We were lucky to catch up with David Baldwin recently and have shared our conversation below.
David, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
I have more than one business so this is a fun question to answer because I can just lean into the thing they all have in common which is to view business as a force for good. My branding/advertising/design agency, Baldwin&, believes that brands should drive the entire organization of a company, not just the marketing. So we help companies articulate and put into practice the behaviors that are inherent to their values, we think of it as branding from the inside out. My brewery, Ponysaurus Brewing believes that you can solve a lot of problems over a beer so we aways say, “We don’t just make beer, we build community.” Everything we do is to create an excellent experience to bring people together over a great product. And then we use those products to do good things, like, our beer, Don’t Be Mean to People, raises money for the LGBTQ community here in North Carolina at a time when that community is under fire. A third company I co-founded called Take Your Seat was created in response to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and it exists to promote Black leadership into the boardrooms of America, essentially adding an alternative and a complement to the energy happening on the streets and in our culture at large. The truth is, business can play a vital role in creating solutions by solving problems and then scaling those solutions. Something Harvard professor Michael Porter calls, “Shared Value.”
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
I’m a creative guy, plain and simple. My main day gig is running a Branding/Advertising/Design company but I have a bunch of other businesses and interests. I’ve produced Emmy-winning documentaries, written an Amazon best-selling book, released music in multiple bands, and constantly create things. I also write regularly in the marketing world about how a brand’s purpose can turbocharge a company’s growth and help inform the advertising and design output as well. I also have a podcast about the same philosophy called Brands In Action.
Being a creative person means creating output, plain and simple, and then applying love and craft to that work. Some of it is art like the music and the movies but much of it is a form of artisanry which to my mind is art with a business purpose. When we do advertising and design there is absolutely artistry to it but there is also a specific, pre-determined business goal to the work, so it isn’t art in its purest sense. I love that about what I do because I have a life of constant problem-solving and creation.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
When I started Baldwin& back in 2009, to get it going, we were pitching a very big account and planning a joint venture with an international agency to handle said account. Of course, if you remember 2008/9 the economy was on the brink of collapse and indeed did right during our pitch. The company we were pitching ultimately kept the account where it had been, leaving us to go it on our own with no clients. I had recruited people with paying jobs and in particular my partner, Bob Ranew. I had to make it safe for him to come work for a company with no immediate income so I guaranteed him that I’d pay him personally if for some reason we couldn’t make payroll. I even told my wife, “If I get hit by a bus you have to write Bob a check for XX dollars.” I think that ability to move forward at a scary time (a form of naïveté?) has served us well as we’ve built the company and grown from that place. It’s just ingrained into the company— lean into the scary parts, there’s always opportunity on the other side.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
I have so many side hustles I don’t really know what I do for a living anymore. I have the brewery and Take Your Seat that get attention. I’m putting out music in a band called The Gumbys, and of course, there’s my agency life. During the pandemic I started posting cocktails on instagram and it kind of blew up so that I had to make a decision whether I wanted to turn it into something official because brands started approaching me and asking me to do sponsored posts. It turned out I wanted nothing to do with that though I still post fun cocktails from time to time. But it was a good reminder of what you should ask yourself about your side hustle: would you still want to do it if it became work? On that one, I didn’t. It was strictly for funsies.
I love all of of the things I’m doing and it doesn’t really feel like work because it’s all quite fun and rewarding even though some of them are jobs and some are hobbies. It’s a simple equation, are you getting paid? It’s a job. If you’re not getting paid, it’s a hobby. As a creative person I just get really bored easily and I get restless and have to make something. If you’re a creative person, make things for God’s sake.
Contact Info:
- Website: baldwinand.com
- Instagram: @davidlbaldwin
- Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/davidbaldwinand/ - Linkedin: https://www.
linkedin.com/in/ davidbaldwinand/ - Twitter: @davidlbaldwin
- Other: The Gumbys https://open.spotify.
com/album/ 4qwIcmxNfNTcs5crYmvJSk https:/ /music.apple.com/us/album/ still-in-the-original-box-ep/ 1632745099?at=1000lM6c&uo=4& app=apple Take Your Seat: Takeyourseat.co Ponysaurus Brewing: ponysaurusbrewing.com
Image Credits
Eric Kielb, Bob Ranew