Coffee #4: Grant Davies, straight from study to MD & Founder of E-Clicks, and now Co-Founder and CEO of VERBALATE™
Grant Davies is my fourth coffee guest and another Founder to watch!
Grant struck me as a different type of entrepreneur to the archetypes I’d decided I’d meet on this journey. Common threads I’d seen:
a restless spirit that bores easily (mostly with ADHD - an entrepreneur’s superpower)
a narrative in life they were looking to prove wrong
a crucible moment that makes them
a career path that saw said person rise the ranks until they said “I think I could do this myself
But Grant’s story begins with starting his own business straight out of Polytechnic, in an industry which hadn’t made a name for itself yet and takes him right through to today where he is building VERBALATE™, which is as far we know, the first company to use AI to realistically translate and dub video content into multiple languages.
So, join me for a coffee with Grant! ☕
A Journey Across Continents: Grant's Formative Years
Grant's story began on the shores of the United Kingdom, however, at fourteen, a desire for a quieter life saw his family to the much quieter Christchurch, New Zealand. His parents had worked in some demanding roles and fields and sought respite from the UK's frenetic pace.
Once Grant finished high school though, his parents were caught by the allure of sunnier days, so they packed up to relocate closer to his Aunty on the Sunshine Coast, making Mooloolaba their new home while Christchurch remained the backdrop of his tertiary education and early career.
Grant had contemplated university; however, he was drawn to the nascent fields of web development and digital marketing—areas not yet integrated into university curriculums at the time. So, he jumped into Courses at the National College of Design & Technology, and later Christchurch Polytechnic where he studied Internet Technology, Multimedia, Marketing, and Business.
His foresight and determination to delve into these emerging disciplines set the stage for a journey of innovation and entrepreneurship that would define his career.
Absolutely mad and/or brilliant, Grant’s first job founding Absolon Media (later to become E-Clicks):
Upon finishing high school, Grant immediately embarked on an entrepreneurial venture, founding a digital agency initially named Absolon Media, focusing on "Macromedia Flash" website design. This venture would later evolve into E-Clicks. There was no preamble of a disheartening job or a pivotal moment of adversity; he simply possessed an innate conviction to forge his own empire. The year was 1998, a time when the digital landscape in New Zealand and indeed much of the southern hemisphere was still virgin territory. Grant's foresight placed him amongst the early pioneers of this industry (spoiler alert something we will see again in his story).
In addition to E-Clicks, Grant was also involved in his first real online startup, 'Whats On Christchurch', an events website that included real estate, car sales, and restaurant listings, catering to the local Christchurch area. This initiative was far ahead of its time, especially for a small city like Christchurch in the late '90s.
E-Clicks flourished under his leadership, expanding to include a small yet dynamic team. However, in 2010-2011, Christchurch was struck by devastating earthquakes that claimed lives and crumbled businesses, including those of many of Grant's clients. Amidst the rubble and uncertainty, with the necessity of sustenance looming over him and familial ties beckoning from Australia, Grant made the poignant decision to close E-Clicks. With resolve and resilience, he traversed the Tasman Sea to start anew in Melbourne, carrying with him the indomitable spirit of a true entrepreneur.
Getting his toes wet in the Corporate World
In his new home of Melbourne, he was jumping into a market vastly different to that of the quiet city of Christchurch, so Grant decided to dip his toes into the corporate waters, joining the ranks of Dentsu to decipher the intricacies of the Australian market. This foray into the corporate sphere was strategic; his goal was to absorb all the knowledge he could on the market and what the market leader was doing before reigniting his entrepreneurial flame that had brought him here.
After two years of corporate reconnaissance at Dentsu, the tides shifted. In what seemed like a twist of fate, Grant decided to embark on a new journey—viewing it as a sign that his true calling was not within the confines of the corporate world, but rather as the architect of his own ventures.
A Fresh Chapter: Rebooting E-Clicks and Fostering Community:
In 2013, Grant's time with Dentsu wrapped up, prompting him to rekindle E-Clicks as he had intended. Grant went hard and fast, but it got a scary as his finances dwindling to the last couple of thousand in his bank account. At this stage, if something didn’t come through at this point, it was game over - and then he won work with Fiat Chrysler. At this time, Grant had joined one of Melbourne's earliest shared workspaces, Blix Spaces.
Blix Spaces was a mosaic of expertise, housing an eclectic mix of professionals—from TV production teams and web developers to legal and financial advisors—all under one roof. This cooperative environment proved to be an ideal breeding ground for E-Clicks. The community were all early stage entrepreneurs and really used the community to share and fulfill the needs of their clients by tapping into complementary businesses in the work space (something I think we will see a lot more in 2024) so when a resident businesses needed Google Ad capability for their new client, Fiat Chrysler, E-Clicks was the obvious choice to subcontract the work too. They were now the digital marketing partner for Fiat Chrysler's online presence, kickstarting a new chapter of success.
The community within these walls was more than a network; it was a collective of like-minded individuals where everyone, including Grant, could share, thrive, and contribute to a flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem.
As E-Clicks grew, it attracted talent like Chris Butterworth, James Ambler, Luke Palmer, Hayley Coeland, and Cheryll Chuah, each bringing their own strengths to the team. Today, while Grant is still the Managing Director, the team runs a lot of the business so Grant has bit more free time to work on something special.
And then, VERBALATE™ enters from the side of the stage
The unexpected stillness of lockdown became a catalyst for Grant's intellectual curiosity, leading him to an MIT course that would pivot his career once again. It was here, in the depths of study, that he uncovered the intricacies of Generative Pre-trained Transformer technology. GPT, a marvel not widely recognised until 2022 (honestly, it blew my mind to hear it didn’t just come out of no where but I guess that explains why it was version 3 when we heard about it), and became the focus of his lockdown education. Grant immersed himself in understanding the models and their vast capabilities, exploring how they could be harnessed to achieve nearly any digital task.
While cycling (one of the few things you could do in lockdown) Grant was listening to Joe Rogan interview Mr. Beast when he said that he had a team of 400 people working for him purely dedicated to multilingual content dubbing for his international audience. After all his work with GPT, it struck Grant that he could make a streamlined, AI-driven solution to solve this issue. This idea spurred the conception of Verbalate™'s product pipeline, marrying AI with the world of multilingual content.
Fortune smiled on Grant as connections made during lockdown led him to Bogdan Ouatu in Romania, a pioneer in voice cloning technology. A serendipitous introduction by a recruiter (how good’s a good recruiter right 😉) brought Bogdan onboard as the Chief Technology Officer for Verbalate™. With this key partnership, they began to draw talent from across the globe, including an esteemed Enterprise Sales expert with an MBA from Oxford and Harvard.
As Verbalate™ continues to expand, its roots spread in strategic locations: the tech team blossoms in Romania under the CTO's guidance; strategy and design flourish in Australia with Grant; sales efforts intensify across the United States and South America; and a partnership in Asia is on the horizon. Their growth is marked by impressive metrics—1,300 signups and 150 paid users, with promising enterprise deals in the pipeline.
Focusing on the education and government sectors, Verbalate™ is not just surviving the lockdown but thriving as a beacon of innovation, embodying the fusion of AI and human ambition in the quest for global communication.
Copycats in an AI world that’s developing fast:
Despite being first to market - as far as Grant could see in his own Market Research - a very real concern in the start-up world is that someone with bigger pockets will see your product and has capacity & wallets that allow them to copy their business model, and this is exactly what happened. Grant saw large competitors start shipping products he suspects they replicated after observing his product's features and marketing strategies, which highlights the challenges of protecting intellectual property in a global market. This situation underscores the difficulties of safeguarding innovations, especially against firms in countries with lax patent enforcement, leading to direct competition from entities in Russia and China.
How'd the saying go though.. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”?
Where his entrepreneurial spirit stems from:
Full circle in his story, we finish by discussing where his entrepreneurial spirit stems from. Digging into it, Grant attributes his drive towards entrepreneurship to a combination of his personality and experiences. He perceives himself as nearly unmanageable, questioning authority and the status quo, often feeling stifled by traditional employment due to an almost unwavering belief in his own understanding and approach of the businesses he builds. His journey reflects a deep-seated desire for autonomy, influenced by his upbringing and a rebellious streak against conforming to norms that don't align with his values or logic. This foundation instilled in him a strong conviction to forge his own path, leading to the establishment of his companies to create products and services that he can’t see in the market.
The Wrap Up on Grant:
Grant's journey is a testament to both courage and intuition. Fresh out of school, he had boldly leapt into entrepreneurship, steering his own course in an industry that was still proving its worth, and now I suspect, we will see him carve out an empire of VERBALATE™. I found Grant via this post below which demonstrates the incredible capability of VERBALATE™’s Technology - go give Grant a follow as he shares with his audience ahead of the curve updates on what’s happening in the world of AI.