Digital 55: Rebels With A Cause
Lauralee is a former rocker chick-turned agency owner of Digital 55, a collective of award-winning designers, developers, researchers, and content producers working together to create innovative interactive digital media and learning experiences.
Digital 55 works with not-for-profits, government agencies and companies on research, user experience, design, development, content architecture, learning experience design and strategy and complex storytelling.
Dan: Thanks again for taking the time to talk with us. To start, I am sure our readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What is your background?
I’m a true blue entrepreneur and forever rebel-artist. I came from very creative roots, growing up in the film and music industry and currently, I am founder and Chief Creative Officer (CCO) of Digital 55. These days, I’m immersed in interactive digital media and complex storytelling and at the end of the day, I think that’s what it really comes down to for me, innovating, exploring, having critical societal conversations and sharing knowledge and experience.
Dan: Tell us about your business. What do you do and what is your startup’s origin story?
Digital 55 is a collective of award-winning designers, developers, researchers, and content producers working together to create unique, innovative digital interactive products and learning experiences.
We work with various not-for-profits, government agencies and companies on original content, research, user experience, design, dev, content architecture, learning experience design and strategy, and digital interactive storytelling. What makes us most unique is our rebel spirit, rooted in the interdisciplinary arts, such as music, film, design, learning and experiential builds. We are pretty much obsessed with the intersection of creative and tech. We tackle pertinent, real-time topics such as leadership skills, anti-discrimination, 21st century skills, future of work and so on.
My digital career really started from being a musician and playing in a band. We started doing all sorts of modular development and experience design and it iterated into a hardcore digital and media career from there.
Dan: What’s unique about your company? What are the key differentiators between you and other players?
We believe that a well-told story doesn’t just convey events and information– it builds a total, exploratory experience that lingers with its audience, articulating memory, desire, and sensation in a way that shares personal stories, nurtures new forms of understanding, and opens possibilities for the future.
Our cross platform and modular content development, ethnography and cultural anthropology research as well as our interdisciplinary approaches to storytelling have been called out as important and interesting differentiators.
Dan: Take us through a day in your life. What does the typical day look like?
I start the day off at around 5 a.m. with walking and exercise (used to be boxing four times a week pre-pandemic). I actually love the mornings as I find it to be such a great ritual to wake up early and set the day up right. I call this my analog, no tech time. I think getting physical and spending some time with your thoughts without the distractions of social media, tech and all the other things that might allow you to avoid thinking about things that are uncomfortable, uncertain or not immediately satisfying is a huge way for me to dedicate some time for growth in my mindset and in turn helps me show up as a more grounded entrepreneur.
Next, I catch up on emails, check my calendar and look at our project management tool to make sure I have eyes on upcoming deadlines, and what’s coming down the pipe across the company portfolio. I’m never diving into anything too deeply in the mornings but looking at everything rapidly and creating some free-thinking time. These days I try to catch up on webinars that I’ve missed or go into my saved article list and catch up on articles I’ve tagged to read. It’s so important to keep on top of evolving topics and subject matter!
Dan: What are some of the key steps you have taken to grow your business?
We are doing a lot of continuous deployment on social and trying out growth hacking in terms of our marketing and operations strategy.
This means we are focusing on content first and letting our audiences grow organically from there. It’s been really interesting for us as we’ve recently launched an original series vertical in addition to our client collaborations so our marketing and operations strategy has to iterate because of that. The originals are cool and exciting because we get to explore different modalities and audience building strategies on different media platforms and channels. I think it’s important to test strategies out in an mvp (minimum viable product) type format and know that you have to iterate constantly to fit your evolving needs. This helps us maximize our time and our knowledge to build iteratively and focus on sustainability.
Dan: What has been the most challenging part of growing your company?
There have been so many crazy things that have happened on my founder journey, I could probably write a book about it at this point but I’ll share a 2020 story. 2020 was going to be a year that was going to be very disruptive for the business, kicking off with a month long trip to Austin in March for the complete SXSW and SXSWedu festival. This was big! Rubbing elbows with Netflix, YouTube, and so many other big players in the distribution and original content space. We’ve been continuously creating interactive digital media and learning content for our clients and collaborators but we’ve recently kicked off an original content slate under Digital 55. This changes the model of the business, the impact we can have in the world and it also changes the future valuation of the company by creating important IP. So needless to say, we were pumped and excited to be able to invest that time at SXSW, building the future of the company and as a founder I was beamingly proud of the fact that the business was at the point that we could do this.
Obviously SXSW was cancelled, along with everything else under the sun and I remember the moment so clearly. The evening before we were to fly out, I got the news that the conference was cancelled and Austin was under a state of emergency. Kaila, Digital 55’s Content Producer, and I just knew that the world was going to be forever changed. We knew of the major troubles unfolding in the world and we knew that people were going to be losing a lot. That moment will be forever etched in my mind.
Dan: What are your best sales and marketing tips?
My recommendation is to focus on the things that inspire you and it will translate to your success as a business owner. For instance, I am a huge film and music buff and sometimes watching the latest film by, say David Fincher, is going to get me away from the mechanics of entrepreneurship and tune into that high level thinking that is the super powerful, valuable part. You have to care about what you are doing and not just from a business perspective but from a human experience and social sustainability perspective. Invest in the things that inspire you with no inhibitions and that will come back to you tenfold.
Dan: Do you have a book, podcast, or Youtube channel you would recommend to other Entrepreneurs?
Catcher in the Rye — As far as clichés go, that book really changed my life. Reading it was a formative experience and for whatever reason, I found myself gravitating to ways of existing in the world that were different from what was expected. Especially as a female, I wanted to live in subcultures, I wanted to live outside of expectations or “good girl” parameters. I wanted to kick down the door of the boys club and demand that I be included. I wanted to care about a cause and provide space for shared conversations about our experiences. That book provided a way for me to forge perspectives on how I wanted to live. The snapshots of moments put together to tell this story made me realize that past traumas don’t have to define your future. I knew that I wanted to live a poetic life personally, and an inspired life professionally and that there’s a way to continue to stay curious, even during the mundane moments, to be present in your life and to advocate for change. No phoniness
The $100 Startup — I was really inspired by this book, because it emphasized on building and iterating as you go and to avoid waiting until you have a 50 page business plan or a certain amount of money in the bank. There is never going to be the “perfect moment” to start so in other words, the best time is always now!
Navigating Extraordinary Times — This is a digital learning course we collaborated on with the PowerED team by Athabasca University. It came about to speak to leadership in the early days of the pandemic and addresses how to reflect upon today’s changed work environment, and offers strategies to strengthen leadership and teamwork. Learning objectives include re-evaluating what is possible within present conditions; reconnecting with one’s capacity to practice influence and control in the face of constraints and limitations; supporting the health and wellbeing of oneself and one’s teams; and bringing intention to leadership in a time of crisis but I think there is some really important leadership content included that translates across any societal shock or uncertainty. We talk a lot in the course about empathy, vulnerability and resilience in order to build frameworks leaders can use to support these practices, and regard them as critical in today’s workplaces. To access the course: link
Dan: If you could go back in time to the day you founded your company, what advice would you give yourself?
Oh gosh, that is a good question! I think I would say, go easy on yourself. You are going to have crazy high’s and low’s through the process. The highs and lows are hard to prepare for and wow, are they ever a real part of the entrepreneur experience. You have so much to shoulder in terms of responsibility, accountability and liability. You are responsible for the livelihoods of your team, you are responsible for the sustainability of your business, you are responsible for the work you produce and also your social impact as a company and sometimes that gets to be a lot. You never turn off and can’t walk away from things at 5pm. It stays with you 24/7 and that is something that you don’t experience when you are working for someone else. There might be stress and there might be pressures that affect you but when you have to make tough decisions that could make or break your business, that is on a whole different level.
To Learn More About Digital 55 Check Out Their Website and Social Media Pages Below!
- Website: https://www.digital55studios.com/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/digital_55
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digital55studios
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/digital_55/
