CEOs You Should Know- NOBLE STUDIOS

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
So I grew up in the smalltown Carson City of Nevada. It's the
state capital of Nevada, and youknow, was young, sort of entrepreneurial
kid, and you know, Ijust found myself really attracted to the idea
of sales and sort of serving humans, if you will, and pleasing people.
And then I went to school inUNLV graduated high school at the age

(00:22):
of sixteen, so a bit ofan overachiever, and I would set to
actually be one of the youngest architectsin America. But then then, of
course you stumble into this world ofentrepreneurship and that became the path for the
next twenty years. So Jared,our listing audience does are I'm a big
sports guy. So you and LVare very famous for the running rebels and
Jerry Tarcini, and I'm sure youknow all about the history. But that

(00:44):
school for a while had a greatbasketball program, man, I know,
trusting and I was there during thattime, so it was great we got
to see it. And us thatare those with the alumni, we all
kind of talk about it whenever weget back into Vegas. We're like,
all right, let's let's go toa game. It's not the same.
It's not the same, but yeah, a lot of great memories there.
So you're we're kind of an unusualspot here. I talked to a lot

(01:06):
of CEOs, entrepreneurs and self startersthat have some amazing companies that they come
up with, but they did alot of things before that. You,
on the other hand, right outof school, came up with the idea
with your wife about Noble Studios.And I'd like to ask you first before
we get into mission statement and allthe things that you do about that idea.
The epiphany of coming up with this. You know, you're still a
young man. You obviously have athought about what you want to do.

(01:29):
Tell us how this all started up. Yeah, So, so I was
working at Paul Steeman Design Group,it was an architecture firm as an intern.
Then then graduated and in that firstyear I started to kind of rise
in the ranks, you know,over there. And one of the things
I was exposed to at this architecturefirm was this concept of user centric design.
But it's effectively if you think ofDisney, it's all about you know,

(01:51):
kind of you know, really havinga brand touch point across the entire
sort of buyer and experience journey thatyou can have. Meanwhile, my wife
now at the time, I'm girlfriendSeason. She was working for on Our
Partners, which was a large PRagency, and she was working on the
brand and the tagline of what Happensin Vegas Stays in Vegas. So here
we have a designer me and wehave a copywriter Season, and we just

(02:14):
decided we're like, you know what, we really enjoy this concept of you
know, sort of digital architecture andbuilding the Internet, and with us both
being world travelers. I used tolive in Italy for a year. She
lived in Chile for a year.We just had this concept that if we
can help twenty years ago at thetime, if we can help build the
internet, we could effectively flatten theworld and connect humans from one continent to

(02:37):
another. And at the end ofthe day, humans are effectively all the
same, right. We all wantto you know, be around family and
friends who want to eat good food. We want to dance and listen to
music and this, that and theother show. I guess it was like
an arturistic, you know, sortof view as to like, how can
we actually bring the world a littlecloser together and we decided, well,
let's start a company, h NobleStudios, and really the rest has been

(02:58):
history. We're growing really strong.We've got sixty five employees, we've got
you know, three offices, oneinternational office, and they've worked with the
Fortune fifties, one hundreds and fivehundreds, and and yeah, we're we're
having a lot of fun. Anda lot of people can't see that when
you work with your spouse. Butwe're still having a hell of a lot
of fun. Well great, Iwant to talk about that later because you
have that interesting dynamic. You havestarted a company work with your wife,

(03:19):
so that really is a cool thing. And I want to know how you
do that with our listeners, andjust to ben, we'll explain that.
But why don't we talk about NobleStudios in the mission statement? Let's start
with that first. Yeah, Soour mission really, I mean, we're
a creative digital performance you know agency, So so we have effectively bring brands
to life and we connect you know, humans to humans and and but our
mission, our mission is that inten years, right, three hundred and

(03:44):
sixty five, three six hundred andfifty days of being better than yesterday,
fueled by our passion for creating meaningfulconnections. Noble Studios wants to be known
as the agency that's creating valuable,personally relevant experiences through our services as creative
digital and formats and so so that'sthat's kind of how we're leaning into the
world. It's it's it's we've createda servant leadership model where we all believe

(04:08):
in the vision emission and you know, we carry it through and then that
permeates into down into every single oneof our touch points and clients and partners
and and and stakeholders and whatnot.Jared, there's going to be a lot
of our listens are going to beintroduced to your company for the first of
our time. So with that said, if you already have that thirty thousand
foot of view about what you do, what would you tell people? Yeah,

(04:30):
I would say that we effectively,you know, put the brands of
our companies in the hands of theirtheir customers and we create loyalty between the
two of them. And so thatcould be in the form of you know,
web development, and there's a greatexperience of you know, you're on
a website. It could be inthe form of campaign ad development. So
you're you're you're absorbing these these adsand you're but the relevant to you,

(04:51):
right. I think that's the realmost distinctive point, is that you're not
getting ads or you're not getting youknow, served information that's not relevant.
We use say signals, you know, first party data signals that that really
aligns what the customer's interests are andwhat the what the actual clients and what
they provide for them. So I'mcurious, after being together in this company

(05:13):
for a couple of decades, weknow that, and i know you started
on the one laptop. I lovethe explanation about the story too, which
I think is very cool. Butnow we're in a world of tech that
is moving so fast and now AIis here, our phones, there's a
new phone every year. Now,it's just moving very quickly. I imagine
that when you started this company youthought it was going to be something.
It's obviously grown into something sustainable andhuge. But I'm I'm wondering, just

(05:38):
as an entrepreneur and running a company, how you and your wife and your
and your team stay ahead of thecurve with technology, especially for what you
do. Yeah, you also,we've always viewed ourselves as you know,
sort of lifelong learners, and sothe fact that we're in this industry sort
of satiates that that need. Butone, you know, our tagline for

(05:58):
our company is let's be better everyday, and it's an internal and external
invitation to effectively stay curious and constantlylearn. And so so that has been
sort of, if you will,our waypoint or our beacon that's guided us
through every sort of evolution. Andevery year we would joke jokingly, we
would say that we operate on athirty percent learning curve. And I will
say that that nothing has tested thatmore to your point earlier about AI than

(06:21):
this last you know, twelve fourteenmonths in adopting you know, AI and
machine learning. I'm glad you broughtup one of your mantras because it caught
my attention. I'm a firm believerand as a leader and what I do
for my business in radio and televisionsports, I always talk to my staff
about being better, having a bettershow the next day, not always possible,
but at least the effort. Sowith your staff and your team,

(06:44):
that's a great mantra to have.But you know, when you talk to
talk, you got to walk thewalk. How does that trickle down to
the rest of your staff to makesure that they indeed do try and get
better every day. Yeah, wejoke often too, we say that our
mantras are cursed because you know,you're constantly like, you know, content
but never fully satisfyed that Hey,tomorrow we can wake up and we can
bring our whole selves to work andwe can do something better than we did

(07:08):
the day before. And I thinkthat that infectious sort of you know,
life learner, always pushing the normis the type of people that we attract.
So when when when we're doing theinterview in the hiring stage, we're
very transparent that like, look,we value good work, and we pat
ourselves in the back and we giverecognition. But the reality is is we
know that if we did that samething over the next day, we could

(07:30):
probably do it just a little bitbetter. And that I think that actually
keeps people very engaged at Noble asopposed to like, well I'm just gonna,
you know, set it and forgetit. The kinds of clients that
we attract, we they bond withus on that same mantra, let's be
better every day. And so,like I said earlier, it's an invitation
for them to really say, youknow, I'm very satisfied and content with
the goals and objectives and KPIs thatwe've set, but can we can we

(07:53):
do something different to even push thosea little further? And so we really
subscribe to that growth mindset. Well, Jared bringing up your clients as an
excellent segue to my next question.I don't want to assume that anybody around
the world does exactly what you andyour team do. But what that said,
when you're pitching yourself to a clientor somebody's looking to work with Noble
Studios, how do you differentiate yourselffrom that competition? You know, at

(08:15):
the end of the day, peoplefollow people they you know you and and
so I feel like we lead withpeople, right, so we have some
of the best culture. We actuallyjust recognized for at Age Best places to
Work. We also were recognized forinc best in uh you know, best
in Advertisement just last year. AndI think that that type of mindset of

(08:37):
going in and saying, look,we're leading with the best humans you can
possibly have working on you know,a subscribing to that mantra that really attracts
people because because you know, youcan have one company that does the same
thing, does the same thing,they priced the same and everything else.
But at the end of the day, it's going to be that chemistry and
where you whether whether you can youknow fare the you know you can you

(08:58):
can weather the storm if you willis what gets you through those those hard
times. And I think clients arepretty savvy nowadays that they know that if
you've proven all the you check allthe other boxes, at the end of
the day, they want to dobusiness with people. And so I think
we really lead strong with our corevalues, our principles always being noble,
you know, And so yeah,I think that that's one of the biggest
things that people come to us for. So, Jared, you had mentioned

(09:22):
season a couple of times. Idid two about you working with your wife,
co founder of the company, twentyyears with the company and now married.
With all that said, I've toldI've talked to other people about my
kind of story with my wife inmy industry, yes, and it can
get very comedic when you work witha significant other in the workplace. You
two are running a company and adamn good one too. And it's been
fantastic sustainable now growing can you justshare with our listeners a little bit.

(09:46):
I know that I understand that everymarriage and its own perspective is what it
is. So yeah, this questionsexclusive to you about running a company with
you with your wife, what's thedynamic, Like, yeah, yeah,
I'm glad you it's It's something thatI'm quite passionate about. I think,
you know, there's some statistics outthere that say some of the most successful
companies in the world are family ownedand operated, and some of the most

(10:09):
unsuccessful companies in the world our familyowned and operated, and it's there's pretty
much there's nothing in between, andso I think I think it comes down
to mutual respect and compromise. Youknow, I'm a very you know,
extrovert, so of course being aCEO visionary for the company sort of that
tip of the spear. I'm alwaysfocused on sales marketing, and what naturally

(10:30):
someone would do is overvalue that becausethey say, well, sales is most
important. We don't bring sales in. None of the operational things are necessary.
But if you bring sales in andthe operations side of the business you
know, isn't isn't functionally correctly,then then you know that is just as
big of a problem. And soI think what what we've learned over the
years is really defined that we're inalignment on the same vision and mission of
the company, and we own ourareas of expertise, and there's a lot

(10:54):
of respect that happens for each sideof that, and that takes time.
That takes time to really kind ofbreak down and recognize that what we bring
each independently to the company is justas valuable even if one comes first or
one comes second. So I thinkthat that I think that would be the
only advice I would give is likebelieve if you're going to start a business
with any type of family member orspouse or significant other partner or whatnot,

(11:16):
is really define the value that eachperson brings and really respect that value that
they that they bring to the table. Thanks for sharing that great story.
You know. Another thing that weshare with our listeners when it comes to
running companies that it's not always unicornsand rainbows all the time, even if
you are doing well with all thatsaid for you, your wife, and
your team, what kind of challengesare presenting the industry right now is specific

(11:37):
to what Noble Studios is dealing with. Yeah, I think you know,
you mentioned AI earlier. That's oneof the biggest challenges that we have on
our doorstep. And I will saythough that this is to me. I
view it as a tool. Iview it as a way of working.
We've always been hit with that.When we first started the company, there
was no iPhones, right, therewas no Yeah, I mean, there
was no social media like Instagram oranything like that. And so we've really

(12:01):
embraced, you know, adopting AI. We created a point of view,
We brought in our legal team,you know, we created an AI task
force, we hired AI interns,We did a prompt ethon instead of a
hackathon for those that are listening thatare old enough to understand what that is.
And so we just really leaned intoit, and we're sharing with our
client all the discovery and the workwe're doing. And then now to get
really deep into it, we're actuallycreating our own GPT for Noble Studios so

(12:22):
we could effectively write thought leadership andit comes out in our brand tone,
messaging and whatnot, and this willbe stuff that we start to extend out
to our to our clients themselves.Well, that's very exciting and speaking of
the future, let's talk about thatbecause I know people like you are always
looking head to the future, nextfive ten year plans. With all that
said, I know you're proud ofso much that you've done right now in
the past two decades, but canyou share with us a little bit about

(12:45):
what may be coming up in thefuture for Noble Studios. Yeah, and
we're in growth mode, you know, so we're looking to actually make some
acquisitions ourselves. We have a reallyhealthy company, as you mentioned earlier,
we have no debt, so we'rethe we have a healthy brand right We're
we're really positively impacting every sort ofstakeholder that we had come across to So
for us, we ultimately want tocontinue to maximize that impact that we can

(13:09):
make with whether it's a team memberthat wants to work for us, whether
it's a net new client or anew partner that we want to partner with,
or it's a new stakeholder that we'venever even met. But that's our
intent is we want to really growand we're going to continue to lean on
leveraging the tools and stuff that existsout there, but always making sure that
we stay true to our mission andvision, which is really about providing those
personally relevant experiences for the end user. Very good, Jared, If I

(13:33):
could just for a moment put apin in work and ask you a little
bit about philanthropic and charity work,whether it's with the company or person with
you and your wife, what doyou like to be involved in? Yeah,
so, actually season ten years ago, my wife she created the note
we call the Noble Deeds, andit's our philanthropic program where we extend our
services into the community and we workwith effectively nonprofits. And if you think

(13:54):
about nonprofits, they struggle worth reallytelling their story. They don't have you
know, they're always thrown together withvolunteers and or volunteer donation money, and
so typically marketing, you know,whether it's brand strategy, or it's getting
their message out or even having theright types of marketing tools and assets,
they're just lackluster. And so wethought, okay, ten years ago when
she said, you know what,instead of us getting together and going and

(14:16):
maybe building trails and or you know, donating our time to like a food
bank, we thought, what ifwe could take our best, you know,
our best versions of ourselves and thethings that we're considered subject matter experts
on and apply that as a donationand we just celebrate our tenure. We
brought it international, so now it'sin the UK, and it really is

(14:37):
something that differentiates us from our ourcompetitors, and it also attracts clients and
team members, and it also retainsthe team members because it's an entirely team
member ran committee. But that's that'sone of the best things we could have
ever done, was was create ourown philanthropic program and donating our services to
the community. Well, I reallyappreciate you sharing that. I tell your
passionate about that, not only forwhat you do, but for that specifically,

(15:00):
and it sounds like you're very proudof it too. That's very cool.
Yeah, it feels good and youthink of that. It was inspired
by the Patagonia give Back one percentand so that's we effectively give about two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars a yearinto the community into these you know,
nonprofits. And at the end ofthe day, you know, whether Noble
Studios is around hundreds of years andyou want to have a bit of a
legacy. And I think that whywe're pretty proud of this is that We've

(15:22):
impacted the lives of so many others. We've literally the work we've done for
certain companies have actually saved lives,and not often can you say that in
the work that you do. Sowe did talk about a few of the
challenges for you your team in theindustry. I also like to talk about
a great story, and I imagineyou have handfuls over the last two decades
that you worked with quiet clients.But Jared, is there something that sticks

(15:43):
out? And you don't have tomention the client if you don't want to,
but maybe just an instance where youknow, you got up that day
and you had a problem and yousolved it for the client, and you
know you said to you, yourwife and your team, you know what,
we knocked that one out of thepark. We did good today.
Is there one that sticks out toyou? Yeah. Over the years,
because we started twenty years ago andour proximity to the Bay Area, we

(16:03):
got exposed to just so many amazingbrands that were launching and and we worked
with like Beats by Doctor Dre forinstance. We worked with you know,
Adobe, and one of them though, that that really does come to mind
is Pokemon Go. You know,This was one of the first sort of
ar you know, you know,platforms to mobile phones got kids out of
the house. They you know,they started you know, going into the

(16:26):
streets and you know, playing,and so it's hit so much. You
know, of the tension that wasexisting is the more we adopted technology and
us building technology, the more peopleeffectively stayed in house. And and so
I remember we were on a familyroad trip and we were driving in Utah
and there was a sign on thebillboard on the highway that says, do

(16:48):
not play Pokemon Go while you're driving. And I thought, oh my gosh,
that's that's us, Like that wasup. We did all that work
and we helped them launch that intothe world. And so that was just
a really good feeling. It wasa movement that was that we were effectively
part of. And so it wasfun. First of all, that story's
fantastic. Second of all, countme in because I was a part of

(17:08):
it like every other adult on theplanet. But I'm curious, just as
a sidebar, what's it like tobe a part of something that's so viral
that connects almost the entire world forseveral months. That must have been bizarre.
It really is. You know,it's almost like we were desensitized by
it. Right when it first happened, We're like, no, I don't

(17:29):
believe that this is actually happening.And you know, we had helped build
their website, we had helped buildall their email templates, their activations,
you know, there the you know, the landing page that allowed you to
download you know, the app,and so you know, we were in,
we were part of that backbone,and and it was, Yeah,
it was very surreal to to andjust I guess you know, at the
end of the day, you werejust fortunate, right, we were fortunate,
and we just felt blessed to say, wow, we were really part

(17:52):
of a cool movement. But yeah, the biggest word I would say is
like you're almost like you could becomedesensitized quite quickly to it, because you're
like, wow, okay, youmoved from this is really exciting to oh
my gosh, what do we needto do, how can we support how
do we help you know, youmove into like action mode. So couldn't
have hurt the reputation the company tobe a part of something so big enviral
too, I imagine. Yeah,it definitely helped. Yeah, it definitely
helped for sure. Very cool.Well, listen, I want to wrap

(18:15):
up our conversation by giving the floorto you, Jared, and we like
to do this for entrepreneurs, ourCEOs and our leaders. Just about some
final thoughts about the company and sometakeaways that you want to give to our
listener today. Yeah, well,I feel like we you know, we
created this let's be better every daytagline. As I mentioned earlier, it's
an invitation right for ourselves internally andexternally. And I feel like that the

(18:37):
world that we're living in, youknow, there's no better time to you
have the most accessed information. There'sjust no better time to subscribe to a
belief of like I can wake uptomorrow and be better tomorrow and help someone
around you. And so I guessthe only thing I would leave is that,
you know, be curious, youknow, ask for advice. I
always say, if you ask foradvice, you usually get money aka opportunities.

(18:57):
Or if you ask for money,usually get advice. Uh you know,
you know, So I guess ingeneral, like, be curious,
be a good human, and tryto better yourself and those that are around
you. I love that, allright, Before we give the website own.
I know, you're also hiring thebest of the best. So when
we're looking for careers that people eitherwant to partner with you, they want
to look at working with you andyour team, or just find out a

(19:18):
little bit more about Noble Studios.How do they do that? Yeah,
and you just said it. Goto our website, Noble Studios. It's
n O, B L E,S t U d iOS dot com And
to your point, you can seewhat careers we have open on there.
If you're a client or you're lookingto you know, train transition from an
agency to another, you know,read our content, look at our case
studies, you know, and thengive us a ring. You know.

(19:40):
We're happy to have conversations. Iguess you said earlier. We're growing.
We're always wanting to, you know, again, attract new and better humans
to our company. So yeah,so that's that's how you get there,
Jared. I can't tell you howmuch I appreciate your valuable time, and
I want to leave you with onecompliment. One of the things that I
get out of this series, anda common thread with all our entrepreneurs,
especially the six scessful CEOs out there, is their passion for what they do.

(20:03):
And you and I just met twentyminutes ago, and man, you've
got passion. And I love that. And I'm sure you hear that from
your team members and you hear fromclients, and I think that's very beneficial
to being a winner in today's world, about being passionate about what you do.
So I appreciate that. I wantedto let you know that I appreciate
it. I definitely lead with passion, and I want to be around people
that are passionate as well. It'slike time is short, let's just be

(20:26):
around the right people. So,Jared, thank you so much for joining
us on CEOs. You should knowit continued success. Thank you, Thank
you. Dennis