O&Y Founder Dave Orban

After starting his career as a creative in a large consumer durables organization, Orban got his first taste of a startup — albeit a bricks-and-mortar one — back in the mid-eighties, and the challenge of building "something" from "nothing" hooked him immediately! Having to create branding, positioning and messaging for a new product in an unfamiliar vertical still gets his heart pumping, and while today's startups are typically technology-based, the excitement is the same.

From Creative Direction to Marketing Management
After a stint as a creative director/account manager for a small boutique B2B agency, Orban struck out on his own in the early '90s, providing a variety of marketing services to a wide range of small- and mid-sized businesses, divisions of large companies, and even local and state government. It was here that he honed his craft, learning how to quickly understand the unique business challenges of different business types and verticals, and how to create efficient, economical tools that would help his clients to solve them. From simple demand creation initiatives and public relations campaigns to new product launches and large-scale, multi-day events, Orban's experience grew to encompass the entire marketing playbook.

Technology Marketing Expertise
As technological advances gave rise to the internet and as these same technologies created opportunities for businesses to become more efficient, Orban's attention turned to working with tech companies that created business tools for other companies to use, and developed go-to-market strategies that enabled them to be successful. Working typically with limited resources, Orban learned how to distinguish between marketing strategies and tactics that were "nice to have" and those that were "essential," and developed a streamlined, "guerrilla marketing" methodology that has proven successful for three startups so far, to which he brought more than $10 million each in recurrent annual revenues, and each of which went on to be successfully acquired by much larger organizations.

Versatile, Collaborative, and Hands-On
Working in startups also required that Orban adopt a "hands-on" approach, learning how to become extremely effective as a one-man marketing department. This meant honing skills not only in traditional marketing areas such as research and analysis; campaign planning and management; copywriting; media and analyst relations; and art direction; but also in the actual design and coding of websites and development of other collaterals. As a result, Orban has consistently been able to be extremely effective, providing personal, hands-on attention to the majority of his clients' strategic and tactical chores, while conserving their limited financial and people resources for areas where they would prove to be most critical.

Learn More
Do you have a marketing challenge that you just can't afford to ignore, but that you simply can't afford to tackle? Give us a call at 609 586 4286, or drop us an email, and learn more about how O&Y can help you meet your marketing objectives!