An Agency Story
First hand interviews of creative, digital, advertising, and marketing agency owners that have walked the talk of running an agency business. These are riveting stories of the thrill of starting up, hardships faced, and the keys to a successful business from agency owners around the world.
An Agency Story
Finding the Unexpected Tip of the Spear - North Street
In this episode, Russel sits down with Tom Conlin of North Street to unpack how an unexpectedly narrow offer became a mechanism for opening doors, reducing stress, and creating better opportunities across the business.
Key Takeaways
- How a narrowly defined offer can become a powerful door-opener for bigger work
- What it really means to “see the machinery of the business” and why it changes decision-making
- The difference between being busy and being profitable
- How AI can increase leverage without devaluing expertise
Want a more clarity and control for your agency in 2026? An Agency Story has three coaching spots available for 2026. Let’s see if one of those spots is right for you. Visit AnAgencyStory.com and click “Let’s Talk.”
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, turn 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 Tom Conlon with us here today with North Street, among other things. Thank you so much for joining us today, Tom. All right. Good to see you, Russell. Great to see you. Just kick us off right out the gate, tell us what North Street does and who you do it for.
Tom:Great. Alright. All right. All right. North Street's a branding and strategy agency. I've been running it for 15 years now. Um, we are mostly, uh, business corporate focused, so, you know, we don't do e-commerce sites, we don't do sneakers and stuff like that. Uh, we work on financial services, brands, nonprofits. And like professional services and most of our work is honestly mid-market. Um, but we've had some big name clients, including the Environmental Defense Fund is like a big nonprofit that we've worked with. That's a big household name. We've got some. Financial services, household names, but then, uh, last year we, by a series of crazy right place, right time circumstances wound up working on the Kamala Harris website, so, okay. Very cool. That is, and what we do, it's, we do brand strategy, just what does this brand, who does it speak to and what does it need to say all the way down to like the execution and optimization of a website. So, and everything in between.
Russel:Love it. I imagine it's some amazing work you do there. And, and go ahead and just tell us a little bit about the, and other things that that you have going on in the business process. Yeah, yeah, sure.
Tom:So this year was interesting. I mean, north Street's been, I've been doing it for 15 years and in 2025 I launched two new, I'll call them brand extensions. I mean, they are positioned as companies. Uh, right now they're just not actually, um. New separate business entities, but essentially it's my team and these two new brands are just, a lot of it is positioning, well, one is just North Street repositioned and the other is North Street taking our kind of technical know-how and turning that into like a repeatable business model instead of what we are now as project based. So like one of them is an agency that is focused on very, very fast website design and development. Um, for a very specific niche situation, which is usually like shareholder votes over actually, if you are aware of the Netflix Warner Brothers Paramount situation, this is exactly the type of situation that we build websites for. We're not involved in this one, but I can tell you both sides have a website that went up in. Days, and there's only a few agencies that can do that. And we're one of'em. Okay. So we didn't do that one, but I know who did like, like crisis web communications. Yeah. And then the second one, that is an agency we're calling Circulent. It's been a door opener for North Street, which is really interesting. And then Moon Vine is my new thing and that is. I mean, I can tell you how I got to this too, but essentially, north Street's been very project based for the 15 years that we've been doing this, and as a result, my stress levels have been extremely high. For 15 years we've been doing this and I've always been chasing this like repeatable revenue model, and I've just never been able to crack the nut with like our special mix of ingredients, which was like very branding and strategy heavy. It was hard for me to like get like a monthly kind of recurring thing out of that. We are, north Street does have a very technical part to it, and part of that is looking at clients' data on their websites and making informed decisions about how to make them better. So we're just gonna sort of turn that into its own little weekly report, and it's gonna start to include other things like competitive intelligence and changes your competitors made on their websites and all sorts of interesting stuff. We're using AI obviously to scale it and. So once I sort of realized, oh, like you don't have to be a North Street client or even like on one of our preferred platforms, like a WordPress or Webflow, for this to, even for you to be a customer of this. So this is the one that's gonna, you know. Make all my dreams come true. Right. No, someone that's gonna, I think I see like scaling faster. Scaling bigger and in, and in a different way. And it's just really interesting, like as an agency guy building a product for the first time. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's what I got
Russel:going on. All right. Not just a couple irons in the fire. No big deal. I'll certainly want to, not to unpack there and get to how you not only arrived at one agency, but three agencies. But before we go down that road, I'd just love to hear about Young Tom and how he came up in the world and Yeah, sure. What was he, what was he up to?
Tom:Young to got to college in the dawn of the internet or the dawn of the worldwide web actually, I'd say. Wow. And so I got my first email address. When I got to my college campus, I had to go to a special computer lab and type in Unix commands to check my email. Right. So like that's where my journey, it
Russel:was a seventies. No,
Tom:no, no. It was the nineties, but it was like, it was, it was like what? I, you know, I grew up on like A OLI. I had a OL in like CompuServe, but that was like my internet, right? Experience. But I was always like a very, a design graphic, design focused. I'm not like a sports kid. I was always like, you know, designing my own bands and with their own logos and skateboard brands and stuff like that. Um, and when I got to college, oh, and I was always making, like, I was actually always making on my dad's computer, uh, like mix tapes. And then I'd make the sleeve, I'd design a sleeve. It was awesome. I bet. Um. And when I got to college, it was like internet was like, okay, it's this. We are starting to figure out what this thing is. And then I took a class on HTML and there was just this one moment where I just realized I had created. A webpage, my first webpage ever on one computer, like on a computer that, was in my room, my dorm room. And I remember I went to the library and I called it up'cause I had figured out how to upload things to a server. And I remember I called it up and I just couldn't believe, and this is like hard for younger people of a certain, yeah. People of a certain age get this and others just don't get it. But like when I saw what I had built on one computer, on another computer. And I was like, whoa, and I can like update this at any time and it'll change in both places. I was like, whoa, I like, I gotta figure out what this is and I'm gonna like start doing this. So like I changed for being a history major to basically inventing my own major, which was communications department. But essentially all I did was take every like Adobe creative class. I could, um, because the technical offerings at that time were just the comp side department, which was like hardcore, like it wasn't web programming.
Russel:Yeah. I mean, to the point young people are sitting homeless and like, did, were you doing this by candle lights and you're wagon parked outside?
Tom:I mean, but like, it's that kind of thing. We talk about, I like my partner and I talked to our kids and it's like literally, it's like we had to go to a special laboratory and put in special commands to
Russel:check. Yeah. To check. I know. Look, we're probably not that far apart, but that's even a little more than I had to navigate. Or maybe my school was technologically
Tom:just you.
Russel:Yeah, yeah.
Tom:Caught. And the ball
Russel:could be too. Um, but no, it is just crazy how far we've come technologically and, uh, um, right. That's our version of the walking uphill. 40 miles both ways.
Tom:Well, I mean, I actually honestly think, and we can get into this later, I think that what we're experiencing now with AI is like the web 1.0. It's like that much technology, that much unknown, that much opportunity and risk, and like no one knows that much more than anybody else. And like so many crazy things are gonna happen so fast in the next couple years. But it just feels like that. It feels like that Web 1.0. Just all over again.
Russel:25 years from now. The younger folks today will be getting asked by their kids of, you used to have to type into a prompt, to get your AI output. How archaic is that? They'll be like, you didn't, your
Tom:refrigerator didn't do the grocery shopping for you. Yes. Like, what?
Russel:And make your meal and, and, yes. That's so true. We're telling the future right now. We don't even realize it. Well. When did it hit you? When did that bug hit you? That maybe you're not a, a nine to five job guy, but that entrepreneurship was in your future.
Tom:Yeah, it's funny'cause I will tell you, after I started a business, it wasn't until after I started a business that I realized that my dad had been an entrepreneur his whole life. He was an electrician but had started his own company and had run his own company for years. And it was funny. It wasn't until later in life when it was like, oh my God, he has employees and bills and payroll and it's like the same thing. That was not my path. My path was, okay, I'm gonna like go to college and then I'm gonna get a job at like some technology company, which I. That was my sort of foray and like my first job was in publishing, but on the digital side. Mm-hmm. Because I taught myself to sign and code and I was just very useful and I was this kid that came outta college that could just do the coding stuff. Right. So I got hired and I just. I was that, that basically my career just started and then centered around the publishing industry for a little bit. I wound up at another magazine, and that was an amazing five years of my life where I started on the digital side, and then I wound up as a writer, like the senior editor of the magazine on the editorial side. But miscalculated the timing to go from digital to print like big time, right? And so the magazine like shut down and that's the beginning of like me freelancing, getting a job at a OL for a second and realizing that like, whoa, I hate this and I hate working for somebody else. And like, this place is out of control. Um. So I was freelancing freelance writing, freelance for magazines, and then I was, I was also starting to get projects where I was doing logos and websites for folks, and that was it. It very quickly became apparent to me that, you know, I've got a limited number of hours in the week, and if I spend it trying to pitch articles to magazines or I spend it making websites and logos like. The former, I'll go broke the latter, I can actually make a living. And that was literally like, okay, I'm gonna do this now. And then I got an anchor client. I got a client that turned into a massive client, right? Just an introduction to someone at the right time that then he got a new job and that was like, whoa. Like now I need people and I need stuff. And I don't think I'm ever going back.
Russel:I love that. It's funny, like, and you what you're saying about, you know, your dad didn't really realize he's an entrepreneur. When, when you think back about that, like, do you compare yourself to that today? It is like, oh gosh, now I understand why he was, you know, stressed about mean. Yeah, man,
Tom:I'll, I'll tell you what, I remember being a kid and my dad got sued, right? For some, like, you know, some lady. He did some electrical work in, said he didn't do the job, whatever. You know what I mean? But it was just this thing as a little kid, just like under, like, not even understanding it, just being like, whoa, like what is this? Like my dad's in and they had an, I forget her name, but I'm like, who is this lady that, like, I keep hearing this name and it's like my dad's being sued. But like. It was interesting. He was interesting. He came and went as he wanted, right? Mm-hmm. And I thought that that was normal, right? Like, you know your dad, like, hey, yeah, he's in and out. He spends his weekdays doing whatever he wants. He's got this job over here. He is, got that job over here. He pulls in his buddies when he wants to, uh, you know, I got an early understanding of like what it meant to be laid off and like why sometimes that was. Stood for some of his friends, you know what I mean? Yeah. It was like these weird things that I kinda learned early on that like, I don't think I was even learning. It was just what I was like surrounded by. Oh yeah.
Russel:That's just the standard. That's that's how life goes. Yeah.
Tom:Yeah, yeah. And of course he had a home office, um, with like a computer. That's how I got, you know, a OL and CompuServe early on. And we always had a fax machine in the house, so I was surrounded by like business stuff and business talk. But, uh, yeah. It wasn't until later that I was like, oh wow. He was an entrepreneur, he was a business owner too. It was just a different context.
Russel:Very fascinating. well, obviously you've been at this a long time and then we're not gonna get to every detail of your story. And it sounds like you've gotten yourself to a good place today, but when, when you just think back across this journey, what was a hard season that you remember? And tell us a little bit about it and how you got through it.
Tom:Yeah, I think. That's a big question. I mean, I can tell you there are some instances, like I tell everybody this. I say when you're starting a new business or you're gonna go off on your own and start your business, remember that 50% or more of your job is gonna be getting business, right? So like. That's cool that you like what you do and that's cool that you've got this like anchor client, it's like, that's awesome, but like nothing lasts forever. So make sure that you know where your next job is coming from. And that was a lesson I learned like very, very like. Late and, and nothing catastrophic happened, but I just remember this point where we had three jobs, like three potential opportunities, and we didn't get any of them. And I just remember being like, man, I don't even have anything in place to even, like, I want a down payment on a project in like the next three weeks. And I have nothing in place to even have a conversation started. Right. Yeah. So it's like that was a big, big, big one. And then the other one I'll say is Financially, like the things that are working for me are fractional. CFO, meaning like at whatever minimum cost you can afford that, just making sure that it's not just your bookkeeper or accountant giving you your p and l, like just making sure that someone is like, this is what this means, and like this is potentially where you're gonna run into problems is like. Major, having a line of credit. I didn't get that until like seven years into my business. Like I was like literally white knuckling it to like mm-hmm. Roll sometimes. So getting that, and then also I always, and I learned this from a friend of mine, but uh, having a relationship with a local bank, uh mm-hmm. Because they're small and you'll always have someone to call, and I can't even tell you that saved my life during the PPP. Uh, run, for during COVID. So like, I mean, those are things that like, man, I, I just learned late or just avoided disaster. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, or things I can't believe, like I survived. Like not having a line of credit until like seven years in, like what?
Russel:Yeah. Well I think that is the thrill and the disdain of entrepreneurship is you seem to learn what you need to learn when you need and learn it most. And there's always, yeah, the woulda, coulda should have. But yeah, that was a quick crash course and a few things there, line of credit, right. I've you always hear that and, and it's always easy to put that off. Because as the saying always goes, you're at least likely to give it to you when you need it. Most, a hundred percent get it when you know, get it, and
Tom:the times are great and like, Hey, draw from it every once in a while, and then put the money back in. Right?
Russel:And then same way with right, setting up a relationship with a local bank and. They're there to help you. Not when you want it, but when you need it. If you plan for that ahead and
Tom:let, let's just say if your banker's an 800 number, like, like no. Like get, make sure you have another bank.
Russel:Yeah. They really, really don't care about you. Um, and then something, you know, I talk about like is most important, right? I don't think. This comes up every now and then on the show, is just this idea that, uh, every owner that's gotten to some semblance of success talks about this idea of understanding their financials and how important that was. However they get that, whether they take on that role themselves of really digging into the numbers or like, it sounds like in your case, getting that. Expertise to give you that guidance that this is more than a tax situation and a, you know, a pretty p and l that gets it once a month. But how are you making meaningful business decisions based upon the financials of your business?
Tom:Yeah, so we are looking at a couple of, I mean, again, like for many years my accountant would give me my p and l and be like, here it is. And I literally did not even know what I was looking at. Yeah. Uh. And then we introduction to a fractional CFO and they put our QuickBooks online into a model that like I could understand. It was just something that was like, okay, I see. I can see the machinery of the business, I can see the labor, the profit, the costs, the utilization, and it just made sense to me. Right? And so once that was visible to me, once those things were visible to me and like I could make sense of them and we could even like look ahead. It was like, oh wow. I look back on it and I'm like, I can't believe people are running businesses without that much visibility. It's like, it's like driving in the dark with your headlights off.'cause it's like, and I'll tell you, I've been in situations where they were like, if you don't make a decision in the next 30 days on staffing, you will not have money in October to pay payroll. Yeah. And it's like, well thank you for telling me that in July. Yeah. And not September 15th. Right. Like, and so like just having that sort of like understanding of your cash flow and then also like the levers of the business. It's like, you know, chase down your accounts receivable, like get chase down your accounts receivable and you'll like, that's money in the bank right there. Like the sort of like little things you can do. I think people don't realize it's not about new business all the time. In fact, yeah. Too much new business is a bad thing. I think there's a lot of like optimization, or optimization of leakage or just straight up optimization of financials that can be done without hiring or, or, you know, without, without making huge changes.
Russel:Well, in a lot of the work I do, and oftentimes one of the simplest gifts that I can give or help an agency get to is just a simple forecast spreadsheet. Um, yeah. And that ability to stop living by what's in the bank account and what's coming in that month. And, and as, as you were kind of sharing, look, pick your eyes up and look a little bit further ahead. Make decisions down the road, makes a life a whole lot easier, and gives you the right mis test of, should I be worried today? Or things looking good. But don't leave that to. Your gut, leave that to the The numbers.
Tom:Yeah. Or also it's like, well, here's a common mistake. Well, we're really busy. Should we hire somebody? And it's like, well, is it profitable work?
Russel:Yeah.
Tom:Or you just busy and you're actually like, it's not even profitable work. And now you're gonna hire another set of hands that's gonna be like just. Straight up loss like, but if you're running off your gut, it seems like you're busy. It's like, okay.
Russel:Well it's funny, you know, in sitting here saying this, it really just reminded me and sometimes you just forget some of the things you had that you may have helped you didn't even realize it is right. A lot of accounting firms are moving to more of a consultary kind of, you know, call it fractional CMO model, but that wasn't always the case. Right? Back in, back in the early days, they were really just tax people. But I had the good fortune to find an accountant that was kind of starting to test that out as a service, and so I would go sit down with, it was the owner. I mean, he had the 50 plus person accounting firm. I was getting massive advice and I didn't even really realize it. I was actually still thinking about like, just do my books, man. But I was having these meetings and I was getting just really, really helpful advice and putting together pro forecasts and pro performers and stuff like that. So. You just reminded me of how I had that in my business in the early days.
Tom:I do think there is a disconnect or that just like a lack of understanding for some business owners that like accounting, bookkeeping. Is not financial advising. Like your books great, they're kept up to date or they aren't. Um, but like what do they tell you?
Russel:A bookkeeper is data entry. A controller, uh, helps you manage some expenses. And then, then, right, like a true CFO or strategic level advisor is doing that. And your bookkeeper cannot give you strategic financial advice. They're great at data entry. Yeah, that's a great, great reminder there. Well, fascinating. And I, yeah, I think financials are so important and for all the reasons you said of helping build longer runway, squeezing more juice outta the fruit we're getting for clients and, and just making better decisions. But I am curious about how or when you arrived at these couple other brands that you're creating, or you've created, and how those came born to be as well.
Tom:Yeah, sure. I'll start with ent. So ENT is that agency I mentioned. Um, that is what we do is that like high speed like situation, like drops on a Thursday or a Friday and we have to have a website open on Monday before the market opens type of work. This is a service that we have offered to, it's just been this odd thing that we have already been doing as North Street for 15 years for one client. Hmm. Just as one client has this one need that is so specific and happens often'cause it's related to the market and it's, it's related to shareholder votes at public companies. And I'm like, not making this up. These are money is no object situations. Right. It's like two. Giant companies. I'm talking, we've worked on like Sprint and T-Mobile merging, right? Like the money really is just like it's get it done. Mm-hmm. Attitude like and because these are agency, these are strategic comms agencies that hire us, it does have to be like perfect. And they have to be able to like change it at the last minute. And so we just got really good at doing this with this one agency and is happen. My contact over there. They got rolled up into a, i, I think it's Omnicom now, or one of those. Oh yeah. Um, and so that relationship, although this was like in the sort of ether three years ago, that relationship came to a sudden end in January. And it was just because of, you know, this is when we're gonna transfer this last January.
Russel:You're saying even.
Tom:This is like, this is when we're gonna transfer to our internal resources fully.
Russel:Right. Seen that before,
Tom:it was crazy. I had already been thinking about spinning the service off into like its own company and I was just like, whoa, I have to do this now. I have to, and I mean, honestly, we picked a. Logo mark and a name that were both left over from old projects, right? We're a branding agency. So we had these things like literally lying around, um, and it was like, oh, like this word ent that was originally for a wind energy company. And I just thought, I was like, okay, this works, right? This sounds technical and circuitous or whatever. I can make a story about this. Um. We worked on some really tight messaging, and this is the point is that like, because we niched down into this like specific offering, our message could be super specific because we knew exactly who the audience was. Mm. And they, they get it and they have money is no object kind of money to hire us or they don't get it and they don't, don't understand. It's irrelevant to them anyway. Right. What I found was like North Street. Great. We're a branding agency. We're a creative agency. Yeah. Take a number, sit in line, right? Like, I can approach these strategic comms agencies and be like, Hey, here's my portfolio. We've done some cool stuff. And they're like, okay, we'll take your, we'll take this, we'll put it in the Rolodex, but. When I was suddenly able to go to them and say, Hey those like shareholder situations where you have to get a website up in like a weekend or sooner? Like, that's what I do, check it out. Mm-hmm. And they were like, whoa, come in, come in right now. I had one group literally say, they're like, Tom, when you walked in our door, it was like you had been sent from God.
Russel:And I was like, that's quite a, that's quite a testimonial.
Tom:But I'll tell you what. What was an unexpected surprise there was that this actually became a door opener for North Street. So I would recommend anybody just thinking about some sort of service or offering you have and thinking about maybe sub-branding it with some very specific messages.'cause I'll tell you what, I get into the room because of ent, and more often than not, I walk out with North Street work'cause it's like, okay, this timely website, they don't have this need right now. They just wanna know that they can call me when it goes down. And then they're like, oh, well, okay, well, do you guys do like slide decks and investor presentations and then just sort of long-term website projects? I'm like, well, ENT doesn't, but North Street does and it's been effective. It's just been really interesting. I did not expect that. I was just like, oh yeah, this will help me get clients for this service, and it's opened up other opportunities, so yeah.
Russel:That was interesting. Well, it's like the tip of the spear, um, concept. That's definitely it. Concept. Um, exactly. It pierces the shield, builds a relationship, builds the trust, and then you can take it and run with from there.
Tom:Yeah, and it was my messaging, right? It was need, like need, need satisfied and timing, you know, all kind of happening at the same time, it just got me way more attention than a generic kind of like, Hey, we're North Street. We're a branding agency. Use this. When, when you think of it.
Russel:So let me ask this a question then, because right you, you've seen the light of like what you're basically sharing there of super tight messaging, super tight fit need, et cetera. Has that changed at all, even if the service range of North Street is slightly more broad or expansive? Has it changed how you're positioning North Street?
Tom:That's interesting and I'll say that. Yeah. But it's not related to ent, it's related to my other company, moon Vine, which is like Moon Vine is just, the brief on it is it's a weekly dispatch. You get an email and over Slack and it basically is this little competitive intel like snapshot. Mm-hmm. Hey, here's how you and your brand and your competitors are doing and overtime, blah, blah, blah. Um. And as a result of like building this and then also building something that like aggregates data from a lot of clients. Like, so all of a sudden we can just look at like, okay, we can just see trends, right? And we've, we're just getting really good at building things in ai. What's actually happened is. On the North Street side, there was a moment there where like North Street was kind of on the fence of being this like traditional building. Building like websites. Mm-hmm. And doing a traditional way. But now I enter sales calls basically being like literally anything is possible. Like it was for real. Like I could spend the next eight months with my strategy team, my designers, my devs, like we can dig deep, do user profiles, user focus groups, and charge you 200 K. Or I can do it this weekend myself, you know, and charge you. I don't know. Well, maybe I'll, but, but like, but you know what I mean? It's sort of like my whole approach to projects has been. It's just different.'cause it's like, well you're coming here asking me for a website, but I'm over on this side in Moon Vine, basically like building WordPress plugins on the fly.'cause I can, and it's like, this was like a generation ahead of our mm-hmm. North Street work. And now I'm trying to like, I guess up North Street's like sort of technical. I don't even know. It's like we don't have to be building everything in WordPress. We can build it in anything. We can kind of do anything. Um, so I'd like that to come across, but I'm skewing where it's gonna be. Like, um, north Street is brand and aesthetics. Ants like a tactical SWAT team and Moon Vine is data and all about making data accessible, like accessible in. The everyday person can understand and digest.
Russel:Yeah. Well it still sounds like, I mean this is all somewhat new and how they all interope and play off of each other and one hand feeds the other sort of thing is still, still sounds like a, a work in progress. But it was interesting. I mean, just, you know, I think. What happens maybe a lot of times or just can happen often is I just, once an agency starts to go down the positioning path, they, they start to move away from the previous, um, line of work or whatever. But I like this approach you're doing of is how do I make'em all feed and work off each other? And, and while that's not an easy thing to solve, it sounds like it's. Taking you down a pretty interesting and good path here.
Tom:Well, let me tell you that this year, most of this year was not a great year for m and a. And so I launched ent, which is like, you know, depends on like market activity to charge a lot of money. And it was like, oh man, like I launched this thing and it's like, we're, we're getting some projects, but it's like, you know, kind of like releasing a, like an amazing movie at like the worst time possible, right? Mm-hmm.
Russel:Um,
Tom:but. Because I did it within North Street. I didn't lose anything and I still have it. It's like this brand that is still the tip of the spear is still this marketing. Basically it's like this brand that we have. It's like we have it there. It has its own website. It's got its own messaging. We can, and we can use it to get into certain places, but I didn't put all my chips in it, thank God. Mm-hmm. Because of the year, because of the market, you know, just the year that we had.
Russel:That's fascinating. And another concept, you know, I think was interesting there. And I love that the subtle point that you shared of, look, AI doesn't have to change what we charge or devalue the output of what we're creating. It just can make it do it faster, better, or even more value. And that's the place of how we take it from, you know, even what you're saying at the beginning of this new age, new era, dawn of technology. And yeah, from a place of fear to a place of, um. Abundance really, and value creation. And yeah, that was, that was, I don't know if how intentional that Nugget was, but uh, that really stood out to me.
Tom:So I will just share that. I spent a lot of last year as an agency, as a traditional independent agency owner, really like fearing and therefore avoiding ai. Mm-hmm. And. How to use it really. And then when I decided to launch Moon Vine and I was like, I think I can use AI to build, this is when I started to really learn it and embrace it. And what I have come to find is that it is going to replace. Some jobs, but like you have to think of this as like a calculator, right? It's a calculator. I don't expect my accountant to break out long division in order to do my p and l, and I just think that this is like a tool that makes things faster. And what that allows me to do personally is to do things like I'm. To be better and faster and learn faster, and it's just making me better at what I'm already good at, I think. Or it helps me learn something I'm interested in way faster. It's not like it's, I'm telling you, we're building an application and these AI bots are. They seem like they're smart, but they're just pretending they do the stupid, stupid stuff. It's
Russel:the smartest, dumbest tool, uh, we've ever created.
Tom:We call it, we call it the, like, we have this intern that is a genius, but just is, has no idea what to do with their intellect.
Russel:Yeah. Oh yeah. There you go. That, that is a really great explanation that the, the genius that you can't even carry a conversation with. Yeah.
Tom:Yeah. It's like, why did you do that?
Russel:Yeah, that's so true. Um, oh gosh. Yeah. I don't know if I want AI to hear this conversation someday. They might come after me. And, uh, why were you making fun of me when I was in my fledgling early days?
Tom:Oh man. Oh man. Who knows? This could all be a, this is all a simulation.
Russel:Uh, well, some days maybe you might be right. I feel that, I feel that in my soul. One of the things, I mean, I just, it just seems like just so many cool things that you're working on that caught my attention. I don't think you dropped in this conversation yet, but I. You givee away to specific organizations. Tell us a little bit about that.
Tom:Thank you for reminding me of that. Yeah, so Moon Vine, we're giving away free to, uh, nonprofits and mission based organizations that focus on autism and. There's not any particular area of autism I'm particularly like focused on, honestly, like this is because I have a child like that we found out recently is on the spectrum. Um, and it's this thing where I've always on the North Street side, I've always wanted a mission. I just didn't know what it was and I always felt like. I was picking things off of a shelf, right? It's like, oh, well, let's support veterans. My dad was a veteran. It's like, oh, let's support veterans. And it's like, well, that just feels like I'm just picking something, right? Mm-hmm. I just feel like it's this first time in my life where I'm like, okay, like I now have something, I have a mission or I have something I want to work with and solve, which is understanding autism and, um, making the world a better place for people like my kid as they get older and get into the workplace. And because it's a scalable product that's powered a lot by ai, it is hopefully as we roll it out in January, gonna start becoming very profitable. And so I can do things with that, which is like give it away for free to something I believe in. And so for me it's like, yeah, if you're an uti, like reach out to me. It's moon vine.io. Is the site like tom@moonvine.io or North Street like. We're not giving away free to everybody, just because I'll say like, we don't even know how it's gonna impact our, like server costs. Yeah, yeah. This, this point. But like, I will have a conversation with anybody and I'm telling you like, as we're getting this thing like automated, like we'll put you in, right? Like, we'll just put you into the distribution list. And it's just something I can, I finally feel like I, I have this thing. Yeah. I can do, do something. Right. And it's like I really do believe in it. And so,
Russel:um,
Tom:that feels nice. That feels really nice.
Russel:I've always lived and played and worked in the agency world, so I don't know much life outside of it per se, but I do think there's a lot of autonomy in what we do that we can take our skills and talents that are so needed in the marketplace and have a lot bigger impact than what we sometimes might give ourselves credit for. And that's just amazing to just hear that story. And I talk with folks a lot just about the power of purpose and once you get past that survival stage, how important it is to have something that lights you up. Um, that gives you more motivation than the next dollar, just the next client. But you know, you can feed both and one's fuel for the other. And if you can make the world a better place, well creating a good life for you and your team and the process, man, that's a life worth living.
Tom:Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that survival. Once you're past the survival phase, that's, that's, you do get there. You do. Yeah. Yeah, you do. You do. Yeah.
Russel:Yeah. It's okay in survival mode. All you're worried about your next meal and, and, and that's all you can care about. That's human instinct. But uh, it does come important after that. And it sounds like you're, you're living that to the fullest extent here and can't wait to see that continue to, to impact the world. Well man, gosh, this has been fun so far. But, to kind of start to put the bow on things, I'd love to just hear how are you looking at the long term of the business? What do the goals, hopes, dreams, what do you got going for the future?
Tom:Yeah, it's interesting as we've built out this, uh, another part of this Moon Vine. The original idea was, well, I need more work, right? And I need more work for my clients, so how am I gonna do that? And it's like, oh, well I'll build this thing that tells them what needs to be fixed on their website and you know, show them their competitor data so that they're inclined to fix it, which means they'll hire North Street to do it right and it becomes this nice little circuit. But my hopes and dreams are that. There's way more requests coming in than I could ever handle, and that as an entrepreneur in the creative agency space, I don't believe other agencies are my competition, even if they're, I think that like we're all in it together and it's like there's so much. Work out there. Yeah. Plenty of fish
Russel:in the sea for sure. We're
Tom:all so different, right? So I make it a point to like just stay in touch with other agency owners. I, I mean actually I have a weekly call that's been going on for five years now with two other agency owners. Um, so just to say that like, I'm hoping that there's like an agency partner. To this and well, there is going to be, and like I'd love to see that grow. And then North Street's in a place where we're really picking the projects that like really, really we really wanna work on for one reason or another that come through Moon Vine. And, we just continue like North Street runs on really, really great clients and like the, our relationship with them and just always making sure that we're like making them better just. So adding new clients like that to North Street, but not getting to, I don't wanna get too big. I've been a certain size. I'm smaller than I've been in a while, and I'm, I'm enjoying it right now.
Russel:I always say the name of the game of this is not to grow something massive. The name of the game is just to allow you to live the life you want. And that's what's most important. And again, sounds like you're moving in that direction or already there to some degree trying.
Tom:No, I'm headed. I'm headed.
Russel:Headed. Yeah. There we go. It's a journey, not a destination. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, very fascinating. Can't wait to see how that continues to shake out for you. Um, so one last big question for you, Tom. Are entrepreneurs born or are they made, they're born, made more?
Tom:Uh, I've hired a lot of people over the last 15 years and I have also been in groups of other, um, entrepreneurs and business owners just through groups I've been in over the years. If there is something inside of people that is, some might call it hustle. And I'm not talking about, you don't have to be a business owner. I have a friend that is super entrepreneurial in his, you know, job that's a little different. But like I'm telling you, man, it takes a special personality type to be like, I don't know if I'm gonna make payroll next week or if I'm gonna make like half a million dollars in the next six months and be okay with that, right? And like take really giant risks. For really big reward. I just think it takes a certain personality type to like be able to even absorb that.
Russel:I think it does. I think it does. And I love what you even said there. Not all entrepreneurs work in a own their own business and how important that thought process is when, when I do think agent owners fall that trap of thinking, just anybody can have that mindset, that ability, that capability. And if we embrace it, that's not true, then we might better know what to look for. In that entrepreneurial spirit or whatever, if we feel like we need that in our business. That's a, a great lesson there. Awesome, man. Well, if people wanna know more about North Street, wanna know more about ENT or Moon Vine, where can they go?
Tom:Yeah, the easiest is tom@moonvine.io. It's just the easiest to remember. And Moon vine.io is the website. It's placeholder, but you can put your email in there if you wanna get like access to the thing. Whenever we feel like it's in a place to, to share with the public.
Russel:Very nice. Very nice. Well, if you can find him on one, you can find on the other. So go check that out folks. Well, thank you so much, Tom, for taking the time outta your busy schedule today, talking about the power of knowing your financials, the power of purpose in your business, and the always powerful sharpening the tip of the spear in terms of positioning and how you're showing up in the world. Uh, appreciate you so much taking the time to share that with us today. Yeah, man, this is a blast. Likewise, likewise. 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 agency story.com/podcast and follow us on Instagram at an agency story for the latest updates.
Tom:This is just a cautionary tale for anyone who's gonna be interviewing for a job. Um. Pre COVID. So I interviewed a guy over video and it was strange'cause it was video. Like it was just this. I was like, oh, this is novel. Like I had never, it wasn't something we were used to in our everyday life, right? And so I go into my little like conference room in my office at the time in lower Manhattan, and I get on the computer and I don't know why, man, this guy was just in like a velvet, sort of like Hugh Hefner style vest. Uh, like robe, okay. Like. Nothing underneath, like just chest hair exposed. And it was just like, it was never addressed through the whole interview. And I was like, I was trying to get my head around this guy. He was interviewing for like a dev developer position. Okay. Was super smart. But like I just, I, it, the interview ended and I was just like, I came outta the room. I'm like, that was one of the weirdest things ever. But I will tell you, I think it was top to symptoms. Um, and if he's listening to this interview, like, no harm, I'm not gonna name it, but like, listen man, it was funny and just so you know. Yeah. I wouldn't, I wouldn't
Russel:do an interview again, but like, I feel like it's going either way. If you're that type and you, that's just who you are. You don't care what other people think. You don't care. Okay. Or if you're wearing it as a joke. It's a risky move. I'd say as an interview candidate, it's,
Tom:that's what it's, you're gonna stand out. You're gonna stand out, good or bad.
Russel:That's funny.