fbpx

All Roads Lead to Middle

Dear reader, 

You may have been following us for a while, or maybe you just discovered us. Or maybe you’ve just stumbled upon this post, without really knowing what it is. Either way, welcome to the how and the why.

Every good story needs to be told from the beginning, so let me take you back a few years to follow in the footsteps of Karelle, our Founder. 

She enrolled in a bachelor’s degree in IT, for the very simple reason that it offered remote classes. Travelling has always been a priority for her, but so was her education. This degree was the best of both worlds. 

After obtaining a working holiday visa in the UK, she thought she would work in the catering industry to support herself. However, she soon realized the world of technology could open many other doors. Why not start a blog, offer web design services, or manage social media? 

It didn’t take long before she got some interest, allowing her to start a portfolio while launching the blog: LA DIGITALE NOMADE. 

It should be noted that at this point, it was the year 2013. The aforementioned term is relatively unknown, and quickly attracts many curious people to the blog. One thing led to another, and Karelle quickly started to help those who wanted to do just like her; travel and work at the same time. 

She keeps taking contracts to create websites, in order to allow her to continue her way to Europe; it is through an exchange program that she ends up in Portugal!

After a year of classes, she continues to create websites for clients from all over the world, improving her programming skills at the same time. She takes online courses and practices real-life cases with her clients.

It is in these surroundings that she starts an internship in Lisbon, during which she has to organize startup weekends in IoT. She quickly integrated the hardware world and learned the basic features of Arduino and Raspberry Pi. After 4 boot camps of 10 days and a conference on project management as a CMO, she started an intensive programming course to learn Ruby on Rails and JavaScript. Her web development mandates are still there, mainly for clients located in Quebec. 

The name “digitale nomade” doesn’t make sense anymore, either for her or for her clients. The term is still too little known to be appreciated by everyone. Before returning to Quebec, she renamed her company: it then became Made In Digital.

It’s a real new challenge: 5 months to find clients, before leaving again, this time towards Africa, Haiti, Asia and Europe, to give programming training to young women. She maintains her address book, in order to remain nomadic. 

It is quite legitimate to say that Made In Digital was born in Lisbon, in 2016. 

Two years later, Karelle returned to Quebec–for good. She settled in Montreal, a diverse city she cherishes for many reasons. But, while the people who populate the metropolis all speak several languages, it seems absolutely impossible for anyone to pronounce “Made In Digital” without twisting their face in confusion–a bit like those tongue twisters we have fun saying as children. Made In Digital gets shortened by the people around it, to become simply “Made In”. Small problem: another marketing agency, already well established on the island, goes by this name. So what to do now? The answer is simple: a rebrand, of course! 

The rebranding begins, accompanied by our press relations agency, Immersion. With the support of a few friends and collaborators, led by the masterful hand of Alexandre Laganière, chief animator, the brainstorming begins, and the merry band doesn’t stop until solid ideas emerge to define the company: the new identity will be based on the values of collaboration, family, gathering, originality, dynamism, and uniqueness. And, if finding a unifying name is not an immediate task, it seems we can sleep on it. 

Let’s get through the days of going back and forth between different names; it’s almost obvious that we finally realize we are talking about the company, internally, with the acronym MID. From Mid to Middle! It’s decided. We keep the beginning of the acronym but, above all, we can place the company directly in its context, just with its name: we are in the center, in the middle of the Montreal startup ecosystem, with the goal of homogenizing communications to increase the power of city branding, attract more startups, and promote entrepreneurship. In the long term, we want to have an impact on the economic development of the city. Our current clients are all partners, collaborators, and supporters of this ecosystem–so it’s obvious we feel at the heart of it, our role being to communicate on platforms to increase their visibility.

So here it is. Reader, you’ve just reached the end of the why. I hope I’ve succeeded in taking you on a journey with me, but I especially hope you’ll follow our little steps with as much pleasure as we’ll have in telling them to you. 

Karelle

Founder

Also discover