In our Growth Studio Spotlight series, CO— aims to connect budding entrepreneurs with business owners who have been there, providing advice that can help bridge the gap between a business idea and successful execution. In this edition, we consult with Darin Lynch, founder of Minneapolis-based digital agency Irish Titan, to share his entrepreneurial experiences — from finding great employees to successfully marketing his business. Irish Titan has been in business for 15 years and has 37 employees.
Here's how Lynch describes his company: Irish Titan is a digital agency, using only local Titans (no contractors, freelancers, or offshore resources) to deliver “Business First. Online Second." solutions. Our clan includes marketing, creative and technology Titans, providing our clients with a "high-touch partnerships, not transactions" experience.
If you had additional capital, how would you invest it in your business?
If I had additional capital, I would invest it in three ways:
- hire additional employees,
- invest in additional employee engagement programs, and
- invest in more sophisticated sales tools, like proposal automation, etc.
What is your biggest business challenge?
Managing growth. Managing people – both employees and clients.
What is the biggest mistake you’ve made in the past year?
Doing a poor job of focusing requisite attention on both marketing/sales and operations.
What was your biggest win?
Successfully completing the buildout of our management team.
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We plan to grow our business over the next three to five years through a combination of organic growth and acquisition investment.
Darin Lynch, founder of Irish Titan
How do you find great employees?
PR is HR, so good PR helps. Additionally, we have a well-defined culture and we reinforce it in our social marketing and on our website. Finally, we network and speak locally quite consistently, in an effort to create awareness, amongst other things.
What is your best source of new customers?
Reputation and referral, and industry partnerships.
How do you market your business?
Our marketing strategy is focused on content marketing, event marketing, and partner marketing. Each of those overlap but have distinct strategies — and all of those strategies overlay a consistent messaging strategy that reinforces our expertise, focus, and points of differentiation.
How do you hope to grow your business in the next five years?
We plan to grow our business over the next three to five years through a combination of organic growth and acquisition investment. Geographic expansion might emerge also, although I suspect that may continue to decline as a formal strategy.
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