Jeff Beer / Select Design

Jeff’s journey began by printing T-shirts, and now, his company works with household brands like Dunkin’, Saucony, and Pepsico. Jeff is the co-founder of Select Design, a creative agency that conquers brand chaos. At just 22, he and his co-founder Kevin were hustling to sell apparel, relying on every connection they could make. His story is about having people in your corner that root for you, and how Vermont is the perfect place to find it. This is the perfect listen for someone wanting to start a business in VT but doesn’t know where to start. Jeff’s story will encourage you to #starthere.

Are you interested in learning more about Vermont’s entrepreneurial success? Make sure you check out our Instagram and LinkedIn, or simply get the scoop from our newsletter!

TRANSCRIPTION

Jeff Beer
The last event we ever went to was the Head of Charles in Boston. Showed up there feeling really good because we had had some success, and had a huge duffel bag on my shoulder. And we walk up and there’s a cop right on the Charles. He’s like, ‘Hey, what do you have in the bag?’ I’m like, ‘T shirts’. And he’s like, ‘Awesome. Can I see?’ I was like, ‘Yep’, and he’s like, ‘What are you doing with them?’ ‘We’re gonna sell him.’ He’s like, ‘Awesome. Put them in the back of my trunk,’ and that was it. Our shirts are confiscated, and that ended our bootlegging journey. We decided, well, we probably should do something different than this.

Sam Roach Gerber
From Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies, it’s Start Here, a podcast sharing the stories of active, aspiring, and accidental entrepreneurs. Today, we sit down with Jeff Beer, co-founder of Select Design, the world renowned creative agency that’s been a Vermont institution for nearly 40 years. Welcome. This is Sam Roach Gerber.

David Bradbury
And Dave Bradbury,

SRG
recording from the Consolidated Communications Technology Hub in downtown Burlington, Vermont. Jeff, meeting you for the very first time. Can’t even believe it.

JB
Good to see you guys.

DB
Welcome to VCET.

SRG
My goodness.

JB
Thank you for having me in. Very official.

SRG
How have you avoided me this long?

JB
I’m a recluse-ish person.

DB
Ish

SRG
Amazing. I love that

JB
I’m not really out there very much

SRG
Well you’re doing great so far. Not awkward at all.

JB
Really? OK.

SRG
Where’s time?

David Bradbury
So far, so far yeah. Thank god we’re not on video. I’m just really trying to get Sam on the holiday party invite list.

JB
That we have to talk about. We haven’t done that since COVID. So it’s not like you haven’t been invited for the last couple of years,

DB
Oh, I though I was dropped just for ageism purposes.

JB
We talked about it

SRG
You’re not great for brand, Dave. You know?

DB
No, definitely not.

JB
It was expensive to host, too.

DB
We’ll get to the brand stuff in a little bit

JB
definitely expensive to host.

DB
Well, let’s talk about stuff we’re still doing then. How about that, Sam?

SRG
Well, I would love to start by just getting to know you a little bit, because we don’t know each other. And you know, don’t hold it against me that I work for Dave, but I just want to hear about young Jeff. Where did you grow up? What did you want to be when you grew up? What was your kind of first job? Give me the vibe.

JB
Wow. Young Jeff is a long time ago. So that goes back. I grew up in the Bronx, New York City. Ended up coming up to UVM randomly. Back then, you, not like today, you bought this huge book and it had lists of schools, and if you did some work, maybe you looked and if you didn’t, you ended up in Vermont at UVM without knowing it. But it was great. And then my first job, I think I was doing, like scorekeeping or working at camps, I always had something going on.

SRG
Nice

JB
And then did some stuff back in New York summers, and then decided to make Vermont sort of a home for a while, and then now, here it is, however many years later.

SRG
Yeah, stuck around. When you were going to UVM, what were you studying? And did you have sort of an idea of what you wanted to do?

JB
When I studied, I was studying economics. So I was an Econ major.

SRG
Useful?

JB
Different era back then at UVM, little less serious.

DB
I was there during that era. Yeah, it was different. It was a little bit different.

JB
I actually showed up here. I was only 17 till December, and drinking age was 18. So that was probably the hardest thing I had to do at UVM, was wait those six months.

DB
Me too, I only had three weeks. My birthday is in September.

JB
Oh, really? No December 18, actually the end of the first semester. So it was really challenging for me.

SRG
New man. New man spring semester though.

JB
But I survived. That’s right I was a whole new guy. Whole new guy. And UVM ended up being – it’s weird how these things work out – you make these random choices, and I guess gives you a little bit of faith in your gut,

SRG
Totally

JB
early on. So it worked out. And literally, the first person I met, I showed up, didn’t know a soul. Room next door to me. This, I would say, like, as Massachusetts as you get,

DB
We can say Masshole here.

SRG
Yeah, Dave and I are both Massholes.

JB
Um, yeah, my wife’s from there. So I try not to say that word.

SRG
Oh okay, cool.

JB
Get picked up on.

SRG
Maybe it’s just Dave and I.

JB
Right, if it’s not recorded I’ll say that. Who is Kevin Owens, who is currently my business partner, so literally, the first person I met at UVM,

SRG
What!

JB
Yeah. And now we are 36 years into this

DB
Life sentence, together,

JB
Journey, yes,

DB
All right, so can you just say, what a little bit how did Select Design start? Why did you start it?

JB
I don’t know, really. We started, so I had done a couple summers in New York. I did one at Bear Stearns between junior and senior year, and was really, really miserable. Hated it, everything about it. But I grew up in the Bronx, and the city was different late 70s or early 80s. It was not like it is today. And I used to take the One train from literally 242nd street to one Broadway, which is the last stop in Manhattan, which is where Bear Stearns was. So it was like an hour and 15 minutes on the One train, which is just horrible. And so all the components of it, I didn’t like that huge business vibe and that Wall Street culture. Kevin actually worked at Fidelity in Boston, and I think he had a sort of a similar experience. So we just kind of figured we’d start something and scrambled around. Actually Select was not the first business we started. We had started something before that, gave it a six month rep, and then was smart enough to pull the chute,

DB
What were you selling or doing?

SRG
I’m actually

JB
We had this idea, and we had a mentor at the time, Paul De Rossi, was one of the all time great people in this world. I think probably every business owner who stuck around for a while had some people who were like instrumental, believed in them, mostly what he did, he’s believed in us when we didn’t. He was the president of General Cinemas, which was a huge company at the time, and Kevin and I had this idea that we would sell advertisements on the outside of video cassette cases. So back then, this was pre Blockbuster, even, and video cassettes, for you young people, is what you had used to watch a movie. And we would put an ad on the outside of the case, because they all came these blue cases, and we’d put a Domino’s ad, or pizza or whatever it is. And we like, ‘Oh my God.’ Everybody we talked to thought it was an awesome idea. And we were going, and we actually went down to General Cinemas and they’re like, ‘It’s a terrific idea. You guys should do it.’ And then we got everything in place, and then we went to the video store people, of which there were probably 25 in Burlington because it was all these mom and pop stores. And they were like, ‘Yeah, we’re in. Let’s do it. When are you going to be here to put the ads in?’ And we were like, ‘What do you mean?’

DB
Ohh, complication…

JB
That’s complicated because we needed to be, there was going to be, you know, a quarter per box, or whatever it is. So we’d need to be on millions of boxes, and it was just two of us. So we figured changing up ads on millions of boxes would pretty much take us all day, every day,

DB
Over a dozen locations

JB
For 30 years, before we got…. so we pulled the shoot. So it was actually a great lesson in stopping quick, you know, fail fast. And then also just because it’s a great idea, and just because nobody’s doing it, doesn’t mean that it should be done.

SRG
I’m just so happy to hear that you didn’t just immediately start Select and have this massive success. That makes me feel better

JB
Well we didn’t have massive success. I don’t know if we have had it yet, but we definitely didn’t have it early on. It was, it was a grind.

DB
So what were your first products? Or…

JB
We started off bootlegging T shirts. I was actually just talking to somebody about this the other day. I remember we used to hit the road and we’d go. Our first event was the NCAA Skiing Championships, which were in Middlebury back then. The NCAA was a much different beast, and licensing was much different. So we just showed up in Middlebury to sell shirts, and we just wanted to raise money. A lot of our friends from UVM at that point – so this is where, one year out of UVM, I think I’m still 21 – ended up out west, Colorado, wherever, and we were trying to get to Aspen to visit a friend, like, ‘Well, we’ll sell some T shirts and we’ll raise some money.’ Kevin ended up skiing on a tree at Sugarbush, and so he couldn’t even go out west. So we’re down there, and he’s got like, one arm, and we’re trying to sell these shirts. And it was, like, the first day was like, 12 below, and nobody wanted anything. And we were like, we left without selling a shirt. I’m like, ‘Holy shit, this is gonna be a problem.’ And then we went back the next day, and just, I will never forget this one little kid was like, ‘Hey, you guys have shirts?’ We’re like, ‘Yep.’ And so we’re like, ‘Here, take it.’ And next thing you know, the floodgates open, and all these people came over, and we, he couldn’t they. We had to get the kids to help us count the money, because Kevin literally had one hand. So he was pulling shirts out, and we sold out. And we’re like, ‘Wow, that was interesting.’

DB
‘Oh, maybe we should do it again.’

JB
‘We should try that.’ So then we went to Boston. We went to the reggae fest, which is a big event back in the day, and was at Oakledge back then.

DB
Yes, it was, yes, it was sir.

JB
And we crushed it there too. We sold all of our shirts.

SRG
Who was designing them at this point?

JB
We would pay people. Actually, I think that the, I think the statue of limitations is over, but the shirt we did for the fest at Oakledge was a knockoff of a shirt I bought at a bar out in Aspen. So that was pretty much of a dead knockoff, I think at the time, because we didn’t, neither Kevin or I has any real artistic talent.

SRG
That’s so funny. Do you have that original shirt you made?

JB
We have the NCAA shirt.

SRG
You do? Oh my god.

Speaker 1
We actually have a… the last event we ever went to was the Head of Charles in Boston. Showed up there feeling really good because we had had some success, and had a huge duffel bag on my shoulder. And we walk up and there’s a cop right on the Charles. He’s like, ‘Hey, what do you have in the bag?’ I’m like, ‘T shirts’. And he’s like, ‘Awesome. Can I see?’ I was like, ‘Yep’, and he’s like, ‘What are you doing with them?’ ‘We’re gonna sell him.’ He’s like, ‘Awesome. Put then in the back of my trunk,’ and that was it. Our shirts are confiscated, and that ended our bootlegging journey.

SRG
Oh, man

JB
We decided, well, we probably should do something different than this.

DB
Kinda grew up a bit as a company.

JB
We were like, ‘Oh, we could do something with this.’ Didn’t want to go back to New York. Wanted to start something. And then, it was a much different time. There were probably 25 screen printers in Burlington at the time. Everybody was printing shirts, but it was mostly for concerts. So there were a lot of people printing shirts for the Dead and traveling around. And we’re like, ‘I think this could be a business of some sort.’ And so we rented equipment up in Cambridge from a guy, Todd Alex, who we knew, who’s a terrific guy, and he let us use his equipment at night, and we would sell shirts during the day. And mostly I went to bars in New York that I went to when I was down there, and Kevin would go to Boston. And so our first shirts were literally bars. The first big order we got for is a bar called The Outback, which is on 96th and third in Manhattan. And it was like 1000 shirts, it was awesome. Yeah. So we would drive to Cambridge at night, print the shirts, and then come back here, and we had our first office over what is, I guess it’s Alibabas now, on Main Street, upstairs there, and we would hammer the phones all day.

DB
OK so you were there before Kilburn Street, right? I think that’s,…

JB
Kilburn Street was way down the line

DB
It was

Speaker 1
We were Alibabas, and then we got a real space behind a building actually. It’s funny that Kevin and I now own the Gallagher Flynn building, which is now 77 College. There’s a little, small building behind that. So we moved in there. Then we went to Kilburn Gates. No, sorry. Then we went to Battery Street underneath I guess it’s Dinse, the law firm. And then we went to Kilburn Street, and then we bought our building in.

David Bradbury
Is this all because you kept doing things in the grey market that you kept moving?

JB
No, we found the real market. We just sort of kept growing, trying to figure out ways to be valuable. And then, slow and steady.

David Bradbury
I still have my mountain bike polo t shirt.

JB
There you go.

DB
That you all did yes quote back in the day,

JB
Yeah, we were, we were pretty much killing all the events locally, big and small. Yeah. When we finally got Vermont City Marathon, might have been Burlington marathon at the time, we felt like we had arrived locally. It was, it was actually harder to break in locally than it was… I could go to New York. And our first real significant client was New York City Marathon, and it was easier to get work from them than it was up here, because it was just like there was people were entrenched with what was going on, and then we started to find some folks locally who really supported us. And, I mean, I think that’s the like this whole journey. I remember the people, primarily, the different things we’ve done along the way, and our business has evolved wildly since we started spraying T shirts. But it’s the people that are awesome.

SRG
Yeah, and those relationships, right? Like, if you can keep those big relationships, keep those people happy and listen to them, then

JB
Yeah, not even that. It’s like the local friends, you need a lot of karma to succeed I think. You need people rooting for you. And we’ve had the incredible good fortune of having people around here will want to see us succeed somehow, whether they were customers or not or they were, we always had support in the community, which was tremendous. Because starting a business is hard. There’s in the beginning you’re like, ‘Holy shit, you don’t get paid.’ And then it’s, we can do some deals, ‘Can we hire some people?’ And then like, ‘Oh, payroll is super stressful,’ and then all these things. So it’s never a smooth ride. So when you have people in the community that are kind of rooting for you, which is awesome for us, it really makes all the difference. Because clients do come and go ultimately, and those relationships, they’re not transactional, because you try and make them more than that, but it’s the personal relationships in this town, because we know people from, I mean, remember Ned Holt, who was the building inspector when we bought our building was just an awesome guy, and he wanted us to succeed, and we were in it together. And it’s just, and I still see folks all over the place. Ben Pacey, who ran Burlington Parks for years.

DB
Do you think that is still in Burlington today with businesses here?

JB
I think so, probably. I’m less involved daily than I used to be, but you guys are out in the community, so you probably know more than I – it seems like there’s an energy around. I think, and I don’t want to get want to get too far down the road, but I think that there was a more of a mix back then of everybody in it together, people from the city, people in the business community, we were all together, the UPS drivers, everybody was buddies. We were all kind of in it together. And I don’t know if it’s quite that way now, I think maybe there are more islands out there than there were, but we all kind of

DB
Thank you for bringing up the UPS drivers, because I was at Kilburn Street at your offices when Alan Newman and Bob Johnson showed up with kegs number two and three of Magic Hat.

JB
Yep, way back

DB
And it was a little party. And magically, there were eight brown trucks there at the end of the night that were finishing their shift, and had to drop something off,

JB
We ended up, so it’s funny though, we started, Kevin and I, we are in our little office on Main Street, and we got an order somehow from this guy in Boston. It was actually Kevin’s brother in law, and he needed some hats delivered, and we didn’t make hats, so we ordered them from somebody else, and we got this tracking number that said the hats were delivered. And we’re like, they haven’t delivered yet, and we’re in our little office over here, and like we were losing it. So we somehow two 22 year olds got a supervisor from UPS in Williston to come to our little office on Main Street. And we were like, into it with him. And turns out it was a fake tracking number, and we figured it out, but it was actually we ended up having the best relationship with the UPS guys for years. And it started off highly contentious, but we also realized, like, ‘Wow, you can accomplish a lot if you’re tenacious and not afraid and you’re willing to call somebody’ and no, we crossed over maybe to not so friendly. But it was great, we ended up it was from the heart, and they wanted to succeed. We wanted to succeed, and they really we had the best relation for them forever.

SRG
That’s awesome. Yeah, it makes a big difference. Can you talk a little bit about just the the way the business changed? Let’s say the first, like five years? Sounds like you got some traction. You realize that you could do this, but you also had the advantage of being 22, right? Which helps.

JB
Yeah, it would be hard. We couldn’t do it the way we had done it had we been older, you know, we were, I was single Kevin. We were both single time. Kevin ended up getting married a couple years in, but it was really hard those first couple years. And actually, so I met Kevin first day, and my wife, I actually knew who she was sophomore year, met her junior year. That sounds stock-y, but it wasn’t. I didn’t actually stock

SRG
She met me

JB
So I had a long distance relationship. She was in Boston for a long time and but we didn’t have, like, overhead,

SRG
Yeah,

JB
We didn’t… We got by on very little. I was waiting tables for a while. Kevin worked in ski shop, and so in the beginning, the first number of years, you’re just not sure you believe that you’re gonna succeed, because it’s such an up and down thing. And every client is such a grind. And then you kind of find some traction. And then I think the first time you hire somebody who’s legitimate, you start to think, ‘Well, maybe this is something there. If this person, we were able to convince this person that this is a real business, then maybe there’s something here.’ So that was a huge turning point. The first time we actually hired somebody who had options.

SRG
Was it a designer?

JB
This person was not a designer. We had had good luck hiring designers.

SRG
Yeah

JB
We needed that desperately. But this person was more of a biz dev person with some design skill as well, and so he could go out and sell and he could contribute on the creative process, and it helped. And at that point, we were doing a ton of creative which our journey has taken us a little bit. We’re much different than that now. But it was, I think that was probably the and that was probably at the five year mark, where we really found somebody who was like, ‘Oh, I think this would work.’ And then you kind of get on a little run, and you go on these waves where you you get going, and then you kind of reach the end of what that threshold is, of what that amount of capacity will deliver. And then you have to figure out, ‘Okay, what do we do? How do we get to the next level?’

DB
It’s like these step functions of growth, right?

JB
Yeah, right. You have enough capacity to do X, and then if you want to do X plus, you gotta, okay, well, how are we gonna figure out a way to do that? What do we add?

SRG
And how have you financed the business, especially at those moments?

JB
We are a unique… we were able to get a bank loan early on, and then we’ve kind of been self financed. We, for the most part, it’s

SRG
Hell yeah.

JB
You know, there’s a lot of businesses out there that have heavy, heavy either talent needs or capital needs, and ours wasn’t really that way. We got really lucky in the beginning. We got turned down by everybody in town, bank wise, except for Vermont National Bank, which just doesn’t exist anymore, and Bill Roberts, who was a great guy, and it wasn’t a huge risk because it was SBA backed, which I assume they still have SBA loans,

DB
Sure do

JB
and it was sure do 90% back. So it’s a terrific way to go, if you’re out there trying to go to a bank. And I firmly believe in banks as an awesome way to go, because you make an agreement at the beginning of what you owe them, and then it’s over, and they don’t get much say. They give you the money, but they don’t get all that say in what you do with it.

DB
Right versus letting someone into your cap table or board room

JB
Versus taking money from somebody else where you allow them in with a voice and an opinion and hopefully it’s constructive, but sometimes it’s not. So I ended up going down, we gave the stuff to Bill, and he’s like, I go to the SBA. And I literally drove the stuff to Montpelier, because I had very little faith that it would get approved down there. So I met with this woman in Montpelier, and we were able to get that loan. And that really kickstarted. We were able to buy some equipment, and then from that point on…

SRG
Do you remember how much it was for?

JB
It was 50 grand.

SRG
50 grand

JB
Yeah, which was a lot.

SRG
Totally,

DB
That was a big number back in the day for a couple of bootleggers.

JB
Yeah, it was a lot. That’s why we got turned down across the board. Literally, I think we were 0 for 7, and then we ended up at Vermont National.

SRG
That’s one of… still to this day, one of the biggest piece of advice is, I talked to an entrepreneur, and they’re like, ‘Oh, this bank said no, my bank said no.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, how you got to keep like, keep moving, because they don’t have any reason to say no, just because the other person did, right?’

JB
And sometimes it’s just connection and relationship. And we forget now, and we talk about this at Select all the time, and the number of personal relationships we have with any other business, but especially clients. And at that point with the bank, if you just send paper and your deck, it’s voiceless a lot of the time, and then it’s just a thing. But if you show up and they can feel your energy or passion, or you can convey some belief that that actually can happen. It makes a huge difference. And it’s not always meant to be, that happened to be the right bank at the right time, but we also evolved how we presented it. And then we weren’t going to just drop stuff off at the end. And even today, there’s now, if you build relationships with folks, they’re gonna want to see you succeed. We get away from that. And you know this the last couple of years, where everybody’s been kind of holed up, it’s put a, in my opinion, a much greater premium on building some personal relationships, because those still, as it relates to business lead today,

Break
You’re listening to Start Here, a podcast from Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies. VCET is a public benefit corporation serving Vermont businesses from start to scale. We provide no-cost strategic business advising for any business owner, regardless of stage or industry, as well as venture capital for early stage tech or tech-enabled businesses. You can find us online@vcet.co that’s V-C-E-T dot C-O. If you like what you’re hearing, please help us out and rate, review, and subscribe to our podcast today. Now, back to the show.

DB
What is the offering to your clients today, from Select, because it has morphed and evolved.

JB
Yeah, yeah

DB
From producing items to agency work to Brand Hub. Could you just get

JB
Yeah, we dabbled along the way. We were, I would say, we were organized schizophrenia for a really long time. We were doing everything, we just wanted to be valuable, and today, largely our business, the foundation of our business is a platform called Brand Hub, which we built, which is a commerce marketing platform, so you manage your marketing operation spend through this platform. So large brands, particularly beverage and spirit, have multiple brands within their portfolio, hundreds of salespeople, distributors across the country, and then hundreds of 1000s of retail outlets. So you have to figure out a way to order all of your merchandise, retail activation goods through somehow. And some, they were doing it through Excel spreadsheets, and field marketing people ordering it, and brand people internally are ordering it, and different brands are doing the same thing. So this is a platform to organize that spend, to optimize how you spend your money, where it goes, and then ultimately, to reduce the amount of money you are spending, because you’re not duplicating efforts.

DB
And, yeah, and you’ve had long term relationships with some household names… Saucony, I think I saw on your website, and Dunkin’, yeah, can you get me a jumpsuit?

JB
Not a jumpsuit.

DB
Come on.

JB
No. I think there was, we didn’t make the jumpsuits, unfortunately, because I think they had a little problem with those. But we, we do a lot of stuff for them.

DB
Jeff, I need the jumpsuit.

JB
You’d look it in it. We do, we have some,

DB
Thank you

JB
long term relationships, yeah.

SRG
So the, you know, Brand Hub, the trajectory makes sense, but obviously it’s a big jump from where you started. So did you kind of get there from just being really dialed into your customers needs? Or how did you make that?

JB
Yeah, I think it’s amazing what you can get from listening. People mostly, I think, as a general rule, people will tell you what they need or who they are if you give them a chance and you and you believe them. So we just, we had been making product for people all the time. We ended up doing a ton of display. And basically, anything… You think of these beverage companies, they’re liquid stuff. Well, it’s not liquid and has their name on it, it’s made to sell at retail. So we make all some form of all of that. And it was a chaotic process. And there’d be people doing things. So we had built a basic framework of a system, and then we had an opportunity with, ultimately, our biggest client. They were went to RFP to rebuild their platform, and it was right before COVID, right during COVID, and we put a big stake in the ground for the platform. Amazingly, we have more developers at Select now than designers.

DB
Are you a tech company? Are you a…

JB
We’re a tech enabled service.

DB
Tech-enabled service.

JB
We still do a lot of creative, but we and we still make a lot of product, and our revenue is still driven from the product, but the service through the platform is what makes us sticky, and we get to sign multi-year contracts and do large percentage of work for a client, as opposed to just transactional

SRG
Has that, beyond just like who you hire, has that drastically changed the business?

JB
I think the business is hopefully still the same soul that it always had. We want really good people. We want to have a really great place and be a part of the community. So I think the foundational aspects of Select haven’t really changed that much. Some of the work we deliver, but we were never really, you know, Kevin and I, we weren’t dropped on this planet to make t-shirts for people or to make hats or anything else. We want to add value somehow. And so this is just an evolution. And I think a lot of the work we were doing, it was getting commoditized. So making specific products for people, it’s hard, because there’s a drive in almost every category to squeeze cost out.

SRG
Yeah,

JB
so we needed to evolve and find another way to do it, and also to bring value on the client side. And [unknown] is a big client of ours, they have 150 brands, and they have to manage the spend across all those brands to literally hundreds of 1000s of retail outlets in the country. It’s hard. So we most of the stuff we make is inventoried to three PL, third party logistics company in Chicago,

DB
yeah, it’s not something you want to do in a spreadsheet, Sam

SRG
No, it’s crazy.

JB
It’s hard to do from 208 Flynn

SRG
That sounds so stressful, oh my god.

DB
How many locations do you have?

JB
We are based at 208 Flynn

DB
208 Flynn here in Burlington, great facility.

JB
Yeah, and then we have some great people working remotely. It is. We were very fortunate. We moved there from Kilburn Gates, and thanks to Doug Nedde, who, at the time, was earlier in his career, too, and he found this building. It was Elan skis was in there. Grindrite was tuning in there, I think, and it was a shithole. There wasn’t much in the South End at that point.

DB
I was gonna say, you were a pioneer

JB
Dave Farrington, Dave and his dad and his brother had bought the building next to us the year before. And we were first ones out there, but which is why we could get out there at the time because it was super discounted.

SRG
That’s so cool, though. That must be, like, amazing to watch the South End totally change around you.

JB
Pretty cool, yeah. I mentioned this to you, at some point, we had a conversation. To buy the building, we were able to get some VEPC credits from the state. Now you probably, I think you contributed to writing the policy back in the day.

DB
Back in the day, way back, yeah.

JB
Dave’s way smarter than the rest of us

DB
Fortunately it got a lot better since my drafting.

JB
But Frank Cioffi was huge. We were able to use the VEPC credits to literally buy the building. So you don’t get money from the state. You don’t have to pay taxes if you earn income for a period of time. And I would say just for Select and the number of people that we’ve employed over those 20, last 25 years, and the evolution of the South End, when we kind of, I don’t want to take credit for it, so we don’t serve any credit for it. But we did build something out there that was an attraction of sorts, that’s been a huge plus investment.

SRG
Well, that’s that does matter, though, right? Because other people looking to establish a business are like, ‘Well, what else is out there?’ And when they hear Select, that makes a difference, right?

JB
Yeah, and, you know, and the Lampmans were out there. I think that Lake Champlain Chocolates was there shortly after or around the same time, but that was about it. And then you’re like, ‘Oh, there’s something here.’ And then fast forward today, and the Hula guys have that thing going. And it’s a totally different thing than it was.

DB
Yeah, Pine Street is totally different.

JB
Yeah, it’s great. We would not have been able to do that at the time, had it not be really sketchy out there, honestly.

SRG
Yeah. Love this. Love the Frank shout out.

JB
Yeah, he was really instrumental. We met years and years before that

DB
Frank’s with GBIC, and is one of the people that has been at VCET on the board and leading

JB
Yeah, and cares deeply about Burlington and the growth here. I met him when he was a business owner, way back, way, way back.

DB
One of the bars? Or one of the local establishments

JB
Yeah, Minervas, a local establishment that I couldn’t get into when I first showed up as a freshman.

SRG
That’s amazing. Speaking of influential people, can we talk about your partnership?

JB
Yeah!

SRG
Kevin, obviously, you, you met in your dorm, but talk about just what it was like to start a business with a co-founder. Would you do it any other way? How has your relationship evolved?

JB
I don’t think I would do it any other way. You know, it’s, I think we both say this, we were incredibly fortunate to find somebody who was we were kind of copacetic. We had a similar…morally, we were kind of connected. And we were both, I would say, hyper competitive, in a way that was allowed us to kind of manage each other. And then we both, fortunately, like I have married people that were incredibly supportive for what we were trying to do, and awesome partners. So still the best deal, probably, that I’ve ever closed was with my wife, who’s we’re coming up our 30th. I think Kevin’s coming up on his 33rd and we’ve been partners for 36 years. So we have like…

SRG
two marriages, really,

JB
yeah, the one at home I like significantly more, but it’s alright

DB
yeah, I just gonna say, I hope Kevin’s not upset we didn’t invite him in

JB
No

DB
because he is the more personable one

JB
he is definitely, yeah, he has way more to say than I do

DB
He has a presence on the Internet.

JB
Kevin exists.

DB
We could find him. You, we had to go, you know,

JB
I don’t exist.

DB
Dumpster diving

SRG
We like a challenge.

DB
You know, definitely low profile.

SRG
Really try to get it out of you.

JB
But it’s been great. I would not start a business by myself. I think it would be hard to start with more than one partner in the beginning, because I think that… it’s a grind in the beginning, and I think we both would have bailed had we had the opportunity, had the opportunity to in the first couple years, there were times we wanted out, but we had a bank loan, and the business was worth less than the value of the loan, so we couldn’t leave, and I think we would have had we had the opportunity to. And if you have three people, it just gets complicated, because there’s tons of stress at that point, and we were in it. We both had a lot to do, we both sold, we both printed, we both did everything. And it’s evolved from there. And we were fortunate that our paths with our families were kind of in the same line. We both like to coach sports for our kids, so we had similar life values. And so we were able to… the business has to work for you also along the way.

SRG
Right

JB
So we were able to have a business that worked for what we were trying to do. It was hard to balance it all,

SRG
yeah, when your kids were young,

JB
We somehow figured out how to how to do it.

SRG
Yeah, any, any advice of like, what you think, you know, like your communication style, or anything like, when you think of young founders that are just kind of getting started and, you know, let’s assume their personalities are compatible as well. But any like, anything to put in place, or any like, I don’t know, just practices that have worked for you and Kevin?

JB
I think try and avoid being hopeful, and try and be more straightforward, if you can. And I think… so much goes into it. And I think everybody can be passionate about the business. Sometimes it’s luck, and sometimes somebody stumbles into something outside of work that is more challenging than not. We were extremely fortunate that that we married really, really, really great people and had healthy families and were on the same track. Kids were roughly the same age. I think that gets complicated. And then within the business, I think you just have to say what’s on your mind, for the most part, and you have to recognize that it’s not smooth. It will not be a smooth journey.

SRG
Yeah,

JB
And great ideas don’t always work. I think you said it too. A lot has to come into play for something to come together. You can have a brilliant idea and it’s not the right time. You could have, the economy turns and just what you’re doing. Before 9-11, we had a ton of work in New York, because I was going back down there. And we had friends – I had friends and all the financial service companies – and we had, we were doing stuff for MTV and all these media companies. And then 9-11 hit, and it was just everything stopped. So you have to be like, ‘Okay, well, we can grind, we can figure this out, we can do something else,’ and you have to be willing to pivot. And, you know, you can’t get stuck on it. Well, our plan was X, so we’re gonna execute our plan. Yeah, it’s more like, ‘Okay, well, what’s, what’s out there?’ And, you know, kind of be a little like, I say, just listen, the market tells you, ultimately where you fit in or don’t fit in,

SRG
yeah

JB
and they rarely lie, so getting an argument with the market, you’re going to have a hard time.

DB
Yeah. And again, in just sort of watching you both and the company over the decades here, just the nimbleness, and sort of the acceptance of, ‘Okay, things changed, all right, we couldn’t control that, or maybe we didn’t see this, but here’s where we need to be, right?’ So of all the offerings, or maybe the facilities, what you produced in house, versus outsourced, and all the rest and again, I think that’s a really neat lesson, that rigidity, you know, is different than determination.

JB
We had the good fortune too of not having a product. I mean, now we have a product for the first time really in the history of Select, which is Brand Hub, but we didn’t before. So we could be fluid. I think if you come to market with a product that you’re relying on, you’re a little bit more limited in your ability to be dynamic. And so we didn’t have that, but we also, we tried a lot of things, and we knew when to stop. We got an opportunity, creatively, at one point, to design a hotel in Taiwan. It was this random thing that came across because we were doing creative work. We have a bunch of partnerships throughout Asia.

DB
A hotel in Taiwan, were you like the low bidder or something? How did that come about?

JB
They had this vision of a Vermont-y kind of thing. And Chris Copley was working with us at the time, who’s a super engaging guy and a really talented person, and we stumbled into it and then, so it was, it was super fun to do. It was great. But we also recognized that, ‘Okay, that’s not scalable.’

SRG
Yeah

JB
So it was really fun, and we got to surround ourselves with incredible people creatively, but we didn’t know how we were going to monetize that in a way that was… we are a for-profit business, as most businesses are in the private sector, and you have to weigh that in. Doing cool things is fun, but you have to figure out how to monetize it, and be realistic in.

SRG
Totally

JB
Who are you competing with? And do you what would it require to scale in that way? So we dabbled in a lot of different things over the years because it was fun, and we were open minded, and then we were savvy enough, I think, to be honest with ourselves on what we could or couldn’t accomplish.

SRG
Well, it’s good to, you know, give it a give it a try, right? You never know.

JB
Yeah it was great. We had the best time. We went over there for the opening and it’s so funny. Super, super fun, yeah,

DB
You mentioned two resources, the economic progress council credits and then the SBA backed loan is helping. Are there any other resources, training programs, or something in the city that companies might want to be aware of that you found helpful?

JB
No,

DB
That’s an answer.

JB
I think we kind of went on our own… we haven’t had a lot of interaction with the city itself. Other than we’ve met a lot of people over the years and have built some relationships personally, I don’t think we’ve taken advantage of any of the real programs. And I’m not so sure that those are designed, or maybe I just don’t know what’s going on, but I’d say, meet as many people as you can locally, and everybody who comes in has something you can learn from. Somebody can teach you something at all times. So if you talk to them and you ask, and you’re open minded, and… something that’s helped us along the way, is we’ve never really felt like we have it figured out. You know, we haven’t fallen in love with our business. We think it’s great, but it’s a work in progress. Always a work in progress. You know, you said, this is a podcast for aspiring and established. I think we’re still aspiring at some level, because the business is evolving, and the journey is still going. I honestly have never felt better about the opportunity for Select than I have now, and I always feel pretty good about it, yeah, but I think our opportunity to do really compelling work, have great clients, and to scale has probably never been better. So that part’s fun, and it keeps it exciting.

SRG
That’s awesome. I mean, if you hadn’t had that approach, the company would have died, you know, 30 years ago, probably. Because I think, at least, from what I see, like, the industry changes so much, the needs of these companies change so much. If you didn’t have that flexibility to shift, you would have been done on the vine

JB
That or, you know, a lot of companies start now. It’s funny, my daughter’s in college. She was taking a business class, and there’s so much emphasis on private equity and that journey that I don’t think businesses, they don’t think they think like that. I think they think we’re gonna we’re gonna have a five to seven year trajectory, and then we’re gonna sell and we’re gonna move on and do something else. We don’t have to worry about it that much. That was never really our thing. We were just kind of, it was more of an organic journey. We were just on it. We never saw ourselves as screen printers, and so we never saw an end to the journey, or never saw a ceiling for what we could accomplish. But there was never an out. We were never chasing up an out. And then, you know, when you, when you’re chasing it out, you’re you’re making funny decisions. It forces your hand in some ways, because you have to dress yourself up to look really good at a specific point in time.

SRG
Or you’re like, way overly focused on profitability and then,

JB
Or these days, on revenue over profitability. I think that’s a bigger risk.

SRG
Yeah, true.

DB
And then that’s when the bank comes and says, ‘Hey, we want to see those profits again.’

JB
Or you’re better off going to the bank, because at least you know what they want. It’s very clear and and then, you know, I can’t say enough that, that we were very fortunate to have banks around, and we’ve had great relationships all through these years with folks at the banks. And it’s not just, ‘Hey, we’re going to send you our stuff.’ It’s, ‘What are we doing? What are you up to?’ There are really good people in this community, I would say. And I think my favorite part of Burlington as a business community is that the people are really good. It’s not what the city offers or doesn’t offer. You know, we did, we definitely appreciated what Frank and the state did for us back in the day. But it was this, the folks around here, they want you to succeed. It’s really, you can’t get over that. It’s huge. And then, you know, you think of what’s going on now, what you guys are doing here, and the support you give, and obviously what’s going on at Hula and Dudley Fund and FreshTracks. There’s options out there for people who really want you to succeed. So it’s a really good place to be. You just have to dig in a little bit.

SRG
Yeah,

JB
I don’t think you can rely on public service as much as you can rely on the business community on the whole

SRG
I like that.

David Bradbury
I Like that too, Sam,

SRG
yeah

DB
We’re nearing the end.

SRG
No,

DB
I know y’all just met, but literally, he has lunch every day,

Sam RG
I think we cracked him,

DB
At the same place,

SRG
Yeah, OK I’ll find him

DB
Any time you need

SRG
Cool

JB
Well, I did, actually for years, but not anymore.

SRG
Where?

JB
We go, we have a routine.

DB
August First, right, I mean, August First, they have like a table named after you

JB
Yeah, gotta love New World these days

SRG
Love New World.

JB
We’re right next to City Market obviously, so spend a mortgage payment there on a pretty regular basis

SRG
Same, same, same

JB
Yep. Go to Nomad a lot, if you don’t get a Nomad for coffee, you’re missing out

SRG
It’s great

JB
It’s an awesome spot. Yeah

DB
God, we shouldn’t tape this before lunch. Now, that’s all I can think of now,

SRG
Just like, I can’t believe you have places to walk to now, you know?

JB
Crazy.

SRG
Love that for you

JB
We got a lot of places to go, and the park’s right at the end of the street

SRG
Yes

JB
And it’s been really good, but I must say that this place is awesome here. And,

DB
Yeah, I can’t believe it’s been your first visit to VCET.

JB
Yeah,

DB
We’ve been in this location 10 years. VCETs been doing its thing for 20 years almost.

JB
Yeah,

DB
just about 20, and I’ve got a brand new venture fund, another $9 million we’re putting out in the companies

JB
That’s great

JB
And then Sam and I met with like, is that number still real?

SRG
Unfortunately, yeah.

DB
What was it? 300?

SRG
Like 360 maybe

David Bradbury
360 founder company-type conversations that look for assistance that might be five minutes, or it could be five years. And it’s really neat with our model to be that trusted sort of resource for folks to share their hopes and dreams or their talents with us and try to shape it into maybe an employer of note that creates wealth and income for themselves and their customers and employees. So kind of cool.

JB
Yeah and I do think that that’s unique here, in that you’re actually meeting people who care about your success. It’s not – and I’ve known you a long time – it’s not about the deal, and it’s not about the how much we’re going to flip this for. It’s we really, most people here, want businesses to succeed for the benefit of the community. We all recognize that we have a responsibility to help each other, because there’s not always a ton of help. And the private sector is not always looked at in the same way locally as it is in some other places. So I think the private sector has to kind of get together and support itself, and you guys are awesome at that. And I can’t stress –– I remember when Kevin and I started, we decided we’re gonna start a business, and we like, like, ‘Oh, we’ll go to the Chamber of Commerce,’ and we threw on suits and we went to the chamber and we’re like, all right, ‘What do you guys know about a business?’ But to think that this is available now, and all these different things that are out here now, and the skill set that you guys bring, and the experience number of people to talk to, it’s a tremendous place to to start a business, I think. And we’ve always felt that

DB
My head’s exploded because I’m trying to decide whether or not we take the meeting with him and Kevin, Sam,

SRG
Of course we would

DB
Probably

JB
No way

SRG
I would have,

JB
If you if you saw what we presented, you would have turned us around pretty quick.

DB
I think the broken arm probably would have created enough sympathy to get in the door.

JB
He generates a whole lot of sympathy, as a general rule

DB
Yes, on that note, magic wand time, Sam.

SRG
All right, if you had a magic wand, if you could change one thing in Vermont today. What would you change?

JB
One thing in Vermont? So I’ll do something more serious, I guess. I would hope there would be more balance in the state and especially locally here in Burlington. I think sometimes, and having been here a really long time as a business owner, you feel like you’re on the wrong side of the argument too many times. And I think there are a lot of really, really, really passionate business owners and small business owners and people who have built really tremendous businesses here, have cared about Vermont and care about growing responsibly here, and I think maybe more of an open mindedness generally as to the contributions that the private sector has to make and is required to make to have this whole thing work. Sometimes I feel like we’re on the wrong side of that conversation, and that businesses are takers. And I would say, speaking for our business, we’ve contributed significantly, and we care about contributing significantly to the community. And I think, by and large, I feel that most businesses in Vermont are like that, but I don’t know that that’s the general vibe, and I would like to see that change.

SRG
I love that answer.

DB
It’s really great.

SRG
I don’t think we have to edit out a single thing, Jeff, you freaking nailed it.

JB
We’ll see.

DB
And we definitely need to keep the part about the Dunkin’ jumpsuit coming my way.

SRG
Dave

DB
Because Halloween would be destroyed. Come on – you’ve gotta have the pull.

JB
There’s a new Dunkin item coming out that it would be a much better fit for just, a glitter tumbler that you will love

DB
Please. Like, literally, I stepped out of Good Will Hunting, I gotta have this, okay

Sam RG
If I have to hear Dave and his Dunkin’ thing one more time. You know, just do me a favor. Do me a solid

JB
Maybe he’ll work remotely you won’t have to deal with him. Just tell him to work remotely.

David Bradbury
Thank you very much for coming out of the shadows and shining a little light on your journey and that of Select Design. You were a great substitute for Kevin being unavailable.

JB
Always have been. Thanks guys, appreciate it.

DB
This has been Start Here, a podcast sharing the stories of active, aspiring and accidental entrepreneurs. The series is supported by the Vermont Technology Council and Consolidated Communications. Let’s get back to work.