[Live Training] LAUNCH YOUR DIGITAL AGENCY 🚀

Dave Bacon of BW Bacon on Finding Web Design Talent, Freelance Wages, and High Demand Skills

Founder and CEO of Denver-based BW Bacon Group, Dave Bacon, sits down with me to discuss his technical staffing agency, growth, and recruiting talent. Dave has a unique perspective on what the top in-demand skills are, how to get the best contract wages, and what tactics agencies can use to recruit the best design and development talent.

Dave Bacon started Better With Bacon in 2001 as a way to tell your stories of hard work, perseverance and ultimately, triumph. He matches talent with companies with ideas that matter. After giving us a tour around the most progressive, creative, and sustainable 30,000 square feet Battery 621 shared work-space, we certainly felt at home. We got down to business learning what BW Bacon is all about and I tried to get as much free advice as humanly possible.

You can find more information about Dave Bacon and BW Bacon by visiting their blog and following them on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin.

Video Transcript

Brent Weaver : I’m Brent Weaver and you’re watching uGurus, the must see web series with a more profitable and in demand webprofessional. I’m here today at BW Bacon Group with their president and founder David Bacon. Welcome to the program.

David Bacon: Thanks Brent. It’s good to be here.

Brent: So David tell us a little bit about your story and what’s your background.

David: So with the background I can go all the way back to the Bay area in San Francisco, but I’ll fast forward to New York where I went to school. Every summer would drive across country going back and forth to Lake Tahoe and my last trip I stopped in Colorado, and now I call it home ever since; I’ve been here for 17 years. I started better with Bacon in 2001 as an independent. At that point I had about four or five years of technology services experience under my belt and was a practice director for an enterprise consulting firm. And so from that point forward I was an independent for about eight years selling services for other companies under the name Better With Bacon, kind of a hired gun. And then I started converting that into an agency BW Bacon Group in late 2009; which was an anxious time just because the recession and everything, but arguably the best time I think in retrospect. And so we are today and things are awesome.

Brent: So when you say agency what’s kind of the nuts and bolts of what you guys do at BW Bacon?

David: Yes so we’re staffing agency and we’re also in a way I think of us as a marketing agency for our clients because only represent our clients in terms of advocating their positions and their requirements and their opportunities and telling the world about their culture. You know we’re marketing for them and so we’re a staffing marketing agency which I think is fairly unique in that retrospect.

Brent: Any kind of staffing or a specific type of staffing?

David: Yes actually. You should probably address that more specifically. So we’re a technology and web creative staffing company. So we’re doing all day everyday front and back end developers, web designers, UI/UX, product strategist. Everything kind of from the product vision to releasing the product to the world to growing that company. So we’re primarily focused on startup of the merging companies and like the tech products space, but we also work with agencies and there’s a number of very large companies that we support too. Our forte is supportive of those startup emerging companies. Especially here in Colorado.

Brent: So were you guys make money? I mean it sounds like you’re placing talents with companies that have business models or ideas that are forming sortie as make money in that mix?

David: that’s right. So our customers are truthful. The candidates are the people, the market if you will and then there’s our clients, our customers. These are the folks that are hiring so they pay us the fees, not our candidates and our sources of revenue come from them in twofold. We either do contractor full-time placement so most of our customers especially those that we know really intimately and we work with for a long time, they’re coming to us for both levels of service. They might need ad hoc, one-off type contracts support and a staff capacity or smaller level product support, contract work and also full-time. So we’re doing some of both with most of our customers. So that’s where we get our revenue.

Brent: Got you. So you have is they have this kind of supply-side and demand-side that you’re working with.

David: Yes, both sides.

Brent: You guys are finding talents, how do you do that? I mean in the web space the agencies we work with, the freelances. People are always trying to find good talent. So were you guys find the constant supply of great talent?

David: Yeah, well it’s a great question and I can answer that question 90% because there’s 10% where we still are finding new areas that we don’t even know where to tap into yet. So as opposed to those agencies or direct clients they don’t spend all day every day finding talent, that’s what we do all day. So any time that we work with one of our clients who they’ve hired a small army to be an extension of their brand if you will are out there pounding the market. So for one thing I’m I have been doing since 97′, my team is super senior. Two of my team members are from Google, we all have strong experience in terms of working in IT creative space so we’re relishing our… Not relishing, but we’re tapping into our own markets relishing that the parlance that we have within our own networks. The community in Denver Boulder is super, super strong. So just engaging with and the community and I don’t know if there’s any certain way to say that. It’s just being a part of it, supporting it, being a part of that abundance that we’re all experiencing is I think putting in one of the best ways I can answer that question. Just being a part of that community is one of the best ways that we get people.

Brent: So if I may but-in front and designer you know? What are some of the things that I should be thinking about in terms of trying to either get more contract work, trying to find full-time work. You know what should I be thinking about right now?

David: Frontend designer.

Brent: Frontend designer.

David: Okay, cool. So for one you’re in high demand so you probably know that and if you don’t then you have to put yourself out there and if they haven’t put yourself out there that something you should do. You should probably put your portfolio together of yourself and a better look good because a portfolio represents yourself as much as a resume might, so the shore portfolio. Folks want to look at that portfolio. If you’re pure design that’s one thing, but you might think about maybe if they have some technical troths trying to expand your vernacular or acumen in that area one way or another. You know we all have to be a jack of all trades and master of none, but a lot of our customers are looking for that design developer kind of combination. So getting that portfolio together if you have some technical troths and you’ve got a base you should have your get hub or some sort of a code repository or code snippets in order along with that design. You should certainly have good references in order at your beck and call and put yourself out there. You know I mean if you want to be a freelance front-end designer developer I mean there’s such an opportunity to be autonomous and to sort of carve your own path and to create something there. That’s one of the majority of people over here I mentioned that we serve are those guys and girls and like I said their super autonomous and generally they’re very receptive to what we have open and very position of choice. So I think also you should put yourself we’re in a position of choice, not where you’re in a position of desperation or compromise. You want to be doing project see really want to sink your teeth into right? So if you can do that then it’s going to be good.

Brent: Do you find that people are looking for that kind of autonomous self-direct career path? Were people still looking for full-time work in this space? I mean not to be ambiguous, but both. I mean life is reciprocal, things happen.

David: I mean six years ago I didn’t have kids, now I have three kids. And during that time I started this agency which is a bit of a roll the dice in terms of converting it from being more of an independent to a agency. For a lot of people they’ve been contracting for a while and there might be reasons to go full- time and so we want to be aware of that and that’s a big emotional decision for them as much as it would be for someone who’s been maybe working at an agency or within a software company and they’re getting pined and maybe they’ve been called three years by me or by my team and I said no, no, no, no. And then finally for whatever reason in their life whether there more confident in their selves or because they’ve reached a certain threshold in their career or their life. Then it’s like it’s more maybe I should be doing contract, maybe I should start an escort permanency, get my website going and put it out there. You know? I’m not afraid. I mean then we’re talking about entrepreneurship and what that takes and sort of that initial origin of that inspiration to do that. So that’s a whole different subject which we can talk about.

Brent: Oh, I’d love to.

David: But you know.

Brent: For sure. I mean besides like front-end designers in the website you’ve got frontend and your really have kind of backend. Those are the two big technical disciplinarians. How does it differ on the backend developer side? I mean what is I mean obviously a get hub account or something where they can share their code, but what should somebody talented in that area be thinking about in terms of trying to find more work?

David: On the backend side, also super high in demand. Let’s see. Trying to find more work… You know like you said keeping their depository code together. You know I think that they should be considering what kind of company they want to work with. There’s a lot of really, really good startups, there’s also some that may not have legs and the question is do you even want to be in a startup environment. But a lot of times those backend resources a super critical in that product development you know where maybe the frontend can come little bit later and one in another. It really depends on the life cycle where the vision of the founders, but we’ve got a client right now where they’re really hiring those heavy-duty backend resources out of the gate and some of them are coming from places where they’re probably in a comfort zone and right now we’re pitching to them why they should get out of their comfort zone and they’re buying it. That is because of us, we’re shepherd-ing that anyway and sort of making probably a reason for them to talk to the founders but I think that they should consider what stage company they’re going into. I mean there’s lots of different back-ends you can support. I think you should kind of pick one.

Brent: Sure.

David: You know I guess. You know that happens naturally depending on how…

Brent: Kind of…

David: … Open source you are.

Brent: Expertise and kind of stick with that.

David: Yeah, yeah. You should certainly be you know a lot of our customers are looking for people that are engaged one way or another in the community. You know their sort of evangelist allow also about entrepreneurship is sort of, but there’s merit to it and you don’t have to be Joe Gregorious extroverted backend coder but a lot of our customers are looking for that engagement into things. Some are just tinkering with things where they just got their eye on new technology and languages that may or may not stick or not, but they at least are aware of them or adjusted enough to check them out and not turning the other way because it’s their way. And that can rub people wrong if they are so focus on that. I don’t know if I want to say rub people wrong, but our clients like to see folks have got a real pulse pulls on where things are going and what’s new because there’s so many new tools and languages out there.

Brent: Yeah. And staying on the contractor kind of freelance autonomous path where the obvious concerns and areas that people are looking to grow and is their hourly rates or their price? Not just the demand of am I working or not, but how are using people drive up the rates? I mean how are you guys doing with rates? I mean obviously staffing is a big part of what you’re doing.

David: Yeah, there’s so many elements to what we do and I think that… I mean you can kind of see me smirking for you folks can one way or another because like I’m really proud of that. I fight what we do there’s a certain art and a science to it at the same time it’s kind of this left brain right brain thing and it’s not easy. And when rate comes into the picture that’s one of these multiple components that goes into filling positions and whatnot whether it’s hourly rate or salary. So there are a couple of rules of thumb. I mean if you make under $150,000 a year you might look at 2000 hours and take $150,000 and take 2000 hours and that’s $75 an hour. Now if you have benefits and some other perks there my add an extra $10 or $15 an hour you might think that my equable rate is about $90 an hour if you’re converting from permanent contract, but then I might say well they don’t have a contract. You know if you’re going to take your first full reign of the world you might not market yourself as a senior level developer which is what a $90 an hour rate would be. You might compromise that a little bit to start getting a nice field of customers under your belt because that’s what you might need to do. Likewise if you going from contract to perm you might look at that same kind of a thing although then at least within my world equity is a big component and a majority of our clients are going to want folks that have some or high level of conviction for the equity. In other words they’re eyeballing that, they want to build this thing and make this thing big. So does that answer your question?

Brent: Yeah.

David: So we can go a lot of different ways for that too. It’s just market-driven stuff that’s going on.

Brent: Yeah I definitely want to talk about the equity side. I mean you guys work a lot with startups and early companies. Do you see a lot of you know when they startups go and gets developers are they handing out equity left right and center to get that talent?

David: You know not left right and center, it’s not like an explosion of equity all over and it’s landing on your mattress. But, yeah. Most of them have some components of that and it needs to be meaningful and that can mean different things. So we’re very mindful of when we’re talking about equity on behalf of our clients. That’s not sometimes the best thing for us to do other than to state that is meaningful and it’s there and if we get there we’ll have that discussion, but they expect the people were in there. And yeah, some people they may expect… You know there some degree of compromise there with what you normally could get in the market, but the market… You know look at anything from Ruby On Rails to .net to java to lamp stack resources to UI/UX to product. You know they’re all heavily in demand and so there’s an interesting thing I think that’s more of our clients kind of wrestle with trying to find people at that mid-level. They kind of what raw talent, but you know they’re looking at mid-level people and those mid-level people in the market are getting pined by other people that appeal more senior-level salaries. So they’re less apt to go into that mid- level and then if they look at more junior level people their salary expectations might be self-inflated to a degree and that’s not to undermine them in any degree, but if they can get more they should. But you should also look at the big picture. You know what I’m saying? So we wrestle sometimes lower working with those mid-range which might call intermediate level developers or something on finding someone who’s truly there is important because they could be there and they might be here taking a compromise. Does that make sense?

Brent: Yeah.

David: Yeah.

Brent: On the I guess demand side of your business we’ve got a lot of web agency owners and stuff like that that are thinking about their next hire. Do you guys ever approach companies and they just kind of come to you with a problem you guys find the right type of fit for the job? Or is it they just like somebody comes to you and say .net? Or do you guys actually going and think about projects, the company and make higher recommendations based on that?

David: Yeah. Way more the latter. Like we have got to understand what that project, that requirements, that specific deliverable is. I mean it’s super critical. Like I’m just me without the team behind me I’m an empty promise and I have to deliver to them on a certain level of expectations for what our clients want. So in that… I mean for us and I would assume this for anyone in my space as well, it’s usually important that the market knows that when my team calls we’ve got a good opportunity. I mean like you’re going to want to listen to what we’ve got because it’s got legs and it’s going to be compelling and you’re going to want to tell your spouse about this because it’s going to be worth the move. And in that we have to be able to manage those expectations to be able to advocate that role. So even if it’s a contract or its full-time gig people need to know, they don’t want to just… I’ll get a lot of I was going to say shit. I just said it. I’ll get shit if I don’t come to them with something detailed, right? If it’s like hey, we need a Ruby On Rails guy backend flavor. I mean come on, give me more and are going to push it right back to me and I’m going to push it right back to my customers. We set a requirement today. One of our clients, good clients, they’re an agency actually, and they know a little better and they’re really good, but they said Dave I need a Drupal guy. Come on. Like give me more than that. Like what is this? This is two weeks? Is this two months? What’s the deal with it? Give me a little you know… And they came back to the little JSON project, you know it’s only a short project. Okay, good. Now I know what you need.

Brent: Got you. So in terms of companies hiring, I mean, how do you guys handle the hiring process for them? I mean, are you guys facilitating the actual interview process? You just like deliver up the candidate and say this guy is good to go? Or how much do you take off of the companies? And I’m really interested about with that process looks like.

David: Yeah, yeah, yeah you know. Good, good, good. Well, you know I’ve been in this business for a long time, and as I mentioned earlier we really try to embrace the brand of our clients and we’re an extension of their brand when we’re advocating requirements in their culture, in their environments to the market. So many of our clients are building a product in an agile environment. Where I’m going with this is about two years ago I got Scrum certified and the reason for that was that I could understand its framework a little bit more. Almost every single requirement with this design or dive or product they wanted people who had at least have some exposure to agile and getting Scrum certified I realized all my gosh. Like I can basically swap in all of these different things and turn agile on its head and make it work for us in terms of our process. So some of the tenants around agile whether it’s eliminating waste or managing an iterative product cycle were trying to determine a backlog one way or another. So we talk about process for instance I think of our agile process in that respect on… And agile we have a minimum viable project. In our world our project is a person not under mind what a person is as a product, but that’s what we deliver right? So when we get a requirement that is a user story much like a piece of development functionality is and we’ll look at that user story and determine with a minimal viable product as a development team. Unmark “product manager” because or “product owner” because they represent our clients with my team. Sometimes I gave you an example a minute ago of a Drupal requirement. Pretty straightforward we got an army of Drupal people we can turn to and our minimal viable product is pretty much one person. You know what? Here’s our guy. We worked with this person, it’s what you need. With much more challenging requirements it’s harder to determine that minimal viable product. It may be that we need to submit up words depending on the process. Sometimes 10, 15 people and it doesn’t mean that the first people we submit are more qualified. They were, but for a really selective client which most of our clients are in a startup phase let huge stake in who they hire right? Would they hire is going to largely determine the course of their company and the success of their product and so they can take a number of people to get there in terms of the process.

Brent: What do you say it can take a number of people? You guys and invest that number of people…

David: Well, you know we’re the funnel right? Like we might narrow down a search to a certain number of people and in some searches we could be doing a national search and we’re looking at five people hoping to narrow that down to two and maybe one will get hired. You know we might have a local search where we might start with 100 and see who’s available because so many of these developers I mean I can rattle off 60 great Ruby On Rails developers, but how many of them are really available right now? And they’re also really psyched and a lot of them we’ve replaced. So you know bearing that down is part of what we do. So he might start up here and come down here and come down here. So most firms in our space will do this, but they’ll advocate someone to their client with their background while they are [?]. You know here’s their resume, here’s some co-snippets, here’s their get hub, here’s a little something about them. Like to know people you know I mean give me some flavor there is what most people want. You know you don’t have to be climbing Kilimanjaro or Mount Everest scaling this or that, but what are you all about? And people want to know that. I mean it cultures a big thing, but I think it’s funny because the other defining what their culture is but also they want someone who fits that culture. I mean that’s a whole different topic and it’s really fun and I’m like well I’ll tell you more about the culture and their like well you know we’re startup. Well give me something a little bit better than that. That’s really insane topic actually so you know I find that most people’s culture is best defined as kind of motley crew actually you know you’ve got the heavy metal bassist, the gardener in a way with the hoodie wearing developer. You know depends on the environment and some of them are much more professional. I think I’ve gotten totally sidetracked from the question you asked me by the way.

Brent: Really?

David: In terms of the process you can see how much there is to it right?

Brent: I’m looking for the magic bullet of a couple of sentences.

David: Well for us you know there’s no easy thing. Like for us agile really works for us and we’re only just scratching the surface, we’re trying to be more agile. And I mean within our organization for instance today is Friday and after this interview we’ll do our weekly retrospective because in agile every sprint cycle at the end master will lead a retrospective. And our sprint cycle is one week and for us it’s a really helpful tool in terms of us working together and finding out what works and what doesn’t work. You know? We could’ve done better so we might do a mad, sad, glad or a rose buckthorn for you know we did like a powder ice and… What do we do? Anyone hear me? All of the doors.

Brent: They’ve all closed their doors. They’re like done with this.

David: I should know this right? Well we try to identify the things that went really well, things that we could’ve done better or that didn’t go well and the things that we look forward to. So we look forward to the powder. The groomers we crushed them to their fine existing snow conditions and then we ran with this crud with this I Sam blah, blah, blah. And that for us hope so as to eliminate waste in terms of a process and also helps us to work together better as a team. So our processes like that. Actually I don’t think anyone does that like that as far as I’m concerned we’re the only 100% agile certified recruiting firm in the country. I have heard of anyone else and I’ve looked. So that really works for us, but this is the only piece of our process. It’s just the foundation of it. It works.

Brent: So obviously you advocate working through a recruiting firm to find talent.

David: Yep.

Brent: For those companies that are not going through the recruiting firms what are some tips and tricks you can tell them about what they should be doing with hiring? I mean what are the questions they should be asking? Are they doing code tests? I mean is that like a common thing?

David: Yeah, so I’m glad that you brought that up. So like for one like we want to complement our clients. Most of our clients are pretty networked in the community anyway and like it they hire someone that they found on their own, then that’s great. That’s also. Like there’s nothing emotional about that. I mean we’re a contingency-based recruiting firm, so in other words we only get paid if we deliver someone that you’re actually going to hire having you hire them. Otherwise there’s no fee to look at our people and so a lot of times we’re working in concert with our clients to find someone; so food for thought on that. But what clients could be doing better is to be able to answer some of those questions like what is your culture, and to be able to answer that with authority and also with humility. In retrospect that’s still being defined you know, honestly. I think that people should be really candid and straightforward about where is it that they could be better instead of sort of coming in with this pompous circumstance. I don’t see that a whole lot. I think that’s kind of old school and people realize that a lot of times it’s because of the gaps and the issues that they’re hiring in the first place right? Or it’s the gaps and the opportunities that are in the market that they’re identifying. That’s what products are a lot, they’re solutions to problems. So a lot of times people are too. So I think clients or agencies need to be keen on that. Tests are super frequent now and I love that they’re specific, like, I can’t do that for you. We’ve got these testing services that we can administer and we do use them, but a lot of times they tell much smaller part of the story than someone’s specific sort of test for it’s almost like I see a lot of tests that there’s no right answer. It’s how they think through it’s because a lot of times you can code things in different directions, we all know that. You can take different ways to get to the same endpoint and they want to see anything through that so there’s a lot of white boarding. And I see that it’s problematic sometimes if candidates have realized I’ve got one, two, three, four things that people can be doing better. You know they can talk about candidates before they show up. If they’re at someone who’s like this person is money. Like when they show up like make them feel welcomed, like make sure the whole team knows who they are so they’re not like the candidate doesn’t feel does anyone even know that I’m here or what I’m about. And then it’s like okay they sit down and like sows this? Let me see your resume. They’ve got to hit the ground running as much as the candidates do. I mean we encourage our candidates and I say this all the time, is one of my multiple MO’s, qualify our clients as much or more so than a qualify you. I’m a tennis player, don’t sit there and just return serve. Serve it up. Not only does that foster more engaging conversation, but you better come out of their knowing what’s important for you so you can tell us so that we can manage the process. And so my advice and more advice to our clients is be prepared for that. Like be prepared to be answering the questions they can require you to think deep as much as they do at least coming from us because we’re going to tell our people to ask. We’re not going to come up with the questions, but we’re going to encourage them to be inquisitive. If they’re not, then they’re probably not a very good candidate.

Brent: Yeah, very good. On the flip-side of hiring do you guys deal at all with kind of outplacement or firing? Like if I hired somebody and they’re not working out what is that process or suggestions there?

David: Yeah, well I can answer all and to that question a couple of different ways and I’ll try not to be long-winded. But for one we have an obligation for anyone that we hire with a certain guarantee and that’s negotiated with each client, but if something doesn’t work out within that time frame we’re going to replace them and refund the fee. And then it’s like super, super Paramount piece of what we are and in a way I mean it’s not really a good thing but like some of our best clients we have had to go through that in some capacity or another. Whether the person was fired or they left on their own accord or something that was unforeseen because we need to stop up and we need to make this right. And it seems like after all of that things happen for a reason right? The person probably shouldn’t have been there and the person that comes in there probably should’ve been there. So it’s kind of seems to be a natural selection anyway, but is something we are very obligated to do. Now there’s another piece of it where some clients will over staff or they’ll have a layoff and they’ll have a reorder and that’s part of business. Sometimes a reorder is a really, really good thing although at the time it can feel like a morgue. And so we sometimes get those out placements like hire managers that know trusts that we’ve got a really good market and it’s painful to let this person go because their parent company decided that Dev Ops aren’t a piece of anything anymore and they’re going to handle them in a different way. Help this guy out. And that’s also right? We really want to do that. So does that answer your question though?

Brent: Yeah, I mean I think I’m interested on a tactical level. Like, what actually when you realize something is not working out is it you go with your gut feeling and you just pull the plug on somebody? Or is it more of a looking at KPI’s to figure out if somebody is not working? What kind of stuff do you guys typically coach your clients in to tell them that it’s a good thing going on?

David: Yeah. I’m glad that we dug in on this deeper. I think the frame of reference I just gave you is more from full-time placement so we’ll stick this more contract or freelance stuff. So I just got a call a couple of hours ago from a new client of ours and the resource is amazing. It’s a total step up. It’s an upgrade from what they’ve got or what they’ve had in this role. He’s a master of his craft. He’s a little too assertive, he’s a little too much like just he’s just taking the bull by the horns. And it’s good, but he’s getting like… So kudos to his clients for having the foresight to call us because I have to know that. Like okay. Like the last thing I want to know is two months from now where you’ve been sort of the guys amazing, but you know there’s this kind of yeah but thing. Like you know sometimes there’s just they little tweak and that’s about managing expectations and being candid so I mean in that respect you’ve got to get that stuff in a bug early and that’s part of being a really good consultant is being receptive to that feedback. It’s like being constructive like you’re on it you know like you’re on it. To make this assignment really work we’re going to have to you know you need to have a little bit more deference in that respect to what the client is doing here with their client and not just assume that your there to just go get more work. That’s yes everyone likes more work, but they don’t really want that. Like we’re in this case they needed to use what was already built and we don’t just need to rewrite the whole thing.

Brent: Yeah.

David: So I mean it’s about being candid.

Brent: For sure. Now in terms of, I’m going to switch gears here a little bit. Now in terms of your own brand your last name is Bacon.

David: Yeah.

Brent: You guys got a little bit of a Bacon, like a fetish, and an obsession, you’re really into Bacon.

David: Yeah fetish sounds weird. It’s like waste or something, yeah.

Brent: Talk a little bit about the Bacon brand.

David: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brent: What’s that all about?

David: You know I mean it’s my last name and… You know what’s funny? That’s like… I’m a father and I am like I don’t know. It’s funny I’m going into the direction of father, but that’s my last name right? And you know I’m the son of the father, I’m a legacy and you know my kids are… It happened and I wish is kind of screwing around in 2001 and I was like I’m going to call it Better With Bacon. On the surface is not what companies knew who I was, was waving the flag of primarily one other company selling services on their behalf. But we have fun with the bacon thing, a lot of fun with it and it sticks. You know it sticks. I mean you know we’ve got a swine chart over year and it says testament to pig.

Brent: We’ll get that on video.

David: Please do it’s funny. I mean a lot of our clients for candidates they see stuff out there and it’s like it’s ridiculous how much bacon stuff is out there. You know we’re not just riding the train, it’s authentic. I mean it is, it’s my name and but it’s one of the most searched words out there. It’s all over the new restaurants, there’s all of these novelty products everywhere so we get all of these funny novelties over there and get and you know we need a whole new display case because it’s stuff. But we have fun with it. I mean I was just with a potential new client yesterday and there are multiple people in the room that I didn’t know. One person had found be in there and it was an agency an outside look this is a company we can work with, they’re more designed in marketing and analytics and a CEO with new developments. And so at the end I just said look like our love to work with you guys and I think we’ve kind of talk about why we would be a good fit, so all I just encourage use that every sitting around the room and you’re wondering if there’s a problem just call Bacon. Just call bacon and just try us. And like in all sincerity like everything we do doesn’t have to come with a fee. Like we’re so engaged in the community and just in this building in Battery and in Denver that I mean there are so many people and services and connections that we have within reach. And I’m not trying to be vain and that, I’m just trying to say that just give us a call. So that Bacon thing, people don’t forget that. That’s why I’m taking that.

Brent: And I like the fact that it’s… And a lot of people take branding very seriously.

David: Yeah.

Brent: And they’re like really into their brand and at the same time you’ve got something so simple as this like Bacon thing which is your last name.

David: Yeah.

Brent: But it’s kind of fun and I really that serious, but it’s really well developed. Like he can take something that simple and kind of make it part of the culture and make it a part of the brand and the identity.

David: And like any time one of our clients has a baby, and assuming we know about it, we give them a piggy bank and it’s got a name on it and is fun. It’s a pig. It’s a piggy bank and it’s really cool. People are so grateful for that and it’s one of the most fun things that we can do. It’s like a we got a piggy bank well send it off. You know and you know we find out the kid’s name, boy or girl and we send them an appropriate piggy bank.

Brent: Very cool.

David: For our holiday party coming up you can expect lots of served passed bacon on a silver platter and some pork belly to boot. We’ve got bacon BLT sushi and so…

Brent: I’m wondering if I can get invitation to the holiday party.

David: Absolutely, absolutely. We do have a lot of fun with it.

Brent: Very cool. So in terms of BW Bacon like you know technology, it’s always evolving and always changing. Where’s the puck moving for you guys? Like where you guys keeping tabs on is it more like app development type stuff? Is it more Ruby stuff? Like where is the puck moving in technology for you guys?

David: Yeah, like I was on a panel about a month ago. It was a HTML 5 panel and there was someone in the audience that have like asked me and there was another vendor in my space in too. There was kind of an assumption that we were kind of driving where things were going and this is certainly not the case. I mean we serve our clients and our clients are those that are choosing their platforms and what technologies they want to use, it’s not to say we’re just sitting here reactive but at the same time it is right. Because what our clients need is what we’re going to support and in that where do I see things going? I mean boy, one of the ways I think I see where things are going are in the skill domains that people have in other words we’re talking about backend versus front-end. A lot more clients are expecting people that are more full-stacked if you will where’s I described earlier just a pure designer who can’t do any HTML assess or doesn’t have any front-end and skills isn’t quite as valuable on QA has totally been redefined over the past year and a half it seems like where a QA person is now an engineer who can build tests you know. Scripts from scratch and they know manual, they know automated and it’s just the role has been redefined on a project manager. I mean you just can’t sit there and not roll up their sleeves and do some kind of code or some kind of product strategy or do something within the marketing space for something. So I think where it’s very evident that roles are requiring people to wear more hats to do more with less, to be able to execute across multiple departments. So that answer is the non- like Ruby On Rails answer on the non-java question. I mean that’s more like it’s a sweeping statement, but it is so true that people are looking for that. Or at least more receptive to that you know. I’d love to sink my teeth into database more and I’ll always a we’re playing with pixels. It’s fun and I’m good at it, really good. You know I need to and the drawls there are hopefully on so, but as a reflection of the market that we are it’s a lot of the data which is thrown around a lot for a good reason. There’s a lot more data out there. Analytics are increasingly in demand. Folks with a certain type of skill set are in the analytic space on Ruby On Rails, Java is still super strong, .net. You know Lamp Stack is sick of this because it comes and goes, but people or are still using it. So, yeah.

Brent: Yeah, that’s good to know.

David: Yeah, yeah. It’s so fun what we do like I feel like we get to, like we have the honor seriously of like working with these companies that are steering this ship not just in Colorado, but nationally. The sense our focus is in Colorado I mean these companies define our character. I mean the attributes of Colorado are so broad we think about the mounds or you know the ski areas or red rocks and you see all of these crafting companies and legalization is legitimate and what’s beneath the ground is nothing like we ever really knew in terms of reserves and who knows what goes there. It’s a place to be whoever you want to be whether it’s your sexual orientation or whatever with what we talked about. And then there’s the technology right? We get to be a part of these companies that are defining the state and its awesome.

Brent: Yes, I mean this has been a super fastening conversation being that if people are interested in it and following up with you in the BW Bacon Group I assume just checked out your website, your blog. Are you guys out there on Twitter?

David: Yeah, you know we are on twitter BW Bacon. I mean we’re just sort of rolling out a new website, I’m really excited about that. It’s a responsive site and we got a lot of new content, we’re putting together. You know our core focuses in Colorado, but we’re bringing in a lot of people from out-of-state here and that’s not just us but we want to be the face of the best jobs in the state and we’ll just find it when people get here. I mean you know whether your native. Are you a native?

Brent: No.

David: No. And nor am I. And I know when I got here by, I was bug eyes and bushytailed and so excited. And we just find that bringing talent here not only is so grateful to be here, but the really allegiant to the people that they work for and so wherever you are whether it’s in-state or out-of-state he should check this out. We’ve got some really good roles. You know we’re not the only company in town that has great opportunities, but we certainly are proud of the ones that we have. They’re the companies that I’m so proud to speak about.

Brent: Very proud.

David: So it’s BWBacon.com.

Brent: And we’ll definitely link-out to your website, it’s a lot of great stuff. We appreciate you taking the time out for us today.

David: Yeah, no this is really cool. Yeah, it’s a pleasure. It’s a real honor to be here.

Brent: For sure? Well we’ll have you back sometime and will maybe get some audience questions for you and stuff like that.

David: Sure, sure bring it on.

Brent: Very good.

David: Great.

Brent: Stay tuned for more great content from ugurus.com.

The Perfect Web Proposal Template

39 Lead Gen Strategies Checklist

Own Your Market Field Guide

Free Live Trainings

Access To Training Recordings

Exclusive Community Access