Dog and Pony Studios Celebrates 20 Years!

When Dog and Pony Studios was incorporated 20 years ago today, there wasn’t a plan for the company.

As a start-up, we hadn’t given thought to strategy, where we were headed, or what was in it for us. All our thinking was aimed at our clients’ plans. Where do they want to go? How can we help them get there with plugged-in marketing? How can our clients succeed, grow, and prosper?

To this day – even after 20 years, hundreds of clients, and over 10,000 projects – it’s still true. We think deeply about our clients’ needs and what their success will look like. As the founder of the company, I have always realized that our clients’ success is our success. When we create brands, materials, websites or campaigns that work, our clients come to see us as an extension of themselves –and we become their go-to marketing partners. As a testament to that, our start-up clients from 1999 are still with us today (along with many others, of course).

Over the years, we have grown from a three-person start-up to over 25 people today. Our clients have always been kind enough to promote us within their organizations, to their networks, amongst colleagues, and with their friends. We’ve been too busy marketing our clients to market ourselves. We are grateful to our clients for the word-of-mouth referrals that have fueled our growth and our own success.

20 years is long enough to have gathered a lot of insights, processes, and lessons. Some are specific to the marketing industry and the brand, digital, and video work we produce. Others are more general “business behind any business” notes that (we believe) any entrepreneur can use.

To celebrate our 20-year anniversary, we’re going open source over the next 12 months and share everything we have learned. The good. The bad. The uncomfortably ugly.

I hope our experiences will be helpful, adding a step or two forward, to your success.