Matthew Medney, the CEO and co-founder of DOG Media, hopes to be the boss that everyone wants. He hates the word “intern” and the word “employee,” he told us. Instead, he uses the terms “team members” and “aspiring leaders.”
We sat down with Medney for this edition of Do What You Love — a series that showcases the entrepreneurs behind startups and emerging companies. Here’s what he shared:
I never wanted to work for anyone else. My dad was an entrepreneur for a long time. He created and sold happy meal toys to KFC for a very long time. When I was five I had a lemonade stand for a Veteran’s Day parade. I made my own money and I was like, yeah, there’s really no other way to do it.
After college I had a T-shirt company but it wasn’t [successful] enough to pay me, so my dad made me work. I went through five different jobs. Each job I left, I never got fired. I just couldn’t handle it because to me when something’s done wrong you should just fix it. Corporations don’t really work that way. Corporations don’t really care about fixing the problem—they just want to make sure you get through the day.
I put DOG Media together starting in June. Brandon [Ray] started it with me. I’m obsessed with dogs, and DOG Media stands for Dream Of Greatness. And from there we came up with the idea that a brand’s best friend is DOG Media; we’re here to grow the brand. We have eight pillars of creating a successful campaign called the CREATIVE Solution. CREATIVE stands for: creating, retaining, engaging, advertising, trusting, innovating, validating, and executing. Our logo is the silhouette of my dog. His name is Bruce Wayne (I’m also obsessed with Batman.)
I’ve always enjoyed events. I don’t really like going to the bar every night of the week. I’d rather save my money for an experience.
People aren’t as motivated as you are. That was a harsh reality when I learned it and I won’t forget. I always knew that I wanted to be a CEO. I wanted to run my own business, I wanted to do things. And because that’s how I always was I thought everyone had those aspirations. To realize that a lot of people are just going to pick up a paycheck every week and live their life that way was a big eye opener. Realizing that not everyone is as aspirational as you and you need to learn to assess other people was a big thing that I learned.
Success to me means influence. Being able to go into a room of 500 college students and speak because DOG Media’s grown to a point where I can leverage that as a vehicle to talk to my alma mater at the University of Massachusetts and influence 19 to 20-year-olds on how to look at the world differently—I think that’s success, because everything’s about the next generation. It’s weird to say because I’m young but, I mean, there’s even social media platforms that some of my aspiring leaders use that I’ve never heard of.
Medney is a regular contributor to FullStart.com. Check out his articles here.
