How to succeed in business (without really any money or time).
Sometimes, creating a new business is a slow burn, giving you months (or years) to formulate a plan, gather your resources, and execute with flush coffers and a timeline that everyone can do their best work.
The creation of Brooklyn Irish Dance Company was not one of these times. And yet, with less than four months and $10,000 in the bank, we created a company that not only sold out and turned profit on it’s inaugural off-Broadway production, but built the foundation for an organization that would go on to create a global impact, continue to produce new works on a profitable level in one of the most expensive metropolitan areas, and survive the devastating impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in the entertainment industry. And all it took was a dream! And some tactical planning…some strategic choices…and a whole lotta luck.
Let’s break it down.
Who’s idea was this?
First, let’s give all this some context - I have been a professional Irish dancer since 2010, and involved in the Irish dance community since 1994 (proof: my name, ODonnell Academy, this profoundedly dated photo). It had always been a goal of mine to create and produce work, but as with many dreams, it was pushed back for more financially sound choices. My career in design and marketing was the priority. And it was thriving! I finished my second degree at Parsons, worked in multiple start ups, and was coming into my own as a designer and a creative strategist. While my dancing dreams may have put on hold, the designer in me was growing by leaps and bounds.
Me at the National Championships in 2003, proving that flip phones and thumbs ups were never cool.
This very pragmatic plan changed in 2018. I met three other dancers who now worked professionally in and around Brooklyn, and we realized our professional skills in dance AND business made a powerful case for creating something new.
We knew our combined skills would make an incredible team. But who has the time to create something new? Summer was winding down and this was a new and rather ambitious proposal - surely we can think on this idea and try it in a few months (or years).
What’s the rush?
The thing about Irish dance is it is a fantastically seasonal novelty. Now, you may think to yourself, “obviously, March.” and you would be right. But there is a another time in the year where nearly anything sells, and it goes double for the Irish arts - Christmastime. Our first tactical decision was to put our first work into production in December, for several reasons:
Talent: Many dancers and musicians would be booked for March.
Audience: Much of our initial targeted audiences (specifically, local dancers and Irish-American organizations) would also be busy with existing commitments in March. It would be harder to break in at that time with new works and require more marketing to break through the existing “noise.”
Sentiment: By focusing our efforts on a seasonal themed production, we can take advantage of existing IP in the public domain and that’s known to our audience to build emotional connections faster.
Tradition: Seasonal productions are often famously “repeatable,” as they can become family traditions to see each year. (see: The Nutcracker, that one M&Ms commercial). If we were going all in, we wanted to ensure the most potential for re-usability moving forward.
So in September of 2018, we made the execution decision to form a new company, write & choreograph a new production, and stage it off-Broadway in December. Of 2018.
How would this even be possible?
We needed to divide and conquer to have everyone prioritzed on what they can do best, and we needed to put a lot of faith in our team. There were three main “verticals” that our tasks funneled into in order to organize next steps and acheive this ambitious debut:
Operations & Production
Establishing the corporation
Hiring, onboarding and payroll
Booking venues for rehearsals & performance
Managing external vendors for marketing and creative materials
Managing ticket sales and customer service requests
Creative
Naming and Brand Identity for dance company
Naming and GTM Assets for production
Script and Book for production
Choreography & Score
Costume, Set & Lighting Design
Marketing & PR
Website & initial creative materials
Production elevator pitch and media kit
PR outreach
Targeted campaigns via email, social and word-of-mouth
As you can see, we truly needed a village to get all the work done. My priorities were primarily in the Creative vertical (and this is a design blog), so we’ll focus on those highlighted tasks.
Naming & Brand Identity - The Company
First things first - what are we calling this thing? There’s a few ways to approach naming, and a few items to keep top of mind when considering our options:
Abstract vs. Descriptive - while an abstract title may feel more creatively “inspiring” and be easier to own, it can take quite a lot of audience education and marketing spend to associate the name to your product. We didn’t have the time or budget for that, so we knew being simple and descriptive was the way to go.
Owning the Domain - We originally planned to do the New York Irish Dance Company, but there were several organizations with very similar names (and one defunct company with the exact same name). Since the original members we’re mostly based out of Brooklyn, we narrowed our location, and we’re successful in owning both the domain and social channels. It also opened up a brand identity that was now more associated with the hustle, arts and community of Brooklyn, not just of our generation, but of our forefathers who came over from the motherland and settled here. It was a serendipitous choice.
And so, the name Brooklyn Irish Dance Company was officially born. Now, we needed the visual side.
Logo vs. Icon vs. Wordmark - A similar challenge to naming - logos and icons are often more eyecatching but also more abstract, and require brand awareness to be effective. We created a lockup with both an icon and wordmark that can be used independently, but heavily relied on the wordmark in this first season to better connect our brand to this new audience.
Designing the House (for future Brands) - For the visual brand, I wanted to ensure that it was clean, easy to implement and could be flexible when used in conjunction with different productions. We went with black and white as our base brand for a few reasons
Cost: Lots of our assets would need to be in print or manufactured. By creating a one-color brand, it reduces production costs and the possibility of poor color-matching when using different vendors.
Contrast: By keeping the “house” brand simple, we could reserve the use of color and for specific events and productions, allowing each of those campaigns to shine.
Cool: The Brooklyn Nets use black and white and they look fly as hell. It was important for us to look fly as hell as well.
The end result was a name and a brand that we were proud of, and has remained consistent to this day. It is simple, instantly recognizable, descriptive to invite in new audiences, and flexible to grow and support our productions and campaigns as the years continued.
Naming & GTM Assets - The Production
Now that the house was built, it was time for our first subbrand!
Naming the Show - We knew we were working on short time and shorter attention spans, so a descriptive name was imperative. We had to ensure that it communicated both holiday and Irish, and that it was a name we could own. Enter A Celtic Christmas Story.
Not the most original name by a mile, but it absolutely got the job done. People knew exactly what the show was and what they we’re signing up for, and any time that would’ve been spent on educating or increasing brand awareness could now directly be focused on conversion.
Branding the Show - What could be more fun than a Christmas campaign? A Christmas campaign with key art! Since both the company and the show we’re brand new and still being built, there was no existing art or photography that we could use for marketing. Most of the dancers weren’t even in town yet - what’s a marketer (and a designer) to do?
Sneak peak at the faking stage
Fake it til you make it! We had two costumes, five female dancers and one male friend who was willing to dress up in exchange for a free brunch. Armed with a DSLR, a white sheet and a dream, we used the dance studio and the street outside to capture our initial photography. Photographing each dancer separately on an easily masked background gave us a ton of content that could be reused for multiple purposes, and some of the photography from that initial shoot is still in use today.
And here’s the making stage!
The Results?
We sold out our initial run within two weeks of launch, and added additional shows. Our concept was proven out in a way that showcased the demand and profitability of a NYC-based production company catering to Irish and Irish-American audiences, and with this strong start the company has gone on to have multiple off-Broadway runs & regional tours, and have write ups in The New York Times, Playbill, Time Out, and many more.
Why It Was Successful
An outtake from our first “real” photoshoot.
We made tactical choices that played to our strengths and financial abilities. Things that may have improved the production quality but would be out of our budget to do in a successful manner we’re scraped - this was an MVP, and it allowed us to showcase the offering, create a great first impression, and justify expanding our resources for next season. And we leveraged every connection and skillset we had - none of this could happen in a vaccuum, and by letting me focus on the creative and branding while other members handled things within their wheelhouse, we we’re able to move fast and break relatively few things - a win in any startup environment!