Imagine that you have a small startup business and you’re striving to make it successful. You are positive the product is in demand by a large customer segment. You love your team, all of whom are highly skilled and work together well, but you haven’t solved key marketing questions. Where can you turn for someone who will…
- Study and understand your company’s specifics?
- Take the value proposition and distill it so the customer understands?
- Help you identify and better understand target markets?
- Shape a marketing strategy and help ensure delivery?
- Bring accelerated growth?
What a blessing to have found Atomivox and its Founder and Managing Director, Kevin Mullins. It was my privilege to chat with him on Google Meet this week.
I am always interested in how a startup “started”. What need did they discover? What background did the founder have? What is the vision? Do they understand the Quadruple Bottom Line? What can other entrepreneurs learn from him or her?
Like most entrepreneurs, Kevin Mullins is highly intelligent with a college education; but Kevin also has a seminary degree, has an amazingly diverse background which includes law enforcement and wildland fire fighting, a dual citizenship with international living; all topped off with a technology wiring and experience.
Imagine:
A bilingual entrepreneurial leader with a track-record of building strategies that help companies and communities flourish. The last ten years are a combination of founder, executive, and board-level leadership roles in technology, marketing, localization, and social impact in the United States, Ireland, and Portugal — culminating in his current role as Founder and Managing Director of Atomivox, a creative inbound marketing studio and HubSpot certified solutions partner.
Integrated with:
Experience as an ordained minister, a missional heart and experience with a missionary agency with the family using their skills and talents for the furthering of the Kingdom through discipleship, meeting simultaneously both spiritual and physical needs for church members and the community around them. Kevin and his family have served and led in three different congregations. They are now serving faithfully in a Portuguese church plant in Lisbon while consulting with other ministries in Europe. Kevin provides vision, leadership, planning and direction, technology coordination, pastoral care, and preaching.
IT SEEMS TO DESCRIBE TWO OPPOSITE PEOPLE – BOTH WITH IMPORTANT TALENTS AND VISION.
But NO! It is the embodiment of faith and work in one person. It is the definition of the company called Atomivox in Lisbon, Portugal which provides jobs, sells a much-needed product and is a place where the teachings of Jesus can be seen in real life.
Kevin cites several contributing factors which have been important in his journey:
- He began to understand what a BAM company could be by reading Patrick Lai’s book Tentmaking, and by studying the “Poverty Cure” series produced by the Acton Institute.
- He heard God affirming his entrepreneurial capacity when he started a couple of software companies; one successful while another struggled. In it all he realizes he is still in business because of the grace of God.
- He learned the value of helping others to achieve a goal. Atomivox is a HubSpot-certified creative inbound marketing studio. From brand design and responsive web experiences to paid advertising and digital performance, they use new and existing technologies to help organizations delight their customers, align their teams, and achieve their goals.
- When he heard someone say, “You are the first Christian I have ever met,” it helped him realize that the workplace was the most effective way to reach people in Europe.
- “Europe needs independent entrepreneurs,” has become a driving motivation for Kevin as an entrepreneur. He creates jobs by hiring employees. Many more jobs are created by his marketing services, which increase job opportunities around Europe. It is what Jesus would do in 21st century Europe.
- He told me, “From Day 1, Atomivox has been a Gospel-centered business by creating opportunity, treating employees well, and living like Jesus.
IBEC is privileged to serve entrepreneurs like Kevin Mullins and businesses like Atomivox: (www.atomivox.com)
Larry Sharp, Director of Training, IBEC Ventures
larry.sharp@ibecventures.com