Dennis Gorya 10:59
Yeah, I figured, but I tried both. To be honest. I mean, I did a lot of sourcing and found some suppliers and can still still have them as contacts. Funny enough, and the main thing was just necessity, I think. So drop shipping was just coming out at that point in time, I think Printful was just brand new. So there was like, not a lot of education around what drop shipping was and what it wasn’t. So in my particular case, I just kind of leveraged that to say, You know what the main value here is the service is the quality, it’s the speed, and it’s the design. I don’t think the event organizers really care if the people complain about oh, you know, this is not a Pima cotton. It’s like, Get what you take. Yeah, go away. Yeah. So the, that that kind of mentality behind the events, or the main, ideal customer profile, and in the in a nutshell was like it was ideal for that particular thing. I don’t think it would work in this climate, because there’s just so much of these promotional marketing sellers of like, Oh, you want to buy customized pens, you want to buy a t shirt, you know, they’ll sell you everything in the in the moon, right? Yeah, for me, it was just kind of I think, also the pricing was pretty, right, because I was willing just to sort of, it was just me, I just need to cover my costs. Right. So in terms of my costs for my tuition, so effectively,
John Corcoran 12:20
yeah, yeah. And so in and tell me about this. The agency gets started in what what point? Are you hiring professors, and you’re hiring MBAs and what was? What was that? Like? Because that’s interesting that your couple of years in your hiring your former professors?
Dennis Gorya 12:36
Yeah, I would say that the year that when I when we graduated, when I graduated, I had been asked one of my profs who was like, one of my favorite sort of professors still is, and she had a class that she would teach. It was, I think, an extracurricular it was actually it was a credit, of course, and I think there was extracurriculars outside of class about case competitions. So I gave me an opportunity to travel but to learn how to present well, how to make a case in a business setting and things like that. And it was it was kind of generally fun as well. So I asked her on the last day, I’m like, hey, no, we’re I’m just working on different stuff. I have Vicki, who’s my mentor, and I would love to introduce you. And just one thing led to another, I made the introduction. And Vicki was looking for some help on a sort of strategic side, Dave, who’s Vicki’s business partner at that point, this title was not fully formed as an agency at this point yet, this was just kind of like a little bit before that fully finalized. So then she joined the team with Vicki to help with the business development, strategic kind of alignment. She came from a big pedigree and advertising and just a lot of great things she’s done. So she has an incredible strategic minds and, and marketing research as well. Very talented in that. So we took that, and I just had a great opportunity working with her directly as well. So there’s, that was more, I think, on the hardware solution side. And today, she’s still working with us as a director of business development, which is her title, but she’s more kind of working on I would say, from what I see us more high level strategic initiatives. Right. So that’s a different strategic business unit within our umbrella group. So under title within, like on on my end, my one of my partners, Aziz, who’s our CMO as well. He’s actually a professor at U of T today, he’s a professor at Ryerson as well as you know, it’s part of his passion, and it’s his way of giving back to the community. His way of, you know, I guess one of his talents, and it’s not a negative. I don’t take it this way. It’s preaching. You know, some people are very good at preaching and educating. And I think he’s very talented at that. Right. So he, I think he’s kind of get something out of it too. I can see kind of like a spark in his eye every time he talks about teaching. So that’s another one and then Jane Michelle afterwards, so director of business development then brought Got another consultant to us who happened to be another professor of mine, who I also had a great time with. So it was just a great kind of small world moment. But
John Corcoran 15:09
have you had any awkward conversations? I mean, yeah, when you’re overseeing someone, you hire someone, whether it’s as a contractor or an employee or whatever, you have to talk about pay, you’ve talked about benefits. I mean, that could be a really difficult conversation for to have with anyone much less former professor, what was that experience?
Dennis Gorya 15:30
Like? Luckily, for me, it was kind of handled by Vicki mainly with relationship but in terms of like, you know, they’re contractors, right? So they still have other interests and stuff like that. Right. So and, you know, their their kind of archetype or their they just need to be busy. I feel like it’s just part of her, maybe to a certain extent, maybe, I don’t know, maybe, yeah, kind of speaking aloud.
John Corcoran 15:56
And also, I want to ask Vicki to so you said he’d been we’re chatting beforehand. And first of all, you said you didn’t come from a lot of money. How and Vicki has been a CTO for 25 years has been really mentor for you. How does a lot of people are curious about how do you connect with someone like that, especially at a young age, you said by like age 13 or so you’d connect it with them? Yeah, I
Dennis Gorya 16:20
was working in the magic shop. And one fine day Vicki comes in. He’s like, I just came from Las Vegas, and I just spent a lot of money on the chips. So can you show me something that just started selling him a bunch of stuff. And then he started complaining to my boss, because he came in a couple of weeks in succession. He’s like, I just bought the same shit. You’re just selling me. The same. I just bought the same thing. Hello. Like, you know, obviously, he starts complaining my boss just like do something about this shit. Like, he’s selling me triplicates as the same crap, right? So it’s like, well, there you go. He gets he’s doing his job well. But then afterwards, I introduced him to my parents. So then we became family friends. And because my parents were always like, they’re immigrants to the country, they were the kind of background culturally is not just Zillah colder, I would say, but because of that, it kind of Vicki became like a father in my life. So I kind of took a lot of time with them. He sort of took a lot of time out of his day to sort of help me figure out certain things, whether it be business or even personal. So I kind of had a lot of time to pick his brain and just understand like, Oh, why did you do this? What what were experienced sheriffs, and in another way, you know, it’s kind of ended up being a natural form in my life, because there’s other people. So like, for example, Dave, and a good friend of ours, Rob, and then Sam, and then my spouse now, Martin. So it’s like, you know, we all have kind of a natural form where we’re able to just share, you know, so that’s kind of what I get out of EO to a certain extent, but I can’t I already have that. Right. So yeah, interesting.
John Corcoran 17:58
You realize how strange that sounds right? You know, I was working in a magic shop at 13. This guy comes in we have strike up a conversation, he becomes a friend, and eventually becomes a business partner many years later, right? I mean, that just like, sounds a little unusual. In my my parents became friends with this guy that I sold stuff, or wizard in my closet. It just, I mean, I guess it’s a testimony to your, your wizardry, right? The magic. But do you think that he saw something in you? I mean, what what was it the connection over the shared interest in magic? And eventually, business? What was it that led to that spark of that becoming such a significant relationship in your life and your career?
Dennis Gorya 18:45
Yeah, I think I took a I took a keen interest because he was a successful entrepreneur. And I think he equally it’s like, when I meet other ers, it’s like, okay, you just get it, you know, it’s like, I don’t have to frickin explain it. Like, you’re on the same page to a certain degree, like, regardless of what the business or the industry is, right? There’s a certain attitude, I think, you know, and I’m of a mindset that everything is interconnected to a certain degree. And there’s, you know, a certain simplicity is, you know, certain simplicity to life and how things work, right. So, I think, to that degree, like, what I probably had as a skill set, or what he saw was more of like, okay, entrepreneurial, very energetic, you know, has a lot of different mix of skills, whatnot. And then on my end, what I saw was like, okay, that wisdom that I can learn from and you know, someone that’s willing to provide help, right, without any strings attached, which in our culture is weird, you know, in North America, I find oftentimes, it’s like, why would you help with just like, why not, you know, so in EOSC had more often where it’s like selfless giving, you know, the whole idea of like, give back to your community first, and that kind of, you know, the money will follow Don’t worry about the money. And I think it’s been a testament to that, right. Like, that’s been definitely something we’ve preached for a while, it’s like, you know, serve others and things will kind of fall into place. You know, in two years, we’ve been, we’ve been able to scale the title side fairly successfully. But the other businesses, you know, done phenomenally well over the past 20 years as well. So the continuous kind of growth around that, like, that’s what we try to propagate? I think it’s a great message in general, it’s like, it’s just, it’s basic, foundational stuff that people already know, it’s just no one really preaches and lifts it under life, I would say,
John Corcoran 20:32
right, right. I’ve even reviewed a number of people that were immigrants to their country, or children of immigrants, and a lot of times, they are more scrappy, more innovative, you know, find solutions, you know, more hustlers. How do you think that it affected you being the child of Russian immigrant and Ukrainian immigrant?
Dennis Gorya 20:59
Yeah, I would say definitely relevant. I’ve never really had, I guess, as a, I was a middle child. So like, my, I have a brother, older brother and a younger sister. So your younger sister would get a lot of the unfair, like, as a middle child, I think we kind of get a little neglected in terms of like, you know, we have, and I was pretty, I guess, on my own island anyways. So the kind of ended up going to the magic shop a lot. So it was very siloed in a way, right. So I would never really get any of the true financial help, so to speak, you know, like, I would make a little bit of my own money by the stuff I want, right? So I never really had a lot of that freedom, which forced me to make my own money and learn the value of money at a very early age, which is great, I think for anybody. So with that, you know, was able to save up for my first phone, which is like the iphone four, right? And then I got scanned, it was like, it’s like water damage, right? So someone, you know, kind of a nice favorite, someone gave me a new phone. So they kind of like exchange it for that, because they saw that I was just trying to buy my first phone. So like small things like that. But it definitely helped me be scrappy. I think now, it’s definitely something I’m trying to keep more rooted in, you know, as you get more successful, and as you see a lot more. I think it’s very important to keep rooted in those foundations, because it can, it’s a very slippery slope very quickly. You know, regardless how much money we have, right? Or whatever. It’s kind of think it’s not frugality, but it’s just being careful with how you spend. Right, right.
John Corcoran 22:36
Now, another thing that has been influential is you had a What are your bigger contracts early on? One of your early clients early on was actually came from another agency, that was a a Shopify Plus partner, you weren’t a Shopify Plus partner, you developed a relationship with them ended up doing this big project. Talk a little bit about that project and the significance of that relationship for your
Dennis Gorya 23:03
business. Yeah, great question. The, you’re killing it with these questions. And try my best, John. So that project was probably the second largest like build on Shopify probably still is one of the largest on that date, there was like, should have been a cool like over a million dollar project where we ended up probably charging for it. And in terms of like, without losses, you know, was probably close to 400,000. So the 600,000 was kind of absorbed learning, so to speak, right. And so there’s a lot of a lot of red there. But in general, the project was a big success, like, it was a big, cramped kind of digital transformation project just as the onset of the pandemic. So I get a phone call. And I’m told that, you know, this other agency has CTO is no longer able to take on this project. They need a team, they don’t have any technical expertise in house so they don’t have any actual developers or anything like that. So I had like a contractor I was working with, and I was able to build my own little bench out of that, because I had like the same people I was working with. So we put through like a few projects, like it was just a smaller operation. So that kind of led me to scale it fairly fast. And for that project, I needed like 10 or 12 full time people for like a year. So we just, like crammed through like 12,000 hours or something crazy like that of a project. And eventually the reason it was so complicated was just it was a very legacy system, kind of driven organization. And there was not enough time to do a full re architecture of everything. It was like get it done in nine months because we’re shutting down 70 retail stores that drawn over 100 plus million dollars in revenue, so we have to take it now online. So it’s like okay, just so that kind of all kind of came together and it was successful. Through the project, we just had a terrible time the way not the client was treating our team but rather the To be direct the agency. So we always had this kind of challenge because we were doing all the work. But then we had this kind of guy just in between. So basically, eventually, we just kind of cut it. We gave them we gave the other agency, the guy, we gave them our team, we said, here’s the contractors, we did all the work to find these contractors or people I’ve worked with for years. So completely severed that relationship and gave them to that for the benefit of the client, because it’s like, this is the client’s environment now like they are, they need to be treated the best. And then we started from scratch about two years ago. So that was, we had to restart credible setback,
John Corcoran 25:38
I mean, to lose your team, that’s for an agency. That’s that’s
Dennis Gorya 25:41
your asset. I felt Yeah. And I felt so as well. But at the time, I think that’s exactly how I felt. But looking back in retrospect, I think it was probably the best thing that happened to us to sort of be set that way. Because we have now you know, our CTO is incredibly experienced or CEOs is on the ball. You know, our CMO is very aligned with what we’re doing as well. So it gave us an opportunity to say here’s this just take stock or we have outsourced agencies giving us some form of guesswork is not sustainable. Let’s build up our own base through that literally that same. I think that a couple of months later, we then signed Drake as a client now we’re managing all Drake’s properties internationally. October’s very own Drake related knocked Nike, right? So like, there’s, you know, I find the kind of mentality of like, one door closes another one opens is true, right. But there’s, there’s a certain level of like, that had to happen just for us to be able to have a sane mind, because there’s certain things that that guy did that just that you can take back, right. It’s like, you can only treat people so badly until it’s like, okay, this is just not worth it, you know, had any degree.
John Corcoran 26:49
Yeah. And then talk about, so your spouse has a business umbrella, which is like a business transformation company. That that’s a big category for a lot of businesses these days. Talk a little about how that fits into the business as
Dennis Gorya 27:04
a whole. Oh, okay. I see. So umbrella, actually, just to clarify, is actually an entity that all of us aren’t. So it’s not just my spouse’s, it’s actually primarily it was Vicki that founded the idea of like, years ago, like 20 years ago. So he was watching Resident Evil, the saw Berlin corporate, he’s like, I gotta get the domain. So he got the domain that we had a logo made a few years ago. So we always had a kicking around. And then naturally, things kind of came together, because titles, so titles is sort of my strategic business unit, all about the tide, right? Then you have cloud, cloud and rain, and you have salt, salt strategy, which comes from rain, which comes from time, and you have the umbrella. So everything kind of sort of naturally. Yeah, makes sense. Right? We never, we never had that goal for it. Right? So my spouse’s business is actually his family business, which he’s now kind of kind of done an off off site brand. So the initial history behind it was his family’s business is in China. They’re the largest distributor, we’re one of the largest distributors of toys and baby products out of China. So they do private label, you know, they do things like that. So he’s taken a lot of that skill set and everything that he’s learned, not only through just knowing about it, and seeing what his family’s done, but also a lot of his own experience. So he worked as a consultant for many years. And he’s taken that and it’s decided to create his own brands. So his hope is now to scale that brand and continue to scale it. So he’s done very well in the first year. But the the operation of that is basically it’s like one company, which then will have multiple companies under it. And that’s his first brand, which is baby products, right? So the company, which is the holding company is called abscess. And abscess is basically what causes a tide. It’s the sun, the moon that rotates, right, so. So everything still does kind of connect in a way, which is kind of nice. And never it was planned that way. But yeah, it’s funny how
John Corcoran 28:57
it all comes together like that. Well, that’s really cool. And Dennis, such a pleasure hearing your story and how it’s all evolved and everything. I’m looking forward to hanging out with you in about a month or so. And in Boston, where can people go to learn more about you connect with you reach out if they have
Dennis Gorya 29:14
any questions, please just reach out to me on LinkedIn, you know, send me a message. I’m very approachable, more than happy to help with anything. Part of my mission is definitely just giving back through service. So anything I can do to be helpful to anyone just shoot me an email. LinkedIn is usually the best place to reach me.
John Corcoran 29:33
Yeah, if you ever haven’t drank still cool.
Dennis Gorya 29:38
As long as it’s not a mixtape, yes.
John Corcoran 29:40
That’s good. Alright, Dennis, thanks so much.
Dennis Gorya 29:43
And, John, thank you for having me. I really appreciate just the time and the thoughtful questions. It’s a it’s clear that you’ve put some great effort into putting these together. So thank you. My
John Corcoran 29:53
My pleasure. All right. Thanks so much.
Outro 29:55
Thank you for listening to the Smart Business Revolution podcast with John Corcoran. Find out more at smartbusinessrevolution.com. And while you’re there, sign up for our email list and join the revolution. And be listening for the next episode of the Smart Business Revolution podcast.