In 1999 DPI, Digital Printers International was born. At the time I was a partner at Khameleon Communications, an advertising agency that specialized in product development and designing collateral materials. We opened DPI in order to grow vertically. Print the materials we designed. Keep it inhouse. Even though opening a printshop was expensive and required a huge amount of time and energy, in my heart I knew that this was temporary. That one-day technology would replace printing. That is why in 2004 we jumped at the opportunity to start a tech company.
Fast forward 20 years, the printing company was sold off and we are now DPI Showcase Web Sites. A 20-year-old tech company that specializes in creating websites for real estate agents and brokers across the USA. We are a 100% bootstrap tech company on the forefront of the real estate industry.
As a marketing person, my biggest fear is keeping our web product relevant. Through the years we have seen many of our competitors come and go. Some were giants that would have 20×20 booths at all of the major real estate trade shows. Others were fledglings that were trying to make a go of it. So how did DPI survive?
The first step is to understand your client base. What do they need to succeed? As part of our outreach to the industry, I have been teaching marketing classes to real estate agents around the US, and mostly at the Miami Association of Realtors. This has given me first-hand contact with the people on the front-line. What are their needs and fears. I would attend national, state, and local Realtor conferences, not as an exhibitor, but as an attendee in order to hear first-hand the issues concerning the industry. Our team would then take that knowledge and create tools that were current and relevant.
One thing that we quickly learned is that programmers can be the enemy of the average person. They tend to complicate technology. A few years ago, I spoke at a tech conference in Las Vegas. The audience was full of programmers. The topic was, Keeping IT Systems Simple, KISS. I implored these programmers to stop making needless changes to their programs. What they think is simple befuddles the average person. Naturally, this speech was not well received. At DPI our philosophy is simple. Keep things simple to use. It is actually harder to program simplicity, but that’s not the point. Keep it simple.
Never be afraid to change. Around 7 years ago technology was rapidly changing. Everything needed to be more mobile-friendly. The age of the old HTML websites was ending. This was a critical moment in our survival, modernize or die a slow death. We then began a 12-month venture of rewriting our program from scratch. Yes, it was painful, and yes, it was costly, but in the end it allowed us to modernize and to build a system that gave us the ability to add more features on the fly. Some of our competitors didn’t update and they are now a distant memory.
Never be afraid to copy. There are many good ideas out there. We have been known to take the best from others and incorporate them into our system. No pride in providing our clients with a better product. For example, Zillow is an industry standard for searching for properties. When looking to buy a house Zillow is one of the first websites consumers go to. We took the best (and simplicity) of Zillow’s property search, modified it for our own system, and incorporated it into our websites. We figured if people were used to using Zillow, they would feel comfortable using our system.
Never be afraid to go after the big guns. One of my advertising clients told me, “the battleship turns slowly.” He was referring to his large competitors. It takes a longtime and a lot of debate for them to make changes. Being a smaller company he had the ability to spin on a dime. To out-maneuver them. We follow this philosophy. We have developed a system that allows us to add features and offer them for a lower price than many of our competitors. For example, we recently upgraded our client management system, CRM, with more automated features. We also included this at no extra cost to our clients. Better product, better service. We get asked, how can you offer all of that for such a low price? Easy, eliminate the bloat.
Learn to sidestep distractions. Four years ago the buzz was all about Web 3. That was where the world was supposed to be headed. Yes, we did spend way too much time researching and debating only to come to the realization that this was not for us. This technology might be applicable for other industries, but not ours. Learn to read past the hype.
Our next venture is AI, artificial intelligence. Last year I spoke at LA Tech Week about this budding technology. It was the buzz and everyone was talking about how to capitalize on this emergence. To date, what I see it a lot of the same, cheap parlor tricks, that will turn your text to speech or create an avatar of yourself. Our goal is to create useful tools that will help our clients generate leads and develop new business. So far, we have created two AI tools for our system. Other tools are in the works.
Mark Weithorn is the Founder & CEO of DPI Showcase Web Sites, a 20-year-old tech company that provides websites and CRMs designed for brokers and real estate agents. He can be seen at www.DPIshowcase.com
