Darsh Thanki Refuses To Wait For Opportunities

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Darsh began his career in tech at a young age, which lead him to found WebMotion Studios, an agency that focuses on building professional responsive websites, creating lead-generating Adwords campaigns, designing engaging graphic designs for clients. Darsh is also is the co-founder of RafikiMedia.

City where you’re from: Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Hobbies: My work is my hobby (a quite dangerous hobby if I might add), other then that, long drives, reading business books, and photography.

Favorite quote:

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it”. – Steve Jobs

Twitter username: @darshtha

Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur?

Well for me, I started quite early. The reason I became an entrepreneur was because I noticed there was a lack of opportunities for me when I was young where I could do something meaningful other than follow the herd. Of course at the age I began my entrepreneurial journey, most people are focusing on school and sports. I focused on school but I also focused more on building flash games and developing my website. Essentially, I wanted to create opportunities for myself and others rather than wait for them to come my way.

Who were your biggest influences? Was there a defining moment in your life?

My biggest influences were my parents and Steve Jobs (I know, it’s quite generic). My parents worked and continue to work extremely hard for my future. When they first immigrated to Canada, they worked long hours and odd jobs to get to where they are now. They didn’t shy away from the challenges they faced. I can’t even imagine how hard that must have been but it’s taught me dedication and perseverance. Steve Jobs was the next influence for me, not only because I’m constantly surrounded by Apple products but because I truly believe he was one of the greatest marketers in the world and integral to Apple’s success. I remember watching a video about him talking to the marketing department at Apple. He spoke to the department about how specifications don’t sell, feelings do. That resonated with me. I started adapting that strategy to my business by building relationships with clients rather than selling them on specifications.

The defining moment in my life was the day I got my first cheque. Not for the money but because It was the day I realized that I (as a 14 year-old) could do more and help businesses establish their brands.

Now

What are you working on? How did you come up with this idea?

Well, I’m working on a few different things right now. I’m most actively working on my web design business, WebMotion Studios, as well as a social media/brand management agency called RafikiMedia with my good friend and fellow entrepreneur Manu Goswami.

With WebMotion Studios, it was completely unintentional. I had developed quite a few skills related to web design by building a website to display the flash games my friends and I had made. Eventually, a family friend got in touch with me to develop a website for their personal business.

RafikiMedia was another story, I was working with Manu Goswami on Canada Thinks (as VP of Marketing), and one day we ended up talking about a new idea to build a social-first digital agency because we had worked pretty well together. We worked on a few projects and got quite a few clients. Now we’re here! We faced quite a few challenges managing client projects so Manu and I decided that we’d devote some capital towards R&D to build products for freelancers and other agencies to use. So we’re working on some exciting projects on that end.

How is your product/service different and unique? What has been your favorite moment with it? What’s the vision?

With both agencies, we’re unique because we’re young. We’re Gen Z and millennials. This gives us an advantage in marketing because we’re actively a part of the groups that businesses want to target for the next few decades. For both, WebMotion Studios and RafikiMedia, many of our clients employ us because of the fact that we’re young and know how to target our age group.

My favourite moment has been with RafikiMedia. We had built a campaign for Debate Camp (which now operates in both Canada and the US) along with a brand new logo. With the use of our campaign, Debate Camp gained a significantly higher registration base compared to previous years. Additionally, the logo I had made for them was displayed everywhere. They used it on their van (which they drove across the country), t-shirts, pens, and print ads. It felt great to be able to see great results, not only analytically, but physically as well.

The vision for RafikiMedia is to be an established digital agency that has a suite of SaaS for other marketers to use as well as a notable client base. WebMotion on the other hand, my vision is to have a seat at the table with the big players in the ad agency world. In many ways, it’s alongside RafikiMedia but I’m more fluid with WebMotion Studios. It’s meant to be a full service agency specialising in all things related to digital marketing. I want WebMotion Studios to have built innovative websites and campaigns for some of the biggest brands in the world.

If you do Facebook ads, what types of creatives/campaigns do you use (we like specifics)? If you don’t, what untapped marketing channels do you take advantage of?

I personally like to use creatives that generate conversation. I find that infographics or profiles are a great way to do this. However, it’s not enough to just post it. If the audience takes the time to engage with you, you have to take the time to engage back. Respond to their comments, engage them in further discussion and build constructive relationships with them.

Did you experience failure along the way? What did you learn from it?

Yes, I’ve experienced some failure along the way. I take every unreached attainable goal as a failure. Maybe that means I’m harsh on myself but I hold myself to a standard of my future self. It’s taught me to be self-reflective and simply focused. There’s also been project failures that I’ve been unable to complete. Except from those failures, I’ve learned a lot about time management and customer service.

Value-add questions

Give the readers the best entrepreneurship advice you have.

Firstly, being an entrepreneur is all about learning, whether it’s from your adversity, mistakes, or successes. If you’re stuck in an unfavourable situation, make the best of it. Adversity can be your greatest strength or your greatest weakness. You’ll always hear people complaining about the situation they are in instead of spending that energy on getting themselves out of the situation. To me, an entrepreneur is someone who recognizes unfavourable situation or outcome and tackles the problem. Not someone who complains about the problem and waits for someone else to fix it.

My second piece of advice is to be humble and respectable. I engage in this everyday even with my businesses, it’s important for me to have the trust and respect of my clients to be able to provide them with value. I’ve been quite blessed to have clients who trust my abilities and respect my work. However, there have been instances where I’ve rejected or dropped out of a project because no matter what results I had provided, the client couldn’t trust my efforts. If you’re generally a trustworthy entrepreneur and have the respect of individuals and businesses, you have already torn down many barriers to your success. I say this because being trustworthy and respectable is essential to finding people who are willing to help you in your journey.

Teach us something about {internet marketing, social media ads, fundraising, sales funnels or another topic} Can you recommend any favorite websites to learn that topic?

With designing for digital mediums, it’s easy to outdate yourself. It’s important to keep up with the latest design trends to make sure your websites or apps are relevant. Design trends keep changing all the time so subscribing to a lot of design blogs and seeing a lot of design inspiration are key to keeping with the trends. As a designer, it’s incredibly important to keep iterating my designs to keep them fresh and to ensure they provide for the best user experiences. A great place to keep up with these design trends is Dribbble which is a show and tell platform for designers around the world.

While working on your project, have you come across any interesting bit of knowledge that you’d like to share? (i.e. any new research finding, any new platforms, some novel management technique, etc)

While working on both, WebMotion Studios and RafikiMedia, I’ve learned the concept of under promise, over deliver. Now this definitely DOES NOT MEAN underwhelmingly under promise (that’ll never help you get the client in the first place). But I’ve learned that it’s a great way to keep clients happy. There is a fine line with this technique though. You’ve got to be careful not to promise too much but you also don’t want to over deliver to the point where you’re not respecting your own work. This is however, what I use in WebMotion Studios to go above and beyond for our clients and deliver them incredible work.

What daily habits do you have that allow you to perform at your peak?

Reading articles. I like to spend time on Mashable and other platforms. Specifically design related ones that have design inspiration and business. This keeps me up to date on new developments and keeps my eye for design on point. Some days, when I get the chance, I like to sit down with my computer and open up Illustrator and play around with some designs as well. My last daily habit is to sit down for a while and have zero tech around me. With my business and school, I’m always on my phone or my laptop so not having it around for a few minutes lets me reconnect with myself.

What should an entrepreneur focus on?

I think an entrepreneur must always focus on personal development. I say this because I believe entrepreneurs are leaders and as a good leader, you should know what you are, who you are, and constantly work on being better than who you were yesterday. There’s this concept about the Johari Window which is this concept that maps your self awareness and self disclosure. This window shifts based what you know about yourself, what you share with others, what they know about you (but you don’t), and what you and others don’t know about yourself. For the past few years, I’ve taken this concept to heart because when I initially did a personal reflection using this model, I found that I had a HUGE blind spot. There was a lot of stuff that others knew about me but I didn’t. This was startling because it meant there was a lot that could be used to manipulate my actions. Now, the one way to decrease this blind spot is by working on personal development. So I’ve done a lot of personal development and reflection and I feel a lot better for it!

Walk us step-by-step through the process that you had to go through to get from the early stages to where you are today.

The first step was to ideate. I had all these skills and I had no clue what to do with them. So I sat down, wrote down what I knew how to do, and then figured out what I could sell as a service. That’s when I created the framework for WebMotion Studios. From there, it was going out, making myself known as someone with these skills. This included doing things like sharing on my projects on social media, showing off the website I had made for my flash games. Eventually, I got a family friend as my first client which turned into a few referrals. However, I still had no clue how to handle clients and keep them happy. Obviously customer service was important but I wasn’t sure exactly how it worked in the industry I had just jumped into. Now the next step was quite hard for me because, at the time, I was still an introvert. I did a quick Google search for medium-sized agencies in Calgary with decent-sized portfolios and I picked up the phone and gave them a call. I was extremely surprised to see how supportive all of them had been but they gave some great advice on working with clients. One of the larger ones even connected me with the founder who gave me a roadmap to how he had gotten to where he was. After learning all this valuable information, I went straight to work and implemented it with my existing clients. I set up a client relationship management application to keep track of all the work I was doing. I also redesigned my website to make it more appealing (in hindsight, it was still awful). One of the biggest pieces of advice I got from the agencies was to make sure I put my logo on every website I created. They said that although many people never notice this mark, there will be at least one person who becomes a client because of it. So I did, and a few months later I found probably one of my best clients to date. After this, I kept getting referrals from my previous clients and the business has simply grown from there.

What are some of your favorite books?

• Momentum – Shama Hyder
• Zero to One – Peter Thiel
• Let the Elephants Run – David Usher

Where do you see yourself and your product in a couple years?

I see myself fulfilling the vision I previously mentioned. I’m not as hung up on materialism as I am on happiness. In the next couple of years, I’d like to happily be at the help when WebMotion Studios and RafikiMedia become successful and for them to have a seat at the table with all the larger agencies. I also see myself helping other entrepreneurs and youth capitalize on their value in the future in the form of possibly speaking at events or mentorship.

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