CASE STUDY
mivision
The right technology partner doesn’t just build what you ask for. They build what you don’t know you need yet.
12 years. A complete digital transformation. 45,000 subscribers worldwide and technology no competitor has matched.
Services
Web
Design
Web
Development
Custom Platform Development
Compliance
Integration
Security
Ongoing Managed Support
See what Todd Tai, Publisher of mivision, says about working with SixFive.
“SixFive can see the future that you can’t see yet. You might have an idea but they’ve got a better picture in their minds of what you’re trying to achieve, and they can guide you there.”
— Todd Tai, Publisher, mivision
THE CLIENT
mivision
mivision is Australia’s number one ophthalmic journal – the leading publication for optometrists, ophthalmologists, and eye care professionals across Australia, New Zealand, and an expanding international footprint. Publisher Todd Tai founded it in 2006 as a 44-page monthly print magazine. Today, mivision Media distributes professional content across a website, digital journal, mobile app, video, e-newsletters, and social media – with 45,000 verified subscribers in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, India, the UAE, Tanzania, and beyond.
When it came time to choose a technology partner, Todd had two options on the table: a large, well-known agency, or Duncan and his small team at SixFive.
He chose SixFive. It’s a decision he says he’s never once regretted.
“In a bigger company, you’ll just be a small client to them. They won’t invest the time to create the solution you actually need.”
SixFive did the opposite. When Todd came with a brief and no blueprint, Duncan mapped the wireframes, designed the user experience, and shaped the vision – often before Todd could fully articulate it himself.
“Duncan fundamentally understands the way the human mind works and how it wants to navigate its way through a particular online experience. He came up with the entire user experience. The entire wireframe. And of course the technology to make it all real.”
THE PROBLEM
A platform no one had built before, compliance no competitor had solved, and a future no one could fully picture yet.
mivision’s professional development platform had been built on an obsolete programming language and needed a complete rebuild – with no off-the-shelf solution available. But the harder problem was one Todd couldn’t fully articulate yet: as a health industry publisher, mivision’s advertisers are legally prohibited from promoting pharmaceutical and medical device products to anyone other than registered healthcare professionals. To protect its advertising revenue, mivision needed to verify its audience automatically, in real time. No other publisher in the sector had figured out how and SixFive was the partner willing to go and solve it.
What they needed:
- A full rebuild of its learning platform in a future-proofed language, with a custom user experience designed from scratch
- A live, automated gateway to verify practitioner credentials against a national government register – before any competitor had built one
- A direct integration with Optometry Australia to automatically record CPD points on behalf of practitioners
- Ongoing managed support that wouldn’t require mivision’s team to think about technology at all
- Security infrastructure that could protect a database of verified health professionals
- A partner who could see around corners – and deliver before the moment of need arrived
COMPANY OVERVIEW
About mivision
mivision is the key communication portal for eye care professionals who live and work in Australia and New Zealand. Our aim is to enhance the patient pathway and influence optimum patient outcomes by sharing knowledge and improving communication within the eye care professions.
mivision is independent and has no commercial relationships with any sector association, buying group, supplier or wholesaler.
THE SOLUTION
A platform built from nothing, compliance technology built before it was demanded, and 12 years of partnership with no sign of stopping.
SixFive’s work with mivision has never been a single project. It began with a platform rebuild and has grown – steadily, over more than a decade – into the most distinctive and defensible technology stack in Australian ophthalmic publishing.
Here’s what we delivered:
They built what didn’t exist
With no off-the-shelf solution available, SixFive started with a 220-page wireframe – every page, every function, every user interaction mapped before a single line of code was written. They designed the entire experience from the ground up: how a healthcare professional would discover mivision, create an account, access clinical content, complete a CPD module, earn certification, and have their education points recorded automatically. Todd had never built anything like it. Neither had anyone else in the sector.
They keep the lights on – without being asked
Monthly maintenance runs automatically. Performance and traffic reports arrive without mivision having to request them. When a targeted cyber attack hit mivision’s systems, SixFive identified it, kept the walls up, and repelled it – without a single moment of downtime or data loss. Todd found out it had happened because Duncan told him. Not because anything broke.
“You really know SixFive’s value when something like a cyber attack happens. We didn’t know how to defend ourselves. Duncan knew what to do. They kept them out. When someone is trying to attack you, SixFive can defend you.”
They solved compliance before it became a crisis
The most commercially significant work SixFive did for mivision was integrating its platforms with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency’s Practitioner Information Exchange (AHPRA-PIE), a live government database that verifies whether a subscriber is a currently registered healthcare professional.
When a reader registers with mivision, their credentials are checked in real time. If they’re registered, they get full access. If they’re not, they don’t. Once verified, the system remembers them. The whole process is automatic and invisible to the reader.
No other publisher in the ophthalmic sector has this technology.
SixFive had it live for mivision three months before the moment it mattered. In the space of a single week, every major advertiser in the sector called mivision asking the same question: how are you handling compliance? mivision was the only one with an answer.
“We were the only ones. Their response was: this is the gold standard. That’s what working with SixFive makes possible.”
The result: the majority of advertising budgets in the sector now flow to mivision. Competitors cannot offer what mivision can prove.
They built a platform anyone can work on
One of the things that gave Todd confidence early – and still does – is that SixFive built everything to be open, documented, and workable by any future developer. No proprietary lock-in. No single point of failure.
“Duncan assured me from the beginning: one day I will leave, but don’t worry – anyone can come and work on what I’ve created. That was important to us.”
“SixFive has been instrumental for our entire journey – from where we were, a dinosaur magazine, to where we are now: a complicated and sophisticated media company.”
— Todd Tai, Publisher, mivision
The Results
90% of the sector’s advertising budgets. 45,000 subscribers worldwide. 12 years and counting.
What a business looks like when it has the right technology partner from the start:
- ~90% of available advertising budgets in the ophthalmic sector flow to mivision – a direct result of being the only publisher with verified professional reach, built by SixFive
- 45,000 global subscribers across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Sri Lanka, the UAE, and Tanzania – growing every day
- 30% growth in audience reach within the first year of the mobile app launch – at zero additional print cost
- 2,100 verified subscribers and 12,000+ monthly views on an app live for less than two years
- Official endorsement by the Ministry of Health, Tanzania – mivision’s platform now serves as the primary CPD resource for the country’s entire optometry workforce
- Zero data loss, zero downtime during a targeted cyber attack – identified and repelled in real time by SixFive
- A platform built 12 years ago that still runs, still scales, and still accepts new development from any qualified team
- A technology partner that runs in the background – mivision calls SixFive when they want something new, not because something has gone wrong
“Don’t think twice about it. SixFive is there for you.”
— Todd Tai, Publisher, mivision
“Don’t think twice about it. SixFive is there for you.”
— Todd Tai, Publisher, mivision
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