First of all, can you tell us a bit about your background and where you came from?

“I didn’t start with the dream of starting a marketing agency. I have a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Kansas. As a student, I won several research awards; Then I signed up for the Peace Corps in Kazakhstan, where I taught English, ecology, and chemistry for two years. I also learned Russian here.

My wife is from Kazakhstan too, so she keeps me up to date with my Russian. I have an MBA from the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

After doing my MBA, I worked in Costa Rica for a while, where I was the marketing director of a tourism organization. When I got back I started my own consulting firm which I then switched to animation, moved to Tallinn, Estonia, and that business eventually failed. “

“When I moved to Estonia to animate, I built a huge network of people in the tech industry. After my animation business ended, I went back to consulting.

Because of my large technical network, people kept inviting me to speak at conferences where I was giving a presentation on marketing or related topics. Here I would gather contacts and slowly build up a broad database.

People often asked me to correct their email or help them write content. Most of these people spoke Russian. Since I knew Russian as a second language, I could easily understand what they were trying to say.

It got to a point where a lot of people were sending me their content and I needed to hire more staff, editors, and copywriters, so ReVerb started. We were formalized in 2017. Since then, we’ve worked with around 800 different tech companies and startups.

We are huge in Eastern and Central Europe, Israel and Singapore. In addition, we work with customers who sometimes need their texts localized for larger marketing campaigns. “

What was your motivation to start Reverb?

Dave immediately pointed out the best motivator there is – money!

“I had three children then and had to find a way to make more money. I want to give them a better life, and I can only do that by having more money.

When I was in consulting, I was working with 2-3 clients at the same time, so I didn’t make enough money. I had to figure out how to monetize this huge network that I had maintained and grown.

There was a time when I stopped competing with other consultants or companies as I worked with everyone. Seeing everyone as a potential customer / partner has massively increased my revenue streams.

I have five children now, so I need to make more money. “

Given the current market conditions, how do you find your audience?

“We do a lot of email marketing, but our mainstream for getting new customers is referrals. That is one of the reasons why we are so popular in countries like Ukraine, Belarus or Russia.

We have successful customers who attribute part of their success to us and recommend us to their friends. It’s a big part of our success and has helped us attract lots of customers over the years.

Tech-savvy people are particularly resistant to advertising. They need a friend who can tell them we’re going to do a good job. “

Dave started as a one-man band in 2017 and has grown Reverb to a team of 30 people with 20 copywriters, five editors and five staff. “

How has remote working helped your company?

“Remote working is great because it helps me save more money that I would have spent on rent or office expenses. I can now use the money for my family.

We always worked remotely, even before the pandemic. For example, when I was working as a consultant or in animation, I worked in a lot of cafes because the software was on my laptop.

As soon as we started hiring people, the staff were relieved because I had this relaxed feeling about it. I didn’t care where you were working from as long as you provided the results. “

One concern that many leaders face in the face of remote culture is how to fuel creative thinking in the team. So how do you come up with new ideas for your company?

“We are very open to input from different people. You can contact me directly if you have any ideas.

Whenever I have to come up with a creative idea, I drink tea and go for a walk or ride my bike. Because good ideas come when you are most relaxed.

We implemented seven new initiatives this year that my marketing director drew attention to, who did an excellent job in marketing. She knows that she can freely share her ideas with me. And if I don’t agree with the idea, I can use it as a basis to further develop the concept.

There are no bad ideas, only ideas that have to be developed concretely. I encourage this openness through which we grow together. “

Looking to the future, maybe five years later. What do you think Reverb’s growth strategy will be?

“I think we will continue to hire and expand employees. We worked with some startups in the early stages and saw them grow into big companies. So I think in the future we will invest in the startups we work with.

Much of their success comes from the fact that we write great content for them. So we think into the future, we will help them and support them not only as consultants, but also as stakeholders. “

What challenges do you face in the industry in which you work?

“The biggest challenge we face is artificial intelligence. There are various software on the market that people use to correct their edits. At the moment it may not be perfect, but as artificial intelligence continues to develop, software will replace the need for people to edit and correct content. “

“The skills that we used a few years ago are now obsolete. You have to evolve with technology to stay relevant in the market. ”

How do you plan to handle this situation as your company is focused on creating and editing content?

“Right now we’re fine, but to cope with that we’re diversifying our services. We’re starting to add things beyond copywriting and editing. We’re adding various marketing services to complement these.

In this way, we help our clients achieve outstanding results with services such as SEO, email marketing and PR. Social media marketing and other branding and promotional activities. “

What change would you like to see in the industry in 2022?

“I would like to see a much stronger cooperation between agencies. Certain agencies that offer a service that another does not should be able to act together to offer their clients efficient solutions.”