Why Little Taller?

Writing is hard. Writing about your own story is really hard. And writing about your own story while constantly reworking that story as the company grows is darn near impossible. With that in mind, here’s the story of Little Taller, as best we can tell it today.

Little Taller, not unlike most businesses, was born out of ambition and opportunity. My co-founder, Chris Murphy, and I sat down for pizza about two years ago on the campus of Grand Canyon University where we both teach. We covered myriad topics, but one recurring theme was the struggle companies seem to have with capitalizing on great young resources available to them. More specifically, with our agency background, we really questioned why creative companies were not all over the talent coming out of our program.

Teaching and mentoring is not for everybody. And it’s particularly hard once clients, deadlines and money get involved. Some companies seem to do well with this, while plenty of very successful businesses just avoid it all together. But what if a company embraced it as their mission?

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Yep.”

Entrepreneurs and creators have a lot of ideas. And kicking them around with others is fun, but often that’s where the idea ends. I left this particular kick-around session, however, feeling optimistic about the opportunity. While talking with my wife a couple of days later about why we would want to do this, a theme started to emerge about our motivational factors. But what she really wanted to know, as if she were a Shark and I had to answer before the commercial break, was this: what would be different about this, as opposed to any other company we’ve built or job we’ve had? Great question.

The difference starts with our mission, and thus our name.

Creatives are always coming up with silly company names. Heck, it’s a recurring theme on The Simpson and many other shows. My absolute favorite is a landscape company named Lawn and Order. But years ago I heard this optimistically self-deprecating rap song and thought, “oh man, that could be a great company name.”

That song, and the concept behind it, felt quite universal. Don’t we all wish that in some way we were a little bit taller?

In order to honor our name, the very structure of the agency has been based on the idea of personal and professional growth. There’s a lot that will be baked into this business to allow for that, much of which we’ll cover in future blogs. But they all fall under the 3 pillars of our charter:

1) Ownership

My grandfather quit school in the 8th grade to apprentice with a small business. He would eventually go on to own the business, and begin making plans to find his eventual heir. We want to build a company where this was the mission — to create generational opportunity.

Our interns some day will own this company, as will their interns.

2) Build a company people are proud to be from

A lot of great companies focus on talent retention. Understanding that not everyone will stay at Little Taller forever, we will instead focus on building a company people are proud to be from. If a team member is going to leave here, then we want them to leave the place better than they found it and as a better version of themselves for the experience. And if you do this right, they just might never leave.

3) See one, do one, teach one

Little Taller, to mix metaphors, is a teaching hospital of sorts. We have a responsibility to learn, and share what we learn with others. We are going to document for — and ultimately train — the next generation. Thus, we’re going to see one, do one, and teach one. We are all students and we are all going to show our work.

Among the topics that we’re really looking forward to exploring here on the blog, in podcasts or videos, will be:

• Design and development
• The creative process and the creative business
• Internships, the hiring process & training programs
• Remote working
• Managing up, down, across, clients and ourselves
• Growth of any type for our form
• Passion projects
• Schemin’ and dreamin’
• Transparency
• Agency life
• Incubators
• Community
• And more

While we have no offices here at Little Taller, we do have an open-door policy nonetheless. Reach out any time and let us know how we can help you grow a little taller.

Onwards and upwards!