Five Questions With: Nik Wahlberg

"The acquisition was a mutual choice based on collaboration with the previous owner."

Nik Wahlberg, president and CEO of Providence-based Scandia, talks with Providence Business News about the Web-development company’s recent acquisition of Mindfly in Bellingham, Wash. The price was not disclosed. The acquisition will allow Scandia to expand its reach to the West Coast, and its experience with other industries. Mindfly has five employees.

PBN: Will you be CEO of both companies? Will Mindfly change its name?
WAHLBERG:
Scandia started back in 2005-2006 when I left my first job out of college at a place called Andera. I was the consulting director there when Andera turned into a product company, which was acquired by Bottomline Technologies a little over a year ago. When Andera changed course, I decided to continue the consulting on my own which eventually led to Scandia. We currently employ 12 people onshore and an additional six developers in our offshore office.
Yes, I will be CEO of both companies until we eventually merge the two (that is the plan for now). There will be change in the management and overall operations of Mindlfy where the sales and business development staff will now report directly to me. This is so that we can be more effective at managing our sales pipeline, but also present a cohesive/unified message to our prospects. Project management and development will stay mostly the same, except now even stronger. For now we plan to keep the Mindfly name to ensure that we don’t lose the credibility and image that they have built up in our space over the years.

PBN: How did the acquisition of Mindfly come about? The companies seem very similar, as you both deal with web development.
WAHLBERG:
Yes, the acquisition was a mutual choice based on collaboration with the previous owner. She was no longer interested in continuing to run the agency due to other conflicting business ventures. For us it was a no-brainer given the fact that we were ready for personnel growth here in the U.S. We also mesh very well together seeing that the two teams are almost entirely focused on the Umbraco CMS platform, with extensive knowledge in both teams. Now working as one.

PBN: How will the acquisition of Mindfly help Scandia grow?
WAHLBERG:
Both the development, management, and marketing talent will help Scandia take on more projects in parallel. More importantly, Mindlfy’s customer list is impressive and gives Scandia another vertical to work with. Anecdotally, Scandia has focused on the financial and healthcare sectors. Mindfly has been working with a focus on manufacturing companies over the last few years. So, while there is symmetry in what we do, there is very little cross-over in terms of the types of clients that we are going after.

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PBN: Do you have any other plans to acquire additional companies and further broaden your reach?
WAHLBERG:
Not at this time. We see a tremendous opportunity with Umbraco over the coming months/years. It has grown exponentially here in the US in the last 1-2 years and we’re positioned to be considered strong experts in this field as companies start ramping up and switching from high-priced CMS platforms to Umbraco.

PBN: How does Scandia stand out in such a competitive industry?
WAHLBERG:
Our biggest differentiator has really been our ability to tackle the kinds of technical challenges that require industry expertise, a willingness to go the extra mile, and really know Umbraco CMS from the inside-out. Several global brands have come to us with business-critical issues that we’ve been able to effectively eliminate in short order. That, coupled with the fact that I co-wrote the, yet, only published book on Umbraco gives existing and potential clients, the confidence that we know what we’re doing.

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