Jeremy Weisz 13:54
Did the evolution of what you did with them change? Or was it the same from the beginning throughout?
Dustin Titus 14:00
Yeah, so you know, as we continue to work with them. You know, summer really enjoyed our client experience. Again, super high touch. And it’s an agile marketing sort of experience. So we’re, you know, we’re meeting with people weekly, both internal and external. We’re doing monthly performance reviews, we’re doing quarterly strategy reviews, we’re doing annual planning, we’re sending out weekly emails on Monday mornings to kind of let you know what we did last week, what we’re doing this week, where we’re blocked from you and our goal is to really be as high touch as possible. And so as we continued our relationship with Zoomer and as that grew sort of into the pandemic, we took on a lot of marketing for the TV divisions or radio divisions as well. And sort of, we’re here to support them as they started to integrate newer brands to help their Gen Z millennial reach like blog to and daily hot.
Jeremy Weisz 14:55
At what point in the conversation do you start discussing acquisition?
Dustin Titus 15:03
Yeah. So, their CEO and I, Omri, you know, have been working closely together since 17. And, you know, as our engagement continued to grow, you know, we sort of discussed the idea that maybe maybe they could use my help internally. And so bringing in an internal agency to help to help support their clients, and then their products was, was something that sort of started to make sense. So, yeah, it was really like a growth thing. So as the relationship grew, we got to a point where it’s like, Hey, listen, does it make more sense for us to bring you internally then continue to support you as an external vendor?
Jeremy Weisz 15:38
What would you look back on? Because this happened? I mean, right now in time, several months back would you tell another founder some lessons learned and navigate that conversation and acquisition?
Dustin Titus 15:53
That’s a great question. You know, I think I think, using the full breadth of your network, as you have conversations around acquisition and what the deal looks like, in the deal structure looks like really leaning on every single person you have in that network to, to help look at your you look at what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. And I think using your community is the most important part. You know, and leaning on your legal and accounting teams, as much as possible, you know, through the acquisition is the most important thing you can do. They’re really what runs the whole program. So how
Jeremy Weisz 16:29
how long did it take from the first conversation to finalizing the acquisition?
Dustin Titus 16:35
Yeah, we probably do anyway, to September, it was relatively quickly, you know, some of these acts take, you know, a year or two, we did it within nine months. So yeah, relatively fast.
Jeremy Weisz 16:48
There are certain things that I’ve had people talk about in the past about acquisition, and there’s certain things that they had kind of deal breakers that they like, okay, whatever, whatever that is, maybe it was, you know, one person who remembered said, I don’t want to travel. Yeah, you know, because they had a young family or other, you know, various things. Were there anything for that for you that you’re like, everything’s good, but I just want to make sure this, this piece for me is, is met.
Dustin Titus 17:20
Yeah, I mean, autonomy, you know, transcendence, those were like, those were things for me that really needed to be met in order for me to feel comfortable with sort of leaving the shore behind, if you will, as far as you know, running my own shop.
Jeremy Weisz 17:36
I mean, you’ve done that for over 17 years. So it’s a big change.
Dustin Titus 17:40
Huge change. But if you’ve got the autonomy, you need to continue doing what you need to do, or know what you need to do, it feels a little bit easier, you know. And so, Zoomer has been a great partner, and been able to deliver a significant amount of autonomy in my role, and as an agency, and, you know, it’s been a smooth transition so far. But, you know, it’s always like, to me, I always look at, and this is sort of, like, the Agile Manifesto anyways, but like, you know, really great teams need three things to be successful, right? That’s transcendence, autonomy and process process process. And so for me, it was like, if I have a new role with some autonomy within that organization, and I continue to continue to build and grow my systems as I need to to be successful, then I’m comfortable with what’s going to happen longer term.
Jeremy Weisz 18:30
So you function just takes one kind of function as a separate entity, under Zoomer.
Dustin Titus 18:35
100% is no separate entity, and we continue to operate independently. And my time is split, you know, halfway half between, between my CTO responsibilities, and and then on top of the agency roles, too.
Jeremy Weisz 18:49
Yeah, I was gonna ask, How has your role changed? After acquisition?
Dustin Titus 18:55
Its good schedule is pretty packed. I’m not gonna lie. I’m a frontline of frontline leaders. So it involves a lot of conversations and building and growing teams. So I would say if anything, my schedule is a little bit bigger than it was. And I’m, you know, working. I’m working across time zones with daily hives in Vancouver. So we’re doing a lot of work, you know, into the early evenings. And so it’s a packed schedule, for sure.
Jeremy Weisz 19:22
I’m curious, and you don’t have to tell me numbers, but from structuring the deal. How was the valuation figured out? Was it based on EBIT? Or how did they come or when you had a company figured out the valuation?
Dustin Titus 19:35
Yeah, it was 100% based on EBIT? Uh, um, you know, and then we looked at, then we looked at sort of like the forecast from a client perspective, where we think we’re going to be in three, five years, where we think we would be with or without sales support, you know, where we think we can take take this thing. We talked a lot, a lot about that. And then we also talked about, you know, the impact that I could have on the parent company as well and I — and what that would what that would sort of like grow and generate as well. So it was a little bit of an aqua hire more than anything else. But, you know, we were able to take a look at, like sort of future impact and where we think we can go from a growth perspective.
Jeremy Weisz 20:13
And typically, I found there’s some combination of, obviously cash in equity. Is that similar?
Dustin Titus 20:24
Yes, it was, it was a 100% cash deal. So yeah, we went, we went that route instead. And structured in an urn out. And then you’re also
Jeremy Weisz 20:37
very exciting. Congratulations. That’s awesome. What does the team look like at t1tus/one?
Dustin Titus 20:45
Yeah, so we really split our team amongst strategy, creative technology, and media and marketing. And we have a number of different sorts of senior resources leading, leading each of those teams. I think that as a smaller agency, and one that sort of grew up over the last 10 years, we really focused on people first. And so we did a lot of engagements with our people, rather, they wanted to be, you know, a full time employee, a part time employee, freelancer, a contractor, we really gave our people the opportunity to work with us, however, they wanted to work with us. We’ve been virtual since day one, by the way, so when the pandemic sort of hit, it was sort of business as usual, we’ve built all of our processes and systems in a virtual environment.
And so we, you know, we’re relatively farther ahead, I think, than a lot of folks who are still trying to sort through, you know, what’s your return to work policy? And how is everyone gonna show up at the office, and it was like, it was never really a thing for us. You know, we were really all about empowering our people to live their best lives. And so, you know, that laptop lifestyle was part of the tightest one culture for a long time. You know, it started as a project for me to go skiing more. So as I skied Mars, the business sort of grew. And you know, and here we are. So I really wanted to make sure we were able to support people that work with us in that same capacity as well.
Jeremy Weisz 22:06
So why did you start the agency? Way back when what got you because I can see you developing? Obviously, your background in computer science?
Dustin Titus 22:15
Totally. Yeah, my background is computer science. Um, so after school, I just wanted to go skiing for a while. So I taught skiing professionally, and a few ski resorts in, in British Columbia, and really enjoyed enjoying that lifestyle. And so we actually had a partner in the early days. And we were watching what was going on in silicon in sort of like in Silicon Valley, it was happening in San Francisco. And we decided to head down there on a regular basis. So we were doing like, this is what we’re talking like, Oh, 506, right. So we were down at CES.
And we were down like Google IO, when you could just walk in off the street with Google IO and 50 bucks on a student student to sort of like an ID card, and they give you a bunch of handsets, and you sat through really cool programming experiences all day. But before it was sold out online, and 15 seconds, sort of sort of deals. And so we were doing a lot of that kind of stuff, and really hanging out and watching what was going on and, and where we could be more successful and effective. And one of my first clients was, uh, was on the Canadian Alpine Ski Team. And I helped him sort of build a Facebook page for the first time and, and we started really looking at how algorithms worked and what they were doing and, and how they were functioning.
And at the same time, I was doing a lot of things like, I was actually working as a network administrator. So administering BlackBerry Enterprise servers, by Exchange servers, Windows servers, Unix stuff, like doing a lot more. So that kind of stuff at night. And, you know, it’s sort of starting to pair this world of like system administration, with sort of like front facing marketing and what that looks like. So yeah, it kind of snowballed from there. And we started doing a lot more, a lot more marketing work, and then a lot more technology work at the same time.
Jeremy Weisz 24:06
What was the first milestone client for you? Obviously, you’re the first client but what about after that?
Dustin Titus 24:14
Yeah, I mean, there was a consumer packaged goods brand called Allan Candy Company. And Allan Candy produced a number of different confectionery and chocolate brands here in Canada. And candy canes were in the portfolio as well. So we took on Bigfoot candy, which was a small little red Swedish berry tasting foot, and we grew communities there for them in both confectionery and chocolate portfolios.
Jeremy Weisz 24:44
Really interesting. I’m curious. You know, Dustin, you know, a really good one of my favorite podcasts Built to Sell John Warrillow. And he talks about, you know, he wrote the book Built to Sell and he talks a lot about it. forming teams, or leaders in this acquisition process? I’m curious how you navigated that. I mean, maybe it didn’t matter as much, because you kind of, were still a separate entity, but how did you navigate communicating with the team during these discussions?
Dustin Titus 25:17
Yeah, with my, with my team, you know, making them part of the process was, was probably the most important part of this, and making them part of the process. The entire time, not just as part of the acquisition, was really number one for me. You know, I think co creation and the idea of co creation from a social design perspective is, is one of the most important things we can do as leaders with our team members. And if we’re co creating, you know, using an inside out hierarchy, rather than a top down hierarchy, as far as our organizational structures are concerned, we’ll get a lot of buy-in, and we’ll be able to really help and support those people that work with us. You know, I’m not a leader, who dictates I’m a leader who’s there to support my team, and whatever they want to do. And so when it was time for them to help support me, you know, we worked together on working through the process and system together.
Jeremy Weisz 26:10
Did you go in? Did you have any concerns when you were first going to tell them?
Dustin Titus 26:17
I mean, I tried to the entire meeting, you know, it’s like, had never happened before. But yeah, I mean, they’re always, they’re always concerns, I think, no matter no matter what you’re introducing or announcing of how it’s going to be, to be taken. But my goal was to have as many individual conversations as possible with leaders and, and even those on the front lines to sort of let them know sort of the direction that we’re going to take the business and how and how, and what kind of opportunity I see for them moving forward. And I think that’s really important here.
Jeremy Weisz 26:46
So the way you navigate it was maybe you kind of talk to each person individually before bringing them all together.
Dustin Titus 26:54
Yeah, totally.
Jeremy Weisz 26:56
First of all, Dustin, thank you for sharing the journey. The lessons I have one last question. Before I ask, I want to encourage people to check out Titus.one, and they can also check out Zoomermedia.ca. To learn more about Zoomer as well, I’d love to hear some of your favorite resources. Resources could be some of your favorite books, maybe some of your favorite software or tech stack? What are some of your favorite resources?
Dustin Titus 27:30
Sure. I mean, it’s a huge question. I did a lot of my leadership work through reading. Reading, what I would say, was the number one way for me to kind of get new ideas and information. And so I’ve got a long book list. In fact, I’ve got a book list that I wrote that I like everyone in my team to read so they underlay them, sort of guiding the guiding principles. You know, agile marketing is really an important process. And you know, being a software developer, I was really able to take advantage of an agile approach. So, you know, I would say Agile is definitely from a project and customer management perspective, something that I would definitely take a look at. There’s a book that I read early on that one, which was The Art of Doing Twice the work and half the time.
Jeremy Weisz 28:17
Yeah, Jeff Sutherland and JJ Sutherland.
Dustin Titus 28:19
Yeah, you got it. So that was like, That was number one. For me, as far as understanding how to engage with the team.
Jeremy Weisz 28:25
That was such a good book.
Dustin Titus 28:27
Yeah. I also had some early mentors that really focused on the scaling up methodology. Which Vern Harnish sort of like a Strategic Coach thing. And so that was, that was really important for us, as well, as we worked around. Some stuff I really like lately. The 15 commitments of conscious leadership. I love the concept of operating below and above the line, I think that’s just so ridiculously relevant in today’s sort of socio socio economic sphere. The intergalactic design guide, harnessing the potential of social design. That thing is fantastic, you know, social design for me, and as far as how our teams organized and operated and work together, and super important, and how this book outlines, you know, old ways of doing things versus new ways of doing things. And that that for me was, was top of it, for sure.
So, yeah, so, yeah, from a tech from a tech stack perspective. You know, we’re using JIRA as the foundation of everything we do. We love time tracking, so we can kind of measure and give our leadership as much visibility as possible. So we layer in a tool in JIRA called tempo, based workspace platform as well, and we integrate slack in there too. So yeah, it’s a pretty standard stack. But what really gets us going though, are Our daily stand ups our teams meet every day at 10am. We meet on client projects, once a week we meet, we try with some of our larger clients, we meet with them once a week, if not bi weekly. We send out Monday morning emails to sort of get in front of our clients on Monday morning to remind them sort of what’s going on and how it’s going. And I mentioned that sort of thing in that monthly performance and quarterly strategy review. I think that’s really important from a customer service perspective.
Jeremy Weisz 30:25
So how do you run the daily stand ups?
Dustin Titus 30:27
What did you do yesterday? What are you doing today? And where are you blocked? You know, so quick, quick and easy. I mean, lately I’ve been really just focused on things like, where are we having problems and challenges and you know, I’m, I’m happy to sell big wins, but I’m really interested to know and help unblock team members as much as possible. And so, you know, those daily stand ups for me I really like identifying those pain points and those pinch points and regular sort of project flows and then understanding how I can unblock them.
Jeremy Weisz 30:57
No, I really appreciate it Dustin I will have to check out the 15 commandments of conscious leadership and the intergalactic design one Scrum and scaling up people can check out I did an interview with Verne Harnish does a really good one who’s the author of a scaling upsell is a good one. It’s also a great book but um thanks for sharing this. This is fantastic, everyone check out Titus.one, check out Zoomermedia.ca more episodes of the podcast and we’ll see everyone next time. Thanks Dustin.
Dustin Titus 31:27
Thanks.
