Over a few beers back in 2018, Jack Reis and Pip (Philip) Jenkinson tossed around some business ideas that would tick their collective boxes. They wanted the freedom to be their own bosses. To make a name in the cybersecurity industry. And to right a wrong: The one that saw First Nations people vastly underrepresented in the ICT career space.
And since then, as two blokes with a brilliant idea often do, they dived headfirst into starting Baidam - on a shoestring. They did everything themselves, including the marketing, sales, admin and more – and quickly made a name for themselves as the Indigenous cybersecurity business to watch. They juggled jobs until they ran out of capacity to do justice to the business they’d built.
Something had to give, admitted Pip.
“As Baidam’s de facto marketing person, co-founder, and CEO, I had no time to scale and do everything equally well. I’d become a bottleneck to the marketing function, which we know is critical to the success of any organisation, particularly one that was in a challenger position to the established competitors.”
A ‘spectacular’ outcome
To eliminate the bottleneck, Baidam asked Kristal to step into the role of their Marketing Manager through One Little Seed’s Marketing Manager as a Service (MMaaS) offering.
“Kristal and One Little Seed were a referral from a trusted vendor,” says Pip. “From the outset, we really appreciated her ability to assess the situation we were in. Her strong IT vendor background meant she quickly understood the challenges we were facing and led us to some quick wins.”
Starting with picking up a failed rebranding exercise, Kristal and the One Little Seed team spearheaded a total rebrand of the business, developing imagery that was not only respectful of Baidam’s Indigenous-owned status and First Nations heritage but also representative of and meaningful to the people within the business.
The project was declared a success. “The outcome was nothing short of spectacular,” says Pip. “One Little Seed’s output was incredibly thoughtful, precise, clean, and spot-on in representing us and our profit-with-purpose objectives.”
Jack fully agreed. “Kristal rebranded us in a way that stays true to one of the world’s oldest living cultures. She listened to our story, understood it, and delivered something we are proud of.”
The development and launch of Baidam’s all-new website in 2024 drove a 187% YTD increase in web traffic. During the same period, session time increased dramatically from 57 seconds to 4 minutes 29 seconds per visit.
Growing success
To ensure that Baidam maximised its investment in its new website and other digital strategies, Kristal implemented the full marketing Salesforce dashboard to generate stakeholder reporting on the performance of the company’s marketing assets and digital campaigns, and track leads as they progressed through the sales funnel.
By the end of 2024, Kristal’s marketing strategies, initiatives, and disciplined approach to accountability and investment delivered over $2.2 million in Baidam's net new pipeline, generated over 2,000 MQLs (marketing-qualified leads), and realised a 48% growth in net new clients. With a marketing spend of 0.5% of revenue.
All of which saw Baidam get noticed for all the right reasons:
- Deloitte Tech Fast50 – listed at #31 in 2024 and #32 in 2025 (in recognition of 225% growth from the previous year
- Financial Review Fast 100 companies - No. 30 in 2024 and No. 27 in 2025
- 2025 TechPartnerNews Fast50 – No. 2 for FY24 revenue growth in the Top-Scale Performers category
Building profile
Recognising the value of industry and peer acknowledgement, One Little Seed has written numerous award submissions for Baidam, with exceptional results.
In 2025 alone, Baidam won:
- ARN Innovation 2025 – Sales excellence
- Cyber Daily Awards - Indigenous Cyber Security Business of the Year 2025
- Cyber Daily Awards - Indigenous Cyber Security Leader of the Year 2025
- Cyber Daily Awards - Cyber Security Consulting Business of the Year 2025 - Enterprise
..as well as being shortlisted for many other awards.
Bridging the gap
In terms of social impact, Kristal helped Baidam raise a record $117,000 at its sponsored golf day and cocktail fundraiser in August 2025, supporting Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Community Health Service Queensland and Deadly Choices.
“Kristal not only creates an incredible number of interactions, events, lead generation activities, and the strategies behind it all, but ensures that as a marketing professional, she stays true to our roots, our social impacts and who we are. So it's never become a purely commercial construct; it's always aligned to who we are,” says Anita Sheridan-Roddick, Baidam’s National Sales Director.
Through her 2025 marketing initiatives, Kristal helped Baidam contribute $3.2M in economic and social value to impact Indigenous Peoples, businesses, and communities (up from $2.5M the previous year), and spend $750,000 on procurement (up from $500,000 in 2024) through Indigenous businesses and contractors.
“There's always a monetary value that you can attribute to anything, but the multiplier value that Kristal has brought to the business - you can't place a dollar value on it. It’s been priceless,” says Jack.
Passion, advice, and never saying ‘I told you so’
“Kristal and her team are incredibly passionate – they’ve given us back the time we need to focus on what we do best,” says Pip.
“They're very easy to work with, very flexible, and come with some excellent advice. But they're also willing to listen. Baidam, as an Indigenous cybersecurity business, holds a unique place in the market - and we take advice from many people. But ultimately, if we make the wrong decision (usually the one Kristal didn’t recommend), she treats it as a learning opportunity for all of us.
“We're now in a position where the entire business knows we wouldn't be where we are without Kristal's dedication and hard work.”
One Little Seed has enabled Baidam to compete more effectively in the enterprise space while ensuring the business's authentic and active commitment to ‘Bridging the Gap’ remains front and centre in all messaging.
“We’d built a profile as an Indigenous cybersecurity business with some big goals to the best of our capacity, but Kristal was able to take our brand to that next level,” says Jack. “She enabled us to capture the attention of the whole market and generate awareness of who we are, what we’re doing, and why.”
