Transformational Entrepreneurship in the Design Industry

Design In DC attends Design Nation 2022

“I believe it’s the constant clash of different ideas and different experiences that creates innovation” – Ziad Foty, Design Nation 2022

Founded in 2017, Design Nation is an annual design conference located in New York City. The conference, hosted by Steve Forbes’ inaugural magazine, Business Today, aims to empower the next generation of designers. Held over a two-day period, the event provides workshops, seminars, presentations, and networking opportunities to student attendees, whose costs are generously covered by the organization. Each year, Design Nation selects a diverse range of keynote speakers to share their experiences of leadership in Design. Past presenters include Jamie Myrold, VP of Design at Adobe; Michael Gericke, Partner and Owner of Pentagram; and Debbie Millman, Founder and Host at Design Matters. Add to that esteemed list: Ziad Foty, CEO and Co-Founder of Design in DC, who spoke at this year’s executive seminar.

Transformation in the Design Industry

The theme for Design Nation’s 2022 conference was transformation – a fitting one for our agency. During his hour-long presentation, Ziad spoke at length about the process of building a company from the ground up, and the many transformations Design in DC underwent to get to where we are today. 

As a film producer and professor, Ziad’s path seemed well laid out for him. His work had won several prestigious awards, and he was able to share his expertise through teaching positions at Howard University, George Mason University, and Catholic. Gradually however, Ziad realized that the experience he had acquired through teaching – having to manage a large team, meet tight deadlines, and create a methodology – had inadvertently given him the skillset to run a company. The realization became an idea, which soon became an objective: to transition his skillset to the role of leader. He wanted to challenge himself and to bring what he loved from the film world to another industry. “Creatives do well juggling many different things at once,” Ziad told the audience. After all, Ziad noted, visionaries like Albert Einstein did their best work when they were balancing several different projects in several different realms. That process, of working within multiple disciples at once, he said, is often what leads to out of box thinking.

Taking a different approach to website design

For Ziad, web design, with its focus on user experience and user journey, quickly captured his attention. He saw that what was missing in most websites was a more narrative approach. Drawing upon his film background, Ziad knew that if websites incorporated storytelling techniques, with a beginning, middle, and end, they were more likely to engage users. And engagement leads to transformation. Digital marketing was the way of the future, and Ziad wanted part of it.

While Ziad had the drive to pursue this new direction, he also soon understood that he would need a partner to collaborate with. Enter Rob, Design in DC’s other Co-Founder and COO.

Rob and Ziad met in Montreal, Canada. Ziad was completing PhD work, and Rob was finishing his degree at the John Molson Business School at Concordia University. Right away, Ziad was struck by Rob’s business acumen. The pair balanced each other well; Rob came from a development background with over 10 years in the industry and could fulfill more of the technical aspects. He had what Ziad recognized as an entrepreneurial mindset and could map out the business vision, as well as the team structure. They were also both immigrants – Rob is Polish, and Ziad is Palestinian and Egpytian – and connected on a shared experience of watching their parents build something from nothing. The importance of a solid partnership was something Ziad emphasized to his audience. “It’s important to know who your collaborators are,” he said. “There’s things that I can do that Rob can’t, and there’s things that Rob can do that I can’t. That synergy has worked out well for our company.” 

Equally important was the fact that Rob and Ziad shared a similar vision: to be disruptive in the design world. They wanted to break the “stuffy suit” model in Washington, DC. To do so, they knew they had to create a company with a unique company culture, one that prioritized the multi-disciplinary approach that made up the company’s roots. They wanted to be more than the prototypical web design firm – they wanted to be a digital creative agency, who viewed their clients as creative partners and kept an ongoing dialogue with them. Ziad and Rob also wanted to provide those clients with the full suite of services necessary to build a holistic digital presence. “The website is just the engine,” said Ziad, “everything else is what gets the car to drive.” 

Together, the pair started to build Design in DC’s foundation as we know it today. They had their mission, their vision, and their combined skillset. Next, they needed a team.

Building upon a strong foundation

Ever since he was young, Ziad dreamed of running a company that operated as a family, and indeed was made up in part with family members. He wanted his employees to feel a connection to the work and their coworkers; he didn’t just want them to feel like a cog in the machine. “Everyone needs to feel like they’re growing together,” Ziad said. “The moment someone feels like, ‘Okay I’m doing this on my own, I’m just working for my boss’, that’s when it goes downhill.” So Ziad recruited employees from the pool of talented people he knew – former students, extended family, and friends. The resulting group shared not only the founders’ vision for the company, but also core values in community, open-mindedness, dedication, and – it should be said – fun. Our lawyers recently admitted that they chose Design in DC because our team was just more fun to be a part of.  

There was just one thing missing: clients. “I remember I went to the camera shop where [Rob and I] were renting equipment,” Ziad recalled to the audience, laughing. “And I said, ‘Hey, you need a new website’. Not: you should get a new website, or: we think it’s time for a new website. But you need a new website.” And the client did; at the time, the rental company was still using a manual system to check out equipment. Design in DC automated the process by bringing it online, easing their process significantly. In total, that first project made Design in DC 7K. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. “That first 100K is ten times harder than the next 100K. It gets easier and easier. You just have to stay the course,” Ziad said.

Still, without any venture capital funding, money was tight. At one point, Ziad realized that in order to stay afloat he would have to invest his entire savings – 30K – into the company. “We bet on ourselves.” That bet paid off. Slowly at first and then quicker, the company began gaining traction. Happy clients gave referrals to new clients, and the name Design in DC spread. 

To niche or not to niche?

A steady influx of clients didn’t mark the end of the uphill battle for the new company however. There was also pressure in the beginning to narrow their scope, Ziad recalled. “Everyone told us we need a niche,” he said. Traditionally, web design firms focus on one industry, and offer only a couple of specialized services.  “But for us to create a successful business strategy it’s about having a gamete of different services and strategies that link together different pieces of collateral.”  Inspired by the book E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber, and the mentality that a leader’s biggest challenge is to find ways to continue to be transformational, Ziad and Rob resisted the pull towards a more conventional business model, instead choosing to expand both their services and the industries they worked with. 

Yet again, that choice, to trust their instincts and disrupt the norm, proved the correct one. Currently, Design in DC has clients in just about every sector – from IT, to health and wellness, to tech, to government. Not only that, but Design in DC’s clients are able to rely on us for just about every aspect of digital marketing. We can provide web design services, certainly, but also web app development services, branding decks, SEO expertise, videography, content strategy, and more. By refusing to pigeon-hole Design in DC as simply a web design agency that catered to a certain clientele – just as he refused to limit himself to just one area of expertise – Ziad managed to create a company that grew the more it diversified. In the past year alone, Design in DC has doubled in revenue. And we’re just getting started.

In his closing remarks, Ziad encouraged his audience to think carefully about the people we surround ourselves with. “Surround yourself with people that support your vision,” he said. Not only that, but, he continued, surround yourself with people who you think are better than you, more talented than you. “Find someone that makes you think, ‘Dang, I could never do that’, because one day you’ll wake up and realize you can.”