Admittedly in 2006 it held the 10th spot on this list so its growth is slowing slightly. However since few companies that call themselves printers ever make it on any list for rapid growth there must be something special about Mimeo. Also very few printing companies have a list of investors including venture capital, private equity funds and innovate leaders in high technology.
Mimeo is not new; it has been around since 1999. Since that time it has probably been the fastest growing printing company in North America with revenues now approaching US$60m, and yet it does not own what most printers would call a printing press. Mimeo is a digital printing company and yet does not operate in areas of transactional printing, and has only just launched a facility for one to one personalisation. Perhaps the best way of summing up what Mimeo is about is a quote from Charlie Corr its VP of corporate strategy. Prior to joining Mimeo Corr was a VP at Infotrends.
Corr stated the following: “There are very few times when you can leverage technology to fundamentally transform an industry and provide real benefits to end users, to save time, provide better quality and better value. It is seldom in a career when one can see things coming together including technology and the service and delivery models to transform the industry and the experience of end users.”
Adam Slutsky, Mimeo’s CEO who joined Mimeo three years ago from the movie industry says, “Printing is a huge market that nobody has transformed and it is really interesting to do so. The way people print today is pretty well how they were printing ten, twenty or even thirty years ago. We make it easier, more efficient and give a higher quality product.”
I think this is a rather inaccurate statement as a whole but it may well cover the laggard companies in the industry, but it does indicate a different approach to the printing business. There are many companies using digital printing technology that do similar things to Mimeo, but not to such scale or such a level of efficiency. The key differentiator with Mimeo is how they operate, who their customers are, and the speed and sophistication of service they offer. Like many digital printers they provide an advanced online e-commerce storefront to order and monitor printing. They provide guaranteed turnaround times including 24 hours delivery in the US and 48 hours to Europe. The interesting thing is the type of work they do and the limitations on what they offer. Mimeo is predominantly a document printer. They are restrictive on paper sizes and paper substrates that can be used, and the type of binding that is offered.
They key element of the Mimeo offering is to make it simple for departments of corporate organisations that are not in the creative worlds and for whom print buying is not a normal procedure, to easily purchase their documents. Instead of going out to a printer, be that a commercial or quick printer, or having a CSR come to sell you print, Mimeo makes pricing and buying print online very easy. The main business applications can be classified into three business areas.
In sales and marketing it is seen as sales collateral, brochures and newsletters. In human resources, internal training manuals, policy manuals, orientation guides and handbooks. In operations, reference guides, user manuals and specifications. This may all seem pretty simple stuff, but it is critical for major companies to have this work done quickly and accurately and delivered on time.
To show this approach is successful Mimeo has over 8,000 active accounts and more than 20,000 users. One could say it is perhaps the VistaPrint for the corporate markets, where the demands are more critical than for the consumer markets and the document offerings more complex.
To make all this happen Mimeo claims to have the largest and most automated facility of 140,000 sq. ft dedicated to digital production and distribution. This is located in Memphis next to the FedEx North American hub. In October last year it opened a sister 80,000 sq. ft facility in Newark, again next to the FedEx Northeast regional hub.
Wasn’t this supposed to be the FedEx Kinko model? In the first quarter of 2009 Mimeo.co.uk was launched with production in the US, and 2010 it is planning to launch the Mimeo European production center in Leipzig, Germany near the DHL European hub.
It is interesting that this growth (36 per cent CAGR for the last eight years) without getting involved in variable data printing (just launched in July 2009) or transactional or transpromo applications. It has a limited amount of digital photo printing. Its business is simple document printing, but it does not sell printing, it sells a corporate service that is easy to use.
It does not get involved in complex colour matching or any non-standard applications. In a similar fashion to VistaPrint it makes the buying process simple for a standard range of work. It also does not compete in aggressive price competition. It operates in markets that are little affected by global recessions providing materials that constantly demanded by its customers.
Now why don’t other printers work like that?
Comment below to have your say on this story.
If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at editorial@sprinter.com.au.
Sign up to the Sprinter newsletter
