My thoughts on Mimo, Part 1
I’ve always been inspired by the idea of making the world a better place through technology, innovation, and interaction. My goal with Mimo has always been to take that inspiration and to create a thriving business while cultivating meaningful and valuable relationships with my customers and my team. I’m proud to say that while I’m never done growing and Mimo certainly isn’t either, I’ve managed to do just that.
A lot of entrepreneurs and business owners fall into just managing people or the business as it grows and evolves, becoming more and more removed from the actual day-to-day nitty gritty of what the business actually does. It has always been important to me to stay involved with the hands-on engineering process, which I believe is crucial to not only really understanding everything that happens within the business but also in terms of carrying out a longer-term vision, and creating value in the business.
My priority in terms of running Mimo has long been rooted in people and relationships. Part of that, I believe, is that when times are hard that I should bear the brunt of more of the consequences. In 2020, when all of our business dried up (our only not profitable year), I was determined to keep everyone and carry as much of the burden as I could. So in 2020, I did not take any salary and did everything I could to keep everyone employed which I am proud to say that I successfully accomplished.
In addition, it was important to try and build equity within the community but also to give back on a wider scale. To do this, we collaborated with TechSoup, a non profit organization who connects our products with hundreds of non-profit organizations who could benefit from it. Because of this, our displays have been provided free of charge to science centers, schools, religious organizations, libraries and much more.