Today we’d like to introduce you to Vic Drabicky.
Vic, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I started January Digital just over six years ago while living in NYC. I had been working at a large agency for some time and I was just burnt out. I really had no idea what I wanted to do or what I was going to do, but I quit my job (bad idea to not have income and be living in NYC) and started trying to figure out what was next.
To pay my bills, I did small consulting jobs, which I got through referrals. Luckily, one of my initial consulting gigs was for Arthur Lachman – one of the smarter, more talented people I have run across in my career. In addition to serving as a bit of a mentor, Arthur let me use his office as a home base while I figured out my next step.
About six months into working with Arthur, two key things happened:
1. I reconnected with a former client who had just begun running marketing at Stuart Weitzman and needed help.
2. I reconnected with Megan Jones, a former colleague who was looking for a new challenge.
And with that, January Digital was semi-officially born. I say “semi,” because we spent the next year or two figuring out our points of differentiation and determining if we could actually survive in the agency world.
Fast forward six years and we have a team of nearly 40, offices in NYC and Dallas (which is run by employee #1, Megan!) and the opportunity to work with pretty amazing clients like Diane von Furstenberg, Oscar de la Renta, Cole Haan, and David’s Bridal. It’s been incredibly fun… incredibly stressful… and a fantastic journey worthy of each drop of sweat and every tear!
I think the thing I am most proud of is our Good Works Program, which fully empowers any JD employee to help anyone in need, at any time, at any cost. From a homeless person that needs a meal to larger scale donations to organizations or families in need, I want our people to be People For Others. If we can leverage our company’s success into success for others in need, then we will be a truly successful company.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Dear Lord, no! Starting and running a company of any size is never “smooth.” Sure, there are days, weeks, or even months where things go your way, but there are always challenges that make for a bumpy road.
At the onset, running the day-to-day side of the business was pretty challenging – seriously, have you ever tried to implement payroll on your own??? But as the business has grown, it’s the personal and professional challenges impacting my team that keep me awake and night.
We genuinely care about each and every one of JD’s employees. It’s difficult to hear that someone is unhappy with their manager, decided to take another job or is facing a personal challenge like a break-up or sick child. Each of these trials creates a tiny bump in the road. If not handled correctly, that tiny bump can grow into an enormous pothole. And so, we devote an enormous amount of time, energy and resources to keeping our team happy and our road smooth.
All that said, I am not sure “smooth” and running a company ever fully go hand-in-hand.
Please tell us about January Digital.
January Digital is a data-driven, full funnel digital marketing agency. In other words, we use data to help our clients determine if their marketing dollars are better spent on Vogue.com or with Facebook or Google (and every other option in between).
We differentiate and distinguish ourselves from other digital marketing agencies in three key ways: experience, strategy, and service.
From the experience perspective, we hire massively experienced people from the client, vendor, and agency side. This means our teams have a wider perspective and more years under their belt than our competitive set.
From the strategy perspective, our teams couple their experience with our consulting practice, which focuses on building clients’ digital marketing teams, strategies, tech, and even financial and team planning.
From the service perspective, we over-invest in our clients. We take on fewer, but more meaningful partnerships, and we embed our teams in our clients’ offices to ensure we fully understand their brand and their needs.
What are your plans for the future? What are you looking forward to or planning for – any big changes?
For January Digital, the future always surrounds better than bigger.
Stronger partnerships, stronger product offerings, and constantly improved results will lead to growth in the scope of work, growth in our product offerings, growth in the number of client partnerships, growth in the size of our team, and growth in how we can be better People For Others.
Our goals are always changing, but if we can continue to focus on being better, rather than bigger, I believe we will be wildly successful.
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