Latest / The Marketing Brief / Dom and Brian Breakdown AI & Agency Work in 2026 (S3 E5)
Transcript
- Brian: Hello and welcome back to the Marketing Brief Podcast. I am your host, Brian Aquan, and this is the podcast where we talk about marketing and we bring people in and sometimes gets exciting. We've gotten good feedback. We think it's exciting. And today I have a guest who I'm really excited about, Dominic Tancaridi. Dom, welcome to the podcast. I'm calling you Dom because, of course, we're familiar now after spending five minutes together, right? Thank you for joining me, Dom. dom: Absolutely. Besties. We're gonna go snowboarding sometime. Brian: how would you like to introduce yourself to the listeners? dom: hi, I'm Dom from a digital product agency called Dom and Tom. we build web and mobile applications and strategize and consult on all sorts of fun digital product experiences like AI enablement and workflows, all that fun stuff. I've been doing this for twenty plus years. So consulting in the digital space is very exciting time right now. Brian: Yeah, it certainly is. And it it's not like it it hasn't been exciting, right? You've seen the rise of mobile apps and the app store and all these different kinds of things, but now we've got AI. dom: AR, VR, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, mobile was when we started. I started back in web, progressive web web apps, and now we've got AI. So I would say that the treadmill went from one mile an hour to five miles an hour. Still very walkable, but everybody is learning fast on what what's going on out there and how you can do it. Brian: Yeah. And maybe it's more crowded on the treadmill. dom: Yeah, I would say so. I would say. Well, Brian: It's like people behind you, in front of you. dom: there's a lot more people now. Yeah, there's the the CEO's son is building an agent for the company to help operate. And I go, that's something we would have done. We could Brian: Right. dom: do. And I go, but let's see how he does it. Let's let's see where that goes. You know. Have fun with the the co-working space that I'm a part of. I recently moved from New York to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. the founder who has been in marketing has the owner of this space, I think 17 years. she put together a progressive web app that is soup to nuts, full-blown communication, marketing, conference room scheduling. And you gotta go, whoa, that like the cost, the barrier, all of it is just accessible now. And I think that's a that's a big W, you know? Brian: Yeah. Yeah. That's certainly a that's certainly one of the promises. So it's good to see that that's actually working, right? dom: Absolutely. I I do think there's a little of we'll let the next model fix what this model spaghettified a little bit. Like we all Brian: Sure. Clean it up a little bit. dom: like, whoa, there's a lot of technical debt. that was haiku's problem. I'm opus. I'm gonna solve all of that. it's funny, I I actually just we just launched a product for a startup founder. And he was like, Hey, could you just show me how to change content on the site? And I go, sure. There's no CMS though. That was not Brian: Mm-hmm. dom: in scope. It's not a contract. It's not needed. We hooked him up to a a Clawed harness that he has, cloud agent. I said, just I and I put together a skill for him. You just say, slash this, content editor, and just tell it what you want to change. Did it right there. And he goes, What? There's no CMS. I'm like, well, you could click through a couple of screens and pay me a couple of bucks in the four to five figure bucks. Or you could just tell it what you want to change and it'll do it for you. that's the future now, right? Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that's gonna be hard for people to adapt to? Of just well, I remember it being this way. how can I get it back to the way I knew it worked? dom: No, because I went to an executive AI roundtable yesterday, and one of the questions the presenter had was, who in your organization is using AI? And I was like, Who isn't using AI? I just removed 10 screens of clicking around. I removed login. All that friction to what? Make you have an intent. And it's right there. You just need to make that intent allowed and then review it. Human in the loop, review it. And then bam, it it happens. All that clicking around and stuff, the keyboards, I'm starting to be like, why am I using my key, my hands all the time? I should just be talking to a microphone, and we're good. So I think it's gotten easier for everybody. Brian: Yeah. Yeah. dom: And when things get easy. The hard part is I think imagining and then creating a sense of discipline to to taste the soup before it goes out. Because you don't want to serve bug soup and be like, hey, we made this for this. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me taste that soup. Brian: Yeah. Yeah. dom: You know got some croutons in there that don't look quite right. Go back and do it again. Yes, chef. Not on my watch. Yeah. Brian: I like that analogy for human in the loop. Taste the soup before it goes out. dom: It's great, just taste the soup before it goes out, okay? Brian: But you've been operating a boutique agency for two decades. dom: Mm. Brian: what what is it about boutique? I I've seen kind of a movement towards boutique agencies now. And I've seen, you know, I've worked at the big holding company agencies and then I've seen the smaller creative ones come up, and it's like, ooh, we want that one now. And it seems to be a movement towards boutique agencies now. What what do you think is the is the draw, or how do you go out and kind of represent a boutique agency to clients? dom: it's hard to say the word agency versus firm versus studio. I mean, semantics matter, right? Brian: Mm-hmm. dom: I think boutique and privately held gives a certain sense of flexibility. It gives a certain sense of like size and scale. Believe it or not, I do believe it's useful to have a founder that espouses the values of the ecosystem that carries we won't say the burden or the weight, but the experience, the stories of like, I see what you're trying to do, but let's just skip all that and talk about what you really want. Like, it's not about the solution. It's about locking in your real problem. So for me, representing ourselves as a boutique agency is actually a a a rebrand in a bit. We started that way and we grew over 10 years into COVID to about, I want to say 68 in-house and 120, including my contractors. Brian: Mm-hmm. dom: And that was just a layer of management, middle management. You had a s suite of C's, office in New York, another in Chicago, a branch in LA. And you just go, wow, there's a lot happening. And to have that like COVID effect go like, hey, we're gonna ski down this slope into like Brian: Yeah. dom: boutique world, is to me like perfect. Like I love being single digits. I love being accessible now to the clients, to the projects. There's just a bit more I think it's like a a lifestyle curve, you know? It's Brian: Mm-hmm. dom: like having a million friends and then having like two handfuls and going th but I spend good quality experience with them. I don't know. I Brian: Yeah. dom: like it. Brian: Yeah. COVID did that to our our friend groups, which is maybe a good thing dom: Yeah. Brian: for some people. I think it works both ways too. I think clients dom: Mm. Brian: want the founder, they want the people who are touching their business to be the ones who started this agency or who are in charge of making decisions of this agency. And then, dom: Mm. Brian: you know, from your perspective as well, you get your hands on the work, right? You get to represent the work. dom: Right. And I think the world going forward is gonna be single digit, multi-million dollar businesses. I think with AI, Brian: Seems that dom: i I was talking to the another founder the other day and he was saying, you know, I plan to hire, plan to grow. I'm like, how big? He goes, was thinking like ten to fifteen. I'm like, whoa, like walk me through one person with a swarm of agents around them. That's the job of four or five. And we really broke down the numbers of what needs to get done and how it gets done. I was very curious about, I get to spend more time with clients now, which is nice. And by the end of that, he was like, I can make this work with six or eight, maybe. And I'm like, yeah, you could get to 15, but you don't have to. And that's headcount for the where he's driving. Brian: Yeah. dom: So I think that world, like being a boutique agency, to be honest, I talked to a couple of peer groups. They got 20, 30 employees. I talked to some near shore buddies, 118 staffed. seeing the services industry, especially, I'm not in product. I consult on product, but I don't, you know, we have our own suite of internal intellectual products, but we are property. I look at them and I go, I don't know, man, twenty or thirty people in house, good contracts, you should be niched up and focused, but everybody isn't just pulling their weight. You have to have that kind of like capital. You you're overcapacitied. And I know what that is. So if you're not overcapacity, you're hunting to feed your tribe versus like Brian: Uh-huh. dom: hunting because of every other reason under the sun. But it's it's scary to hunt to feed the tribe. Brian: Where are you guys in terms of head head count? dom: So we're now five in-house. And that to me is perfect. Sweet spot. Brian: Mm-hmm. dom: And I have well because I have a multiple fractional project managers, fractional technical leads, you know, agentic QA. I a fully agenc swarm, that is the knowledge base. I mean the operational core is lean. I mean it it's family business, but it is it's really I believe in the the contract services model. That's my assistant driven, agent driven, whatever you call it. I think that's the way to go. And I Brian: Yeah. dom: see overemployment happening across the board. People have a full time W two. That's great. It's awesome. Benefits. And then they pull in, like, hey, I can do some side contracting gig work, which is amazing. And I'm power to them if they, you know, can do it in service and perform. So Brian: Yeah. dom: I mean that headcount to me is like, that's great. Yeah. Brian: Yeah. I I think I see it very similarly. I think this fractional work is, at least in the short term, I think where a lot of people are gonna go. I'm interested in you're managing fractionals. What's what's dom: Yes. Brian: that like? Like what are the challenges in in managing fractional employees? dom: I think the challenge is the understanding that your relationship is very transactional based while also being part of some semblance of your culture, which derives from your values. What do I mean? We're do good, be good. Those are our core values. We have six values, but those are the two primary ones. So if you're not that from the get-go and the fractional, I probab there's a lot of people I could work with. And I don't want to work with anyone who doesn't want to do good and be good at what they're doing. So that sets the tone and the baseline. And then it's about communication and relationship. After that, it's all about engagement. And what I like is, you know, sometimes they're what I love about Slack is that they only charge you if there's activity. So sometimes they don't deactivate their accounts. And they're I've had Fractional seat technical leads reach out to me and go, hey Dom, I've got some capacity. Do you have any opportunity? And I go, actually, we have this engagement about a startup. Would you, we were looking, but would you want in? And they're Yeah, totally. Perfect. Worked on five engagements together. But the second they don't have capacity, it's like totally fine. So people reach out and say, What's available? We have stuff. I think though, once the engagement's done, it's not like I have to go and find more work. Every two weeks they're getting a salary. You know, they're wondering about their job. I have to find projects to do. That's always been like a like a tough part of the business. I mean, when it's growing very f quickly, it's all good and that's Brian: Sure, for sure. dom: fine. But when you're in a space now that's very tumultuous, there's a lot of change going on. I think having these strong alliances actually builds a better like relationship between each other. So I really that the fractional rep to me, fractional project management, technical lead, you don't need a full-time CTO sometimes. You just need someone you could talk to once a week. He does Brian: Yeah. dom: 10 hours of work, and guess what? All this you can increase it to get more velocity or decrease it, brings in an agency, it's perfect. It yeah. Brian: And you're setting you're setting the culture from the top and you're you're looking for people who buy into that culture first. And then you mentioned the communication. Like, is that something you have to actively manage of just like this is how we communicate, these are the expectations. dom: Well what's interesting is and this a big trade-off, but I set like the employee manual up and I set our company standards. And so you've got your your what is the brief, what we're doing, but everything else is approach process. Team and tools. Well, the tools are pretty set up. Like we're using these tools. This is what we're gonna use. If you want to resist it, as long as my results show up in here, because this is where the knowledge base is all good. That's not even an argument. The team then is about your ability to effectively communicate and engage in this process and run your game. You can't run your game. I come from Chicago, man. I grew up. Like Jordan, that team, the Bulls, BJ Armstrong, Phil Jackson, like If you don't have a strong team, he's not gonna make every shot. He needs a Rodman. He needs someone to pass him the ball. You need a Pippin. you need a good team dynamic, and you just know how to run your game and deliver. So I set up weeklies. status reports, daily status meetings, stuff like that. Stuff that you can have a gentic running. But once you know it's going well, sometimes I bring I sub out and bring in a full other agency. I've got an engagement with a great agency, a designate studio. And I'm like, dang, you guys, you guys run your game. I love this. It's too big for a part-time contract designer. I've got part-time contract designer work. Then it's like, hey, this is a team effort here. We're gonna need a whole other Be like the Bulls working with the Pistons to crush a championship, I the one trade-off Brian: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I like dom: though I just I hate to say is community. You don't have as much community or culture. You have Brian: Yeah. Yeah. dom: culture, but you're not getting dinners, you're not going out to drinks after. It can be once you unplug a bit. it was lonely during COVID to find Brian: Mm-hmm. dom: all these people that I had like been a part of and they've been part of my life. had all gone to the next chapter. And I think that was really that left my heart very I didn't realize, I did, but I didn't realize how much of my heart was in my company. And so I think now being in a boutique is it's allowed me to fill my heart with community outside of work. Brian: Yeah. Yeah, you gotta seek it outside of of your professional job. Yeah. I I dom: Right. Brian: l you can tell you're a real Chicago Bulls fan because you referenced BJ Armstrong. I love that. I was like the you're like Jordan, BJ Armstrong. dom: Yeah man don't look like PJ. PJ nobody PJ's awesome dude. Yeah. Fifth man, you know? Yeah, what Brian: Yeah, it was great. Yeah, absolutely. dom: a crew. God, six Pete. Three Pete took a break, got another three. I'm like, dang. Never Brian: Yeah. dom: never again. I'll to go back in time and relive. what a cheap. Yeah. Brian: Well we've been asking everyone one question. the question for this season is what are you hopeful about? We're trying to trying to drive some hope into this into this world right now. Is there something you're hopeful about either in your personal life or or or professionally as you guys as you guys navigate this this this year? dom: Yeah, I I got a lot of hope. I I think Utopia has never been closer. I I think that the work that I do and the work that we do is you're you're helping people who help people, right? So you're building digital products to enable people to communicate, collaborate, sift, move data, move contracts, move, you know, whatever they need to do efficiently, and effectively, securely, all that fun stuff. And And and seeing we finally crack the nut on a domain that has the potential, the closest potential we've ever had, to to reducing errors, to being a partner when we're tired or lonely or scared that will not judge us. To to come up with new advances in mathematics, in sciences, like to take the burden of innovating the world and solving hard problems, and to find a partner that is digital in nature, that doesn't need to sleep, needs inputs, but can take some of that. Weight off the cognitive shoulders is so awesome. I see rocket flights going up into SpaceX and like satellites. I use a Tesla. I'm at 92% of automated driving. Like I Brian: Mm-hmm. dom: can feel the data we're giving it, making every every decision that we're gonna make and plan for, have a little bit more cross-checking and double-checking. That isn't human in nature. And we do need humans in the loop. There's superhumans in the loop. We need shittles Brian: Right. dom: like me. and I just see I see it happening, and I just hope we're shifting that towards solution and not towards greed. I saw greed in cryptocurrency and blockchain, and I see it with mobile Brian: Yeah. dom: apps and this. Keeping them all, I see it with social media and keeping them always. And it's just like, man, if we could just get away from the greedy part and just focus Brian: Mm-hmm. dom: up on and lock in on the the opportunity here. Brian: Yeah. The greater good. dom: The greater good. That's all it takes, you know? There's gotta be a limit to that stuff. Get rid of that. You don't need that. my Brian: You are hopeful. You are bullish. dom: god, we did it. We cre as a computer scientist, as I I got a degree in computer science, I could say I'm a computer scientist. I'm so, I'm like We did that guys. Keep it up. Don't don't don't do it. Don't don't be greedy. Come Brian: Yeah. dom: on. So do good be good. Brian: Well, it's awesome. I'd really enjoyed having a conversation with you. This always goes really quickly, but dom: Yeah. Brian: but you've been a great guest. Thank you for joining me on the Marketing Brief podcast. dom: Thank you, Brian. This is awesome. Appreciate the invitation and awesome cast, man. I love it. I gotta I'm subbed up. So keep it up. Brian: Awesome. And you and your your agency is Dom and Tom, right? And dom: Dom and Tom. Brian: people can reach out to you on LinkedIn. We can tag you when I post this. dom: Hit me up on LinkedIn, domintim.com. If you need to email me, dom at dominom.com. It's pretty easy. Brian: Nice. Two Dom's in there. Well, thank you so much, Dom. And to the listeners, stay curious.