Microblink is a global leader in AI-based computer vision software. And with a bold vision to bring the benefits of AI to every person on earth, we partner with organizations that believe speed, ease of use, and customer experience are the primary drivers of value. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Microblink president and COO Hartley Thompson III to learn more about the company.
Hartley Thompson’s Background
Could you tell me more about your background? Thompson said:
“I was born and raised in the Bahamas. Growing up as a kid, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. As far back as I can remember, maybe at age six or seven, I enjoyed finding ways to make money and help my family, whether it was washing cars, selling newspapers, washing windows, cutting yards, or whatever was needed. But my big dream was to get to the US, go to college, and start a tech company.”
“I graduated high school at 16 and left the Bahamas for Virginia. It was a shock to the system, to say the least. But I made it work. I earned my undergrad at 20. Then, I was off to the races, starting my entrepreneurial journey in the US while working for a publicly traded big tech company.”
“I gained a lot from my team and worked closely with the leadership team on how to build enterprise-quality software at scale. Additionally, I learned the commercial aspect of getting customers to see the value of products and the wisdom of only building things customers found valuable. It was a very tough, very challenging four years. The CEO had a distinct culture that put everybody through the wringer. So, while I learned a lot about what to do, I also learned what not to do.”
“I vowed to be a leader and build a company culture with a very different perspective on how you treat employees and motivate them with more than money or stock options. I knew it was vital to inject more passion into a workplace culture. I had a good idea of what the end goal looks like in a public company with a bunch of customers around the world. To gain experience on the startup journey, I joined the team at B-line Medical, a healthcare tech company based in Washington, DC. I was employee number nine. And I fell in love with the product. I thought it was a really, really cool product.”
“Initially, my goal was to stay there for two years. Two years turned into 14. As the startup grew, the founders gave me more and more responsibility to build out new functions the company required. I learned a lot about different aspects of a technology company and a startup. When one of the founders wanted to step out and move on to something else, I was offered an opportunity to run the company and, for the next five years, saw it through a successful sale and exit. We hadn’t raised any money. We hadn’t acquired any companies. We scaled the company successfully organically.”
“My time at B-line taught me how to launch new products and grow a business profitably. I would see all these articles about this person raising $60 million, this person raising $100 million. I thought, ‘Man, I wish we could raise some of that to grow this thing,’ but the lesson I learned is no matter what, focus on building a business that can withstand whatever happens economically. You’re not beholden to investors. You’re in control of your own destiny as much as possible. That was one of the biggest lessons I learned there.”
“After 2019, I took about a year and a half off and invested in many startups. During COVID, I was an operator and investor in Perception Health, a healthcare startup in Nashville. I also have a foundation, a nonprofit that I started in 2019. And it was timely because a month to the day after we completed the deal, my home island was completely destroyed by Hurricane Dorian, the strongest hurricane on record. I lost friends, lost mates. I spent and still spend a lot of time helping to rebuild my home island. There’s still so much need, even though it’s been almost six years since the hurricane hit. A lot of my passion is in helping people when disasters strike. Our foundation is there to help families globally. We started out in the Bahamas and have since done projects in Liberia, Lebanon, Belize, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Wherever we can help, we try to help.”
“When a friend introduced me to the Microblink opportunity, I was envisioning retirement after sacrificing a lot with my wife and kids and building the previous business. But Microblink was very compelling for two reasons: the people and the products. I met the co-founder and the founding team. I bonded with the people. The products were cutting-edge and advanced compared to anything I had seen in the market from a machine-learning standpoint and computer vision. So, I took about six more months off after I had talked and agreed to join Microblink. And I joined the company in April of 2021.”
“Over the years, I got to live the dream I had as a kid, experiencing the best of both worlds. I got to be an entrepreneur, create jobs, create value, and simultaneously learn what it’s like to execute and build on someone else’s vision. I learned through that process that while I love being an entrepreneur – it’s great, and I always get that itch – I actually fall more in love with being able to execute and build out a vision already a little bit in place.”
“So, that’s why I feel like Microblink is my sweet spot. It has a 12-year track record of computer vision excellence and a product-market fit. My skill set is being able to come in, assess what’s needed to get the company through the following few stages, build an effective team, and profitably grow, which we’ve been able to do at Microblink.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Thompson reflected:
“2023 was a tough year for many tech organizations, and Microblink was no exception. I was proud of how everybody on the team rallied after some difficult staffing and business decisions and said, “Okay, things are tough, but we have to come together and figure this out.” Seeing how everybody joined forces, devised a plan, and implemented it in 2023 helped make last year an amazing year for us.”
“And a lot of that success was due to the plans we put in place during a crisis. It reinforces what I love about businesses and building businesses – getting people together, working towards a shared vision, and then seeing it happen. It’s a bit of a dark memory in some ways, but it’s good because it proved to me that, as a company and as a team, we can withstand anything and figure things out. There are a lot of fun memories, but I don’t think they’re as impactful to share as this one.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Thompson explained:
“We provide identity and document verification technology. We can classify, scan and extract physical identity documents. We also verify those documents to ensure there’s no fraud, make sure they’re not photocopied, and make sure there’s liveness with our BlinkID-verified product. We also do the same thing for credit cards and debit cards.”
“Anytime you have to scan a document or do face-matching, our business proves who you are digitally. That’s essentially what Microblink does.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Thompson noted:
“The company was founded on really strong engineering principles by experienced engineers. Initially, the company’s success arose from the premise that creating something complex and cool would bring in customers. So, we’re still building amazing technology, and we’re still very engineering-centric, but now we’ve evolved to build products the market is demanding and meet the market’s needs. We’ve continued to push the envelope on the accuracy and speed of identity verification. We’re still the leader globally in how fast we can do both physical document verification as well as end-to-end verification. That’s one of the reasons the company’s name is called Microblink.”
“We focus on how much we can optimize our machine learning models, especially since the majority of our models are deployed on-device, meaning on cell phones. That is where we optimize the most to outperform our competitors. And we’re constantly pushing the envelope, continuing to lead there.”
Customer Success Stories
Can you share any specific customer success stories? Thompson cited:
“One of the leading global crypto exchanges is our customer. They were using a competitor, and their drop-off rate results were iffy at best when folks reached the point where they had to verify their identities, which is a required process to create the account. So, they piloted our product. We were able to drastically increase (double digits) their conversion rates using our technology in their tech stack to onboard a new user to verify their identity. So, they switched over to us. And since then, the number of new users they’ve been able to onboard at a faster and faster clip continues to grow month over month. That’s how we determine our success with our customers, and we help both companies and consumers. It’s a good spot to be in.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Thompson affirmed:
“I think what differentiates us from a lot of other IDV providers is our deep expertise in the specific sectors we serve vs only understanding one vertical. Microblink’s BlinkID and BlinkID Verify are used across industries for onboarding more real customers, optimizing KYC/AML workflows, and minimizing fraud, enabling organizations to make online interactions safer and easier. We’re especially focused on solutions for marketplaces, travel and hospitality, fintech, banking and gaming, and we can continue to innovate and weather changes despite market changes. So that’s a huge one. “
“Another differentiator from the product side is our performance from a UI and UX perspective. We invest heavily in UI and UX, which are very fast and user-friendly. We have our own internal design team, and they are amazing and world-class – I’d argue they are some of the best designers I’ve ever worked with. They partner with our customers on UI and UX research because that’s a key component of having consumers follow through with the onboarding process. We also excel in our latency, which means our ability to process the document and identity verification as fast and accurately as possible. So, UI, UX, and latency are where we outperform everybody.”
“And we also rise above the pack on the security side. We’re built on security principles and privacy. We can offer a self-hosted server side. That’s one of our big differentiators as well.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Thompson emphasized:
“I don’t want to tip off the competition, but we want to establish beachheads and two new verticals with the potential for a lot of growth from our solutions. Our focus is going to be expanding into those two verticals with solutions tailored for use cases. They’re both large growing markets where there’s a considerable need for identity verification components and broader intelligent document processing to help with their customer flows and workflows. So, that’s our focus for the next two years.”
“We also aim to ensure any new products we launch have a strong product-market fit. And outside of that, we’ll continue to make our customers happy, help them grow and be successful, and eventually just get our story out more. Microblink helps a lot of people. We positively impact many people’s lives across the world, whether it’s increasing their access to digital financial services or increasing their access to applying for jobs. There are a lot of things that we do to benefit consumers. And I just want us to be able to tell our story more and no longer be identity verification’s best-kept secret, which I feel like we are. We’re in a great position to continue to grow, especially in our market, because we have invested in innovation while our competition focused on cost-cutting. The focus is to continue to grow at a good clip but manage the growth so it’s profitable and we continue to control our destiny.”
Advice For Young Entrepreneurs
What would you tell young entrepreneurs and aspiring leaders in tech? Thompson replied:
“You know, this might sound simple, but the advice I would give to young founders and tech leaders is to just say ‘Yes.’ I say that because when I reflect on my journey, anytime a founder, a board member, or a peer comes to me and says, ‘Hey, do you think you could help me with this?’ Or, “Do you think you can do this?’ I said yes, even if I’d never done it before or had no clue. Now, obviously, I said I’ve never done this, but I gave it a shot. Every time I’ve said yes in my career, either as an entrepreneur or as an operator, it has opened doors and led me further down the path of what I would consider my destiny. So, just say ‘Yes.'”
“And only do things that you are very, very passionate about. I can safely say that I would do this job every day without getting paid a single dime for it because I genuinely love it. I’m passionate about helping people, building businesses, and solving problems. And it just so happens that leading and running a company is a role many people aspire to. But I would say it’s not for you if you’re not passionate about it. Find your passion and be great at that. I firmly believe everybody comes into the world being great at two or three things at least. And it’s up to you to find what those are and go all in.”
Advice For Consumers
What advice do you have for consumers as the world shifts to AI and digital? Thompson advised:
“Consumers must be aware that ways to share and prove one’s identity are moving and changing very fast. As a consumer who has to verify my identity multiple times a week, I’m excited about where things are going. It’s exciting from a consumer standpoint because the industry is focused on how individuals can identify themselves less and less frequently over their daily lives. Now, the flip side of that coin is if identity verification is going to become more and more passive, there will be detractors or resistance to that. And there’s a lot of talk around like biometrics and privacy laws and everything related.”
“Those laws are really strong, but I would encourage us as consumers to think about how we can make our lives easier by, in some way, shape, or form, trusting more of the companies that are trying to fully digitize identity verification and not for nefarious reasons. I would encourage consumers, as things are evolving, to be a bit more open-minded, knowing that the goal is eventually to get to a point where we don’t have to continue pulling out driver’s licenses or passports and saying our names and answering all these dumb questions when calling the bank. The industry is moving away from us having to do those things. Businesses can feel confident in protecting access to your information without badgering you to prove who you are.”
Additional Thoughts
Any last thoughts to share? Thompson concluded:
“As an experienced leader, I recommend relentlessly focusing on the team you will have around you. Put your energy and focus into building teams. Bring in people who are smarter than you; bring in really good, genuinely good people. And you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the magic that happens. So, as a leader, that’s where your focus should be. And the results will come.”
