awards such as the Niagara Entrepreneur of the Year Award and two Advertising and Creative Excellence Awards.

It got me re-evaluating though…is business services really the right industry for us?

I realized the answer was no.

So, decided to shift to software development and building out SaaS products.

I knew this was a risk.

A bet which could pay in dividends, or one where I could lose a lot.

Nonetheless, I went ahead.

One of the SaaS products we offered was email marketing (Clickback MAIL), as that’s where the market was heading in the mid-2000s.

But it wasn’t until 2010 when I realized that our clients were using our software for targeted B2B lead generation – as this was their primary challenge since many solutions did not allow them to email lists that were not 100% opted-in.

Collecting more customer insight and data, and doing thorough analysis of the market, I made the decision in late 2010 that our focus should be on B2B lead generation for marketers.

We wanted to help our clients aggressively accelerate their lead growth.

We’ve grown our internal team from 5 employees to over 30.

And now, we are winners of the 2017 PROFIT 500 ranking #106 on their list as one of Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies.

So, what do I contribute this success to?

I’ve always maintained a Customer First Focus (and so does the team here at Clickback).

Our pursuit of perfection is shown through our passion and unyielding drive to create B2B lead generation software solutions that aggressively grow our client’s lead funnel (as well as our own).

We’ve recently launched a second B2B lead generation software product (Clickback Lead Generation Software). This new product gives customers the ability to identify anonymous companies and contacts that have visited a website but didn’t inquire, turning website traffic into leads.

As CEO’s we often take risks, some calculated and some not.

And I have to say, with our great customers, amazing team here at Clickback and powerful software offerings, the sky is the limit for our future.

Sincerely,

Kyle Tkachuk

Founder, President & CEO of Clickback