Ben Thompson is a tech industry entrepreneur and manager who leveraged his experience as a design group manager at Microsoft (and his earlier experience in the aerospace and publishing industries) to found and manage two successful Internet service organizations, Saltmine Creative (later Saltmine, Inc.), and Lux. Ben and his co-founders launched both of these companies with limited funds (less than $1,000), and both experienced strong growth based on successful management.
Saltmine Creative, founded in 1995, was built on the concept of combining graphic design, software development, and project management to take advantage of the then-new medium of the web. Following the success of site launches for Microsoft, British Petroleum, and The PGATour, (among many others) Saltmine grew rapidly to over 100 people in its Seattle office, and over 30 in its London office.
While at Saltmine, Ben worked as Creative Director, Chief Operating Officer, and Vice President, at various times managing the design group, facilities, human resources, and performing business development, account and client management, real estate negotiation, site build out, operations, and legal issues for the company in the US and the United Kingdom. Ben and his partners were honored by Ernst and Young as Entrepreneurs of the Year, Internet, in 1998.
Saltmine was sold to Meridian Partners in early 2000, and Ben left in 2001 after serving for a year as Chief Operating Officer for the 600-person company with $50M in operating revenue. A few months after his departure from Saltmine, Ben teamed with his Jayson Jarmon (his original collaborator in Saltmine) to form The Lux Group. Where Saltmine had been formed and grew as part of the initial Internet boom, Lux was a product of the post-dotcom era (and the economic downturn of the early 2000s). Rather than managing rapid growth, Lux was often an exercise in cost containment, and frugal management practices—as well as the unique business development challenges of the times.
Lux grew at its peak to 50 people in a Seattle office, performing web content and software development and online publishing for clients such as Microsoft, Cadbury Schweppes, Cray, Vulcan, Worldvision, America Online, DC Comics/Time Warner, Russell Investments, and many others.
While at Lux, in addition to performing tasks similar to those at Saltmine (listed above), Ben successfully worked to develop business in London, and rose to the challenges of managing the operations of the company through the expansions and contractions required by the economic climate. In addition, the maturation of the web and the Internet as business mediums created fascinating human resources and business development challenges as web professionals gained experience, and as the client base contemplated their second- and third-generation versions of their web presence.
Following the economic downturn of mid-2008, The Lux Group closed its doors, and Ben relocated to the Bay Area, where he is currently serving as Creative Director and business and operations consultant for a boutique marketing agency in San Francisco. In addition to working with high profile clients like Cisco and Hewlett-Packard, he has rebuilt the organization’s design team following a corporate retrenchment, hiring and growing the team technically from nineties-based technology to a 2010-ready group of artistically and technically skilled design group. In addition, he has worked with business development to establish a thriving web design practice for the company. He is in the process of overseeing a full website redesign initiative.
