American entrepreneur Grant Cardone is famous for many reasons and one of these is his  10X philosophy. Cardone says the secret to growing a business or achieving a major goal is to “10X it”. That means you have to magnify your commitment, your belief, your passion and your work rate by 10. It’s a lot easier said than done. Anyone who has tried to build a business or accomplish any major achievement will be able to relate to this concept. Success takes massive effort. 

Working with our client SaxaVord has been a great example of what a 10X attitude can do: the team at SaxaVord has these attributes in abundance. Of course, they have a lot of talent as well and the combination of these elements is a winning formula.

The news that SaxaVord was finally to receive some support from government in the form of a £10 million fund (see High Growth Scotland’s article),   is an exciting milestone. It comes after they have pioneered their path to the stars the hard way. Some people knew that without government support they had secured £40 million in private equity funding, won planning permission and the right to conduct thirty launches a year, signed deals with international launch providers, and started a data business that exploits the unique advantages of their geographical location to access low earth orbit satellites. All of this took massive effort and a huge amount of talent. But what only a few knew was they had to do all of that while fighting a rear-guard action as other interests seemed to block their path.

The sheer effort and determination that has gone into their achievements to date is illustrated by this extract from “TheTimes”, “Any delight felt by CEO Frank Strang… was tempered by anger at his treatment by the Scottish government and its agencies who had offered scant support to his business over more than seven years while pouring money into his competitor. 

Frank himself said, “We’ve fought, bitten and scratched to get to this point,” There were moments when the public sector seemed to want to put us out of business — those scars run deep. It’s affected my own health and my team’s health.”

We’ve been fortunate enough to have been working with the SaxaVord team since 2020 providing consultancy and marketing support. We’ve seen at first hand what a fantastic team they are and what a great culture they have. They might be the best example of a 10X attitude you will ever see.