He scaled an unlimited marketing service to 8 figures through cold calling

Have you ever felt like marketing is just... broken?

If you're nodding your head, you're not alone. 

Jonathan Sturgeon, founder and CEO of Dingus and Zazzy (DZ), heard the same sentiment from thousands of marketers, creative professionals, and business leaders.

But instead of just complaining about it, he decided to fix it.

In this piece, Jonathan breaks down his journey from running Facebook ads to building a revolutionary unlimited marketing service that's on track to hit $10 million in revenue this year. All without a single hour billed or project limit imposed.

My favorite part: The wild company culture that got them evicted from their office for being too loud. (Spoiler: They now start each day with a "sacred ceremony" wearing black capes.)

Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?

My name is Jonathan Sturgeon and I'm the founder and CEO of Dingus and Zazzy.

No, it's not the name of a law firm for clowns. I named it after my two dead sexy cats. RIP.

At DZ, we've transformed the marketing landscape by offering a truly unlimited service model. After talking to thousands of professionals, we kept hearing the same thing: "Marketing is broken!"

So we decided to fix it.

Our solution? A commitment-free, month-to-month, truly unlimited partnership that doesn't punish clients by making them pay for hours, tokens, credits, or limit how many projects they can work on at once.

Whether you're Dr. Phil or the ice cream shop down the street, you pay the same transparent price and get the same level of service.

We're 3.5 years into this model, and we're just about to close in on 8 figures this year. That's right, we're hitting $10 million, baby!

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

Here's the Disney version:

I've never had a real corporate job or education. I've only ever started companies. After my last two ventures, I didn't know what to do next, so I just started running ads for people because I was good at that (back when Facebook was the wild west).

People started asking me and my small team to do other types of work like design, copywriting, websites... so I was like, "sure! no problem, as long as we aren't wasting time thinking about hours." I would bill them a flat rate per month, and if they thought it was unfair, they could talk to me, and if I thought it was unfair, I would talk to them. It must have been fair because those conversations never happened.

Then COVID hit, and it turns out no one wants to spend money on ads when there might be a zombie apocalypse. But the people who kept paying were the ones who were paying monthly for... basically unlimited work.

I gotta give credit to my fractional CFO, Caitlin, at the time. She was with me looking at our scribblings on a whiteboard, and she was like, "dude, you have a productized service." I hadn't thought of it that way before.

It was like a scene from a movie. A movie no one would watch.

Take us through the process of building and launching the first version of your product.

I wanted to build everything in-house. I honestly thought that idea made sense at the time. I thought it would be more fun and collaborative. But we're in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and it's basically a giant small town in the shape of a circle, and only one quarter of the circle wants to commute to our part of the circle... Then add COVID on top of everything. So yeah, it was so difficult.

We pushed forward in person until it broke. We were growing too fast. The talent pool was too small, so we went hybrid and started hiring in other countries.

There were lots of good moments and LOTS of bad moments, but I think us all being in the same room with key people building it was huge. I literally have to pinch myself thinking back about the amazing people that were with me working 12-hour days sometimes and weekends just for the love of the sport. I don't think it would have taken off the same way if we had started it from scratch as a remote team.

Speaking of taking off... my favorite part of us all being in-house together in the early days revolves around my one sales guy at the time, Matt. He was so happy that he hit a record number of sales in a day that he and his assistant, Enoch, literally drove to an airport, got in a plane, and flew over our office while we formed a giant D on the lawn (D for Dingus... duh) in a move that is now cemented in Dingus folklore as the "Full Enoch."

Since launch, what growth channels have been most effective for you?

You'll either think I suck as a founder or that the product must be really good... I'll let you decide, and I'm good either way.

All we've ever done is cold calling and cold email. That's it. Cold cold cold. Straight from the freezer.

We got to our first million with just one guy and his assistant dialing one number at a time and manually sending emails.

NOW, we're almost 10x that, but over the 3.5 years, I still have on average only 2 account executives that close all the deals. Don't get me wrong, we do get referrals, affiliates, and organic inbound now, but it's small compared to all our outbound.

I'm definitely to blame for the lack of diverse sales channels, but I'm working on it. I like spending money and energy on tangible things that create value as soon as possible. It's a blessing and a curse. I also spend most of my time on sales because I absolutely love it.

Funny story: about a year ago I decided to bring all my sales people back in house to a physical office because remote work for sales sucks. We lasted like 5 months before we got evicted for being too loud. Someone referred to us (in a negative way) as "wolf of wall street meets a 7-year-old's birthday party". We had to go and buy a standalone building so we could finally scream again. Now only the police can stop us, and I secretly hope they get called because it would make for great content.

I guarantee you wouldn’t believe me if I told you all the things that go on in this place. Here’s a shot of our daily sacred ceremony where we start our day wearing black capes and light candles and offer our grievances up to the sales Gods… I can’t tell you any more though. Secret stuff.

Did you ever have an "oh shit" moment where you thought it wouldn't work?

A moment? Try every day.

I just finished reading Andrew Wilkinson's book, Never Enough, and I have the same disease (minus all the success) he has. I live in a constant state of feeling like every milestone is never enough and every obstacle is the end of the line.

There have been moments when cash was tight, layoffs needed to happen and people chirpin' me about how stupid the business model was and how it was all going to fail. All those things deeply affect me. I wish I was an Elon Musk style asshole that could shut off caring about what other people think of me, but I can't. My cup of care is very full. At the same time, this drives me to just keep going no matter what. I truly would rather die than to see DZ go to zero. I've burned all my ships and then tell myself "if a crackhead can find money every day somehow… I'll find a way too!" and that makes me feel better.

I'm starting to make my peace with the fact that I'll never be truly happy or content with where I'm at. I find it difficult to hear me say out loud or read it written down, it sounds dark AF. If you're a therapist reading this, you're like JACKPOT, found my next client. Just relax though, I'm having the time of my life and I'm laughing my ass off every day.

Can you break down the keys to this business model for us? What makes it work? And What do outsiders typically not understand about your industry?

Anyone can do what we do. There's nothing proprietary about taking something normal and hourly and making it unlimited. The real question is, do you have enough tenacity to attempt it and for real with no catch? I think it works because there's no other option, it has to work.

I see it everywhere now. I wish my lawyers were unlimited. Someone make that, I'll be your first customer.

Outsiders just think it's an agency sometimes and I'm like "what?" The agency model is dead and we killed it. That's on us for not being clearer and we're working on that.

Or someone will send me a company that does something "similar" but I have this party trick where I find the catch in like under a minute. There's always this "oh yeah, here's the catch, here's how they get you, it's technically not unlimited" moment.

What platform/tools are absolutely crucial for your business?

I'll limit myself to three. If you sleep on these, then I'm sorry, but you're an idiot.

1. Connect and Sell: Only use this if you want to take over the world. I don't know exactly how it all works but I think they have people on the other side of the world that dial for you and once a human picks up BOOM they push it to your headset so you just start pitching. It's incredible. No voicemails, no dialing, no admin, just straight pitching. On average one sales person talks to a human every 1.5 minutes. ALL DAY. It's better than a trade show. One person can talk to over a hundred people in one day while playing Nintendo.
2. Luna Park: Imagine a game show with a live comedian host but just for your company? That's what Luna Park is. Our team loves it, it's great for culture and you simply have to get a demo. I spoke with the founders and DZ is the most rambunctious company they service and the comedian hosts are lined up waiting to get the chance to roast us.
3. Hypergen: We used these beautiful Bulgarians for cold email and made several million thanks to their efforts. They were a game changer in our journey. There must be something in the water in Bulgaria that makes one good at racketeering and cold email.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

I'm gonna go a different direction and not talk about any of the business books. I love so many but It's too easy.

I think most of my business practices are inspired by pop culture from the early 2000-2010's. I was a huge fan of early Vice magazine and the writing style. I love The Office, Parks and Recs, Jackass, anything Will Ferrell touches, SNL, Dr. Steve Brule... all that stuff. I take the elements and insert them into my business and it keeps me entertained and laughing and I think it attracts others that are also probably bored of regular life.

The evidence is everywhere. We even see our one star reviews as a platform to have some fun.

I once sent a Lord of the Rings themed cold email to 3,000 financial contacts (private equity, VCs etc.) to see if they would give us a boatload of cash money. I got 46 meetings out of it and 3 letters of intent. I also made a bunch of enemies who I'm guessing hated LOTR?

Where do you see untapped opportunity in the market? What business do you wish someone else would build that would make your job easier?

I have too much to say on this topic. I took Dan Martell's advice (great content, look him up) and I made a frustration list. A list of everything that frustrates me in business and in life. Like how I friggin hate wasps and one day I'll dedicate a significant portion of my net worth to obliterating them once and for all.

I closely follow another Hampton member, Andrew from Acquire.com, and he posted something that really made me think about shiny object syndrome. He said something like, if it's not a HELL YEAH then it's a HELL NO. So true.

So I have a giant list of business ideas just waiting to happen that I'm sadly missing out on to stay focused. Just send me a DM or something and I'll give them all to you.

What are some strong opinions you have about leadership, and how do you actually put those into practice in your company?

Get a good mentor. One day, this M&A advisor signed up to our services and when I found out, I called him right away. He had sold his company and wanted to help other founders sell theirs without making the mistakes he made. We still talk almost every day 3 years later.

The second biggest thing that I've learned as a leader is surrounding myself with INTRApreneurs and fine-tuning the practice of letting people fail or succeed despite me. Sometimes people have really dumb ideas and, because I'm not a robot, I'll tell them the truth about what I really think, BUT I'll encourage them to do it anyways. I'll gladly cheer and call myself the dummy for ever doubting if it works out and If they don't succeed, no biggie. At least I have someone on my team that is willing to take risks.

Where can we go to learn more?

Just got LinkedIn so that works best!