Tim was surprised he made the business magazine’s famous list. “It felt awesome to be recognised for what my business partner and I have achieved. When I was told the calibre of the other people on the list, I was shocked that I had made it.”
The list included start-up entrepreneurs from areas such as healthcare, media, finance and e-commerce. In October, Tim will join the other winners at a summit in Boston.
Those who have followed Uprise’s meteoric rise in New Zealand will be less surprised by the accolade. The digital marketing start-up began as a two-man operation, as Tim and high school friend and fellow Victoria Business School alumnus Matt Rowe hatched a new direction for online marketing. Their business has since won a string of awards and currently employs eighteen full-time staff at offices in Auckland and Wellington.
Tim credits Uprise’s success to “disrupting” an industry that has been operating in a traditional space. “We have a set of key values centred on being transparent, even if that’s at the expense of revenue, and providing tangible, measurable benefits to our clients. We want to do the right thing by our client and build a real relationship.”
Their goal is to provide digital marketing strategies that are not only tailored towards the individual needs of the business, but are also effective for the consumer.
“We want to rid the world of bad advertising. Digital advertising doesn’t have to be intrusive. It should be enhancing people’s experience online,” he says.
Tim graduated in marketing, international business and commercial law, and Matt in marketing and management.
Despite the divergence from his degree, Tim pinpoints certain papers that have proved invaluable to running a business, enhancing his research skills and, he says with a grin, making him “sound smart in meetings”.
“When Matt and I first started we threw ourselves into it, and were passionate about doing digital marketing better. After the first three years, we realised the size of the opportunity. The industry seemed to be growing and it’s constantly changing.
“There’s so much we want to do, it really excites me. We’re not afraid of having outrageous goals,” he says.