August 12, 2015

Happy birthday to us: Theta turns 20!

By

Theta

Last week Theta celebrated twenty years in business. That’s a long time in tech!

To illustrate: back when we started, we didn’t even have email. There wasn’t much in the way of internet either, and we had to look things up in books. Software came on diskettes (remember them?) and mobile phones were big and expensive. Not as big and expensive as laptops though – some people preferred to carry around desktops.

In the early days we called ourselves a “virtual company” – we thought that sounded better than saying we had no office. We had no service desk – if you had a problem, you just had to solve it yourself.

We have an office now – three in fact, in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. We have a CEO, independent directors, a strong practice structure and 180 staff. Two of our founders still work in the business, as does our first ever staff member. And of the four customers we had when we started out, three are still customers. 75% customer retention over twenty years - that’s pretty good going!

What better way to celebrate than with cake, after a few tales of the early days from founder Matt Owen?