Dave Cain: Welcome to unsuitable on Rea Radio, the award-winning financial services and business advisory podcast that challenges your old school business practices and their traditional business suit culture. Our guests are industry professionals and experts who will challenge you to think beyond the suit and tie while offering you meaningful modern solutions to help enhance your company’s growth. I’m your host Dave Cain.
I’d like to welcome our audience to our studios. Studies are located at Rea & Associates in Dublin, Ohio. I want to bring that to everyone’s attention because the Dublin Economic Development team is a regular listener to our program and they like to help out entrepreneurs and businesses relocating to the Dublin area so if our listeners are thinking about coming to the area, give those guys a shout. They do a tremendous job and our guest will speak to them in just a moment.
We’re talking about startups today, entrepreneurs and we’ve got a great one on hand. Our guest today is Matt Adams. He is the founder of Dot the i Creative and the marketing director for the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center, a business incubator located here in Dublin, Ohio. Welcome to unsuitable, Matt.
Matt Adams: Thank you. It’s good to be here.
Dave: Good. We want to talk about your entrepreneurial spirit. Obviously, you started DTI Creative. That’s kind of an unusual name. Can you talk to us how you came about that name?
Matt: Certainly, so Dot the i Creative is what DTI stands for, Dot the i. In some circles, that speaks to our attention to detail. We are a strategy driven company, meaning we really dig down and we like to look at the data to support our branding decisions, our marketing and strategy decisions versus a subjective thing. That attention to detail speaks to that. If you’re inside of Interstate 270, that also references the Ohio State University marching band and Script Ohio, where I was fortunate enough to be a member of in the sousaphone section and dotted the i. I will certainly pander with that whenever I can, so Dot the i, it’s a nice homage to years of hard work, the details spent and understanding one’s fundamentals. You got to make it. To make that Script Ohio is not a follow the leader drill. It’s a lot of work and practice that goes on to be as deliberate in your position, so getting the Dot the i that last moment, that’s where the creativity right? That’s all the hard work in place and then you just get that nice flourish at the end to Dot the i.
It felt like it was right to go with that name when I started my business four years ago.
Dave: Sure. What year did you Dot the i?
Matt: That’s a personal question, Dave. That’s quite a long time ago back in the last ’90s, ’98, ’99, I was fortunate enough to Dot the i three times.
Dave: Under Cooper’s watch, huh?
Matt: That was under Cooper’s watch, yes. I’ve been enjoying this past decade of victories over the team up north. Those teams were scarce during my tenure in the marching band.
Dave: By the way, this podcast does go to few people up north. We try to limit that but somehow, we can’t control that.
Matt: Certainly.
Dave: You dotted the i for three games. Were you 3 and 0?
Matt: Yes, I was. I didn’t really think about that, but excellent point. I was undefeated with my i-dotting.
Dave: You were, okay, but were you able to practice Dot the i?
Matt: Well, you practice it ever since high school really. You’re thinking about it. You know this is something that you want to do. I actually didn’t attend Ohio State university, a little side note about that is I’m a graduate of the Columbus College of Art & Design, and through a program that other schools in the city, if they offered a course didn’t offer, you can take it. An art school doesn’t offer marching band, so I was able to take that course for a few years and then continue on so like the dot. Yes, I’ve practiced as many times before I was put on the stage as well.
Dave: Great story, great story and again, a lot of the information that crosses our desk and your desk is that entrepreneurs and businesses that start out, the success rate is very low for a number of reasons, and obviously you’ve made it past that hurdle and we want to pick your brain a little bit for our listeners. There’s a lot of entrepreneurs that do listen. Just to start the ball rolling, what made you decide to start DTI? Was there one thing you can point to?
Matt: I always knew I wanted to be a business owner. I wanted to be able to chart my course. I worked a lot in the industry, in the field, before setting out on my own, worked as a graphic designer, all the way up to art director, became a creative director and before I started Dot the i. Before that, I had started a couple other businesses that failed miserably because you don’t know what you don’t know, and the little things you just don’t think about and that’s like the work that you guys do. I’m an artists. I draw pictures for a living. I certainly couldn’t go more than half a paragraph into the tax code without falling asleep so I was set up for failure and not having those resources available to me, I wasn’t going to make it and that will happen a couple of times, but then that aligned with the right people, knew what I needed to take care of so that I could focus on the work that I wanted to do, and that was the key. That’s where I’m really passionate working with the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center because there are these great resources in place.
You know you want to start a business, you started a business, how do you get to that next level besides being just yourself, just being an entrepreneur, how do you grow that business? The Dublin Entrepreneurial Center affords a lot of people that possibility to speak through classes that we do, through our ties to various sponsors that come in and do one on one advise services for those individuals and you know, just being in a community with other entrepreneurs and talking with them over a soda or beer or a networking event saying, “Well, this didn’t work for me. How do you handle this?”, and that’s where give and take, really that rising tide raises all ship cliché, that’s absolutely what happens there at the DEC.
Dave: You know what’s interesting, you mentioned that it was failure in the early days, that the failure of some of those early entrepreneurial ideas drove you to succeed in your current business, and as you talk about failure, was it lack of resources? Lack of mentors? Can you put your finger on a couple things?
Matt: Well, I think it might be a little of both. In may particular case, it’s really not understanding everything that went in to it. It’s not enough just to have a good idea. We all have them, but there’s a lot of day to day grind that you just don’t know about. I mean as an entrepreneur, you’re the sales person, you’re the janitor, you’re the accountant, you’re the guy who’s actually doing the work you know, and so figuring out how to allocate your resources that you have and how to go and source and find those other people with their talents that can assist you in reaching your goal and that’s, and my goal is scalability.
I want, all right, you know if I say so myself, I’m a decent designer but by God, I’m going to need more designers and it can’t just be me doing all the work, so what do I need to do as a business owner to be thinking, all right, I’m going to put the pen down. I’m going to let somebody else do that and I’m going to focus on this section of my business, or I’m going to work with my book keeping and understand my profit and loss sheet. I mean three years ago, you say P&L to me and I have no idea what you’re talking about. That sounds cool but.
Dave: You weren’t one of them. It sounds good.
Matt: That sounds really need. I would be successful with a P&L. What is that? Yeah, so, but a place like the DEC, we can do that. We’ve got wonderful sponsors that you know, “Hey, how do I go about, you know I need some equity, or I need some capital rather. I want to grow. I want to do this.” Well, we’ve got great sponsorships with a local bank that can help advise us on that. “Well, maybe you are ready. You’re using a lot of contractors, you’ve got an intern here.” Well, what does that mean in the grand scheme of things? Well, we’ve got a human resources sponsor that will speak to, “Well, Matt, you can’t do it this way because that violates this law. You need to do X, Y and Z.”, and they help guide us through those things so that we can focus on the work that we set out to do, by having those resources and I think that’s the case with really any business. You can’t do it all yourself, so that was the thing for me. What made it different was finding those people and finding somebody that as a mentor, to say, “You know, Matt, look at this. This is what you need to be thinking about.” Yeah.
Dave: You hit on a very topic near and dear to my heart, and you mentioned you spent a lot of time working in your business, but you also made time to step away and work on your business, and I think being part of the DEC or the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center, helps you do that.
Matt: Absolutely. You know when I first moved in there, I’m focusing on, well, I’ve got rent to pay here. I’ve got all my overhead. Of course, I want to pay myself so I started thinking, I got to get this work done. I’m working 12, 13 hour days, but I’m working for my job. I needed to step back. I needed to go and do a business development class downstairs. We do those every second and third Thursday. That’s usually two topics. Go and attend, do one of these classes and get just a little bit more information enough that you could ask that next question so that, okay, I can step back and work on my business and understand, we’re profitable on this side of the business, what do we need to do to replicate that and to think critically about your businesses is important.
Dave: Yeah. You know, I don’t know if you know this. I don’t know if I shared with, but you cost me some money and.
Matt: Did I?
Dave: Yeah, you did. You didn’t even know you did, but when we visited your office and saw some of the cool stuff you had, including the camera and some of the stuff, guess who end up having to buy one?
Matt: Well, you know that is unfortunately, whenever my clients see me coming, they know it’s going to cost them money because.
Dave: Because of cool stuff 00:10:36.
Matt: We’re going to talk all kinds of great creative and we’re going to get them excited and inevitably, we end up spending some money, but it’s usually for a good reason. Now I think this, your camera that you’ve got here, it’s a wonderful tool. That is a perfect example of a startup, that had an idea, had a product, align themselves with another company, built this, launched it and this camera is doing pretty well, so far is it working out for you? Is it.
Dave: It is.
Matt: Okay.
Dave: It is. They are all giving us thumbs up so. You still have sleepless nights?
Matt: Yeah. Yup. They’re fewer and far between, but yes. You’re always thinking about when’s that next project coming? You’re working on your stuff now and well, what’s going to happen next month? Next quarter, and that’s where having those right resources in place to step back and look at your business to help you to evaluate that. Fortunately, we’ve got seven years of history. We can look at certain items to say, all right, well, we know these two months, the trend has been we’re not as busy or going to be as busy, so let’s allocate resources a different way or let’s take that opportunity to focus on our business and try and increase our market share by doing some marketing we wouldn’t otherwise be doing while we’re waiting for that trend to come back up and bring more work our way.
Dave: What about family vacations? How in the world do you ever schedule a family vacation that doesn’t interfere with the next project?
Matt: Well, you know you schedule it and because the whole point of why I’m doing what I’m doing was flexibility so I could do the things with my family, and by doing the type of work that I’m doing and aligning myself with the clients that I do, you know we build, we get into like, we’re working with a client. We’re going to get in there and learn everything we can about them and you develop a relationship and a bond with them and you want them to succeed. Their success is your success and vice versa, so I’ve got a great relationship with all of my clients and that they understand, “All right, well, Matt’s going to be gone, but Matt has also thought through his absence and so and so is going to be able to take care of it.”, and of course it is the nature of the business. They can still text me. I will tell you a story that Ken will be speaking. It cost me about $450, but on day two of my vacation, I decided to take my phone swimming with me unbeknownst to me at the time, and I had no technology for about six days and it was glorious.
Dave: It was glorious.
Matt: It is glorious.
Dave: All right.
Matt: I love technology, but that time with the family, that’s important so you got to make those, plan for it as best you can. Have those redundancies in place so that your clients aren’t being neglected during that time away, but that’s the key. You got, communication I would say. Communicate with the clients and that’s going to make it a little easier for you, but you’re always going to be on the clock.
Dave: It sounds like just from listening to those stories, it sounds like you have an awesome family, very understanding family that understands what an entrepreneur has to go through on a day to day basis. They got to give you space. They got to give you the time, but they got to reel you back in.
Matt: You know my wife, she’s the opposite of me. She’s the attorney. She’s very analytically driven. I’m much more creative and so I’ll show her a piece of artwork that I’ll be working on at home and I’m, “What do you think, hon?”, “Great.” She’s reading the paper. It’s great.
Dave: Yeah, that’s wonderful. That’s wonderful, are we getting a check this month?
Matt: Yeah. You know those were the earlier conversation, but that’s important and you know, I’ve got three wonderful daughters, nine, seven and soon to be five, and they love to draw and paint and sing and dance, you know it’s a, there’s so many barbies at my house, it’s like a, I won’t share that check of the story, but let’s just say.
Dave: You play barbies?
Matt: That’s, hey, I’m not above it. That time that you spend with the kids, and what’s really cool is when they see me sitting there, working on a concept, a logo, I’m not above asking them to jump in on it and say, “Hi, let’s see what you come up with?” Let’s give them some crayons and markers because we’re all, we’re born, we’re all artists. It’s whether or not we can choose to hang on to that as an adult and making sure that you give your kids all the art supplies they can have. If they have an interest in that, you know just step back, let them go and I’ll tell, I’ll give them some parameters, say, “Laura, all right. Here’s the company that does X, Y and Z, and this is what they’re trying to do.” Already got a color established. We’ve got a brand established.
Dave: Right.
Matt: When you think of that, what do you think of? No, we’re not probably going to use her artwork, but you know what, it’s an interesting to see a child’s take on that and their perception of how they read that, you know.
Dave: Right.
Matt: It’s a lot of fun, and at the very minimum, it’s good father-daughter time, that we have some fun and play.
Dave: Perfect.
Matt: Yeah, coming up here in late July, we’re expecting our fourth child. This one’s a boy, so you know it’s.
Dave: Congratulations.
Matt: Yes, so I’m excited to be able to spend more than five minutes in the Lego isle at Toys R Us without getting yelled at, so this is going to be wonderful for me.
Dave: To our listeners. Here we go, we’ve got an entrepreneur with a growing family. That’s awesome and puts time aside to do the family activities so that’s tremendous. Let’s change directions just a bit. While you were in a band, what was your favorite road trip?
Matt: No comment. You know it has to be the bowl trips. My first year, I mean I grew up in a small town, Southeast, Ohio. Family vacations, you know were really wasn’t, didn’t really go anywhere you know. We went, one time we went to Florida I think as a kid and you barely remember that, but getting to go to the 1995 Citrus Bowl. Now this was my first year going to it. The band had, several members have already, this is their third year in a row. It rained every single day we were there. That was the year we played against Tennessee, and lost to them in the downpour. Of course, they cheated. They had cleats.
Dave: Oh sure.
Matt: That were half inch longer than the Buckeyes cleats, but whatever. It was amazing because being a part of that group traveling abroad and people knowing who you are, and as a result of years and years of hard work and the performances that we’ve done and your audience probably have seen a performance of the marching band from Ohio state has put on. Certainly, with their YouTube fame, several shows that they’ve done, people are familiar with that organization, so it’s amazing to go Florida or to Pasadena, Texas, Louisiana and people know exactly who you are and they can’t wait to see you and the Buckeye nation is absolutely that. They are everywhere.
Dave: Again, going back to your name, DTI, that just fits perfectly with your background and experience. Our guest today on unsuitable on Rea Radio is Matt Adams, the founder of DTI Creative and the Marketing Director at the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center. Matt, we have a few minutes left, we knew you want to dig in a couple things here, but if you were giving advise to a new entrepreneur, can, are there two things that stick out? Do this, do A, do B, is it a business plan? You know, think of your experience, maybe give us one or two things.
Matt: Yeah, you know it’s, I guess first of all, make sure you’re passionate about it. Whatever it is that you’re doing, you need to have a little bit of passion for what, because you’re going to be up late. You’re going to be up early. It’s going to require a lot of hard work but actionable item, one of the things that I would say, absolutely create a business plan. Start somewhere. Start getting it down on paper. Pool as much data as you can. Tap into resources, like with the Small Business Development Center. They’re a wonderful partner with the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center. They’ll help you get that business plan going.
Understand, get it on paper, understand where you need to be going with your business. Have a plan in place, and from a marketing standpoint, we get a lot of people that just start their business and they know, they got a website and I got to be up on Facebook and they start getting in to all these tactics and what’s really important is to take a step back and let’s put together a strategic plan for how you’re going to communicate with your targeted audience. Then we can devise, “Well, who is that audience? What’s the best way for us to speak to them?” Then we can develop tactics around that, so really plan everything. Don’t just shoot from the hip. That’s the biggest mistake I think you could probably make. Well, I need a website. What do you need your website to do? Well I just need to get something out there. Don’t trip out of the gate. Don’t just get something up there. Well, I need a business card. Okay, what are you putting on a business card? I don’t have a logo so I’m just going to write my name on it.
That’s all right, but that person you’re meeting, you don’t want to trip out of the gate. You want your best first impression so just take a beat, talk with a professional and create your mark, create your brand, understand what you’re doing before you do it.
Dave: Great, great piece of advice. The business plan, where you’re actually identifying your targets and your distribution channel and fully understand your product and I’ve heard you speak over at the DEC many times about that very same equation so it sounds like it’s working really well for you.
Hopefully, we’ve been able to pass along some very valuable advice to our entrepreneurs who listened and going forward, Matt, we’d like to have you back and we’ve only touched the surface on the things that you can and can’t do and really appreciate your insight.
We’d love to hear what you think about unsuitable on Rea Radio. You can comment on this episode on SoundCloud or review the podcast on iTunes. Don’t forget to check out additional resources we’ve put together for you on our website at www.reacpa.com. Until next time, I’m Dave Cain, encouraging you to loosen up your tie and think outside the box.