Masuga Rebrand

You won't want to miss this episode as we sit down with Ryan Masuga, owner of Masuga, a web development company that has been around for 17 years and recently made the bold and brave decision to rethink their brand after a hard economic year for so many service-based businesses.

Tune is as Ryan and Bill discuss what Ryan's approach to investing in brand, his best advice for founders considering a brand investment, how impactful the new brand has been for his business even after just two months.

Click here to learn more about our work with Masuga.

00:00 - Intro

05:21 - The beginning of Masuga's rebrand journey

11:00 - What were you looking for in an agency partner?

16:00 - Looking at brand as in investment, not an expense

25:00 - What was the most challenging part of the project?

29:30 - What was the most exciting part of the project?

34:00 - The (initial) ROI of a rebrand

42:00 - What Ryan's son thought about the new logo

47:30 - What is the one piece of advice you would give to someone considering a rebrand?

Resources mentioned in this episode:

>> Learn more about the Bureau of Digital community

>> Learn more about Conquer Your Rebrand

Full Episode Transcript:

[Bill Kenney]

Hey everybody. This is Bill Kenney, CEO and co-founder of Focus Lab and Odi, two global B2B brand agencies. Welcome to this next episode of The Debrief. As a reminder, this is a series where I sit down with past Focus Lab and Odi rebrand partners. We pull back the curtain and talk about what it's like to go through a rebrand from the client side experience.

Let me set the stage here for a minute. Imagine you are the founder of a service based business for 17 years. You've never invested in brand and you find yourself smack in the middle of 2023, that was a terrible economic year for service based businesses like this one in the interview, ours and many others.

And among all of that challenge, deciding you're going to invest in brand for the first time and you're really going to pay up for that. What is that like? And how impactful is that? The answer to those questions are acutely addressed in this interview with Ryan Masuga. Really fantastic episode. I hope you enjoy.

[Bill Kenney]

Mr. Masuga, uh, it's been a long time coming. A little background here for the people watching and listening. Ryan and I have been in very similar circles for a very long time. Our business is 14 years old.

I feel like you knew my business partner, Erik at the spawn of our business. Is that correct? Before that?

[Ryan Masuga]

Probably 2003 or six or something, somewhere in there. Long somewhere around in there. And definitely 2009 because that's, uh, I, I have some specific memories of certain conferences back in those, those days.

[Bill Kenney]

Oh, so yes, We've known of each other for a very long time.

We've actually never spoken. So I'm really excited for this episode. I think there's a lot of directions we can go. We'll, we'll keep it centered around the Masuga rebrand itself. Um, but yeah, we've got that background to kind of pull on as well. So that'll be fun. So why don't you just take a minute, 30 seconds or so.

And, introduce yourself. Who are you? What do you do?

[Ryan Masuga]

Sure. I'm Ryan Masuga. I own Masuga Design, which we've now called just Masuga. And been running that business for 18, be 18 years in April. I've always done, still doing the same thing we were doing way back in the day, which is custom web development. We used to do more design but got into development and I've been doing that ever since, pretty much with custom bespoke builds and content management systems.

I made it through the, you know, the five year thing and the 10 year thing that they always say, you know.

[Bill Kenney]

Yup. these past couple of years have really also tested the business landscape, right? You feel like, oh, I made it past the first five, first 10. Great. Percentage of failure rate, super low now. Uh, COVID, uh, financial strain. Yeah, it's been tough.

[Ryan Masuga]

Yeah, I've seen a lot of people, in the Bureau Slack group with a bunch of digital agencies. And in 2022, everyone's talking about like all these problems they're having. And I'm like, what are you guys talking about? Everything's just sailing along. Well, it was a delay for me, hit me in 2023.

And I'm like, okay, now I see what everyone was talking about. This is not fun. Yeah. There's the thing.

[Bill Kenney]

It was, it was interesting to see. How delayed or in front of certain people were of that kind of feel. You could kind of see like, Oh, it's working its way through the system. Oh, when will pain reach us and just like you said, it reached us big time last year

[Ryan Masuga]

Yeah. So, you know, it kind of made you think about a lot of things. Cause you may have been, uh, and I'm, when I say you, I'm saying me, I've been sleepwalking through the years there for a while, like, you know, just on cruise control.

[Bill Kenney]

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Not to imply that it's easy and I know you're not, but like, yeah, there are many years. If you're a business 14, 18 years where it's like, things are the same and the same can be quite healthy and quite good. Right. You're like, okay,

[Ryan Masuga]

Yeah. It wasn't, wasn't bad.

Right. You know, it was doing okay. Having some kids, able to spend time with the kids. Uh, just, you know, it was just humming along. Uh, and then you start to get thrown some adversity and you're like, Hmm, wait a second. Is this working over here? Is this working over here?

And you start to revisit things and you know, sometimes it gets to the level of, uh, as we should. Yeah. You know, uh, I think it was actually ultimately a great thing. Uh, this, this shakeup for me, cause I'm doing a lot of things now that I definitely wouldn't have been doing.

[Bill Kenney]

That's what I was going to get at, right? There was definitely some pain and I don't want to imply or seem dumb. We had challenges last year, but all that to say, it does force you to look with inside your business model specifically, which kind of really leads us into my first question.

Cause you did just go through this rebrand exercise. So I was actually looking for a date to try to pin it. I went into the Bureau, And in the Bureau Slack channel on, uh, July 28th of 23. So right in the middle of last year.

You were literally asking the group, I'm in the process of hiring an external branding agency for my own company.

Who do you work with? What was the expertise or the experience? Like, did it help you DMs welcome? And that was kind of the spawn from what I can see.

Mid-year last year, if you considering brand as a tool to potentially either help you through that or to at least push you into the next 10, 18 years, whatever that's going to look like.

[Ryan Masuga]

Well, there's different levers you can pull. I found, you know, there's quick levers like paid ads and things like this. SEO, you know, long game type. I'm going to start blogging once a, once a week, writing about stuff. I will say that was the first outreach I had made of any kind of branding, uh, call for help.

Shout out to the Bureau, seriously, like that, that's where I go when I have a problem and just need a sounding board. So I went there cause I knew that there was going to be smart people in there that had been through stuff.

I mean, cause there's companies of all sizes in there.

But I know that brand is one of those levers you can kind of work with. And, you know, I was thinking, we tried to work in SEO companies and doing these different things. But at the end of the day, every time I looked at my own website and looked at what we were, I just, uh, I was fed up with it.

I was, I did, I had no confidence in it whatsoever. So I didn't even like what I was or what I was selling.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. I guess. Is it fair to say, considering the backstory we just told how long we've known you, it had gone maybe unaddressed for a long time. So therefore you outgrew it. It didn't match where the company was, who you are now.

[Ryan Masuga]

I say this, like I started out, I have an art degree I like kooky stuff, right? Like I'm just a little off the wall, I think. And for so many years, there That company didn't reflect that at all. I got so boring.

And like when we were in the early stages of looking at what we were with you guys, your design team was looking and saying, you know, you're kind of cold looking.

It's just blue and just kind of corporate. Do you see yourself as corporate? And I'm like, no, I don't. They're like, hmm, disconnect there. I’m like gosh, you're right. I'm, what are we, IBM junior here? This is boring.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. It's funny, right? You ask yourself, how did I even get here? What? Why did it?

I don't want to be perceived that way. What happened? Yes. It's the game of business. I think sometimes we subconsciously even fall into that trap, which is why I got to look clean. I could look professional. I got to look a certain way.

And all of a sudden you're like, This doesn't align to me at all.

[Ryan Masuga]

I remember recording a video, uh, for our contact page, where I was like, we do this, we do that. We do that. It had nothing to do. I wasn't really letting the customer be the star at all. And I had a blue button down on too, like a blue button down. Like that is not me. I mean, it was up for a couple months and I was like, that isn't even me.

Like, get that off of there. Like, who is that guy?

[Bill Kenney]

Well done. Well done for recognizing that. You're hitting on one of the key notes of brand — it's just to be authentic, right? To be genuinely you. It can't resonate in the way that you want it to unless it is you. There's a disconnect, whether a customer can see it or not. It's just, you're not getting the full energy out of it.

Cause you're not fully energized.

[Ryan Masuga]

Absolutely. Like I was scared to sell ourselves. Because I just was like, they're going to go look at our site. They're going to, you know, what are we even saying? We're saying something different on this page than this page. And, oh, we haven't updated our Facebook page to say the same stuff. It was just a hodgepodge of, uh, duct tape and, and different just internal stuff.

Like I'd never worked. With anyone external to do that sort of thing. Like we, we did our own logo in 2016 and we ended up with a modified hexagon. Cause that's, you know, you know, we fell into the hexagon. We didn't fall into the swoosh trap. We fell into the hexagon trap. You know.

That’s what happens when you do it yourself.

[Bill Kenney]

Yes. Okay. So the challenging year really forced you to look inward. You realize there's a disconnect here, like. This isn't even us. And maybe, yeah, I think you're really wise and self aware to say like it sometimes you can get complacent, even though you would never consider yourself complacent. I don't consider myself complacent, but when years are good as a business owner, quite honestly, you're like, ah, everything's good.

I don't have to keep my foot on the gas every day. I can kind of like breathe a little bit, but in, in that mindset you're not necessarily really saying. Oh, the brand is broken. You're saying no things are fine. It's like working okay, when you are crunched and your business is really being challenged It really forces you to pop the hood and look at some stuff. So you did that you put out your bat signal in the Bureau. We keep saying the Bureau for the people listening and watching we'll put a link in both the podcast and the YouTube drop of this so that people can find it's a fantastic community.

Couldn't recommend it enough. So you went out to the Bureau, you sent that bat signal out. I just went into that thread today. Erik jumped in there, my business partner that we mentioned earlier, Will jumped in there, business partner. I jumped in there.

Yes. Yeah. So we came rushing to support you.

But I guess the question I'm trying to get to is what were you at that point?

I don't know. Maybe you even know what you were looking for, but ultimately when it came down to it, what were you looking for in an agency? You'd hired us. Yes. What were you striving to find?

[Ryan Masuga]

I think my problem is whenever I've hired external companies or agencies to do anything in the past, whatever it was, SEO writing or whatever, I always feel like I've been burned. It was always ended up feeling like scarcity mindset, I guess it was an expense, not an investment type of thing.

Mhmm.

I was highly attuned to not being burned again.

I was like, that's the last thing I want to want to have happen. I want to spend all this money and I'm going to end up with something I'm not happy with. And then it was just a big wasted, wasted time. So I gotta have, I gotta have competence here. Like I know I could probably go on Fiverr and get away with something and I'll be happy with it for a week or I can be serious this time.

And, and, and really hunt around and figure out what's worked for other people. And, you know, to me, there's no better place than a support group like the Bureau to ask around and ask for, you know, real life experiences. And I had heard about you guys, but like sometimes, um, I don't know if it's a lack of confidence or imposter syndrome.

Sometimes I think of myself like I couldn't possibly work with them. Or I couldn't possibly work with certain people because that's just going to be out of my range or I'm not worth that or, or, you know, those types of thoughts. So it's like. Let's just see who's out there. But you guys all jumped in, which I was just like, oh, this is cool, you know, just to offer suggestions.

And even Erik's suggesting other people, you know, he's like, Hey, go look at these people. Which I did. Um, and I ended up talking to, uh, I think three or four places, including you guys. And I was like, I'll just get a, get set a bar somewhere so I can at least compare what it's like to talk to them versus some other people.

And I talked to Will first, uh, who, who is actually, I'd never met Will, you know, here I am thinking I'd be talking to Erik or something, you know, and it's like talking to Will. And that was like a super laid back conver- that felt conversational. Like it was that just, Hey man, we're here.

Just here to help, man.

That's it. You know, it was like, so chill. Um, and I can't remember at what point I read, you wrote the book, uh, Conquer Your Rebrand. I don't know if it was after I put my call for help out, my bat signal, or if it was before. Does it say in that post, by any chance?

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. You said, and I'm reading Bill Kenney's new book, Conquer Your Rebrand.

[Ryan Masuga]

I was in the process of reading the book. Got it. Okay. So, uh, which was great, by the way, and Bill did not pay me to say that everybody, um, to me, that was such a conversational, Hey, if you're going to go through this, because I didn't know what, I don't know what, I don't know about it, you know, I'm thinking like most people it's the logo, it's the colors you know, that, that was it, you know, it's pretty surface level, like most people, I guess, um, Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But I was getting a better understanding of like what the process should be, regardless of who you go with. Like, should at least do this, then they should at least do this, and so on and so forth. And I'm like, okay, this is making sense. At least I'm getting some kind of framework. Uh, it'd be like if someone was coming for a web project.

You don’t know, they just got this site they hate. And they're like, they don't, they don't know what system it's on and they don't know why.

[Bill Kenney]

Next week, right? Like, and I'm going to be able to look at something like, well, we actually, you know, there's a lot that goes before that.

[Ryan Masuga]

Some steps and here's how the, how it should work, whether you use us from, which got me thinking, I'm going to write the book, you know, Conquer Your Rebuild. Uh, cause we do a lot of website rebuilds. I'm like, I'm going to steal this whole idea and, and, and, uh, talk about website rebuilds.

Yeah. I'm like. Because those questions come up constantly. So, uh, yeah, I was in the process of reading that book and I was like, well, at least here's a framework of how it should work. So I'm kind of setting that as my bar. Cause why not? I have never read another book on rebranding. I didn't know anything about it.

Uh, so I'm like, well, let's draw a line in the sand here and start talking with people and see how it compares to what's in here. Like, are they even talking about this subject that's in, you know, chapter nine or whatever.

[Bill Kenney]

I can't wait to hear this for what it's worth.

[Ryan Masuga]

Some people touched on a few of the things that you brought up, but you guys, you know, it was your book. And the funny thing is when I was talking with Will or anyone there that wasn't you, it was as if that was like, that's your standard operating procedure. Like, like nothing went off script. It was like I knew what was coming next.

Even when like, uh, you know, the team was explaining, well, next week we're going to do X, Y, and Z. And I'm like, how do I feel like I already know that? It's because they're just going off what you were writing about.

[Bill Kenney]

That’s right.

[Ryan Masuga]

So, that's getting a little ahead. That was, that was after picking you. It was interesting to see the differences in, in how people pitched a rebrand.

Uh, and what was included or what wasn't included or, you know, that, that was kind of fascinating, but ultimately it was all pretty similar. And uh, the interesting thing is I had a tough year last year, like many in our industry. But this was a lever I wanted to pull. So I, and I'm trying, I was really trying to tell myself, look at this as an investment.

Don't just think of this as an expense cause that would be just way too easy to just say this failed, you know, no matter who, uh, we're enlisted for this.

I, I looked at the, the, we whittled it down to a few bids and, you know, I went with the one that was going to deliver the most value, which in my opinion, which was also far more expensive than anyone else that bid.

So I wasn't, it was a case where I wasn't just looking at cost. I was really looking at this from an investment perspective. I'm like, I am after 18 years, I'm like, kind of like cleaning off the shelf here and I'm betting on myself again.

You know, I'm placing a bet, a bet on myself and if I don't believe it, no one else is going to believe it. If I don't feel good about this, no one else is going to feel good about this because I'm going to be hiding from it again. You know, not inviting people to come look at our site, not inviting people to look at our social posts or whatever we might put out there because I'm embarrassed or not confident about it.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. You need to be marching down the street. Saying like, I'm proud of this. I need people to follow me. Even if you're a. You know, a leader that like leads from the back, whatever, we won't get caught in the semantics.

You need something to rally behind. Because if you can’t rally, how can you get anybody else to rally?

[Ryan Masuga]

Right. What would I, uh, would I put that on a flag and say we're, you know, vibrant and relatable and all this stuff all the way down the street? Oh, sure I would. But would I have done that with the previous incarnation? No, it would have been like, hey, you know, We can do a website for you, you know, just real meek, kind of confident.

There needed to be a confidence about that came out of it. And I think that we were pretty successful, you know, in my opinion, at getting that.

[Bill Kenney]

There's one person that thinks, there's one person that thinks differently, but we'll wait. We'll wait. Teaser. You're gonna wait later in the episode for that. I appreciate you sharing all of that. I also appreciate you sharing quite clearly that we were not like the least expensive.

We are hyper aware that we are that and it's interesting, right? It's this idea of like, there's like insurance baked into that cost. I would hope that you've, you've felt that way or you feel that way now, which is I'm going to pay up because I feel at the end of the day, I am less likely to end up in this scenario.

You were most fearful of — failing, right?

We're very down to earth. Part of that is to care for just being human and being real and an appreciation for people and what they're going through. That comes through in that cost, which is meant to say, we got your back, dude.

We know you're nervous. We're going to help you through this journey. Like part of that payment isn't scoped as a line item. We call it the intangibles, right? That's our sauce. It is to help with all those things. And at some point upon that journey, that's really valuable when you are nervous and all that.

You need somebody to help you on those things in a moment of, oh no, I don't know what to do next. We got you all the way through.

[Ryan Masuga]

I would rather pay, in anything, would rather pay more and know that things are taken care of or going to be

Right. And I looked at it from my perspective too, of trying to sell websites and trying to not be the templated WordPress shop that charges, you know, 500 bucks for a build.

Like I'm the guy that sells these premium websites, like, and now I'm turning around and it made me really, uh, think about how I sell what I do. It's like, okay, people want their T's crossed and their I's dotted when they're paying as much as they are for a website that we do. You know, nothing left to chance, hold my hand through everything, make sure every phase is accounted for.

You know, it really made me think about it and it's like, okay. I see what I'm getting here in part because of the book outlined the whole thing. But then the, the cadence of the project too, like there's never a time where you're, you're wondering, uh, when's the next communication?

I wonder what they're doing over there. Like, it was like this and it was like steady through the thing. Like, like, it was like an A plus type of situation. It's been like that from start to finish, you know?

[Bill Kenney]

I feel like it is so valuable and I try to preach it a lot through the lens of like other creatives in the industry. So that they can understand how valuable that side of the craft is right. It's not just the pixels. It's not just the code for people like yourself that are nervous, that are in a challenging year. That are wondering what lever they're supposed to pull they decide its brand and now they go out and they realize how expensive it is That's all relative depending on the size of the company, but it's like it's a big mental step So therefore what we do can't just be about pixels from a week to week basis, a lot of that support and energy comes from the emotional and social skills of the human being, not the pixel or the tool that's being used, right? So all that to say, I'm glad that you felt that that's really important to us. We lived up to our cause.

[Ryan Masuga]

And it was nice feeling that way because as you mentioned, I had a, not the best 2023. So to, to think about pulling the brand lever and spending that money in a year when it's like the revenue wasn't what I wanted or expected, it's like, it was extra scary for me. It was like that, that just, you know, I was in the casino and uh, you know, turn the card over and I

I'm all in, you know, let's go all in here, you know, It was an extra risk for me or it felt that way, but I wasn't going to do that with, uh, and this might be in part because I knew Erik and it does help to know people,

It's like, at least I know Erik's there and you know, just like that, that's just that little association. So even, even that realization has changed how I approach LinkedIn, even in the past few months.

Like everything's changed. Uh, of 20, this of 2024 for me, like. The whole idea of like a, it's like a phoenix project, the whole rebrand. It's like, we're probably going to be changing tools and team and, uh, all kinds of stuff. We're doing all kinds of things just in a completely different headspace.

[Bill Kenney]

Yet, it can become very much a phoenix. A catalyst. To the, oh, if that then this, oh, now that I'm on that track, now that I have this type of energy, what about this? That's another thing that I, people, people I don't think realize, right, you know, there's a question all the time, what's the ROI of brand?

What's the ROI of this logo? Did that color change on my CTA convert more on my contact form? But really, the bigger thinking is what is all the catalyst that will come from it? It's almost impossible to measure because you are now saying things that you're doing as a result of that.

Those can never be line itemed, right? Another company will do other things different as a result than a catalyst. Um, this kind of rebirthing effect is quite powerful in what it will do for a company. That there is brand right? Brand is everything around the business. It is not the logo Mmm.

[Ryan Masuga]

And I don't really even think about it until we were talking about it just now though, but it does seem like a cork came out of a bottle and it, things are just flowing now.

[Bill Kenney]

I love that. I love that.

[Ryan Masuga]

That seems like what happened.

[Bill Kenney]

You knew you needed change. We come in and we facilitate some of the change and then we say like we're now here to watch you go rock. Whatever that is, right?

[Ryan Masuga]

And then, and then I will feel good about it.

[Bill Kenney]

Yes, exactly right. So now you have a compound effect. Now the flywheel really starts to turn as opposed to this single speed motion.

It always finds a way back to zero right now. It's like, Oh shit.

[Ryan Masuga]

I’ve been reaching out on LinkedIn and just, just being more out there now because I feel more confident. And now I've, and I see that this many more views, this many more, much more traffic to the site, this much more, you know, it's like, Oh no, I'm not embarrassed when people show up at least. It feels solid.

[Bill Kenney]

I love that.

And I know the project team that will watch this episode will also be very happy to hear that. Okay. Let's move into the next set of questions. So we talked about all the leading up to the project, but now you're in the project, and we might have touched on some of these a little bit, but what was the most challenging aspect of the project for you outside of the starting it spending the money in a down year in the project itself? What was the hardest part for you?

[Ryan Masuga]

Uh, the hardest part of the project I think was doing the homework, uh, week to week because it felt like I was in school again and I had to like assess myself and I'm like, okay, now I, I'm not just saying something's wrong and I feel like something's wrong. I have to sit here and kind of figure out what's wrong, you know, like what, what do you like about this?

What do you like about it? Just, just different questions. Right. And I, I don't even remember specific ones offhand. I just remember thinking, oh, I got to take a hard look.

[Bill Kenney]

Just go fix my problem. Don't make me think more about it.

[Ryan Masuga]

Don't make me think, please. But like, it was also pretty clear in the instructions of the entire engagement that like, you are going to do some work.

Because you guys can't just do it for us. I mean, you know, it's a collaborative thing. Like, you're facilitating as you, as you said.

[Bill Kenney]

That's right.

[Ryan Masuga]

Right? But there's some work to do there. Like you got to take a hard look at your stuff, like what you're saying, who you're trying to target and stuff. And that, that really, the language part, I know a lot of focus is given to the visual part of the research, right?

Like logos and things like this, the stuff everybody sees, but there's the whole language component too. Like that was, that was probably harder than the visual, uh, because we're still wrestling with that a little bit. And, you know, on the foundation that you guys gave us, it's like, we're still refining that a little bit, but it's like, wow, it is hard to be simple and concise and position yourself.

It is hard. If there's anything I could say about that, I wish I had done it earlier. Like year, decades earlier.

[Bill Kenney]

Right. 10 years ago or like today. Yeah. So you started.

[Ryan Masuga]

Yeah. So probably the homework and of that, the language and the who you're targeting, uh, stuff. Like so that we could help you facilitate how we're going to talk to people.

We had to figure out that stuff. And it was like, it was, it was tough because you think you've got certain clients that are your best client. Maybe because they’re your biggest chunk of revenue or something, but you realize I wouldn't want to work with another one of those. Or I wouldn't, you know, and you're like, who are we targeting anyway?

So I was like ripping apart our entire client list, you know? And I'm like, who do I want to work with?

[Bill Kenney]

That's another scary episode. Right. Well, shit, are we going to start going after these people? Like they're not our biggest revenue drivers. Like you said, Oh, but, but those are the people we want to work with. So how can we change that issue and make them our biggest revenue? Oh, now we're really shaking up like the business, uh, to the core of, of what it is to have a business model.

[Ryan Masuga]

Sounds like you're talking about our Q4 last year.

[Bill Kenney]

I hear a lot in these interviews and just in our client kind of communications that that part of the project can be unexpected as much as I write about it in the book. As much as we try to onboard really clearly, Hey, listen, like this, there's a time commitment on both sides.

I know you're hiring us. We're going to do a lot of work, but we kind of need you to be here in the sandbox with us at very key points of this project. I think it's not real until it's real and people are like, Oh shit. Oh, it's all right. I got a meeting with them tomorrow. I guess I'm going to have to do this work tonight.

Right. Okay. Here I go. I gotta like, I gotta get my thoughts together because this is an important meeting tomorrow. And yeah, I understand the challenge there. Um, I never

[Ryan Masuga]

It’s akin to a web project.

Like we can do a website for someone, but like it's the end of the day, they're going to have to do the content. You know, at some point, like we can't do the whole thing for you.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. The larger the clients get, the more complex that let's just call it red tape gets to right well, who's working on this piece of homework? Who's working on that piece of homework? Who needs to review it after that person touches it? You were in the fortunate position of being a true like small business, um, where it was just a direct line to you and you are the only obstacle and you had to fight your way through it.

Uh, props to you for doing that.

[Ryan Masuga]

Thank you.

[Bill Kenney]

Uh, what was the most exciting part of the project?

[Ryan Masuga]

I personally liked the weekly deliverables.

[Bill Kenney]

Okay.

[Ryan Masuga]

Visual explorations. There was a game we played early on, which was fun where you guys had like a huge board of things and we just had a limited amount of time to pick stuff that resonated with us. And that was like, Yeah. Fun. Uh, it was a lot of fun.

And then to see, uh, it was like a Christmas present every week. It was like, Ooh, what, what goodies going to, you

[Bill Kenney]

We hear that a lot.

[Ryan Masuga]

I can’t wait 5:00PM or something on Friday or whatever the deliverable day was. I can't wait to see what's cooking, you know? So that was a lot of fun. Um, and was it always amazing?

No, like sometimes it was like, Oh, What am I looking at.

[Bill Kenney]

It’s not supposed to be.

[Ryan Masuga]

You know, and it would get you. And then you think about it all weekend and you're just like, well, what was that? What a nightmare on Saturday night. Like what was that weird shape? Like, but that was a lot of fun just to see what you, what you've been working on.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. Yeah. So just for the people that are listening and watching we ship every single week, as Ryan said, every Friday at the end of every Friday, all our deliverables go out for that week. We're very much kind of like high touch.

Uh, quick iteration quick. Relatively. It's still a week. We turn out the next batch of work, and we've had clients like yourself say, Oh, man, after the project, Fridays aren't gonna be as great anymore. There's not going to be a big deliverable coming through that I'm just excited to look at. We ship video, uh, with the deliverable.

So it shows the person who did the work, whether it's verbal or visual talking about the work and strategy, why we did this, why we did that. And then the project ends and for some of these people, projects are 18 weeks, 27 weeks. I think yours might, might've been six to eight, I'm guessing.

[Ryan Masuga]

It's like eight-ish. I think it.

[Bill Kenney]

Uh, so do you know, I don't know. So this is not a trick question.

Do you know when the brand launched specifically? How many months are you live now? It's not that many.

[Ryan Masuga]

No. We kind of rolled out cause we had a lot of touch points to get to even a small company like us. Like we had, I was making a list cause that was, that was a recommendation in your book that really opened my eyes.

[Bill Kenney]

Yes, that'll be really important information to hear. Like even as a company of your size, how many people.

[Ryan Masuga]

Well, right now we have three. We've been as many as five, but we've never had more than five people.

[Bill Kenney]

So that, that will resonate probably with a lot of people. I wouldn't say that many of our viewers and listeners are the CMO of like a 2,000 person company. I think it's generally smaller.

I think even a team, like you're saying of three to five people, what was your list looking like? Like, tell us how many steps were in that.

[Ryan Masuga]

I was just like, okay. Cause that was like a week's homework things. It's like, you know, prepping for launch or something like you got to get a list of your touch points together. And I'm like, okay, LinkedIn, that's a header and an avatar and a Twitter. Oh yeah. Oh my gosh.

We've got an Instagram account. Don't we? Oh wait. Oh, the Google docs, all of those who are harvest invoices. Those have a logo on them. Uh, you know, just like. Teamwork, you know, our project management app. Oh, geez. I just found one. We've been live for two months now, I think, and I just found one this week in a app.

Uh, like one of our apps that

[Bill Kenney]

Old logo. What the hell?

[Ryan Masuga]

How did I miss that? Like, just start logging that stuff immediately. If you're going to get on one, because the amount I can't, I can't imagine a large company That's a ton more, maybe touch points and surface area out there, like the stuff that they would have to update.

I was like, Oh my gosh. Cause I'm still finding it.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. Yes. Can you imagine a 2,000 person team and sales deck signage on multiple buildings? Just the scale that some of these companies have to go through.

[Ryan Masuga]

I'll tell you this in 18 years, I've never had a presentation deck or a capabilities deck, but guess who just delivered a 32-page presentation for the largest web project we've ever been on. This company right here. And it looks like the new brand.

I'm so, we wouldn't have been able to do that without the rebrand. So that, that goes back to like the, the cork coming out and stuff's just flowing.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah, I really love that analogy. Yes, you've got, you've got new momentum. You've got a new push. Now that water is trying to push through that hole and it's like, here it comes. Let it go. Let it ride. Okay. So you've been live a couple months.

[Ryan Masuga]

A couple months.

[Bill Kenney]

Let's let's try to, let's not make this forced, right? The goal here isn't just to throw out some random numbers and make everybody go, wow, brand is really worth it, but let's talk about the real impacts.

And we've kind of done that naturally through the conversation of the energy that you're able to bring to the table. What are their kind of like tangible outcomes are you seeing already in just a couple of months?

[Ryan Masuga]

Hmm. Like the fact that I was able to contact some designers about work and they asked if we had assets and, uh, you know, what's your brand like and, and like, I can just supply that to them now. Like, I couldn't ever do that before because everything was, you know, scattershot and inconsistent and that sort of thing.

One of my goals for 2024 is to expand the company into new areas without necessarily hiring full time people. So how do you get people on board? And you gotta, you gotta kind of look like something and have your act together.

[Bill Kenney]

There you go.

[Ryan Masuga]

I'm working with designers now.

I wasn't doing this a year ago. It wasn't even on my radar a year ago. I've got calls every week with designers, you know, UI people, print people, and these people are able to take this new stuff and they're just like, this is easy because everything's everything's there. You know, the fonts, the language, the, here's our elevator pitch our blah, blah, blah.

And they can just chunk all this together and I don't have to think about it. So there's a time savings there.

[Bill Kenney]

What’s what worth, right? What's that efficiency, right? Talk about the nights of homework. Now you don't have to do nights of that effort that you're talking about.

[Ryan Masuga]

We were talking about this last week, that, that, uh, presentation we just put out, it was 32 pages. I would have done that myself a year ago and it would have taken me forever to do, but all I had to do was write the bullet point paragraphs. Oh yeah, it would have taken me forever. And, but I was able to find a designer that I really liked, approach them, show them what was what say, Hey, I've got all these assets in Figma.

I just need you to like make something out of this. They were licking their chops at it. You know, there's like, this looks fantastic. They were, they were really excited. They were like, wow, this is a really put together thing. I was like, oh, great. You know, and they just knocked it out of the park. And I was telling my team in Slack last week, I was like, I would have done all that work myself.

But now you can see we're growing here. Like I'm able to delegate that to someone that's not on our team to help us get more work and, and, uh, you know, pitching on bigger projects. It's fantastic.

[Bill Kenney]

Going back to that flywheel, that momentum, what is it worth? How do you, how do you kind of like dog ear the value on being able to send assets over to an outside party designer that is enthusiastic about working with the assets and then crushes on that project? How can you measure that?

It's like almost impossible to measure yet it's so freaking valuable, right? What if you send it over to him and a guy's kind of like, eh, that's just gonna suck. He's listening to something while he's plugging away on it. He's not fully bought in on it. He's just going to kind of, he's going to do the work.

[Ryan Masuga]

He could still be working on it today.

[Bill Kenney]

He's jacked up about it. He's probably going to go over and above on it. What is that worth? Right? There's all these little things that like are almost impossible. It's like this matrix. You can't see the matrix. Until you could see the matrix and you're

[Ryan Masuga]

Then the other aspect of it too is what was in that presentation, you know, traditionally for 18 years, we've just done the development. We've been at the tail end of every project. Other people have done brand messaging and story. Other people have done UX and UI. Other people have done the wireframes.

Other people, and then we get stuff thrown over the wall at us, right? Well, in development terms, there's a thing called the smile curve and the developers are at the bottom of the smile curve and everyone knows what rolls downhill, right? And so we've experienced that for decades. Oh, the developers, you know, uh, we, we just delayed three months.

So that doesn't affect the, when it can launch, does it? You know, and it's like, we get left

[Bill Kenney]

Bring it up with the developers. Yeah.

[Ryan Masuga]

I'm confident in doing everything now. So we pitch the entire project, start to finish. And I did it with reaching out to other partners to complete those other parts that we don't necessarily do in house.

So that was a more holistic, comprehensive, pitch that they were looking for. They're like, can you send a proposal? And I said, boy, can I. You know, I was like, you

[Bill Kenney]

If that's not going to be the short clip statement of this whole episode, I don't know what is boy, can I. Damn.

[Ryan Masuga]

That's what it comes down to. Like everything is easier now. Now I'm not saying works falling out of the sky, you know, cause you can lead horses to water and they may not be thirsty, but like, you know, it's my role doing what I can control is a lot easier now and done with a lot more confidence.

[Bill Kenney]

Hell yeah. Um, that was a fantastic path that that took. I'm really happy that we had that conversation in that way. Um, because I'm hyper aware that within two months of being launched, you can't have an answer on ROI that says we've seen 17,000 increase in this. And like, we've gone up 200 percent in incoming inbound leads and all that.

And it's like, okay. Brand is a time intensive exercise, meaning what was the ROI of Nike's brand.

[Ryan Masuga]

Oh, right.

[Bill Kenney]

In year two versus right now they can sell a sneaker for 5$,000 only on brand has nothing to do with the quality of the product, etc. They could not have done that in year two. But essentially, if you want to talk about visual identity, it's compounding now that effect, that gravity, that brand will have through association and what they stand for and things they align to, which you will now continue to do being yourself, being authentic and genuine.

What your business is and what you care about that will compound on itself. The true ROI question really comes like when I talk with you again in 10 years, but

[Ryan Masuga]

It's a, it's a long term lover and I knew that kind of like SEO, it's a long term lover. Those you put those blog posts out there and those thought pieces and stuff that, you know, there's no immediate, you're not immediately going to get a million dollar job out of that, you know, and that's fine.

You're not expecting that you're planting seeds, right? And this brand thing is a seed thing. It's a certain type of garden. It looks a certain way, I'm tending it a certain way, and it looks different than the garden I had before, right? I'm doing this one in a different way.

[Bill Kenney]

And you need to plant it. I think to your point, you've realized you needed to plant it now, even though the timing. Interestingly was probably right, but it was wrong.

[Ryan Masuga]

Right.

[Bill Kenney]

Like, thank God that happened. So you plant the damn thing, but man, it felt really hard to plant in that moment.

But now 10 years later, you'll say, thank God I planted that thing as opposed to, Oh, I'm not ready yet. I don't think I have the money for that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All these reasons that people don't understand the impact of planting that tree earlier rather than later.

[Ryan Masuga]

Any of the long term lovers, you got to have, that, abundance mindset to do.

[Bill Kenney]

There you go. Well said.

[Ryan Masuga]

The short term lovers, it's okay to have the scarcity mindset because you're just going to throw out some money and see some instant returns. They might be like fast food. You know, you get some empty calories and you know, you get some bad business, but at least it, you know, hit your bottom line for a few months in a row.

But like the longer term stuff, if you can just kind of bet on yourself and think there's going to be work out there, like. We're not terrible. Uh, it's just that the people that need us haven't found us or haven't, haven't had a chance to resonate with us because we haven't been speaking their language, you know, and, uh, we'll come together.

[Bill Kenney]

Yes, yes, uh, well said better than I was saying. Thank you for injecting that. All right. So I'm going to get to a final question, but I, let's, we, we dropped a teaser. So let me, let me share what I was saying earlier. So the brand goes live right now. Ryan, who's here with us, sends me this message. I thought you might like, my son's thoughts on the updated brand. So apparently your son said to you, Hey dad, about the logo specifically, which I'm sure will be pulled up now while I'm saying this in the video. What even is that question mark? It's not a M. It's not anything.

It doesn't resemble your company in any way. You could have paid me to draw the logo. It's so bad. What am I even looking at? Question mark. This is so good. I could do better for 25 bucks. Give me a Sharpie. If that's not the life of a visual identity brand designer, I don't know what is. Right. Um, yeah, so we won't unpack that.

[Ryan Masuga]

Oh, so, it kills me.

[Bill Kenney]

We'll just let it be the funny that it is, but that is kind of a microcosm of what most people think brand is right. What is that silly shape? If anything, you've already discussed right at the opening of the show. You said I have a certain type of quirky energy. I'm artistic.

[Ryan Masuga]

That’s why I love that shape. And you know, what's funny is I hated it at first when you guys delivered that on Friday, I was looking at it and I was like, nah, pass and went to the next ones. But then I came back to it and I kept coming back to it. And I was like, you know what, there's something, you know, by, by Monday, I'm like, you know what, there's something here.

I, why do I keep thinking about this one?

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. Something sticky there.

[Ryan Masuga]

Yeah. And now, like, it just seems like, I call it the electric whip, it just seems like it's always been there.

[Bill Kenney]

I love that. And especially when it's that name specifically, uh, when it's animated.

You took a step that most people can't take props to you, it is so easy to work backwards to a comfortable, safe logo, right? It needs to say what we do. People need to know what the hell it is. It needs to do this. It needs to do that.

The answer is actually no, it doesn't. It doesn't have to do any of that. It could literally be anything in the world. And if our business lives up to its promise and if we can associate the things we want with that shape people that work with us will put those associations into that shape as well and voila now a swoosh means all the things it means to the people that buy new nikes and now an Apple logo means all the thing it means to people that are fan favorites of apple This electric whip is going to mean all different types of things to all different people. It's a bold step. I love it. I freaking love it. I love that you were unconvinced in the beginning and you came around on it. I think that's also worth noting here that that is very common because I think what we all expect is I'll know it when I see it. It will be epic and it will be awesome. That couldn't be more untrue.

You won't know it when you see it. It has to grow on you because it doesn't mean anything in the beginning. Even the first time you saw it. What the hell is this? It doesn't mean anything, right? So you had to almost start to build your own associations

[Ryan Masuga]

I was putting my own story on it and as the more I looked at it, you know, and that's where it's like, cause it could be anything I call it the electric whip, because I see this, like, you know, if you were to do a slow motion whip in the air and you might see the end of it going around, like I see an energy there and it kind of looks like someone asked, does it have the letters of Masuga in it?

Cause it kind of looks like it might. And I was like, I don't know. Does it? You know, I don't know. Sure. Okay. You know, whatever, you know, as long as people are talking.

And to that point. The fact that you posted that my son's comments on LinkedIn is content and the amount of Conversation and comments that started getting, it just provoked so many people to be like, well, the kid's not right and he's not wrong.

And just, just talk about logo in general and color and everything. I thought that was fascinating. How, how many people were responding to that?

[Bill Kenney]

The subject that polarizing topic, I think fascinating is a fantastic word for it. I'm at the point now where I've matured past the it rubs me the wrong way I just find it fascinating. Why do you want it to be that? And then that one comment that you mentioned where the person chimed in and said, well, he's not right and he's not wrong because to him it doesn't mean a thing and he doesn't like it, but to others they do.

And who's right, who's wrong? Nobody, nobody's right or wrong. But at the end of the day, what is accurate is it doesn't need to express a million different things to a million people. It can literally just be a random thing that people know when they see it. It's Masuga. That's the actual goal of the logo at the end of the day, right?

If it does other things. Cool. That's a cherry on top. It's just simply an identifier. I love that comment from your son. Uh, thank you for letting me share that publicly through LinkedIn to create some of that kind of conversation. Some of that dialogue. Good times. We've gotta to have fun with this stuff, right?

[Ryan Masuga]

Yeah. I mean, what else is there? What else is there? You're not having fun.

[Bill Kenney]

That's probably another takeaway for people watching. Like you're going to feel very compelled in the spend that you're putting on the table to nail it and to love it. And you're going to feel nervous if you don't in the beginning, you got to ride the wave. I know we're going, we're going long here and I'm going to let you go. If there were one thing, another founder comes to you, they don't know who you've worked with, but they know you've gone through a rebrand, they're just like, yo, Ryan, I'm about to go through this.

What's the most important thing I should know from what you know now? What would that be?

[Ryan Masuga]

I would say in some ways, sooner is better. Like don't, don't skimp and sooner is better because like it is like we've been talking about. It's not the most measurable things in them, especially in the short term, you can't measure what the impact is. We've talked about like it starting to create flow for other things and, but you can't necessarily like price that or, you know, put a monetary value on that right away, but like, what would have happened if I had done this same thing five years ago?

[Bill Kenney]

Mm hmm.

[Ryan Masuga]

10 years ago and had capabilities decks and better presentations and more confidence and just a more unified voice. Like what would have happened? Like in a way I'm kicking myself for waiting so long to have done this because I see other companies that came along after me that shot past me in, in, in certain things, like maybe revenue or whatever, amount of staff or, or whatever.

And I'm like, what are they doing that I'm not doing? And it's like, you look at them and they're like, why do they look so put together? Right. And then I look at mine. I'm like, I don't, I don't look that put together. Uh, it was, it was that kind of hodgepodge I've been talking about. So it's like, I'm getting a feeling looking at them and it feels solid, it feels together, right?

It's probably the brand that they took the time to, you know, put together a unique, consistent voice and look, and I didn't do that early enough, I think. So I'd tell, I'd tell someone if they're thinking about it, that they're going down the right path because they are self aware enough to know that something's going on.

[Bill Kenney]

Mm hmm.

[Ryan Masuga]

But, come at it from an abundance mindset. Like, are you planning to stick around? Are you planning to crush things? Are you planning to? Uh, be successful, then, you know, why delay and what are you scared of success?

[Bill Kenney]

I have nothing to add to that. Nothing to add to that. Beautifully said Completely spot on. I'm just going to let that sit. I'm gonna let that hang for people. Okay, we did it. We did it. We did it. Seriously, though, I never know what people are going to say to the final question, right? For everybody. It's different. Right. Don't wait so long.

That's a really valuable takeaway. It certainly favors me, right? We do branding. Yes, everyone shouldn't wait so long. They should hire brand agencies, but it's a really smart and wise question. I wonder why people do wait. I think it's I mean, what do you think the reason is? Why would somebody wait?

[Ryan Masuga]

Well, it's like you said earlier, you take your foot off the gas when times are good or something. That's been my experience for 18 years. Like I'll be marketing and stuff when I need some work. Which is usually too late already anyway. Then you land a project and you're feeling good. They got a check. You put it in the bank and you're like, Oh, I don't need to do anything now. We're good. You know.

[Bill Kenney]

Mm hmm.

[Ryan Masuga]

They're probably floating along just good enough to not feel the pain. And maybe they don't have a clear goal in mind. I'm trying to get to here. And that was me for a long time. So that's why I could be on a hamster wheel for so long and all of a sudden wake up, you know, 12 years later and be like, what have I been doing for the past decade?

I've got some goals here and I'm not going to get there. What got me here is not going to get me there. Uh, I need to level up a little bit here and I, and, and doing the brand was one of those things where, you know, I've started looking at competitors and holding ourselves up next to them, not just visually, but like what they're saying, you know, looking at their language and everything.

And I'm like, I got to get with the program.

[Bill Kenney]

Can’t compete. Yeah.

[Ryan Masuga]

I can't compete. You know, but have a goal. And if you're, you know, I think it's a multiplier in a way.

[Bill Kenney]

One-hundred percent.

[Ryan Masuga]

Hey, better late than never, man.

[Bill Kenney]

That's right. You're in the game, stay in the game.

You're way in the game now. So, uh, thank you so much for joining the show.

It was a pleasure meeting you for the first time. Thanks for reading the book.

[Ryan Masuga]

Yeah.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah, we'll loop back around. Maybe we'll record a second episode in a couple of years. Let's give some time to go by. Maybe your son will even come around on the logo. We're gonna be cheering you on from the sidelines big time.

[Ryan Masuga]

Thanks Bill. Appreciate you guys.