We are very honored and happy to tell you that Blockbusters Gang has received Finnish business newspaper Kauppalehti’s certificates given to successful and growing companies! Less than 2% of Finnish businesses received both of these certificates this year, which makes me and Iiris very proud entrepreneurs. In this blog post I’ll open up a bit what these certificates actually mean and what made us, Blockbusters Gang, meet the requirements.
Menestyjät / Achievers 2020
This certificate means the company’s financial performance is among the best in its industry and in Finland. Alma Talent (the publisher of Kauppalehti) uses a specific financial analysis to classify all the companies, measuring the following:
- growth
- profitability
- financial result
- liquidity
- solidity
- debt serviceability
The analysis shows that our strengths were growth, profitability and financial result. Liquidity, solidity and debt serviceability were our weaker spots in the comparison. Since the very start we’ve known that we wouldn’t be gaining financial stability through big margins and profits, and this is why our strategy has been to keep the fixed costs low and the business model as flexible and agile as possible. In practice this has meant small office team, compact office space, light in-house marketing (network and social media based mostly), entrepreneurs with endless flexibility in their schedules and fast decision making.
During the last year we’ve been able to reinforce our office team by hiring a permanent full-time employee (to make the daily operations run smoother without that endless flexibility from me and Iiris) and the plan is to continue develop the office workflow and systems to next level so that we have enough resources to keep things running but also to keep the business model fresh and easily adaptable to the changing environment.
Kasvaja / Growth Company 2020
This certificate is given to businesses that have grown their revenue three years in a row, each year 10% more than other companies in their industry in average (our industry being the temporary employment agency activities).
Growth alone was never our goal but it’s something that we’ve needed to be able to develop BBG as we want to. Growth allows us to offer better services to clients and to create better working environment to our employees and members. So far we’ve grown every year (COVID most probably making this year an exception) and we’ve never needed any borrowed funds to make it happen. Steady growth with income financing only has made us feel a bit more secure, though our liquidity and financial solidity is not in the best possible level. At the moment I (once again) feel like we need to grow a little bit more to make the business run better and to be able to carry out all our great short term plans. We’ll see if somewhere in the future there comes a point when we just want to develop the company, but not to grow it any more..? Until that, steady and mild(ish) growth is very welcome!
FYI
Both certificates have been given to us for the accounting period from April 2019 to March 2020. So for those who wonder, this means the certificates describe our financial performance and growth right before COVID-19 properly hit us in Finland. Truthfully speaking, our performance during COVID-19 hasn’t been that good and this probably will be the first year for us that there won’t be any growth in revenue. Anyway, we are extremely proud of these certificates since they show us that we have been on the right track. As an entrepreneur it is hard to get feedback of your work and of the performance of the company, and without feedback it’s sometimes hard to find motivation or keep believing in your goals and the grand vision. That is why this kind of recognition feels especially important and meaningful. And it motivates us to keep going, even during these tough times, and to even aim higher..!
-Emma Ilves
Gang CEO & Co-Founder