Agility Inc. Co-Founders Michael Assad and Jonathan Voigt pause briefly to reflect on their ten-year business anniversary – they won’t pause for long as the dynamic duo is, as always – on the move to new developments and the quest to constantly improve their offering.
After completing their respective University studies, the long-time high school friends teamed-up to launch Edentity Web Systems in 2002. Starting out big, their first business unit focused on building large-scale custom web-based applications for businesses such as Liberty International Underwriters and The Ontario Ministry of Education. They set up shop in 2003 with a few like-minded companies, one of which was Sequentia Communications, a marketing communications company that was in need of developers and Edentity stepped into that role. The same year, their momentum into the public website development sector led them to hire their first employee to help fulfill the growing list of projects.
Co-Founder and CTO Jonathan Voigt remarks: "Wow, it is amazing to think about the days when we had just one employee and three of us shared one desk. I'm proud to say that after 10 years, we are still driving the business forward with as much passion and enthusiasm as we had in those early days."
It didn’t take long before Assad and Voigt were seeking heightened challenge beyond text and image changes on websites so they started building their own content management system – naming it Agility CMS in 2005. After 2 years of building custom applications, they were ready for the next level. Adjusting their business model to focus on public websites and projects that required a CMS, they were able to implement their own product into existing and new customer websites. It wasn’t long before the Edentity reputation and their featured Agility CMS began making its mark earning them The Profit Hot 50 Award in 2006 and 2007. In 2010, Edentity Web Systems was rebranded to Agility Inc., to better reflect their continuing shift to a product development focus. Strategic partnerships were strengthened to fulfill website development and CMS configuration. Since then, customers have included top brands like Subaru, Doritos, Uncle Ben's, Campbell's, Oprah Network, W Network, Cineplex, Shoppers Drug Mart and CTV.
"The past ten years of growing Agility has been an amazing adventure," says Michael Assad, Co-founder and CEO, "We were the fastest growing web development company for 2 years in a row and now we have an industry leading content management system. Our success can be attributed to the exceptional people on staff and the strong culture than Jon and I have fostered. I am very excited for the developments we have planned over the next 10 years!"
Current partners include Fourth Dimension, Brushfire North, Buena Digital, Point Alliance, Honest, Proximity Canada, Dotfusion Digital Agency, OrderDynamics, Delvinia, Indusblue, The Juice Agency, BrandCulture, TAXI, bitHeads and Tribal DDB.
Agility’s current focus is a new product that is tailored for the media and publishing space, which will be announced this fall. They’ve also been promoting the recent launch of their own magazine-style blog Unbound Media, which is geared towards the digital media industry. Unbound Media is about the strategies, tools and tactics that connect the unbound audience with unbound content.
Agility has been building its credibility in the North American digital community with featured presentations at some of the world’s most recognized media conferences and shows such as NXNE, SXSW, Gilbane Conference, NextMedia, CMS Expo, Brightcove Play and Social Media Week.
