"Starting and running a business brings a lot of ups and downs, challenges, and ambiguity. "
Scott Daigger Tweet
Scott Daigger, MBA, PSM, NPDP is the founder and owner of Buddy Web Design & Development (BuddyWDD.com), recipient of Expertise.com’s “Best Web Developer in Grand Rapids, Michigan” designation in 2020 and 2021, a GoodFirms top Web Design Firm, and a 5-star rated web development business on Google. Buddy provides services such as web design, web development, logo design, graphic design, branding, web content writing, e-commerce, and blogs.
An experienced entrepreneur and business leader, Scott has championed service and technology start-ups, worked in the angel investment community, and lead internal entrepreneurship efforts for a leading health care system. Scott is an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin.
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Table of Contents
Thank you so much for giving us your time! Before we begin, could you introduce yourself to our readers and take us through what exactly your company does and what your vision is for its future?
Scott Daigger: Hi, I’m Scott, founder and owner of Buddy Web Design & Development, recipient of Expertise.com’s “Best Web Developer in Grand Rapids, Michigan” designation in 2020 and 2021, and a 5-star rated web development business on Google. Our aim at Buddy is simple. Do great work. Be great to work with.
My aim is to serve as a partner and teammate in creating an outstanding brand and online experience for you and your target audiences. Your online presence should look great and work seamlessly. My teammates and I try to make the design and development process as simple and pain-free as possible to deliver great results that we all can be proud of. Services we offer include:
- Web Design – Creating an aesthetic and user experience that’s beautiful and intuitive
- Web Development – Building websites that are fast, reliable, and functional
- Logo Design – Creating an iconic graphic to represent your brand
- Graphic Design – Creating beautiful materials such as brochures, presentations, and stationary
- Branding – Developing an appealing and cohesive array of custom marketing assets
- Web Content Writing – Creating valuable content that also drives search engine rankings
- E-commerce – Building a customer base and driving revenue online
- Blogs – Creating a platform for you to regularly update your target audience online
My team and I have worked with businesses and brands across the US from a vast array of industries. The common thread is a highly functional online presence with a clean, modern, and beautiful aesthetic.
To maintain our reputation for quality work, we never take on projects that we don’t feel confident that we can knock out of the park. So, if we can’t do that, we’re very transparent with clients upfront.
NO child ever says I want to be a CEO/entrepreneur when I grow up. What did you want to be and how did you get where you are today?
Scott Daigger: Since high school, I knew I wanted to work in a capacity leading teams and growing organizations, so since then I always saw myself in a business leadership role. However, as a kid, I wanted to be a cartoonist. Professionally, I had worked in a variety of roles over my early career, such as operations, sales, and human resources, and in a variety of industries. Having such well-rounded experiences, coupled with an undergrad business degree and an MBA, really helped me to understand the various facets that need to work together in sync to make a business succeed.
As for how I got where I am today, concisely, it was a lot of trial and error, and learning lessons along with way, and trying again, all with the grand vision to lead up a viable business that I could dedicate myself to full time.
Tell us something about yourself that others in your organization might be surprised to know.
Scott Daigger: When I was in college I was involved in student government, and went to a lot of conferences across the country for student leaders. At these conferences, there were opportunities for attendees to put on workshops of various topics. Taking an idea from a workshop that I’d attended while at a junior high student government conference years prior, I did a created and led workshop around “Hug Therapy”, based on the book by Kathleen Keating. It was a hit and was selected as one of the best workshops at that conference, so I continued to do that workshop at several other conferences, as well, with similar acclaim. I kind of became loosely know as “the hug therapy guy” to attendees.
Many readers may wonder how to become an entrepreneur but what is an entrepreneur? How would you define it?
Scott Daigger: The best definition I’ve seen — so I’m borrowing it here — is that an entrepreneur is someone who pursues opportunity without regard to what resources are currently under their control. I love that, because it speaks to pursuing a vision or dream, no matter what your starting point is, and making it happen. Entrepreneurship is a lot about jumping in, figuring things out, and convincing others to work with you, and growing from there.
What is the importance of having a supportive and inclusive culture?
Scott Daigger: Starting and running a business brings a lot of ups and downs, challenges, and ambiguity. Having a supportive and inclusive culture helps bring together diverse ideas and perspectives, as well as a support network, to help get through the challenges and generate ideas for helping the business move forward.
How can a leader be disruptive in the post covid world?
Scott Daigger: Personally, I’ve been very “pro” flexibility, remote work, etc., long before Covid. It’s interesting that it took a pandemic for the business world to start accepting that more broadly, and I generally feel happy to see workers standing up for themselves and demanding a safe work environment, flexibility, and work-life balance. I think companies that embrace these workers will find themselves attracting really good, talented people who just want balance in life, and who in return are willing to put in a lot of effort to be part of a business that supports it.
So, while there are tons of books out there that talk about how to be disruptive, I truly believe it starts with creating a culture in the post-Covid world that can offer this flexibility, attract top talent, and provide opportunities and rewards for success.
If a 5-year-old asked you to describe your job, what would you tell them?
Scott Daigger: You know all the stuff you see on your computer, like websites? We create that for people and make sure it looks nice and works like it’s supposed to.
Share with us one of the most difficult decisions you had to make for your company that benefited your employees or customers. What made this decision so difficult and what were the positive impacts?
Scott Daigger: Early on for me, I started Buddy as a freelance web designer. So, it mean I was responsible for everything, but it also meant that all revenue (minus my very low expenses) went right to me. A tough decision was how and when to ramp up and bring on sales and development team members. The challenge was that I needed to have my prices high enough to be able to cover operational expenses, pay them, and still have enough profit at the end of the day to give myself a paycheck.
After running numbers lots of times, I decided just to pull the trigger and start finding people who could help provide extra bandwidth to scale our business. I figured, if Buddy was going to grow, we had to just do it sometime. It’s really worked out well, and the extra talent we now have has really upped our game.
Leaders are usually asked about their most useful qualities but let’s change things up a bit. What is your most useless talent?
Scott Daigger: Dad jokes.
Thank you so much for your time but before we finish things off, we do have one more question. If you wrote a book about your life until today, what would the title be?
Scott Daigger: ‘Scott Daigger: My Life Until Today’
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Scott Daigger for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Scott Daigger or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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