Dialsmith

It’s been a year since we started Dialsmith and this seems like a good time to reflect, share some of what we’ve learned, and thank those who have helped make it happen.

After years of working in cubes and private offices we made the decision to have Dialsmith be an open office environment. It took some getting used to and finding the right space, but we think we did pretty well. This has allowed for a level of teamwork and collaboration we had never experienced before. Check it…

In addition to releasing the new Perception Analyzer Model V dial with response confirmation and tune-out buttons, we also launched the ISX – Instant Scoring eXperience system for scoring of sporting and reality events.

Some milestones in year one:

• We achieved our financial goals for the year (always a bit tense, especially first year)
• We sold our smallest ever Perception Analyzer system (only 2 dials) and did our largest ever consulting project (800 dials)
• We gratefully did business in eight countries outside the U.S. including Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Mexico, Peru, and the U.K. That’s in addition to the 30 or so other countries where the Perception Analyzer is also in use by clients and partners
• We got to work on some cool projects including Super Bowl ad testing, TV pilot testing, 3D TV testing, live televised political debate feedback, infomercial testing, new product development, marketing brainstorming sessions, mock trials, custom audience trivia games, large-scale audience feedback during live presentations, and other stuff that my team will surely remind me of later

Something that we’d be considering for years, well before the launch of Dialsmith, is the opening of a European office. This year we decided the time was right and we were fortunate to find the colleagues to make it happen. We are also fortunate to have retained our incredibly strong core team as well as add some new talent.

What have we learned?

• This is fun…and hard…and fun!
• Clients and partners remind us every day that what we do is important, worthwhile and relevant (can’t even begin to express how appreciative and humbled we are by that)
• Some of those same clients and partners have been instrumental in helping us see where we need to go with our product and service offerings and without that we’d truly be flying blind

To everyone who has helped Dialsmith through its first successful year, I say thank you. Were it not for our team, clients, partners, friends, and family, we’d be nothing but bodies in an office and numbers in a spreadsheet. But thanks to all of those people (and it really is all about the people) we are a company that had a strong first year and is developing plans for even stronger years to come. Taking care of our team, serving our clients, and enjoying life are the reasons we why do this in the first place. By keeping those three over-arching goals in mind we enthuastically march forward and again, to all who have helped us, we say thank you.

– David