Location: Goleta
Established: June 2006
Number of Employees: 5

Web Design, Web Marketing, Graphic Design

www.dowitcherdesigns.com

Prior to 2006, Jill Kingdon and Amber Wallace found themselves wanting more from their full-time jobs: flexibility and the opportunity to grow professionally. When they had to decide whether to turn away jobs doing freelance design on the side, they chose to focus on their business full-time and founded Dowitcher Designs. By the end of 2006, Amber and Jill graduated from WEV’s Self-Employment Training course armed with a business plan and the confidence to forge ahead.

Their ability to adapt to client needs and refine their target market has allowed Dowitcher Designs to double its revenue during a down economy. The business has given Jill and Amber what they wanted, and then some! Now they are challenged to keep up with their business growth – but can do it on their own time, as their own bosses.

What prompted you to go into business for yourself?   
We were both unhappy with elements of our full time employment. We wanted more scheduling flexibility, and to have the opportunity to expand our knowledge and grow professionally. We began offering freelance design services while still working full time jobs, and we realized we had a valuable skill set. As our freelance opportunities grew, we had to decide whether to turn away jobs or to transition into owning and running a business as a full-time endeavor. In June 2006, we founded Dowitcher Designs.

What has been your biggest business challenge?   
Our biggest challenge has been how to manage our business growth. We have hired individuals to join our team and have grown significantly in the past few years. It is still a challenge, however, to decide which tasks should be hired out and which should be completed by one of the owners. We are still trying to balance working on the business versus working in the business, ensuring we have enough time to look forward and grow the business, and also provide the oversight and contact necessary to keep the business running, jobs complete and clients happy. Finding the right balance of those two is often a struggle.

What has been your biggest business success?
Our biggest success is that as a small business we have remained adaptable. We have consistently learned new technology and stayed up to date on the latest web marketing and design trends. This has allowed us to be flexible in what we can offer to clients, and we can meet clients’ needs with a variety of solutions, rather than a single “one size fits all” solution that rarely works.

Also, our surviving the recession is a big success for us! We have been doubling our sales during one of the biggest economic downturns of our time. We have worked very hard, adapted to a changing marketplace, and have been very lucky.

Who is your ideal customer?
We work with a variety of clients – small to medium sized businesses, individuals, and many non-profits. Our ideal client is a mid-sized organization with a marketing or development budget who is looking for online branding expertise, including a new website or website updates, and on-going web marketing, including search engine optimization, ad campaigns, or social media.

What has been the biggest surprise about owning a business?   
How quickly the business has grown! We consistently out-performed our financial projections. We have expanded more than we anticipated, and we have learned and continue to learn so much new information about our fields and about owning and managing a small business.

How do you juggle all the pieces of your life (family/work/self/volunteering) to make it all come together?
This is definitely a challenge! We have made and continue to make changes to increase our efficiency. We use project management and time tracking tools to stay organized. We have also made a conscious effort to block out time for personal activities, recording it on the calendar as a meeting in order to refrain from scheduling something on top of it.

What advice do you offer other women who might want to start their own company?

• Stay organized and use tools to help you do this.
• Don’t be afraid to try new things! Stay flexible!  
• Keep up to date with the latest technology/trends in your field.
• Block out personal time, and guard it carefully.
• Have a plan in place early on – it can (and will) change, but it will be your roadmap and will help you when you’re lost.
• Value your networks, and look for connections in unexpected places.

How did WEV help you to achieve your goal or dream?
We had been in business about seven months when we started WEV’s SET course. WEV helped us establish a foundation for the business. Taking the SET class helped us stop and think about our business from a strategic standpoint, deciding exactly what we were offering and where we wanted to go with it. Writing a complete business plan helped us realize our goals and focus our energy. It also helped us, as co-owners, to uncover areas where we had differences and allowed us the time and space to work those out. The process gave us confidence moving forward, and we graduated from SET with a strong business plan that we knew would grow and adapt with our needs. 

Is there something you learned from WEV that you use every day?
WEV emphasized the importance of your time. Valuing our time as professionals, especially in a service-based business, is important to us every day. Valuing our personal time (and making space for it) is also key to maintaining a healthy work/life balance.

What does ‘success’ mean to you?
Jill: Expanding and growing. Finding balance. Being a great resource to our clients. Making money!
Amber: Success is being happy and at peace. If I am doing a good job, and making clients happy, that makes me happy. It helps the business, and it brings in money.

What is the biggest reward you get from your business? What makes it all worthwhile?
The flexibility in our schedules and in the projects we work on is huge for us. The opportunity to grow and the ability to reap the benefits of our hard work are key. We both enjoy the benefit of being our own bosses. Sometimes it means we have the hardest bosses in the world! We might choose to work until 2 in the morning one night, but we get the job. We see the benefit first hand. We might decide to stop working at 3 one afternoon, and we can do that. The flexibility, control, and financial payoff have all been huge.

How do you picture you and your business in: one year? Five years? Ten years?
In one year, we will be incorporating more employees and/or contract workers. We will continue to expand our offerings, especially web development systems and e-commerce systems. We will work on business development and plan how we are expanding. In five years, we will be opening a second office and have ten or more employees. We will target larger contracts and more on-going, monthly retainers. In ten years we may move away from day to day operations. More time will be spent on business development and building relationships. We may consider opening a third location in New Mexico.  

If your business is being affected by the economy right now, how? And what are you doing to deal with this challenge?
Overall we have been very lucky to have grown during this time. We have seen some of our clients cut their budgets for their websites or marketing needs. We have also seen clients with smaller budgets shift money away from printed materials and into online marketing. We have seen some start-ups decide to not go into business until things are more stable economically.

We have been lucky to add new clients during this time. We have shifted from working primarily with small businesses to working primarily with mid-sized businesses, where we have found clients with more stable income and larger budgets.

Photography courtesy of Liz G Photography: www.lizgphotography.com