To start, tell us briefly about you. What is your current role at your company, and what are the measurable achievements you are most proud of?
MEGA is a global tech company with our head office and executive team based in New Zealand, right down the bottom of the world. It’s not often you find a global software company success story like MEGA down our way. My role at MEGA is to support our amazing team to connect customers with our amazing products. Every day we work hard as a team to spread the word about the importance of privacy when it comes to storing your data, browsing online or when you chat, call and meet with people. Since joining MEGA, myself and the team have refocused how we broaden the MEGA message, and are starting to see our next phase of business growth take off. Privacy is becoming a household topic now, and I believe data privacy is a basic human right and that people should be empowered to own and manage their data in a safe space which is what makes MEGA so unique.What pain point(s) do you solve for your customers? What was the “aha Moment” that led to the idea? Can you share that story with us?
The ‘aha moment’ for us at MEGA began far before I joined. The team here have been on this journey for over a decade, with the laser focus on giving people a secure space to store their data, chat to friends, have business meetings, browse privately and ultimately ensuring their data truly belongs to them without being looked at, scraped, or monetized. We are sadly now living in an era where we constantly hear about companies selling data, and here at MEGA we’ve maintained our commitment to privacy and are the global leaders in this. We now have hundreds of millions of registered users across the globe. Our freemium model allows users to experience our cloud storage for free, try it, move data over to MEGA from other cloud storage solutions and ultimately end up subscribing due to the trust we create with them.What do you think makes your company stand out? What are you most proud of?
One thing that makes us stand out is our people. At MEGA, many of our team members joined because of their commitment to privacy and encryption, understanding its growing global importance. It is often an overused statement, but our people truly underpin our products. We have constant discussions via MEGA chat channels about our product development to continually share how we always evolve the experience for customers. We take the time to also share our peoples stories through our blogs and our brand presence to highlight the human aspect of MEGA and the importance of data privacy that we champion.From your experience, what are the most important things to build a highly successful website and online business? Please explain each in detail.
One of the major aspects of building a successful business or product is communicating the human need for it. Many of our competitors are fairly boring tech brands which are all saying the same thing to consumers, and not doing anything to stand out as different. At MEGA, we’re changing the game by educating the world on the importance of data privacy and bringing to life real use cases and reasons for using our products. We are on a mission to stand out, and this is paying off for us as a company. We are constantly aiming to create a human experience and make technology engaging and meaningful, rather than following the vanilla, boring approach many other brands take. This helps a globally diverse audience understand why it’s important to store their data with MEGA instead of other brands.What’s the one key lesson you’ve learned about building a website and business that you wish you knew when you started? What’s the story behind this realization?
I’ve learned that understanding your customer and their needs is crucial. You can’t be everything to everyone – if you try, you’ll end up being nothing to everyone. This principle is vital when building a business or any digital product. It’s about knowing how to write content, visually portray it, and position your products and unique value propositions in ways that resonate with different audiences. As a global company, we have almost twenty languages translated in our product. Recognizing cultural differences is essential in developing websites, products, and content. Localization is key. For example, in our social media communications, languages like Spanish, Portuguese, German, and French are very important after English. Understanding the differences in customer segments and their experience needs is vital for our continued success and growth.In your opinion, which aspect of running a website tends to be most underestimated? Can you explain or give an example?
Security. Security is everything. Despite having one of the most secure, zero-knowledge, end-to-end encrypted cloud platforms in the world, security remains a constant battle. People can still have their passwords compromised, leading to unauthorized access attempts. Because of this we are always focused on the security of our products and it’s a continually evolving area. If we didn’t lead in security, we couldn’t confidently stand behind our products. Balancing that though, we try to ensure that we deliver best in class security without compromising the customer experience or making it overly technical.What are the most common mistakes you have seen people making when building their website and online business? What can be done to avoid those errors?
One of the biggest mistakes is being too tech-driven. Human-centered design approaches are growing in many tech companies, but too often they are driven more by internal company thinking than by the customer’s point of view. This can lead to complicated user experiences, clunky language, or inconsistencies in the way a product works. At MEGA we operate by the rule that customers should be able to solve their problems in less than three clicks. If they can’t, we need to continually improve the product to enhance the human experience, and we do this with a lot of customer feedback that helps our development teams create our products.What strategy has been particularly effective in growing your website audience this year?
Our biggest focus this year has been shifting from high-tech-driven wording and experiences to being more customer-led and using human-friendly language that highlights the true value of MEGA. This change has been a game-changer for us, setting us apart from competitors who remain overly tech-focused and boring to the average consumer. By taking a different approach, we help people understand the importance of privacy and true cloud security for their data, ensuring they stay empowered and in control. This strategy has been a significant win for us this year.If I asked you to share the key ingredient in your “secret sauce” for inbound marketing, what would it be?
We are a privacy company – I surely cannot tell you that!Based on your experiences, what trends and technologies are currently underestimated or overlooked, but can significantly impact your industry? How are you going to adapt?
The biggest trend currently being overlooked, but gaining popularity, is the importance of data encryption. Every day, we hear more and more about data breaches, and there’s a growing movement of people supporting brands like MEGA that stand up for true data security. We’ve championed this cause for over a decade, providing a secure space for people to collaborate, store, chat, browse and meet, knowing their data is safe. We believe we’re ahead of the curve and are poised to ride this wave as more people join the movement and understand the importance of data privacy. This trend is reflected in the increasing number of subscribers to MEGA each month. We receive constant feedback through app reviews, market research, support channels, and social media, expressing people’s love and appreciation for a service that ensures they are not the product and that their data is truly safe. People are tired of having their data used to train generative AI models or serve ads, and we think this overlooked trend will become increasingly significant.📈 58% of organizations surveyed by Searce said that cybersecurity is their biggest concern to genAI adoption.
Source: https://www.searce.com/assets/images/landing-pages-images/article-images/article-ai-maturity-tracker/article-ai-maturity-tracker.pdf
