dynamIt beginnings for Miami grads

DynamIt director of operations Nick Seguin and Matt Dopkiss, CEO.

As Miami freshmen in 2004, Matt Dopkiss and Nick Seguin saw no reason to wait for graduation to launch their careers. So along with a friend—Xavier University student Bobby Whitman—the Miami undergraduates founded dynamIt Technologies, LLC, a web engineering, design and development firm.

Since dynamIt’s launch in 2004, the firm has served several hundred clients, covering a range of small businesses, non-profits, and corporations around the globe. A few more notable clients include The Associated Press, Save the Children in London, Pizza Hut, and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

The Columbus-based company now employs a staff of about a dozen mostly twenty-somethings, including four with strong Miami ties. One of them, Danny Sauter, is currently a sophomore at Miami.

“Being involved with dynamIt is a great complement to my studies in Chinese and Entrepreneurship,” says Sauter, “and I look forward to staying with the firm through my time at Miami to see it continue to grow and develop.”

The success of the young company has gained national attention. The online and print magazine, Young Money, dubbed Dopkiss and Whitman “The dynamIt Duo” in their 2008 article about the company’s success. Seguin, who graduated from Miami with a degree in marketing and is now director of operations at dynamIt, was also quoted in the story.

“We’re growing out of this, but our age is a deterrent sometimes,” Seguin told Young Money reporter Lauren Cooper, “People have given us the ‘Are-you-serious?’ look when we walk into meetings.”

Although the youthful faces of dynamIt’s team might not be taken seriously at first, the company’s financial reports demand a serious second look. After posting profits of $100,000 in 2006 and growing substantially in 2007, the company went on to claim revenues 60 percent higher in 2008 than in the previous year. Not bad, considering that Dopkiss and Seguin both graduated from Miami in 2007.

Dopkiss, CEO of dynamIt, describes the new “continued web service” that the company released this year. “Essentially, it's a service that pulls us onto an organization's staff on a regular basis,” Dopkiss explains, “Ongoing analysis, design and programming require a developer's skill and attention. We provide that high-skill devotion.”

Despite the rising status of his bosses, Sauter notes that they downplay the traditional hierarchy of the workplace. He relates that both alums were particularly proud when dynamIt was named “3rd best place to work” in Columbus by Columbus Business First.

The goal of becoming an “even better place to work” prompted the company’s move to its new location in the Arena district, an up-and-coming locale that is attracting young entrepreneurs.

“The new space fuels a lot of creativity and collaboration,” says Sauter.

While dynamIt builds new business relationships, earlier connections continue to thrive.

“Alliances with Ohio’s academic institutions are some of the most meaningful and beneficial connections we have made,” Dopkiss said in a Ohio Means Business interview, “I frequently receive calls from members of my academic communities, including my high school, Bishop Watterson, and college, Miami University. The support that we, as a firm, have received from both institutions has been phenomenal, and was essential in establishing the company as we were starting out.”

Both Dopkiss and Seguin have spoken to FSB classes on the subject of entrepreneurship, Sauter notes, adding that dynamIt works with multiple Miami academic departments, student organizations, Greek chapters, and local Oxford businesses.

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