Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in business development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Anne Laughlin, Co-Founder of Dillie, located in Santa Monica, CA, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Dillie is a full-service creative production company that empowers brands to outsource video and photo content without relinquishing creative control and streamlines the pre- to post-production process for creatives. Dillie primarily works with beauty (makeup, skincare, personal care) brands, and we also partner with consumer brands across food, beverage, pet, and lifestyle verticals. Our key partners are Creative Directors, CMOs, and Digital Marketers. They have a vision and are in need of a trustworthy creative and logistics partner to produce video and photo content for digital ads, websites, social media, and additional marketing activations.
Tell us about yourself
I spent the first ten years of my career managing marketing and PR campaigns in-house at Marc Jacobs Beauty (a brand within the Kendo division of LVMH), Ralph Lauren, and Estee Lauder Companies, and I found the most time-consuming responsibilities centered around producing custom video and photo content. Even when Marc Jacobs was a top 4 brand at Sephora, the team was small, and it was complex to outsource content to a solo creative, influencer, or agency without losing creative control. This showed me the true importance of a brand’s identity, and when the identity no longer mirrors the brand image, a brand can easily become diluted. On the flip side, managing digital media buys, press events, influencer partnerships, retailer co-ops, launch events, and ideating campaigns for new products was a lot to manage simultaneously and successfully, in addition to producing high-quality content.
Producing involves scouting locations, sourcing props, vetting creatives, casting talent, negotiating, coordinating, managing, and much more, and content always seemed like the best responsibility to outsource. However, it was difficult to find a creative agency that didn’t ultimately take its spin on the brand identity when we delegated the production work. This is the core of Dillie: it’s a solution to empower brands to outsource content and delegate the pre- to post-production operations to a team of experts, enabling brands to focus on the strategy, maintain creative control, and outsource the complicated details behind the scenes of a video and photo production.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Dillie was launched in April 2020 as a way to bring work to creatives and to help brands safely produce content while the world was in shock. We’ve since evolved from a timely resource into an opportunity for brands and creatives to work together in a new light. While many companies were laying off employees, Dillie created job opportunities. I can proudly say that lockdown was a time spent building a company rather than binging Netflix shows.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
Stepping into a leadership role and taking risks is a vital part of owning, managing, and growing a company. It’s not easy, but it’s more rewarding to embrace a dynamic challenge than a static, comfortable role, as more value is created through opportunities to grow and evolve. As a business owner, there’s no such thing as cruise control or “checking out.” You’re responsible for a wide range of tasks, and understanding how to play the wild cards is always an exciting challenge.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Embrace internal motivation: the only thing that will energize your drive to participate in a networking event after a late night of number crunching, ideate your countless pitch decks, or manage a range of personalities and expectations is your internal motivation. If you can embrace this inner drive, it’s a large portion of an entrepreneur’s success.
- Network with Confidence: get outside your bubble and network with confidence. Yes, someone might put you down, question your expertise, or cut a call short, but it’s the ability to keep going and to find your niche with an optimist’s attitude that will create a better path toward growth. And ignore the people who discount your work. Just remember, a confident or happy person never pokes fun at someone or their passion.
- Set Parameters by defining non-negotiables: identify a few non-negotiables that will keep you balanced. Whether it’s recharging with yoga, holding that weekly dinner party, or shutting off your phone after 10 pm, these parameters are not barriers. They’re guardrails to keep you on the genuine path to your ultimate goals.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.dilliecreative.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dilliegroup/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-michelle-laughlin/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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