Upsize is a magazine with a single mission: to help Minnesota's small-business owners build bigger and more profitable companies, and to connect CEOs with the people, products and ideas they need to grow.
Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/66695
Q&A Best of Upsize accountant. We're approaching the angel com- munity first, the friends and family round. Dad and I have grown this thing together with our own ideas and our own thoughts, and it's really time to add those thoughts from others. Upsize: So what's it like to work with your dad? Dahl: Oh boy, that's interesting! On a personal note, you always end the phone conversation with, Dad, I love you, where if it's an employer it would be different. You have the kind of con- versations with your dad that you can only have with family, and you're not going to get fired for it. But that also brings an enormous amount of pressure because you don't want to let your family down. You don't want to let your dad down. The business can come and go, but at the end of the day you have to be with your family. Upsize: Do you enjoy that hands-on operating role? Dahl: I do. I do. But we've gotten to the point that I still want to deliver that quality service, and we have more than 300 clients so it's at the break- ing point. It's just the two of us, although Dad's wife, Julie, helps with the accounting piece. My title is vice president. Dad's is president. Upsize: How important is it to the company that Dave Dahl is the co-founder? I imagine that would be important for attracting local inves- tors? Dahl: You hit the nail on the head. His recogni- tion is important here locally, regionally, but not so much nationally. Upsize: How similar to Digital Cyclone, created by local meteorologist Paul Douglas and sold for $45 million, is your venture? Or shouldn't I bring up the name of such a rival? Dahl: Laughs. I actually do appreciate what Paul is doing, and he's a smart guy. But we did not model on what Paul is doing. Upsize: Tell me more about what you did model on: what was going on that made you think this was a good idea, four years ago? Dahl: Four years ago is really an eternity, because the evolution of technology is mind- boggling. Four years ago it was before this big www.upsizemag.com BRE1006A7UP-4pt6875x7pt5.indd 1 If you're ready to go for the whole nine yards, count us in. There's a Bremer business banker right near you, with all the financial resources you could want. And straight-from-the-shoulder business advice to help you succeed. Talk to a Bremer banker at one of nearly 100 locations in Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin. mobile explosion. At the time my dad was hear- ing about folks turning to the Internet for weather, and being at KSTP he was hearing from the sales staff. They said they needed something effective to show the advertiser; they needed something to sell. Remember four years ago that was the buzz- word: interactivity. He was looking into marrying the revenue-generating possibilities with weather, because weather is one of the top search terms online. You bring those two together and now you have something. Upsize: So what happens to your service if every- one does go mobile? Dahl: That's part of why we're looking for capital, so we could shift our development more toward mobile. The other use of the money would be to hire salespeople. Before it was about going out and selling to media properties the weather tools. That discussion has given way to finding adver- tisers nationally, and finding investors. COUNT US IN. 1-800-908-BANK (2265) Bremer.com Member FDIC. © 2012 Bremer Financial Corporation. All rights reserved. THE GROWTH GUIDE 2012 UPSIZE ONLINE 15 12/27/11 3:19 PM