An Agency Story

His Best Decision Was Leaving Everything Behind - Bytes.co

• Russel Dubree / Jason Di Vece • Episode 153

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Company: Bytes.co

Guest: Jason Di Vece

Year Started: 2010

Employees: 26-50

What happens when you walk away from security and take the leap into the unknown? In this episode, Jason Di Vece, Co-Founder of Bytes.co, shares how selling everything to move abroad reshaped his mindset and set him on the path to building a 25-person agency serving hundreds of clients. 

Key Takeaways

  • The risky move that built lasting confidence and shaped Jason’s entrepreneurial journey
  • Why hiring mistakes can cost years
  • Hard decisions every agency leader must face (and why the hardest ones are usually right)
  • How rethinking failure can open the door to innovation and growth
Russel:

Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where owners and experts share the real journey, the early struggles, the breakthrough moments, and everything in between. I'm your host Russel Dubree, former eight figure agency owner turned business coach, sold my agency and now helps agency leaders create their ideal business. Every agency has a story, and this is your front row seat. This is an agency story. Welcome to the show today everyone. I have Jason Di Vece with Bytes.co with us here today. Thank you so much, for being on the show today, Jason.

Jason:

Thank you for having me Russel. It's a pleasure.

Russel:

I'm glad you are here, ready to get started. If you don't mind, kick us off. What does Bytes.co do and who do you do it for?

Jason:

People ask me that all the time. What do you do? What do you do? What I like to tell people is we solve problems. That's what we do. They look at me like. Okay. Yeah, right. You didn't tell me anything. We build websites and craft digital marketing strategies for organizations, uh, of all shapes and sizes in pretty much any industry you can think of. So Bytes.co is really just a full service digital agency. I like to say that we solve problems because, um, that's really why. I think that's what the value of an agency brings to a client, ultimately, is looking at like things from a higher level, right? It's like, I don't just need a new website. I need something that's going to impact the bottom line in some way, shape, or form. How can you as a solutions provider help me do that? It's about analyzing a particular business or industry and crafting a solution that's right for a particular client.

Russel:

That's awesome. We're gonna talk a lot more about what you created with Bytes.co. Seems like a pretty cool organization, but let's, let's take a trip on memory lane real quick and tell us a little bit about young Jason. What were his goals, hopes and dreams.

Jason:

Oh boy. How far back are we going?

Russel:

I don't know. I mean, were you playing with a computer at two years old or?

Jason:

I was playing with, uh, Macintosh in fourth grade. That was what I, I learned on, actually, a Mac. My dad had his own newspaper business, the Wiscasset Times. That's where I'm from. I'm from Wiscasset, Maine. He transitioned from doing it the old way with an exacto knife and glue and paper, you know, laying it out, old school to, uh, doing it online, doing, doing it with, or not online, but with a computer rather. In, uh, 1994. I started playing around with computers. It was a Power Mac, I think, desktop. I just thought it was the coolest thing, you know, to, uh, to play with the different fonts and, you know, work in an environment where the paint never dries, so to speak. That's really what got me interested in, uh, working with computers at a very young age, was, um, really my dad, I guess.

Russel:

That's like the OG tech transition from old school newspaper cutting to a digital format.

Jason:

Believe it or not, I was playing around with a program called, uh, HyperCard and Adobe PageMaker, which I think is the precursor to InDesign, and I was messing with those in like fourth grade, kind of building my own little, like, HyperCard games, which was like really, really early, like stop animation program. It just got me super interested in, in technology and I really wanted to do something with computers. Didn't know what, and so unfortunately that kind of, uh, led me down the wrong path. Early in my career, I, I went into computer science. My freshman year of college I went to UMaine Orono. I was just talking about that with someone earlier today actually, uh,'cause I kind of had a misunderstanding, I guess, about like where to apply this interest.

Russel:

I don't know where this is leading, but it sounds like a smart, good path. But now, now, now I'm curious. I'm intrigued.

Jason:

Well, it didn't lead anywhere good. Basically, like, I realized real fast, like, holy shit. Realized pretty quickly, this is not for me. I don't wanna write code. In terms of hopes and dreams and things, I, I, I was a really a rebel without a cause at that age. Things didn't work out at UMaine. Long story short there. I took a year off and, um, was working as a land surveyor, so something completely different.

Russel:

That is completely different.

Jason:

Yeah, running a transit gun using the, you know, Topcon device and doing all this construction layout work. Some advice I would give to young people, I guess is if you don't know, maybe don't rush into something just because someone's pushing you to. I really should have waited to, to go to school. I just wasn't ready. Long story short, I went back to school for graphic design and, uh, multimedia arts, which is really going back to the origins of, you know, using PageMaker and doing layout work. It's more creative, right? That's ultimately what, um, where I kind of found like, oh, this is what I wanna do. Got my degree, uh, Champlain College here in Burlington, where I still am today in Burlington, Vermont. It's where I met my business partner who, um, I co-founded what was then Burlington Bytes in, uh, 20, he started it in 2010. I came on in 2012. So, you know, how, How did I get to this point is kind of like, I didn't really plan for this, to be honest with you. I did not wanna start an agency. When I graduated college, I wanted to get a job in print design, believe it or not, and I just wasn't good enough. Turns out, like in 2007, 2008, it wasn't really a big need for, uh, graphic designers, uh, at least in this area. I got a job doing, um, tech support in the automotive industry. I went to work for a big, uh, you know, tech company and hated it.

Russel:

I was gonna say that doesn't sound exciting.

Jason:

No, it was, I, I didn't like it at all, really. But you know what it did is it, it laid, um, the foundation for how we were able to start this business because I actually got to see like, how you could make money building websites as an example.'Cause I studied in, in college, building with Dreamweaver and Macromedia Flash at the time. I never really was able to connect the dots, like, how does this actually, how do I apply this? In a way to make money. That probably sounds stupid, but I, I was always thinking of it as like.

Russel:

It's the honest question everybody's asking themselves is, is what do I have that is going to get a good return on investment? Fair, honest question.

Jason:

Yeah, it was just art for art's sake. I just loved the creativity of it, and I just didn't ever really think of the business side. That was the exposure that I got when I got outta college. It was like, oh, okay, like this is how in the real world, the stuff works. I hated it, hated the job so much. I just worked it long enough to pay off my student loans. Then, uh, I moved abroad to teach English with my now wife, girlfriend at the time. While I was over there, I started.

Russel:

Where is over there?

Jason:

Over there, yeah. I was in, uh, Korea, actually. I moved to Korea.

Russel:

Okay. That's different.

Jason:

Yeah, that was different. I sold all my worldly possessions at 25 and uh, moved abroad to South Korea to a place called Gwangju in the mountains, city of about 1.5 million people. Never heard of it before. Didn't really know much about Korea, to be honest. But I thought, well, this is probably better than what I'm doing now, uh,'cause I really did not like what I was doing at the time.

Russel:

Okay. Hold on. I got, I got questions here. We gotta dive a little into this because it's like, this is gonna share a lot about who you are as a person. Uh, I mean, How much planning went into this?

Jason:

Probably three months.

Russel:

Okay. And what were you doing in that three months? Was it just selling your worldly possessions or were you thinking about what you were gonna do over there? Or was it just, I got my ticket, now I gotta this, it's more about the exit than the entrance?

Jason:

It was more about the exit than the interest, to be honest. Russel, I just, I, like I said, I mean tech support in automotive, uh, with a proprietary site building tool that was fraught with issues. I would take sometimes 30 calls a day from car dealers, just irate. I couldn't do really solve their problems. That was the most frustrating thing is I was so many layers removed from the technology. All I could do was intake the problem. Assure the customer like, yeah, no, we're working on it, we're working on it, and, um, move on to the next thing. It was this ticket based frontline customer support that really dragged me down.

Russel:

Oh yeah, I've been there. I did that for a little bit too. Not for the automotive, but I know exactly what you're saying.

Jason:

Yeah, right? So it was like anything I, I could do to get outta there. I took a job teaching English in, in Korea, and that was the single biggest like, uh, one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life, was doing that. Something so different took me way outta my comfort zone. When I came back, I, my mentality was completely different. It was like, I can do anything that I want because I did that. I had never really had that experience before in my life.

Russel:

How long were you over there?

Jason:

A year. I was there a year, and while I was there, what led me to this was something called, uh, WordPress. I was blogging while I was over there using a tool called WordPress that I basically just.

Russel:

A little known tool.

Jason:

And it was, this is 2009, right? So at that time, WordPress was very, very young. I just like Googled, you know, oh, that's a blogging tool I could use. I started using it. I was writing a travel blog, uh, called Pack Your Knives and Go. I think it's actually, it's still out there under a different name, but the site has been, I won't get into that. Anyway, um, that rekindled my interest in, you know, working in, in technology. It was like, oh yeah, this stuff's actually interesting. It's not all like, you know, broken and like, uh, negative. It really rekindled my interests in it. And, um, When I came back, cause our contract was up, I hooked up with, um, my now business partner who I met in college and he was working at the same company I was at, um, before I left where I was doing the tech support. He was working there doing SEO search engine optimization. This was a concept I had never heard of in, in 2010. I didn't know what that was. Actually got a job at the same company doing SEO. I went back in a different department and just learned up on my own.

Russel:

Just went right back to the grinder, man.

Jason:

I went right back into it, you know, I thought, eh, this'll be better. It'll be better, right? Well, it wasn't better. The only difference was that I had landed myself in just your textbook cushy desk job. I went from tech frontline tech support, which was manic, all over the place, multitasking like you can't even believe too. Very regimented, orderly, process driven search engine optimization in the automotive industry. Very different. I got bored pretty quick. It was like not what I expected. I started to, to freelance doing it because I was able to find I had enough of the fundamentals of SEO. I had enough drive to go look for work, right? More work.'cause I, I was making okay money, but, you know, I knew I could make more. and While I was doing this freelancing, I, I was able to find a few accounts that paid like triple the hourly rate what I was getting at my day job. My confidence was starting to build and then I, My now business partner, he left soon after I started my second tour at this tech company and he started, uh, an operation called Burlington Bytes, which was building websites with WordPress that were optimized for search, and he was doing it for local businesses here in Burlington, Vermont. This was kind of an eye-opener for me because I didn't really, I always looked at WordPress as, oh, it's just a blogging tool. He was building websites with it. I had never seen anybody do that. Like full websites, you know, that weren't just blogs and he was applying the same concepts that we were learning at this tech company, which was basically like, look, it's not a website, it's a lead generation tool. It's driving interest for people looking to buy cars.

Russel:

What's funny, I'm just hearing you talk about this. When you're saying it seems so duh in 2025, right? But I think just for the, for the younger folks at home, like this was, this was not the way of thinking. In the late 2000s it was, right, I remember right, we were still in the period of trying to convince some businesses that they needed a website. We were still trying to compete and fight with Yellow Pages and just the stuff they were doing. Things that might sound like, duh, this was not the case in, in the late 2000s.

Jason:

Good context. We did a lot of that. To fast forward just a little bit, I ended up leaving and partnering with, um, Pete, my business partner, and he had maybe, I don't know, 10 clients, 15 clients or so, all local businesses, word of mouth, people he knew. We started really the company, Burlington Bytes. It was Burlington Bytes before, but it was just him essentially freelancing, building websites. Now it was him and I together.

Russel:

Now it's official.

Jason:

We partnered and we moved into my garage in the old north end of Burlington here. What you just said is like you hitting the nail right on the head. We spent a lot of time educating clients and really we were backfilling an industry that was people that had like version one of a website, right? They got one put up in the, maybe the late 90s, early 2000s and that was it. It was like, they didn't really see it.

Russel:

But still had the counter at the bottom and, uh, the click counter?

Jason:

Oh yeah, I mean, all kinds of stuff. Flat HTML, nothing, I mean, mobile wasn't even something you talked about really. Those conversations were just starting to happen, uh, and people still had mobile sites that were, you know, that were like clunky.

Russel:

I'm curious, I mean,'cause because you said when you came back from Korea, you were, you, you had this, I don't know, enlightenment or I can't remember exactly how you described it. When you think about the kind of going to the world of entrepreneurship, was it more the dissatisfaction of the, of what you were living in terms of your job? Or was it this enlightenment, I can do anything from, from your Korea experience?

Jason:

I would say it was really both. For sure, a combination of both. I had a lot more confidence after living abroad and just a fuck it type of mentality, I'm just gonna go for it that I really didn't have before. The other side of it was really boredom. I'm a creative type of person and I, I don't tend to sit still. Anyone that knows me will tell you that. That's what I was doing. I was literally sitting at a desk all day long, doing, following the same process for the same types of clients in the same industry. I just knew even after a month or two of being there, I think I only lasted like 10 months, that second tour, I was like, this isn't for me. I'm not gonna last here. That was the push I think was like, just realizing I can do this on my own, even if it doesn't work out, at least I won't be doing what I'm doing now. And that was the what really led me to Korea as well. It was same idea of like, I'm, I know I'm never gonna be happy doing this, so I guess I'm just chasing, you know, selfishly chasing my own sort of desire for, uh, for happiness.

Russel:

I don't think there's anything I, I think we all should be, uh, you know, chasing happiness. I talk to so many owners and just say, look, if this is not the direct, the car is not headed in the direction of happiness, let's take a step back and really rethink if we're on the right road, or, or that, that's the first place. Because there's no point in doing this whole thing and working this hard to not be happy. So I don't think of it as selfish at all. I really hope this, this conversation today just inspires someone to go do something kind of bold like that, a little, little abroad moment. Uh, What's that movie? Uh, Eat, Pray, Love, I think with, um, oh, what's her name? I, I haven't actually seen this movie. My wife talks about all the time, the, what's her name? Julie Roberts. Yes. Um, But that kind of just go on this little exploration journey. Clearly it, it, it, you seems like you would be a fan and advocate of that.

Jason:

A hundred percent. I'm a big advocate of just pushing yourself to do something you're uncomfortable doing, and unlearning everything that you've learned.

Russel:

All right, so you got this thing up and running and, you know. I imagine just like a lot of folks, it's exciting, it's fun, it's energizing, um, everything's kind of new and or whatever. When was the first moment like your, oh shit moment? Does anything stand out? There's gotta be one I imagine.

Jason:

Wow. To what degree, I remember, you know, this is a, a lot of oh shit moments. There was one I remember that, uh, I'll never forget. It was our first big job, it was e-commerce. It was on Magento one, 1.7, I think.

Russel:

Oh man, I haven't heard Magento get drops, name dropped in a while.

Jason:

Yeah, I know it's a dirty word.

Russel:

Back to your, your Magento story.

Jason:

So, but yeah, right, it's, It's an e-commerce site. It's Magento 1.7. Uh, we had never worked with it before, so there's, oh shit moment number one. What the hell are we doing working with Magento? To be honest, I can't even recall why we went down that road, but it was the first time I had used, um, really something other than WordPress or this other proprietary system that at this tech company I had been using. This was like my, another CMS that I was dabbling in and we were building this at, it was an expensive site at the time. We were charging'em, I forget the exact amount. Probably six or seven times larger than anything we had ever dealt with previously. This is like still in our infancy. It's still just me and my business partner. Okay. We imported all the, not even imported, we manually added all these products to Magento by paying interns like, I don't know, 10 bucks an hour or something to sit at a computer all day. There were four of'em and they had to key in all these different products for a client that sold really niche, like medical supplies, super specific to like a particular field. Electron microscopy, I believe is what the field was. I don't even know what the, that, that is exactly. Yeah. Gnarly product catalog, they key it all in. Anyway, one day I show up. I'm in the backend on the product grid. I hit the select all button because there was some stuff I wanted to delete and, um, I hit delete and it actually deleted 7,500 products. It didn't select all on the page. It selected all products. It was a bug in the sy, in the system or it was me not understanding the UI, and I was like, I just deleted like four months worth of work. Ouch. There was no way to recover it. At least, so I thought. We were able to recover it. We did have backups at the server level of the site, and we restored it to like a week prior. We only lost like a week's worth of work. But, uh, that was my first one, which was, I'll never forget the panic of like, oh my God, I can't believe I am that stupid. You know?

Russel:

I'm not a developer, but I, I've, I've heard all the developers that ever worked for us, especially back then when we were actually doing Magento projects, um, loath its name and everything about it.

Jason:

That was a, a bad one for sure. You could pick, pick the poison for the rest of, yeah.

Russel:

And here you survived. Was that a big enough, you know, oh crap moment to, you know, take your learning lesson here, or any big ahas?

Jason:

It is an interesting question. The business today, there's 25 people that work here. We have like over 400 clients all across the United States, and we started as just like in a garage in Burlington, Vermont, technically a basement in Burlington, Vermont with just local businesses. There's a real difference, right? When you get up the, into larger organizations, big nonprofits, private companies, corporations, you tend to deal with more sophisticated buyers with sophisticated needs. There's been a lot of learning that has happened along, along the way as we've just slowly worked our way into larger businesses and, and different types of clients. I would say the first, like, probably four or five years of this, of this journey, I don't even really count as like a business. That was just like a lot of like fumbling through, saying yes to everything, figuring it out as you go, fake it till you make it, as they say. There was a lot of that.

Russel:

Basically learning everything you don't wanna do in the future or how not to do everything before you can write the book on how to do it.

Jason:

A hundred percent. When we actually started hiring people, like we hired people we knew, we hired like our friends that we had relationships with and that wasn't really a great idea. It didn't work out. We tended to just, or we didn't have a hiring process and we didn't really, HR, I mean, like where's the paper shredder in the corner? We had no concept of how to like manage people or an organization or a, or a business for that matter. In those early days, the first four or five years, we were doubling every year in terms of revenue and client load and head count really. By 2015 we had moved into a basement, um, outta my garage.

Russel:

Move from a garage to a basement. That's a pretty big upgrade there.

Jason:

That's right. An upgrade. We went from 500 square feet to like 1200, I think. When the landlord was, was showing us the spaces, it was in a nice building, uh, at the top of Church Street here in Burlington. We were like, yeah, I don't know. Do you have anything like cheaper? Because they were all expensive places, is right downtown. She said, well, we have the basement, but no one's been interested in that for years. We were like, oh, let's go take a look. We go down into the basement and it was open concept in a historic building, so it had high ceilings and red stone walls for the foundation and a floor that was like epoxied, right? We just walked around and we were like, it's perfect, we'll take it. She was like, really? You actually want this? We were like, yeah, really? We like this. It's like a Bat Cave. Let's take it.

Russel:

This sounds so a developer's dream right here.

Jason:

It was perfect. There were four of us at the time when we moved into that space, and from there we grew to, uh, 15 people. That was, uh, several oh shit moments when we were down there.

Russel:

That's not an insignificant jump, um, for an agency. Especially going for, you know, kind of that freelancer with a few helpers to just a really full-fledged team. What do you think you were doing that was allowing you to be that successful?

Jason:

Work ethic, definitely. We were grinding, we were working all the time. We were, um, taking on.

Russel:

What were you working on? Unless you're saying this work in terms of just shelling out for hours and cranking out sites or something.

Jason:

Oh no. At that time when we moved into the basement, um, we were primarily building websites. We were doing mostly websites and every website that we build, we host and we support. There's a revenue stream that, that, that comes with that, right? Or a recurring revenue stream. That's been core to the business model since day one, is we need some sort of monthly subscription revenue. That's the lesson that we took from automotive, right? The parts department, the service department, that's what keeps the lights on at a car dealership.

Russel:

So there was, there is some benefit other than actually starting your business from your, your automotive tech support career.

Jason:

Absolutely. That was the framework that we used. The core concept of how to like create a business that's sustainable came from my experience, uh, in, in corporate tech. My business partner had the same thing. A lot of building websites. We were starting to get into digital marketing at that time'cause we had SEO backgrounds and we knew paid search and we were dipping our toes in that, uh, to the point where we had a person on staff where that was their job, but they didn't have a full plate of work doing that. He was also helping us build websites and we all wore different hats at that point. I would help with, managing paid search at times. That's what I mean. We were working all the time. We were constantly trying to get in new work and, Pete, he did all the sales and was really good at it. I mean, He was a really good closer and could get people in the door quick. That had a lot to do with kind of the rapid pace of, of growth because we were like, well, we need, if we're gonna do this job, we need to hire. Alright, let's do that and then just, ramp up from there. We would basically run in the red. We would run really hot, never really hiring ahead, and then frankly just kind of hire too late. There were a lot of problems that came with that, as you might imagine, uh, hiring under duress. But, um, a big pivot for us was our first, we, our first developer we ever had was this really young, kind of inexperienced, uh, he was right outta school, you know, and, and he did the best that he could, and I think we put him in some really unfortunate situations. He left.

Russel:

That's wont to happen a lot in in small, small agency environment.

Jason:

Coding into a corner kind of thing. The day he left, the day he said, I don't wanna do this anymore, this other guy walked in, a guy named Brian, and it was as though it was an act of God or something. He walked into the basement and he said, hey, I'm a developer looking for a job.

Russel:

Literally the day the other guy left?

Jason:

It was like the day or the next day. It was like the stars had aligned and this guy had experience. He was from an agency and he was a lot like Pete. He was really motivated by the work and it was, he was just genuinely passionate about building things and he was smart, and what he brought to the table was a new way of thinking about building websites,'Cause he could write code, he was an engineer, he could solve complicated problems. We could actually respond to things like RFPs. We could chase these jobs that we couldn't even think about before,'cause we just didn't have the technical abilities. That was a big leapfrog moment because we could charge more money and we could chase different types of work, and that's what we did. We, uh, were able to land, um, some really large accounts. We had another developer join not long after who was also, similar situation. He just walked in. He had a startup that had failed and was just looking to align himself with people that had the same sort of philosophy as him. With those two together, we had a real, like foundation of an engineering team, you know, and that allowed us to just leapfrog beyond where we were because we were really never gonna get into, um, the organizations that we have now as clients if we didn't make that investment in, like, we, we need developers, we need people who are like trained and skilled, and experienced in this.

Russel:

How intentional was just that thought process in, in terms of wanting to just say, hey, we want bigger, more sophisticated clients, um, you know, bigger budgets, et cetera. When you think back in that moment, was that, was that the goal and the intention and you were going about this strategically or you're just doing a lot of work and figuring things out as you go?

Jason:

From my perspective, it was just figuring it out as we go. It was like the path of least resistance. It was wherever the water kind of flows. That's how I really remember it. Now, my business partner, he may have a very different take on it, um, cause at the time I was doing a lot of work. I was account management, I was some technical support. I was project managing. I was doing some sales even. I was wearing a lot of hats. We didn't have any titles. It was a flat org and this is when the team was probably, uh, 12 people, 10, 10, 12 people around that time. What we ended up doing in 2015, this was a big moment in my professional development was, uh, Pete said, look, the business is growing way too fast. You and I don't know how to manage it. Clearly, cause we didn't. I didn't go to business school. I didn't really like, intend for this to be a thing that was really taking off. I just wanted to kind of be creative as a freelancer and, and make more money doing that. He said, look, we need to hire a CEO. We need somebody that can like, do exactly what you just said, Russel, is like, they need to steer the ship. They need to build a strategic plan. They need to manage the budget, like,'cause this is getting too big for us. Which I resisted at first. I didn't really agree with that. I thought we could, we could manage this.

Russel:

You don't hear that, to be quite honest. I mean, yes. I, I think that problem of, you know, you've got a lot of folks like yourself that are just really great at the work and really want to be invested in, in the, the engineering of things, but, you know, maybe just don't have the desire to, you know, strategically steer the ship or something like that. I really don't very often hear, you know, especially at a size like that, where someone's like, we wanna sit someone over the top of us, essentially, uh, to, to steer us. That's a pretty unique thought. I'm sitting here thinking like, there's just no way this is actually gonna go good either. But I'm always surprised every now and then.

Jason:

Yeah, well it failed, so, uh, There were some good things that came of it, uh, but overall that was a failure and cost us a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of headache. It set the business back, uh, a few years at least. I think the, the real flaw there was, you know, a philosophical misalignment, I would say. This person did some good things. One of the things that they did very early was he made a comment, he was like, the way things work here is like you just throw a pile of work in the middle of the room and everyone just sort of picks away at it, and they just sort of decide what they wanna do, and then you do it. He's like, and that's fine, but that's not gonna scale. You need to have an organ. You need an organization chart, first of all, which we didn't have. And you need titles, which we didn't have. You need a chain of command, a hierarchy. He implemented a very traditional corporate, you know, pyramid, uh, manager, subordinate, um, director, you know, C-level, that kind of thing. That framework still exists today. It's different than what it was then, but it, it's, it's still a thing. We have titles, you know, we have managers, directors, et cetera, et cetera. And, um, so That was one really lasting impact. Another was the rebranding. That was something that he pushed forward and he said, look, like Burlington Bytes doesn't make sense. It had kind of a weird like, you know, dude's in a basement like tech bro kind of vibe.

Russel:

I just keep thinking Burlington Coat Factory. Don't ask me why that comes to mind.

Jason:

There you go. But people would say like, they thought we were like a food company, you know, like.

Russel:

Oh yeah, I can see that too.

Jason:

He was like, we need to ditch that whole thing. He led the effort to rebrand, to Bytes.Co. Those two things were, were needed, were necessary. But in his three year tenure, we almo, we, we turned, basically turned over the entire company. People left and people came in, then people left that we brought in. We had a real hard time, um, getting the right people in the door and employee retention was a real issue. Just as a leadership team, we did not really jive. In the beginning, things were okay, but, um, it just, there was no cohesion and it was, again, one of those things that you could see the writing on the wall of just like, I just don't see how this is gonna end well. I just don't see how this is gonna work out. And it, it ultimately didn't.

Russel:

I have my guesses, but I, I want to hear it straight from you. I mean, like more specific, like why, why? Clearly sounds like you just really went through a tumultuous period through this. Did you let go and put too much in his hands too fast and, and it just, you're just completely throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Obviously you said she had some good initiatives, but with other things that were maybe working well of just someone that didn't come up in the business and understand it? Give us a little more detail on that.

Jason:

We were a tech company and we hired somebody to run it that really had no background in tech. I think that was the biggest mistake is like, this is just a misalignment of, just experience and skill and, you know, I, the business background and the finance background, very relevant. But, um, there was a real disconnect from like the work that we did, and I think a little too traditional maybe in terms of their style of how they wanted to manage people. Created a lot of friction. I think that was the issue. I would call it, I guess, a cultural misalignment. I mean, Culture wins every time. I say that based on experience that I've had here. In that situation, that was somebody that was hired for the job. It was for like the technical need, which was, you know, business planning and finance and, uh, people management. We thought that they really had the skills to do that. And, and I, I think that this person did. I don't wanna, you know, very, very smart, very capable individual, but just culturally not a fit.

Russel:

I want to bring this home too,'cause I've, I mean, I've got some experience with this as well. I really am just come to the conclusion of how unique of a business an agency is that it doesn't fit, you know, even, even within the construct of text agency itself is a unique business. It's very hard to bring in traditional business paradigms where you know things are widgets and you just do more widgets in the structured approach just does not work in the chaos that is an agency.

Jason:

Boy, are you right about that.

Russel:

Just even to run an organization that's gotta be so on its feet, you gotta be constantly learning. Whatever was true yesterday isn't true tomorrow. Just that strategic mindset and innovation and the, the, the foundations of just understanding what the actual technical work we're doing, uh, I feel like is just absolutely required. I've seen other people kind of flail when they're put in that role, when they're putting more kind of traditional, structured environments and come into an agency. They're very smart, intelligent, capable people that have been successful. They fall flat on their face because of all that chaos. I say all this just to bring it home just for folks at home that, that there's not a, it's not a plug and play thing you can ever do to put someone in charge of an agency, even though I know so many owners want that world so they can do the things that I'm sure you're wanting to do or wanted to do, I guess you could say. But it sounds like you learned a lot from that, if nothing else. You paid another hefty tuition to the school of hard knocks.

Jason:

I would say so. That cost a lot of money and a lot of time. Be careful, right? If there's the advice, it's like hiring under duress is one of the worst things that you can do.

Russel:

Anything out of fear and absolute fight or flight mentality probably is never gonna be a good long-term decision.

Jason:

It really, really isn't. That was one that, that hurt, but we got through it.

Russel:

Here you are. You have so many parts of your story that I, I'd love to go down, but, uh, we do have to kind of wrap up here. You have a very successful agency at this point. I guess maybe think back to just one, one more nugget, uh, you can share with the folks at home on what you think was an important, if someone ask you the, the key to your journey, what would you ultimately share with that?

Jason:

I would have a very cliche answer, I think, which is, uh, don't be afraid to fail because you're going to fail. I think that's something that you have to recognize, right? You will fail at some point and don't be afraid of that. Just don't be afraid of failure because you ultimately learn from it. It's like anything, right? Like investing, right? Things go up, things go down, right? It's never always just up. You have, uh, high points and low points, and I don't know that we talk enough internally here about that. I won't digress on that point, but anyway, that's, that's what I'm saying. The second piece I would say is celebrate the wins. Look at the wins. Dissect the wins, right? Yeah, you wanna look at why you failed, but you also really need to look at like why you won. What did you do that was successful that you can replicate? I think those are two really important things that have been certainly key to our success here. Especially in the early days of just not being afraid to, to push and to do something we haven't done before, and we still do that here today. It's just a lot more measured, obviously. That whole move fast and break things. I really don't like that because what isn't really talked about is somebody ultimately has to deal with what's broken.

Russel:

There's a janitor. There has to be a janitor.

Jason:

Yes, there's a janitor. That used to be me. I was the janitor. Still am, I guess.

Russel:

I wanna, if you don't mind, piggyback on it'cause I, because I, I get a sense about you and, and you know, we do hear that so much in businesses, you know, fail forward and, and, and, you know, learn from those mistakes. But I get the sense that you're a person and we can go back to this Korea moment or this, uh, living abroad. Not being afraid to fail, but what do you actually learn and do from that failure? Some folks might get burnt and so they become more cautious and stuff. I get the sense from you the type of no, we got burned by that so we are going to massively overhaul or, or change, um, take as you were saying, take some of the good, but then everything that was even not working at all, just throw it away. Don't even just try to improve it. Take the two or three good things and run with those and you've, you've gotta do some overhauling and, and pretty, pretty hefty work and innovation to make these leaps within your business.

Jason:

Editing, right? Knowing how to edit and where to edit is, is important. I mean, there's definitely, If it's not working, it's not working. I look at this like I've, I, you know, had, I've had a lot of people come and go through by, through Bytes, Burlington Bytes and Bytes.co over the years. Sometimes you just have to make those hard decisions and make'em quick and not kid yourself about like, oh, well, maybe this'll change or that'll change. If you're growing a business that's relying on hiring people, you need to be really quick to make the decisions, recognizing, okay, it's not working out with this person. We need to take the extra step, which in our case tends to be, uh, you know, moving on with that relationship. I say that just'cause I, I, nowadays I think a lot about like organizational management and personnel management and performance management, that kind of thing. That's a lot of what I do now. I still make these mistakes where like, I have people in the wrong role and ultimately they don't work out right, you think about what that costs the business, like I'm still learning that piece as I go. I think that for me these days now, I guess, um, there's a lot more sort of reflection on what, how can I do this differently next time? What were the signs that I ignored? What did I miss? Trying to delegate that down to my management team has been sort of my thing. It's not just like, um, me anymore, but how can I instill that in other people? What lesson am I saying, I guess, for, uh, someone growing a business is, you know, don't be afraid to make those hard decisions either. Sometimes it's better for everybody and you just have to be honest about that situation and really say that of like, look, this is not working out. You're not in the right role. It's not a fit. Gotta go or gotta take a next step.

Russel:

I'm inspired by that thought because I, you know, I think, I think we're just so wired as humans probably to ask what's the easiest thing we can do to try to improve something. But I don't know. I'm kind of thinking we need to ask ourselves what's the hardest thing that we need to do to improve something? More often than not, I imagine, I imagine that's the thing that needs to be done. Once you're down that path, you can maybe try to find easier ways to do the hard thing. We gotta ask ourselves, what's the hard thing to do here?'Cause that's probably the right thing.

Jason:

It's a good point. The hard thing is probably the right thing.

Russel:

That's so true. As much as we don't want that to be true, I, I, I think, I think that is the lesson that I continue to learn in, in business as well. Wonderful conversation so far. I'm, I'm excited for your answer to this because I know it's gonna be amazing. Are entrepreneurs born or are they made?

Jason:

Are entrepreneurs born or made?

Russel:

Yep. Pressure's on.

Jason:

What is an entrepreneur? What does that word mean, I guess to, is what I would throw back at you in the five minutes we have left.

Russel:

Oh, you're actually gonna ask me that?

Jason:

What is an entrepreneur? That word gets thrown around. Serial entrepreneur or they're an entrepreneur. What's that mean? Do they own their own business? I know a lot of business owners that I wouldn't describe as an entrepreneur, as entrepreneurial.

Russel:

Very fair. Maybe that's just a big, uh, maybe when I would think about that and, and you've got me on the spot here, really. Um, I mean, I agree with you. It's not just a, being a business owner, but I think going back to what we were saying earlier, just this so unique, that an agency business is, you have no choice but to be an entrepreneur in an agency business. Maybe that's to say it's, it's someone that innovates and creates something. Not for a W2. I don't know. I'm gonna think more deeply about this, but that's my off the cuff answer.

Jason:

I would say that, uh,,I'll using your definition and, and it lines mainly with my own, you said something there that's important, innovation and drive, work ethic, uh, creativity, and, um, you know, critical thinking. I think that is all wrapped into the entrepreneurial mindset, and for me, that is not something that's born. I think that, that's made over time. Truthfully, when, it took a lot of years here at Bytes, before I would identify as entrepreneurial, I didn't really think of myself in that way. I thought of myself as, I'm a worker, I'm just a hard worker. I think I would equate it to, entrepreneurship is like, if it's, if you think of it as a game, I think it's a lot like chess, right? This is chess, not checkers, to quote Denzel from, uh, Training Day there. Because you have to think so many different moves ahead, right? How is this move gonna impact the next move? What is this gonna cost me if I get it wrong?

Russel:

You can't just be a piece taker.

Jason:

You can't just be a piece taker. I think that, uh, that comes with time. That's a skill that has to be developed. I don't think that people possess that just as some innate thing. That's my answer there.

Russel:

I love it. That's a very well thought out, uh, almost science driven or, uh, made answer. That's a good, good notch in the made bedpost there. Awesome. If people wanna know more about Bytes.co, where can they go?

Jason:

They can go to our website. You just said it. B Y T E S.co. Bytes.Co, that's our agency website. You could find me on LinkedIn, uh, Jason Di Vece, D-I-V-E-C-E. Haven't been very active recently, but uh, I tend to post there. That's where you can learn more about, um, what we do and what I'm up to.

Russel:

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to share your courageous journeys, your failures, your successes and everything that allowed you to get to the place you are today. Really appreciate you taking the time to share that with us.

Jason:

This was a lot of fun, Russel. This was great. I can't think of a better way to spend my Friday morning, so thank you very much for having me on your podcast.

Russel:

Thank you for listening to An Agency Story podcast where every story helps you write your own, subscribe, share, and join us again for more real stories, lessons learned, and breakthroughs ahead. What's next? You'll want to visit an agencystory.com/podcast and follow us on Instagram at@anagencystory for the latest updates.

Jason:

We hired somebody, uh, to do this support role. It was their first day. This was in the basement days. I forget what hire number this was, but remember, we really didn't vet people or have a process or anything. Anyway, this person's first day, they come in and I'm training them how to use the ticketing system. It's 10 o'clock in the morning and this person says to me like, is there beer in that fridge over there? I said, yeah. They walk over to the fridge and they grab a beer, open it, come back down and sit at the desk. I was just like, I didn't know what to say. I'm like, what the fuck? Pete who was there, he was just like, are you drinking a beer right now? They were like, yeah, it helps clear my sinuses.

Russel:

Can we get a doctor's note for that?

Jason:

I just did not know what to say. I can't imagine ever doing that at like a job. Needless to say, she, this person did not last very long.

Russel:

Speaking of entrepreneurship, there's nothing entrepreneurship to, to get you closer to the realm of, I think I might've seen it all.

Jason:

The boldness of that was really, I'll never forget that one.