Jimdo.com Focuses on International Growth
July 1, 2009
Jimdo is based in Hamburg, Germany. Founded in early 2007 by three friends, Matthias Henze, Christian Springub, and Fridtjof Detzner, Jimdo provides an easy way for individuals, small businesses, and organizations to create their own websites. This isn’t the first business that these three have started together; In 2004, the three founded a company together on an old farmhouse, NorthClick, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jimdo. The web technology that powers Jimdo was first developed for NorthClick’s business clients to edit and update their sites more easily, but frequent requests from friends gave the founders the idea to offer free Jimdo Pages.
Since then, Jimdo and its website creator have been supported by partners like the Samwer brothers’ European Founders Fund (alando, jamba) and United Internet (GMX, web.de, 1&1) who have invested in the web startup. In February 2009, the 500,000th Jimdo site went online; now close to 1 million sites
From the beginning, Jimdo has focused on making its service available to as many people as possible, far beyond the borders of its native Germany. Fueled by a global outlook and strategically positioning itself in many markets, the company is laying the foundation for continued international expansion. Since its launch in early 2007, Jimdo has been available in multiple languages. Over the next two years, it has continued to add more languages. Reflecting Germany’s location at the crossroads of Europe, Jimdo offers fully-functioning versions and customer support in six Indo-European languages: German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Russian. Additionally, Jimdo is also available in Chinese & Japanese.
Jimdo’s East Asian Expansion
How does a startup in northern Germany successfully launch so far away from its home base? Since July 2007, Jimdo has partnered with the agency Web2Asia to provide Chinese language translation, user support, and local community expertise. Jimdo made the news this year by entering the Japanese market in March of this year by collaborating with KDDI Web Communications, part of one of Japan’s largest telecommunications conglomerates. Not only is KDDI WebCom managing Jimdo presence in Japan, it is also adding Jimdo’s technology into its existing line of webhosting products.
Country Managers Offer International Perspectives
Making sure a service is being presented in a culturally consistent way in such different markets, ranging from Paris to Colombia to Silicon Valley takes across-the-board commitment. Each “language” has one dedicated manager, coordinating translation, user support, as well as marketing & PR. Through these culturally competent representatives, Jimdo is investing in long-term growth and continued relevancy — not just a one-off translation.
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