Company: Mighty Fine
Owners: Frank Rodriguez
Year Started: 2010
Employees: 1 – 10
Join host Russel Dubree on “An Agency Story,” a podcast dedicated to the authentic experiences of marketing agency owners. In the insightful episode titled “Progressive,” we delve into the remarkable journey of Frank Rodriguez, founder of Mighty Fine, a branding agency renowned for its innovative approach in today’s digital marketplace.
In this episode, Frank shares his unconventional path from a challenging childhood to becoming a design maven, underscoring themes of resilience and innovation. He candidly discusses the importance of brand consistency across digital platforms and how his agency ensures that brands connect meaningfully with their audiences. A standout moment is his reminiscence about creating a timeless logo influenced by the aesthetics of the 1970s, which he likened to a cream soda bottle label—an anecdote that captures the creative spirit driving his work.
Frank’s journey is a powerful narrative of overcoming adversity, highlighted by his early start in the workforce at just 13 to fend off bullies and his transformative experience in community college. These stories not only emphasize his personal growth but also mirror his professional ethos of flexibility and balance, ensuring he and his team cherish life beyond work.
This episode leaves listeners reflecting on the value of personal history in shaping professional success and the continuous quest for work-life balance. Whether you’re a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned professional, Frank’s story of creating a thriving agency while maintaining freedom and flexibility offers valuable insights and inspiration.
Tune into “An Agency Story” to hear more about how individuals like Frank Rodriguez navigate the complexities of agency life while staying true to their passions and principles. Discover why maintaining a creative and balanced agency culture is not just possible but beneficial for sustained success in the competitive digital landscape.
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Show Transcript
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. From the excitement of starting up the first big sale, passion, doubt, fear, freedom, and the emotional rollercoaster of growth, hear it all on An Agency Story podcast. An Agency Story podcast is hosted by Russel Dubree, successful agency owner with an eight figure exit turned business coach. Enjoy the next agency story.
Russel:
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast. I’m your host Russel. On this episode, we have Frank Rodriguez, the founder of Mighty Fine, creating meaningful brand experiences for today and tomorrow’s digital marketplace based out of Tampa, Florida. Frank story is certainly one of trials and triumphs faking his way to a job at the age of 13 and a high school dropout Frank eventually found his calling in the world of design and hasn’t looked back since. Frank emphasizes the importance of a quality brand presence achieved by relentless attention to detail and care all the while making a concerted effort to ensure he maintains freedom and flexibility to focus on this many passions and talents from mountain biking to telling the story of this historic city. Enjoy the story. Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have Frank Rodriguez with Mighty Fine with us here today. Thank you so much for being on the show, Frank.
Frank:
I appreciate you having me on the show.
Russel:
Let’s get right to it. What does Mighty Fine do and who do you do it for?
Frank:
Mighty Fine is essentially an advertising and branding agency. We create campaigns that connect clients or brands with their audiences in meaningful ways. There are different techniques to do that but first and foremost we make sure that the company that we’re working for is brand aware and they have brand awareness so that everything can be based on that. There’s been a lot of situations where somebody will want to create a campaign yet they have no continuity through the different digital channels and also other channels besides that.
Russel:
How did you come up with the name?
Frank:
We’re in the South. I went through a bunch of names and then stuck with that because I also saw it as a logo. Our logo was hand drawn by our lead designer and I wanted it to be one, a different color than most companies use. We have a sort of a pinkish tone, but the logo itself, it’s funny. Somebody said oh, that looks like it could be on a cream soda bottle in the early days, and I’m like, okay that’s exactly what I was going for. Something that was timeless, but made us stand out from the rest. Not to say that there aren’t some great logos or that mine’s the best, just had something in mind. The 70s were a big influence for me, TV, ads, everything. I wanted to have that be a part of the aesthetic.
Russel:
If it feels good, looks good, nothing wrong with it. Before we get into all the ins and outs of your agency today, let’s take a step back in time and talk a little bit about what young Frank was doing. It sounds like you had a nonstandard upbringing, let’s go back to your path there.
Frank:
It was definitely nonstandard. Grew up in a single parent household, lived in a trailer park in Miami. It wasn’t easy but we had things that we needed. One thing that it taught me is that I had to start working early. I started working when I was 13, I actually faked a document so that I could go to work because people were making fun of my clothes. I was like, I’m going to put an end to this and start making some money and buying stuff so that there wasn’t any low hanging fruit that somebody could pick on me for. In Miami, I dropped out of school in ninth grade, then came to Tampa and dropped back in. Didn’t do much in high school. Hung out and did the bare minimum. My best friend to this day, after high school a few years later said, you should go sign up for school, community college. Said, nah, I’m happy being complacent. It was the 90s, so. There’s a reason why Slacker was made in the 90s. And I went and it changed my life. It gave me structure. I found a purpose. I was around other people that wanted to learn and it seemed like the people there that were teaching wanted us to absorb it and they took their job seriously.
Russel:
A very powerful story and it’s interesting. I’ve heard a lot of people come from a rough upbringing go to the military because it adds a lot of structure and maybe some of the similar things you mentioned. But having a couple of kids in college, I’ve almost found it’s the lack of structure that gives them so much grief that they can’t manage on their own. I’m glad to hear in your case it was the right place for you to be to thrive and grow.
Frank:
It’s funny, so I paid for college out of pocket, waiting tables and working in kitchens. Coming from that mindset, I was going to make sure that it was structured and that I went to school and made the most of it. I studied fine art, which it led me to where I am today. I got to study abroad in Paris, which informed me from a global perspective but also art design and how different the world can be.
Russel:
You had a rough start but sounds like you turned things around for yourself and got off on a good foot. What were you doing after college? Lead us up prior to actually when you ended up starting your agency?
Frank:
I was in school working at a place and we were selling high end video and audio equipment to ballplayers and people of means. It was a good job, I was good at it. I was good at designing things that would go into people’s houses and selling them stuff that would they wanted. However, the work culture there was toxic and that’s what nudged me. That was my first real job and the last one, because I wanted to make sure that it pushed me into opening my own business so that I could create a culture that worked for me and for people that worked for me.
Russel:
Certainly not the first person that started their own agency because they didn’t like the environment they were in. What did that step look like when you finally decided to make the leap?
Frank:
I started a production business, was a producer. We created commercial videos and animations for businesses locally. We worked with some national businesses as well. That was great and I enjoyed it, however, it helped me to transcend into an agency environment because I would create these videos, they were high end, and people ask ed, where would I see that? I’m like, you probably wouldn’t. It’d be an advertisement or something that would tell somebody’s brand story. To get back to the agency, got a little bored with doing video, but also, I would ask the folks, where are you going to place this? They would show me their website or other things. I realized that we were making sophisticated videos that were living on things that look like they were made 20 years ago. You can’t put something on a dented bumper and make it look good. I decided, we’ll continue to make videos and animations, but we’re going to go ahead and do the whole package so that we can help people create brands and then keep that brand continuity flowing from the time they meet us till the time that they transition away.
Russel:
Very nice. What year did you start the overall business in?
Frank:
2001.
Russel:
2001. Okay. So that was the onset of web, especially web as a service. Was it pretty quickly after that where you moved to that kind of more full service transition?
Frank:
No, it was like 12 years later. But all that time helped me realize it was on the job training for agency work. Seeing what collateral people had, what designs they were using, and then the light bulb went off, oh, we should be doing that as well. Or at least I should be transitioning into creating the whole package for folks.
Russel:
As someone that obviously had their roots and got started in production, what was that like picking up a whole new service with an entirely different skill set? Did you take the time to learn it yourself in terms of actual execution or did you find the right people to hire? What did that look like?
Frank:
I think intuitively I knew a lot of things that needed to happen. Also, having that art and design background established a foundation of knowing certain things about font usage, color, continuity, back to that. And I hired people that knew how to do specific things. I’m more or less an art director now and come up with the foundation of what the campaign or project should be. Then I have my team execute. It could be web design. It could be motion graphics, creating a sales funnel for a client. We have different individuals for different aspects of work and copywriting. Everybody out there that’s listening, copywriting I think is the unsung hero and it’s the foundation of everything that we do.
Russel:
I definitely remember the early years, we started our business in the mid 2000s and copywriting at that time was client, give us copy. But we started to learn, to your point, the unsung hero, and especially as the evolution of Google and how much it seemed to care about copy and cream rising to the top. The unsung hero, that’s a good way to put it.
Frank:
We still run into what you ran into because you have to charge for it and sometimes people don’t understand. But once they get some brand messaging back and some copywriting and see the headlines compliment the image and everything else, it sinks in.
Russel:
Compare their writing to good writing. As I understand it, do you run it as two separate businesses today in terms of the agency and your production side? How do you keep both elements that have similarities, but also a lot of differences running?
Frank:
There’s a lot of similarities, but we have two properties on the web. One for production and then one for design. I didn’t want to come across on the web as we do A to Z, but we do. I thought it better to separate those businesses so that each one had their own presence and identity. One is Mighty Fine Production Company, and then the other is Mighty Fine.
Russel:
I think this was the thing you had mentioned before, but a big motivation in the business is to have flexibility and freedom. I think how you put it is, so you can do what you want on the weekend. Do you feel like you’re at that point and how long into the business did it take you to actually get there?
Frank:
Right from the beginning. We do what we do so that we can do whatever we want when we have our time off. That’s important to me because I know a lot of agencies grind it out. I think being flexible with myself and also the people that work for me to create an environment where sometimes we’ll take off half a Friday. I can’t remember the last weekend they worked, I sometimes will work the weekend because I want to. I tell people, we, not love, but we like what we do, right? It’s gratifying. However, I like what I do after work better.
Russel:
What was the key to that? To your point, you said a lot of agencies grind it out. Was it being picky with the right clients? Was it the price point you’re charging? Was it more about the lifestyle you had at home that didn’t require a lot of means, I guess you say, or revenue on that side? What do you think your secrets to success were to not having to grind it out, as you said?
Frank:
I think it’s a little bit of all of that. First and foremost, making sure that I never lost track of that and making sure that’s paramount in what we do. Price point also has a part in it so that we’re compensated for the level of work we do, and we do it at a very high level. I keep expenses down on the private side so that I’m not having to hustle to have four cars and a house in the nicest district here. Again, it’s work to do outside of what we do outside of work, but also to have some money to travel, hobbies, that sort of thing. There’s a couple of agencies that I respect around here, and one that I had co-produced with on a number of projects when I wasn’t doing my own agency, great people. But sometimes, they would say, oh, yeah, we’re working 60, 70 hours a week. I don’t think many people can effectively sit in front of a computer or a piece of paper, and sketchpad for that long a time. It seems like an ineffective, outdated model.
Russel:
I can imagine too, in some of the tougher upbringing you had, that you learned a lot of valuable lessons. It sounds like you were able to carry forward in terms of being mindful of costs and means and all that. Do you look back on that as, that was a generally good learning experience or, man, I wish I would’ve had a little easier road for myself?
Frank:
That’s a good question because I think that because I started working so early that, in the second part of my life, I’m like, I need to get some of that time back. That was insightful for me when I thought about it and, in those terms. I need to get some of that time back and I am.
Russel:
Kudos to you for that. On a similar notion, not quite the exact same, but I actually started a family younger than most and I tend to look at it the same way. It was very formative. It got me mature faster and I did a lot of things probably earlier than other folks did. But I’m a lot more conscious to say, I want some of that time back.
Frank:
That’s fascinating because if you had a family early on. In my twenties, I slacked off. Music festivals, lived in New Orleans for a couple of years. I think it was valuable for me to go to school, slack off a little bit, always work, so I don’t mean to say that I was bouncing around because I always work. I think in your situation, mine and a lot of others want to get some of that time back and I don’t want to be the person that’s, I’m going to do it when I’m retired. I want to do it while I’m excited.
Russel:
Recently went on a friend’s trip and we were trying to debate on taking off a little bit early in the workday. I told people, I said, you guys can work when you’re dead. It didn’t quite get us off on the road earlier. Talk about, where is the business at today and where do you want to take it down in the future?
Frank:
The business is in a good place and it does take a lot of time to have everything germinate and get to a point where you’re more confident about what you do. And also, with this or anything else, it’s a continual learning process. But we’re in a good place where we have an excellent team that’s insightful when it comes to branding, advertising, design. In the future, I would like to scale a little bit more but also keeping in mind to keep it more of a boutique, smaller, not so grinded out place.
Russel:
Scale with freedom and flexibility.
Frank:
Okay. Yeah, I like that. Another medium that I truly enjoy doing from the early days is motion graphics. That is on our agency website as well as production cause I think it’s a effective medium and it’s easy for the end user. You can take a complex message, distill it down in a minute and a half, and anybody from 8 to 80 will understand it, especially when you have a team working on it. That is applicable to about everything. I would say that motion graphics could be a metaphor, like starting off great script, then mood, storyboard, production, adding music and then polishing everything up.
Russel:
It is the way that’s moving a little bit. I’ve heard the notion, we were propping up content copy so much earlier, but we also know that people are reading less and less, especially when it comes to digital formats. I think that is, it started that trend that way and we’ll only become all the more reticent when we talk about, how can you tell a story with a quick animation or visually than so much with a written word?
Frank:
Indeed. I find that content, I still think is important. I have copywriter, but I also have team members write about things that they know so that we can put that on the blog, so that it comes across in our own voice, but also some of them augmented with a video. You could do the cliff notes, or you could read the whole thing. I think those two, they’re both still very powerful.
Russel:
One of the things I found interesting too, in our previous conversation was where you actually live. That was a little piece of Florida history I had no clue about. For all our non-native Floridians out there, talk to us a little bit about the amazing place you actually live in.
Frank:
It is amazing. It’s called Ybor City and it’s in Tampa. It’s close to the downtown area and off Tampa Bay. In the early 19th century, it was the world’s largest manufacturer of cigars and distribution. In our area, we live in the South, but Ybor City was populated by Cuban, Afro Cuban, Afro, and Sicilian, so English wasn’t spoken here when they were making cigars. In Ybor City, you’ll see the architecture represents what it was 120 years ago, but we also have here reminders of that population because there’re social clubs. There’s the Italian club, the Cuban club, and these were clubs where everybody went to within their group. The fascinating aspect of that is that they have entertainment there, but they would also have socialized medicine in each one of those so that they could take care of the people from where they came.
Russel:
Wow. Very interesting. Look at this, we’re talking agency growth and success while also getting a good history lesson. Thank you for sharing that.
Frank:
And now it’s an entertainment district. Also, I’ll speak to the place a little more in that, I could have chosen to be anywhere, but Ybor City nurtures that creative spirit because we are surrounded by history. Rather than being on Highway 1 in a strip mall, which I think would suck the life out of me, this environment, when I walk to lunch or take walks, the aesthetics help play a part in my lifestyle.
Russel:
Does it still have a very historic kind of feel? More so than some of the other, more urban environments have been modernized?
Frank:
There’s only one place like it in Florida and that’s St. Augustine, which St. Augustine, I believe, is the oldest city in America. It’s still historic. When you come to Ybor City, it would be like going to Philadelphia. I forget what road that is where all those historical structures are. I also have my team sometimes participate in making things that I’m interested in. We’ve created a mountain biking website for Florida as a thing to do because I love mountain biking. Been to Canada, all over the U.S. doing it. The design for most mountain bike websites, they lack user experience and we also did a website called Bay Squeeze, which kind of celebrates this area and other areas through people’s stories because there’s a lot of people that aren’t necessarily in the limelight, but their story is just fascinating.
Russel:
Very cool. All right. Love to ask a bunch more questions, would love to understand the history of Ybor City more, but as we start to wrap up, I ask the standard question, are entrepreneurs born or are they made?
Frank:
I’ll speak to for myself, made. Definitely made, and it was made through my environment. I never went to school thinking that I’d be an entrepreneur. I saw my dad try it so many times and he failed. I think, through curiosity, wanting to know different things but also being nudged by toxic culture. I was made by that.
Russel:
Thank you so much for sharing all that. If people want to know more about Mighty Fine, where can they go?
Frank:
If people want to learn more about the services that we provide and the excellent attention that we give to clients, they can go to mightyfineadagency.com. I think user experience is a strong motivator. Whether It’s going on somebody’s website or going into a restaurant and looking at a menu with tiny font or any user experience. There’s some places that lack or don’t have that, and that’s a big motivator for me is to making sure that user experience is there with whatever we create because design ultimately is fixing a problem, and a lot of cases advertising is too.
Russel:
Thank you so much for being on the show today, Frank, and sharing all the ins and outs of your story, from how you got started to where you’re at today. What an awesome story of resilience. Thank you so much for your time.
Frank:
I appreciate it, it’s been an enjoyable experience.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. Are you interested in being a guest on the show? Send an email to podcast@performancefaction.com. An Agency Story is brought to you by Performance Faction. Performance Faction offers services to help agency owners grow their business to 5 million dollars and more in revenue. To learn more, visit performancefaction.com.
Frank:
When I was in production, we were doing a spot here locally with Gary Sinise and it was stressful because we were having some audio problems, nothing catastrophic, but he looked at us and he said, have you guys ever done this before? Do you guys need help? And we’re like, no, we need five minutes. My friend took a picture of me and I think my face said it all. It was like a deer in a headlight. We got it done and Captain Dan was happy. It was pretty stressful, but very funny after the fact.
Russel:
Okay. Real talk here, how was it working with Gary Sinise? Was it a good experience?
Frank:
It was a great experience. He’s a nice guy on TV and we were doing something for one of his charities with him, filming a couple spots. He was being Captain Dan there. I think he may have worked with other folks that may not have. I don’t know because sometimes you work in local markets and you don’t know quite what you’re getting. The technical glitch that was taking us about five minutes but yeah, it was great. He took pictures with us, with the crew and at the end of the day everybody was happy.
Russel:
Sometimes, I’ve got to start doing this now, right? I’m getting up there in age. For the young folks that are listening, if they don’t know who Gary Sinise is, if they don’t know who Lieutenant Dan is, he’s a quite a memorable character from Forrest Gump, which is a classic movie.
Frank:
That is correct.
