Startup Stories with Hilary Borndahl June 2021

When I launched Miix in January, I spent a lot of time thinking through the values that were important to me personally in building a modern Marketing Research Boutique. The first article I published on LinkedIn was, “Renewal through Reflection: "What Bird are You Most Like?". I spoke about looking inward and understanding who we are as contributors and leaders, and then surrounding ourselves with a diversity of thought, backgrounds, experiences, and ways forward. While Miix hasn’t done any applicant screening on bird types (diversity is that natural sugar to our smoothies!), at 5 months in we have organically formed a team that closely matches my vision from January. I am completely energized to collaborate with this team every single day - they are truly awesome people.

It’s no secret I am uber passionate about MMM. I like to consider myself a Mockingbird: a lifelong learner & protector. However, the bird personality quiz offered through Cornell has me as a Chickadee: curious, smart, bold, and talkative. Probably too Talkative :). Rachel is our hardworking and tenacious Bluebird, but also has the natural planning abilities of a Yellow-billed Magpie! Zubin is our unwavering Kestrel Falcon: determined to be the most agile modeling analyst out there. Data visualization comes naturally to Chanelle, who is our Laurier Hawk, or Cornell Raven, with acrobatic data skills like no other. Give her and Zubin a problem to solve and they will figure it out! The surprise addition to our flock, joining for the month of June, is our Grade 11 at St. Mildred’s-Lightbourn School Educational co-op student, Lily Downes. Lily is an Owl by nature, completely focused to knock her placement out of the park! 

The most incredible thing about the journey of building this talented team is that we’ve done it all virtually. Our running joke is we don’t really know who is taller or shorter because we’ve never met in person! Building our business in Google has allowed for agility beyond my expectation, with each of us working from an environment that is conducive to our personal contribution styles - our own unique nests. 

To wrap up this edition of startup stories, I’ll leave you with this favorite quote from Pablo Picasso (I acknowledge I also included this in the May stories, it's just such a good one!). As we begin Pride month, I encourage each of you to think through how you are challenging yourself to look at things differently as we near halftime in 2021, and the new business culture that awaits.

"There is only one way to look at things until someone shows us how to look at them with different eyes." - Pablo Picasso

With sincere gratitude,

Hilary

President, CEO & Founder, Miix Analytics Inc.

[email protected]