Glen Barnes, Chief Product Officer, STQRY
As the former CEO and Founder of My Tours, and now the Chief Product Officer at STQRY, Glen Barnes has been through an incredible journey in the tech industry while traveling around the world. We interviewed Glen regarding his life at STQRY, and some critical decisions that led to his success as an innovative, entrepreneurial leader today.
Glen on his trip to Pompeii, Italy
Glen first started his career in market research, programming surveys and questionnaires for the field team. His successful tech career offered him an opportunity to travel the world, including the U.S. and UK. In 2000, he became a sales engineer at Intellisync Corporation, a Silicon Valley mobile tech startup, with a mission to shape the future through technology and innovation. This all led him to the place where his idea for My Tours was born. “I was traveling a lot back then. I visited Pompeii and used the audio wands during my trip and I wondered if I could play the audio tour on my original iPod instead,” Glen recalled.
Although mobile technology was not mature enough to achieve this at the time, Glen kept the idea in mind and started to do more research. When the iPhone and App Store came along, Glen believed that it was the right time to turn his idea into reality. He went on to found My Tours in May 2009, a software company based in his home country of New Zealand. My Tours soon gained a reputation over the years for quickly turning city walks, museum tours, and audio guides into mobile applications for a reasonable price. The company started with a close-knit team of four, winning its early clients, such as Wellington City Council and the Powerhouse Museum in Australia. This soon caught the attention of OnCell, a US based software company with the same mission.
“Thomas [Dunne], the CEO of OnCell, and I had been speaking for years. We have similar views on how mobile technologies will impact the culture and tourism sector,” Glen said.
It didn't take long for the two entrepreneurial like-minded CEO’s to decide; they were better together. Glen and Thomas went on to combine My Tours’ innovative, world-class products and technology with OnCell’s strong sales and customer support team in early 2019.
Today, that company is known as STQRY and has become a global leader in the digital space, serving clients across 40 different countries, with headquarters located in both New Zealand and New York. “We were global from day one. It is impressive that we built our company online even before the pandemic,” Glen explained.
We went on to ask Glen about his experience as the Chief Product Officer at STQRY.
What is your favorite thing about working at STQRY?
I love that we get to work with different types of customers, especially small museums and tourist attractions. Traditionally, only big companies could afford to create branded mobile/digital experiences, but now STQRY’s affordable platforms make digital solutions available to every organization.
From your perspective, what helped STQRY become a successful SaaS company today?
It is our world-class customer support - our services come with a package. We also focus on what’s most important, creating an affordable, easy-to-use platform.
Where do you see STQRY in 5 years?
We’ve made huge strides in the last 3 years bringing all of our platforms under the one roof which has given us a really good base to work from. In five years, you will be able to use STQRY wherever you want to tell your stories, whether that’s apps, kiosks, live tours or in combination.