Ups, Downs, and the Inc. 5000

The life of a small business is marked by ups and downs.  Especially in the past decade, with the burst of the tech bubble in 2001 and  the recession of 2008, businesses have experienced roller coaster rides that have been more extreme than usual.

I was thinking about this last week after OmniStudio received notification that it had made the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in the U.S.  Private companies are chosen for the list based on their rise in revenues over a three-year period.

Our company had a very fortuitous year in 2010, one in which our gross income rose by more than 30%. In 2007, we also made the Inc. list, but in the span of those three years, we also had a year that was not so great.

I’m writing this because I think it’s important for people to know that companies who make the list are not necessarily on a straight trajectory upward. That’s just not how it works in business.

At the start of 2010, like many businesses,  we were struggling to keep the lights on. We anticipated having to make sharp cutbacks in staff and expenses to stay afloat. Just when we thought the trough could not be deeper, stars suddenly aligned for us and we were awarded two substantial Federal government contracts.  These two contracts immediately changed the tide for us. With careful management and a  dedicated staff, we were able to retain a portion of our profits to invest in the company.

The gains we made  in 2010 allowed us to begin exciting new initiatives, such as our creative staffing agency and a new collaborative space for start-up entrepreneurs, called District I/O, which is opening this month.

But, to be very candid, we experienced another dip starting in January 2011. With budget woes on Capitol Hill and customers reigning in spending, we’ve had to become a leaner business again this year in order to weather what was clearly becoming another period of economic uncertainty.

So, while I’m very proud of our successes last year and the recognition from Inc. Magazine, we’re again facing very challenging times.

The life of an entrepreneur is one of highs and lows, constant change, and perpetual risk. It’s also exhilarating, inspiring and spiritually fulfilling.  After 33 years in business, those are the  things on my list that remain the same…year after year.

Exciting Times for Publishers

From the 1st day of the Business Publishing Conference in NYC—where the mood feels both anxious and excited about the future— a few stand outs:

1. Magazines: The big guns like Esquire will be setting the creative bar for design and interactivity for online magazines. Esquire’s editor-in-chief, David Granger, wowed the opening session with a presentation of their new mag app, featuring video of their cover stars. Large budget publishers will be constantly pushing the boundaries in this expensive medium. Like the flat top ketchup bottle he brought as an example, magazines must retain their appeal, but also change for the medium. Designers: get an IPAD and subscribe to the leading magazines for ideas and inspiration.

2. Advertisements will become more entertaining and interactive. Wonder Factory’s creative director, Joe McCambley previewed new ads in development that will be mini worlds of interactivity. For example, within an online ad, a user might change a camera lens and see instant results, or a woman could apply makeup to a model with her complexion—again immediate interaction within the advertisement itself.  And, guess what? Readers want Ads like this in magazines, unlike the commodity banner ads they skip on websites.

3. Print Design Revival. Joe McCambley also said he thought that new mag apps especially spotlight the work of print designers, who he felt brought more aesthetics to this medium than web designers.  The IPAD is a natural medium for creative print people.

4. De-aggregation: publications that target a niche subject and audience can concentrate their creative energy on being the best in their field, drawing readers back again. But the President of Merriam-Webster, John Morse, said many businesses find themselves “competing with Google.”  For example, a user now searches for a word and its definition appears in the search results, vs. going to his company’s site or dictionary.com. BTW, the top word search of the week is “insidious.”

5. Publishing Apps: There will be dramatic changes for E-Reader creation tools over the next year. New platforms are springing up like Mag+ from Sweeden, and others, like Texterity, are adding new features. It seems that the publishing model for apps varies widely and there’s still a steep entry fee no matter which app creation method you adopt.

Feels like 1990. Everything happening now reminds me of the early days of desktop publishing, when Aldus turned things upside down with PageMaker and Apple introduced the first Mac.  Now they’ve done it again with the IPAD. For readers and information hounds, it gets better and better, for us creative studio leaders and publishers, it’s another exciting but costly and challenging time.  Day 2  of the conference is about to begin!

Looking for a Few Good Partners

Before the advent of the personal computer, the graphics industry depended on a well-oiled system of craftspeople. Typographers, color separators, printers, photographers, writers, editors, designers, production artists…and there were probably a few more I can’t remember. Many small business formed alliances with complementary companies, ones they trusted to do their jobs well.

Individual businesses were created around each craft. In 1977, for example there were more than 20 typography shops in Washington.

Phil’s Photo was one of them. Run by gregarious Phil Baldus, his shop in upper Georgetown specialized in setting display type only. (Yes, that means headlines, exclusively.) Order a 72pt Bodoni Bold (kerning #5) one liner by 5pm on Monday and it was delivered to your doorstep by 9 am Tuesday morning. Art directors could count on Phil’s to be there for them—99.9% of the time, perfect, no mistakes.

We were one of the shops that relied on Phil’s. Just as we did the shop that separated our color and printed the publications we designed. Part of the art of directing projects back then was the coordination of many hats in different locations.

Apple’s software and computers brought many graphic skills under one roof. When the switch happened en masse, around 1990, typographers scrambled to learn the art of electronic “paste up,” designers were challenged with doing it all…typography, color, and producing  finished pages.

Every day we see work in print or on our computer screens that seems unpolished, even crudely thrown together. Have our eyes adjusted to a lower standard of quality?

I hope we continue to recognize those artisans who care about their craft, whether it be writing, designing, printing, or now the new disciplines such as social media marketing, seo, and information architecture.

No one person or shop can do it all really well by themselves. Partnerships are beginning to flourish again. Yes, it seems like people are realizing the power of specializing and joining forces again. I’m excited about the possibilities and would love to hear your ideas.