Steady - Simply Design Group

Company: Simply Design Group
Owners: David Nordyke
Year Started: 2003
Employees: 1-10 (Emerging)

David founded Simply Design Group in the early 2000s to break the grind of corporate life.  Over the years David has endured as a successful agency by being consistent and lean.  An entrepreneur at heart, listen to how coffee and agency life go together.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to an agency story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world, from the excitement of starting on the first big sale. Passion, doubts of fear, freedom, and the emotional roller coaster of growth. Hear it all on an agency story podcast. An Agency Story podcast is hosted by Russel Dubree, successful agency owner with an eight figure exit turned business coach and Josh the next agency story.

[00:00:39] Russel: Hi everyone. Russel here. Welcome to an agency story podcast for our very first episode. I'm so excited to have David Nordyke with us. David was actually my very first coaching client, and over the years I've had the pleasure of watching David grow his business in the truest form of slow and steady. In fact, I think steady is the best way to [00:01:00] describe the value that David has created in his business.

[00:01:03] David's story is a testament that you don't have to be a big company or do big projects to be successful. Consistency, honesty, and integrity is how David has created a business that allows him the freedom to travel. And pursue other passions while still having a successful agency. Enjoy.

[00:01:22] I have David Nordyke here with Simply Design Group Owner and founder. Thank you so much for being here today. David, 

[00:01:29] David: You're more than welcome and I appreciate the invite to be here. 

[00:01:33] Russel: Well, let's get right to it. So what, Who is Simply Design Group? When did it start? Start us off with an overview. Give me the who, what, when, where, and we'll get to the why.

[00:01:43] David: Simply Design Group is a boutique web design and development agency. We focus on WordPress, only in terms of the platform that we use for building our sites, but we love to work with small business owners from, "I'm just [00:02:00] getting my business started" to, "Hey, I've been doing this for 20 years, but my website needs some work and a rehab."

[00:02:06] We can take on anything in between. We do have some larger size clients, our sweet spot is more in the small business owner sector. We have all types of industries on our client list. I think part of what gets us going is the opportunity to work very closely with someone. Being a business owner myself, I've got a lot of empathy for those folks and what they're going through.

[00:02:31] And so it gives me a lot of pleasure to take something off their plate that I know they have to have and they know they have to have. It's fun for me to be there to do a great job for them. Simply design groups started in 2003 in the quintessential manner of any good technology business in the basement.

[00:02:52] Russel: Are you sure of that? Was the web even invented in 2003, are you sure about that? 

[00:02:56] David: We were pioneers in the field. It won't say [00:03:00] that in the history books, really, but we feel like we really invented the modern internet. I, I think it started with us. 

[00:03:07] Russel: I certainly remember for our own days it was the wild, wild West when it came to building websites.

[00:03:12] Seems like everybody was stealing how to do it from. All things not digital or online technology from construction or from advertising world or from software development. We certainly are a pioneer, sir. So tell us a little bit about your life before you stepped into the agency arena. Who was David before He was an agency man.

[00:03:31] David: So I dipped my toe into several different career paths that I didn't like. As it turned out, I had graduated from college with a degree in technology consulting, which was awesome for the first couple years. And then after the technology consultant market just plummeted and no one was spending money on consultants like they used to be.

[00:03:55] I found myself with. Little bit of a gap in what I [00:04:00] was going to do. I tried my hand at church work. I tried my hand at in the financial industry, worked for JP Morgan Chase for a couple years, and all of those just felt a very difficult path for me in terms of my excitement for doing that kind of work. I had.

[00:04:18] Always had an inkling to graphic design, but I'm not a great artist. I had a little experience in college working on the university web team at Baylor, and that was a little fire that remained lit, so I pursued that and started Simply Design Group kind of as a fix for not having work that I enjoyed after trying several other things.

[00:04:47] Russel: So you picked up some of the skills behind building websites. Is that what you actually did in your career for these other companies before you started? 

[00:04:53] David: No, it's not at all. I mean, I did some, when I worked at churches, I knew some [00:05:00] things. I knew more than anyone else about that type of work, and so certain things fell on my plate, but that was not my primary role at all.

[00:05:08] I was a personal banker for Chase Bank for a while, and I've been moved over into like an analyst role in their investment division and it was believably boring. I still feel bad for the people that were there cuz we were all losing parts of our soul every single day. 

[00:05:30] Russel: So you transitioned from corporate businessman and completely unrelated field and started your agency.

[00:05:36] What was really that moment when you made that decision and decided to start your own agency? Is there a defining moment that you can re recall? 

[00:05:43] David: I don't know that there was a, a single incident. It was just the buildup of experiences that just did not do it for me and the times where I felt the most excited.

[00:05:56] Making money was when I was building websites for [00:06:00] people and the opportunity to have creativity, the opportunity to have variety and to do something that I felt like came from me and wasn't just taking a direction from some job description that I just kind of had to adhere to. Had a lot more interest than.

[00:06:19] Climbing any corporate ladder or wearing a suit or even the prospect of a guaranteed paycheck was not enough to keep me in those jobs. That just, I, you know, I say it, but it, it took part of my soul, it took, it suck my life away, and I just wasn't willing to go through life in that. 

[00:06:44] Russel: And so did you walk in and say, Take this job and shove it and I don't work here anymore?

[00:06:49] Or what was the actual transition step? 

[00:06:51] David: Well, I, I cannot, I cannot go to work for JP Morgan Chase anymore because I'm on the do not hire list. Oh, wow. I didn't have a meltdown. I [00:07:00] just did not agree to their required two week notice timeline, and so it just wasn't feasible. And that was fine with me. But no, I think it just was something that I had thought about.

[00:07:12] Wondered, can I do it? It just came to the point where like, I have to, I have to do this, and I have to at least try, and if I, if I try and it doesn't work, then fine. Maybe I'll figure out a way to come back to this type of other work and learn how to be a part of something that I think is really boring.

[00:07:30] But I, I just felt like the fire to try it was too much to. 

[00:07:38] Russel: So what was it like to go from the security of a steady paycheck to being self-employed? Was it invigorating? Was it scary? What remember were you feeling at the time? 

[00:07:46] David: Yeah, I was definitely nervous about, you know, you go from, I've got to do this to, oh, but can I actually do this?

[00:07:56] This all sounds great in my dreams, but now that it's [00:08:00] here, I have to turn those dreams into real stuff and real clients and real paychecks. And I think I felt. Optimistic about, because I was so excited to do it. I felt optimistic that this is going to work out. And also you have that element of, but this also has to work out.

[00:08:17] So there's a bit of desperation there for the first or five, six months and couple years even that today, 20 years later, I still have some of those insecurities about whether or not I'm doing it right or if I'm gonna get the next project. But you can't go into something like that. Too scared or you'll kind of collapse on yourself. So I wanted to use that while I had it to gain momentum and get things going, and try to move myself into a place where I didn't quite have to worry so much. 

[00:08:47] Russel: So one of the things in our conversation before, a rather unique situation that you still work with one of your very first clients and one of your first big wins.

[00:08:55] What was that initial win like and why is it you think they've stayed with you all this? 

[00:08:59] David: [00:09:00] Yeah, that one was actually pretty terrifying because we're based in Dallas and this organization was based in Austin. They were interviewing other agencies, and I still had a business partner at the time who really served as more of the technology brains, but he.

[00:09:21] Had another full-time job. And so him working in Simply Design group was on the side and his spare time. So he wasn't able to participate really in the proposal process or the interviewing process with this group, but they wanted me to come down and present to them in person in this big board room in front of a bunch of people.

[00:09:44] I was in my. Twenties and didn't have a lot of skins on the wall, and so I can just remember feeling like, I'm not sure I'm supposed to be here right now. I really hope this works out [00:10:00] because this could be a really great project. But also being pretty terrified of kind of that first big presentation to a potential client.

[00:10:08] But I think what they took away from me was that I was. Some new guy getting started, I'd had plenty of experience, so I knew what I was talking about, but I, when I tried to get across, I was really sincere about the work that I did and really sincere about taking good care of my clients and building something that would last for them as a tool for their organization.

[00:10:35] And then also, I had no intentions of just building a site and. Turning it over to them and never talking to them again, which is a story that I heard a lot then and I still hear now. People can never get back in touch with the person or the group that built their website. So I think that that initial trust that I built in the very first presentation for me has been a great building block for the [00:11:00] relationship that we have to this day.

[00:11:02] And it's the building block that I try to use with every single client because I. Have a great example of the value of painting, connection and relationship with clients. And so we've built multiple sites for them now, and we've been taking care of their organizational presence on the web for. 15 years.

[00:11:23] Russel: That's, that's awesome. You don't, you don't too often hear that. I don't think I would have wanted to work with our first client, or especially, I wouldn't have, wouldn't worked with it on the same level of price point. So congrats to you and being that consistent force for so long. Along those same lines, and just knowing a little bit about your story.

[00:11:39] Many entrepreneurs and even in the agency world, often find themselves having to pivot occasionally, if not frequently, sometimes maybe massive pivots for various reasons. But as I've just learned more about your story, that doesn't seem to be the case. Would you say that's true? I mean, even just the notion of keeping one of your first big clients for a very long time and still being a the right vendor for them.

[00:11:57] How do you think you've navigated the notion of pivoting [00:12:00] or not pivoting at all? 

[00:12:02] David: Well, I've certainly entertained that notion and, uh, tried a few times to, I don't know if pivoting is really the right word, but certainly just filtering down what we do into something very defined and very. Specific and easy to communicate to people in digital.

[00:12:23] There are so many different fields that cover digital Now. People think that because you build websites, that means you can run social media and write blog articles and manage a YouTube account and edit video and fly a drone. All these things that like didn't exist 20 years ago, and they all are business opportunities, so it's hard to not want to incorporate.

[00:12:50] All these related services into your business. I did go through a period where I was maybe trying to do too many things in the name of [00:13:00] expanding our offering and not wanting to miss out on business because it's something people wanted and because we're an industry, sure. I mean, we could probably do that.

[00:13:07] We're not experts in it, but probably know more than the average guy. I, I don't think I, we've ever pivoted from website design and development, but I did learn some valuable lessons. Staying true to your core competencies and your core capabilities as we pursued what looked like other business opportunities or related business opportunities along the way.

[00:13:33] Russel: Good lessons learned there. But speaking of a pivot, there was one major one that you did share. It seemed like just as you were really hitting off the business and full speed ahead, you decided to start a completely separate business. 

[00:13:45] I'll let you tell a story. I know we could probably spend a few hours of therapy sessions and little PTSD, but just tell us about that, little pivot and ultimately how that affected both positively and negatively in terms of how you run your agency. 

[00:13:58] David: Pivot. That's a, that's a [00:14:00] kind way to place it. I found myself in the unfamiliar place of having a little bit of success in my agency and a little extra cash laying around. I think what any more intelligent business owner might do would be to invest it back into their business. But I am not that intelligent and I decided to.

[00:14:22] I bought a coffee shop. I did, and still do have quite an affinity and obsession about very good coffee, and I've gone through this coffee journey, which maybe some of you listening today know what I'm talking about, or you're still drinking Starbucks and that's okay. 

[00:14:41] Russel: No judging. 

[00:14:41] David: Yeah. I found myself at a place as it when it relates to coffee, where I just wanted. The opportunity to share with other people my similar experience. Eventually you're just, you're just there for the caffeine and you, you put others [00:15:00] things in it to make it taste less bad. And I went from that to like, actually, if you do it the right way, you don't need any of that. And you can drink it black and it can taste.

[00:15:11] A thousand different things that you've never expected to come out of a cup of coffee before. So I bought a coffee shop with kind of that dream of helping people take their own coffee journey. I had a business partner in that venture as well. That partner lasted all of six months, maybe. Maybe six weeks, to be honest.

[00:15:32] Russel: From what I understand, the ultimate failure in business partner or so to speak, right? 

[00:15:37] David: Yes. Well, the first. 18 months, if you could make a list of the top 10 things you don't wanna happen when you start or buy a business. I think we'd check every single one of 'em off. The individual that sold me the business lied about his financials.

[00:15:56] My business partner stopped coming to work [00:16:00] after a few weeks. The plan was for him to run the coffee shop, and then I found out that he was. Taking money from the business. And then I found out that the equipment that he contributed, which made up part of his equity, didn't actually belong to him. And then I found out that the old owner was starting dirty rumors about us on his way out as we were purchasing it.

[00:16:24] So we had a huge hill to climb in terms of winning the trust of. Existing customers. We changed some things about the coffee shop. We changed the name, we changed what was offered there. We made the coffee better and it upset people. And so we had to find new customers. And so that was in, I bought it in 2017 and so just about the time we turned the corner and I started feeling like, Okay, I think this is gonna work.

[00:16:52] Covid hit. And so we had unprecedented challenges through [00:17:00] that. I'm very thankful for PPP loans cuz I think we would've closed our doors without those. 

[00:17:06] Russel: It's good to hear a, a positive story behind the PPP loans rather than a lot of times, not so much these days, but right around that time, all the scams and things like that.

[00:17:15] So there we go. America successful pvp for exactly the purpose intended. Save jobs and keep small businesses going. 

[00:17:22] David: Yes. It was disheartening to hear. All of the scams related to that. And also hearing about business owners who were having to close their doors. And I thought that I might be one of them, but I was not.

[00:17:33] Russel: So I'll cut to the chase as far as for our listeners home, that you were in fact able to turn the coffee shop around and if I understand, just recently got out of the coffee business and, and exited that, rather successfully. But if I recall, you learned some lessons in that whole journey in very different businesses, how you might be able to take both positively and negatively.

[00:17:51] Your lessons learned from the coffee to your role in the agency. What's one or two of those lessons you were able to bring over?

[00:17:58] David: Well, I think the biggest one [00:18:00] is that you have to learn to and be willing to turn things over to other people. You gotta trust people, you've gotta rely on them or else you're gonna be very, very limited in terms of what you're able to accomplish on your own.

[00:18:14] And in the coffee shop setting, there's 50 different things that have to happen in the course of an. You can't be doing all 50 of those. And so, but when you start an agency, you kind of can for a while and you can start to dig your closet early deep and feel like you're the only one that can do any of this.

[00:18:36] And it's only gonna be right if you do it, but it's just impossible in the context of a coffee shop or a restaurant. And probably most businesses. I finally came to a place with the coffee shop where I absolutely had to turn over the reins to a manager so that I could stay sane and also try to get [00:19:00] things turned around in other areas that only I could work on.

[00:19:03] So that's the big one for me, is that it's not always easy to let go of things and ask other people to do what. Only felt like you could do. It does take training. It does take time. Mistakes will happen. But through the course of that, there's a lot of freedom and there's a lot of enjoyment in seeing things happen the way you want to want them to happen, through other people.

[00:19:28] Russel: So if you can go back in time when you were ending or adding yourself to the no hire list at JP Morgan Chase, what is the version of Simply Design Group today and how that compares to maybe some of the dreams or thoughts you, you had going forward? Is it, why different? Is it better then how would you compare the, the two, the two states, so to speak?

[00:19:50] David: Well, we certainly started from a different place and cuz there were four of us that started Simply Design Group and obviously the other three didn't [00:20:00] pan out in terms of their affiliation with it. And that's okay. I think our dreams from that point were to grow a really huge agency that. Yeah, employee, 50 or a hundred people because we had this four person founder energy going on that we just thought could comfort the world.

[00:20:22] And then after they all kind of fell off and it was just me, I was okay with that. But that kind of shrunk down the possibilities in my mind. Fast forward to today, we're still small and it's just two people that work here full time. I do have. Other resources and contractors that I utilize along the way.

[00:20:44] But think what we had envisioned was probably something that was less personal and less hands on with clients. And today what we do is it's very hands on, as I mentioned earlier. It's very involved and we get an opportunity to [00:21:00] learn more about someone's business that they build that gives. Better opportunities to provide design and development services that are specifically tailored to what they do and what they need, not just a cookie cutter or out of the box solution that could be applied to a thousand different businesses.

[00:21:18] I think that's where our kind of niche comes in, is that we have the advantage of being able to take the time to get to know our clients and get to know their business, and at the end of the day, that allows us to. Better end product. 

[00:21:36] Russel: That's certainly a difference of, you could say, to where it ended up, but then you speak very positively at just knowing a little bit about just kind of how you approach the business.

[00:21:43] Some might say you've done a good job at creating a lifestyle business, at least just in terms of how you approach your business that's allowed you to live a pretty good life outside of your day to day work. Is that true? And what words of advice would you have for someone looking to set up something similar?

[00:21:59] David: I think [00:22:00] that's a, a newer term for me that I would say yes. I think that is true now, but that is a very recent thing and I think in a kind of humorous way, yes, it was a lifestyle business when I started it because it was my life and it was my lifestyle starting the agency. That was what I did day in and day out.

[00:22:20] I worked from home. I was working, I mean, I'm sure I worked 12 hour. All the time that was normal. And so I can't tell you how many times I worked till two or three in the morning because something wasn't going right or I wanted to finish it, but that is clearly not sustainable. But fast forward to today.

[00:22:41] Yeah, I think that I've been able to. Whittle away at inefficiencies and find opportunities to get work done faster and efficiently and profitably. That has provided me the [00:23:00] opportunity not to have to be at the opposite eight o'clock every morning. I don't have to stay late. I can come and go if I want to.

[00:23:07] There's still work to do. There's still salaries to pay, but it's. A situation where I don't have all the vacation days I want. I've been lucky to be able to set up a situation where I can have that flexibility. To me, that's what it's been about from the beginning is to have control over my life and my time and my work scheduled.

[00:23:30] I don't believe that we are here just to work till we're 65 so that we. Hopefully get 10 good years of retirement in that sounds really crappy to me. So I'm trying to find ways to both make a living and enjoy living at the same time. 

[00:23:52] Russel: Financial services industry might wanna bleep that out. They don't want you per preaching that propaganda out there.

[00:23:58] So, You've [00:24:00] owned several businesses now, and you could say you're an experienced, seasoned entrepreneur. Your wife owns a business. Do so, You're not only an entrepreneur, you're a family of entrepreneurism. Is that how you think yourself? What's it like all your, your livelihoods, your collective livelihood for your family, being surrounded by the notion of owning businesses?

[00:24:16] Is that stressful? What's that been like for you guys? 

[00:24:19] David: It's definitely unique. I think there have been times where we felt a lot like outsiders in our social circles because especially in the early days of my wife's business and mine, the gig culture hadn't really been born just yet, or wasn't nearly as mainstream as it is now.

[00:24:36] And so it seemed like everyone we met or were friends with were attorneys or financial advisors or worked in oil and gas and it was just. Oh, okay. Well, I don't know what to talk to you about because we are so far apart in terms of where our careers are and the type of work that we do. So there were some times [00:25:00] where that felt like, Man, we feel very left out because we don't know anyone else who's, both husband and wife own a business and there are certainly financial stresses to that, to where, you know, slow months, especially if we both have a slow month, it can be a little scary.

[00:25:16] But I think that in terms of how we, again, how we are able to be in charge of our own schedules is, is more than worth those stresses. And over time they, you begin to believe that this is going to work and you begin to believe that you can do it. I don't know that they'll ever go away, but I think those stresses and those worries begin to dam over.

[00:25:46] Russel: One of the things you, you hinted at earlier and mentioned, and I know this in some of our other conversations, that you talk about the notion of imposter syndrome, which is I think very common amongst entrepreneurs, especially when you're starting out. How has that notion motivated you and helped you in your journey, and then [00:26:00] where do you feel like it's not been so helpful?

[00:26:04] David: Well, I think there's a a lot of opportunities to be intimidated and feel like an imposter in the development world because there's always a language you don't know. There's always a project you hadn't built or a platform you don't know anything about. Things change so quickly and new technologies come out and people seem to just jump right to 'em and learn them overnight.

[00:26:30] You feel behind a lot and you feel like you're out of the know a lot. So I think there was a point in time where I was trying to keep up with all of that. I wanted to feel like I knew what was going on and I wanted to be able to talk about technology stacks and all the things that, buzz words that float around in the development community, the agency world.

[00:26:50] And then I just realized I can't chase all of this. It just became too much. And I think that I had to accept for myself and for my agency [00:27:00] that we do this and this. What we do, and this is how we do it. If I spend all my time trying to be like everyone else, then it's gonna fail because we have no identity and people are gonna be confused about what we do.

[00:27:18] I'm gonna be confused about what we do. So I really had to give up a lot of that imposter syndrome sensation as it relates to staying on top of all the technologies. However, the other way I combated that was. Being determined to understand what we do offer to the very best of my ability so that when it is time to talk about something or when it is time to display what our capabilities and knowledge are, Well, there's no question that for what we do, we are experts.

[00:27:49] I'll say that's also a lesson that I learned through the coffee shop. Yeah. Because we changed a lot of the old ways there. And like I said, we made some customers mad, we lost some customers, but [00:28:00] we gained so many more customers by being specific and staying true to ourselves. And it sounds cliche, but if you do stay true to yourselves and the the people that are looking for what you do will find you.

[00:28:14] Russel: Well, that's a good note to end it on, but one, one last quintessential question for you, and you know, when I asked the question of entrepreneurs born or made, how? How would you answer that? 

[00:28:25] David: Ooh, well, I can tell you this. I can remember being in high school and thinking it would be so cool if one day I owned a bunch of business.

[00:28:39] And I don't know how prophetic that was or what that looking back, I don't know what that is, but I can tie a string from where I am today to them. And so that leads me to believe that potentially we're born that way. So I'll leave it at that. I've been [00:29:00] thinking about having a life like this since I was in high school, apparently.

[00:29:04] And I tried to not be an entrepreneur and I couldn't not be one. 

[00:29:10] Russel: There you go. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show here today. I loved, so many lessons learned and takeaways to how you can approach the entrepreneur and particularly the agency lifestyles. Thank you so much for joining us here today and sharing all those wonderful thoughts.

[00:29:26] David: You bet. Thanks so much for having me. 

[00:29:30] Russel: If you'd like to connect with David and Simply Design Group, you can visit simply dg.com. That's simply dg.com, or you can find him on LinkedIn. That's David Nordyke in Dallas, Texas. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a truly amazing day.

[00:29:54] Intro: We hope you've enjoyed this episode of an agency story podcast where we share real [00:30:00] stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. Are you interested in being a guest on the show? Send an email to podcast performance faction.com. An agency story is brought to you by performance. Performance Faction offers services to help agency owners grow their business to 5 million and more in revenue.

[00:30:22] To learn more, visit performancefaction.com. 

[00:30:30] David: Well, I can tell you that I got, I got a kick out of a phone call I got just yesterday. I was jokingly telling the story to my wife, Lindsay last night and saying, You. Gotten a lot of random phone calls over the years for website work, and I've never gotten, you know, Nike's never called. I don't know why Nike's never called.

[00:30:52] Google's never called, the big whales have never called, which is fine. But someone that did call was a guy named, [00:31:00] we'll just call him Willie . Um, and Willie sells Carolina Reaper hot sauce. And his company name is Willie's Creeper. Reaper. . And I just, there are just some times where I just don't know what to do with myself or the person on the other end of the line because I'm just so taken back by business names, what people decide.

[00:31:33] I'm happy that he. Blazing his own trail. Guess being in digital and, and marketing and branding to some degree. You really just wonder what people are thinking sometimes. I guess. I don't know. Should I be talking about this? ? 

[00:31:47] Russel: I don't think you violated any NDA components at this point. So if nothing else. This is a plug for some, what sounds like some amazing hot sauce.

[00:31:55] David: I'm excited that somebody's passionate about something that they can do really well. I [00:32:00] just, um, sometimes blown away by what people. Is a good idea or a good name for something. And so yesterday I, I got introduced to Willie's Creeper Reaper, which is a hot sauce that is a Carolina Reaper Pepper. And from what I understand it will melt your face off.

[00:32:22] Russel: Well that sounds lovely. I can't wait to see that hit the shelf. So you hear, hear folks. Willie's a Carolina Creeper Reaper, so you find it in your local supermarket today.