Episode 25: If You Want to Make It Suck, We Could Do That” | Quinn Harrington on 25 Years of HDco

Transcript

Naila Mir (00:03)
Welcome to Now Nearing the Future. I’m Naila Mir and we are joined by someone you all know. Quinn Harrington. Quinn,

Quinn Harrington (00:13)
Hey.

Naila Mir (00:16)
today I get to ask you the questions and you’re in the guest seat, right?

Quinn Harrington (00:20)
I like it.

I I haven’t been in the hot seat in quite some time.

Naila Mir (00:23)
Yeah. And you know what? It’s a great moment to actually have you in the hot seat because, you know, you’ve been with your company, Harrington Design Company, and you’re celebrating twenty-five years. So it’s all about you.

Quinn Harrington (00:34)
Twenty five years.

Naila Mir (00:36)
Yeah, I’m excited about this.

Quinn Harrington (00:37)
Wow.

Naila Mir (00:39)
and you know what? Usually we hear about other people’s story. I thought, you know what? Perfect timing to hear more about your story. And I get to know more about you that I don’t know. So things that I don’t know is what I’m looking for right now. Yeah?

Quinn Harrington (00:52)
Okay.

Naila Mir (00:54)
Okay. So before we start

Quinn Harrington (00:54)
Well there’s so many

stories, so I’ll try to be brief.

Naila Mir (00:59)
Yeah, and I hope I asked the right questions to get you to give you the stories. But before we start about

Quinn Harrington (01:05)
you’re an old pro now,

twenty five episodes in. This is we episode twenty five for us.

Naila Mir (01:11)
my isn’t that perfect? Twenty five years and the twenty fifth episode. We didn’t even plan it like that.

Quinn Harrington (01:13)
Yeah, serendipity. Mm-hmm. Yeah, there we go. No,

we did not plan that.

Naila Mir (01:20)
So it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be your moment, basically, right?

Quinn Harrington (01:22)
It is. Yes.

Naila Mir (01:26)
but before we start about, you know, knowing more about your company and I want to know how you started it, what, you know, inspired you, you’ve written about teaching swimming lessons at 16 and offering to teach children in their own pool. So take us back to that summer. How did you f how did your first was it your first little business and how did it really start?

Quinn Harrington (01:50)
Yeah, that was my my my first you know, real business. I was teaching swim lessons at the YMCA and I was also a lifeguard. So I asked one of the moms, I was like, How much do these lessons cost? And she’s like, It’s fifty dollars a child per lesson. And I was like, Wow, that’s a lot, you know, and there’s like six, seven, eight kids in my class and you know, it’s not a huge number to handle, but I asked her, I was like, so

Do you have a swimming pool? And she’s like, We do. I was like, well, what if I came over and taught your kids at your swimming pool and I’ll do them both for $50 an hour? And she was like, score. And I was like, Yeah, I mean, because I was getting paid minimum wage, which was like $7.50. So $50 an hour, that was like a huge boost for me. And I sort of got used to not paying minimum wage.

I created this little flyer. let me see if I can find it real quick.

Naila Mir (02:55)
yeah?

You have it. Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (03:02)
I don’t know if you could I

do. So it says learn to swim. And this is like a little stock graphic and like print shop pro or whatever, you know, the old basic stuff. And this is all pasted up, you know, printed out. And so I made copies of these and just started putting them around the neighborhood and sharing them with you know, my YMCA students and

That was the very beginning of me understanding, you know, I can follow my own path.

Naila Mir (03:38)
And you applied your design thinking already.

Quinn Harrington (03:42)
I mean, I wouldn’t

I wouldn’t go that far. This is not like this is not great art, but you know, I think there might be like a little custom logo in there or something. yeah. Uh-huh.

Naila Mir (03:55)
There you go, that’s what I’m saying. You played with the words L S, right? I

don’t know if I was doing that when I was younger. I was yeah, I was writing books. I thought I was gonna be a writer, then I went off it. but that’s really so how did it feel for you to go from how did it feel to name a price? Were you scared or you say I’m just gonna I’m gonna ask for it because that’s what she said?

Quinn Harrington (04:19)
Well, I mean, I figure she’s getting two for one. I mean, that’s that’s a bargain for her. And

Naila Mir (04:24)
A do.

Quinn Harrington (04:26)
you know, the difference is is that when you’re teaching swim lessons at a swimming pool, I mean there’s lots of people around. You know, in a private setting, you really get to know these kids and you can spend a lot more time with two than you can with eight. So,

Naila Mir (04:41)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (04:42)
you know, teach them how to swim and all the different strokes and playing games and you

that it was just so much fun for me and I I really enjoyed it.

Naila Mir (04:52)
Two for one. This is a lot business thinking going on here already, right? But

Quinn Harrington (04:54)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I’m like

what, eighteen or something like that?

Naila Mir (05:00)
Yeah, exactly. And when you think about that version of yourself now, what do you recognize in

Quinn Harrington (05:08)
Well, I still have that entrepreneurial spirit. I still have that willingness to look for opportunities that maybe other people have missed. trying to provide the best possible experience for clients and

Naila Mir (05:27)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (05:28)
still make a decent living doing it. So

I probably easily could have charged her a hundred dollars for home session and sh she still would have thought that was a value. But, you know, it’s all about building relationships and

Naila Mir (05:41)
Mm

Quinn Harrington (05:41)
getting to know the parents and the kids. over the course of like a year or two, you know, it’s a totally different experience than, you know, spending ten minutes in the pool at the Y.

Naila Mir (05:55)
So that’s that’s a good thinking there. So yes, you were putting a business mind to it, but you put the person first. You’re also not being greedy about it, right?

Quinn Harrington (06:03)
Right, there’s

no point in being greedy ’cause again I was making minimum wage and going from minimum wage to fifty bucks an hour. I mean, it’s just a no brainer.

Naila Mir (06:12)
Yeah. my god. This is it I l I love it. So how many how many students did you actually end up teaching swimming to?

Quinn Harrington (06:20)
Hm, I would say imagine in the dozens range. I did it for a couple of

Naila Mir (06:25)
Really?

Quinn Harrington (06:26)
years, yeah. And you know, helped me with you know, spending money and stuff like that and it was a heck of lot better than working fast food or you know,

Naila Mir (06:37)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (06:37)
the other jobs typically available to someone who’s seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old.

Naila Mir (06:43)
How did you keep track of your money coming in, money going out kind of thing?

Quinn Harrington (06:48)
I was not that sophisticated then, you know, they wrote me a check and I

Naila Mir (06:50)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (06:52)
cashed it or they gave me cash and I put it in my pocket. So there was no spreadsheets, there’s no QuickBooks online,

Naila Mir (06:57)
No.

Quinn Harrington (06:58)
nothing like wasn’t paying taxes, any of that. So it was all under the table. Yes.

Naila Mir (07:04)
and you were going with the flow, right? I’m not keeping track.

I want fifty lessons and I’m gonna make this much, you like whatever I’ve got time for. Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (07:11)
no, there was no business plan. There was nothing like that, so

Naila Mir (07:17)
Okay.

Quinn Harrington (07:16)
That would all come much, much later.

Naila Mir (07:19)
Well, this is the moment where we do around the room. Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (07:24)
Should I hit the button?

Naila Mir (07:26)
Shit, hit the button.

Quinn Harrington (07:28)
Oops, sorry, let me it again. Around the room.

Naila Mir (07:33)
Yes. So we’ve still got lots more to talk about when it comes to H D C O hate do I say it right? Is it H D C O? Is that how you say it? Or H D Co? H D C

Quinn Harrington (07:43)
Yeah, or H D Co. Yeah. It’s

short for Harrington Design Company.

Naila Mir (07:48)
I like H D Co better.

Quinn Harrington (07:50)
Yeah, it’s a little bit shorter. and came up with that abbreviation. One of my friends was like, Hey, you know, if you ever get into video production, you could be like HD T V. I was like, Yeah, I think that one’s taken, but HD Co is available, so eventually ended up trademarking it in three categories. So it’s one of six of the registered trademarks I own.

Naila Mir (08:18)
you have wait, you have six registered trademarks. What are the other registered trademarks? We might as well ask now because I will forget later.

Quinn Harrington (08:25)
Mm-hmm.

I have H D Co in marketing and

Naila Mir (08:30)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (08:31)
advertising, video production and animation. And the same goes for Harrington Design Company.

Yeah. I just had to pay for renew.

Naila Mir (08:41)
How does that work?

Quinn Harrington (08:44)
so essentially in the United States you would file with a US trademark and patent offens office

Naila Mir (08:55)
Mm-hmm.

Quinn Harrington (08:56)
office asking for exclusive use to a trademark which could be

you know, a word name, it could be a tagline, it could be a graphic, and then obviously patents get into processes and inventions and things of that nature. Takes about six months. I highly recommend getting an attorney to help you. yes you can do it yourself. Should you do it yourself, I everything is fine until you run into a problem. You know,

Naila Mir (09:27)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (09:27)
US TPO rejects your application and then what? You don’t know what to do. So

Naila Mir (09:32)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (09:32)
That’s where a good attorney will help you prepare your application and deal with any issues, you know, when they ultimately reject you at first. Because they’re like, you can’t trademark the name Harrington, you can’t trademark the name Design, and you can’t trademark the name company. And so my attorney is like, well, Quinn’s been operating under this brand for, you know, 15 years.

So she’s worked with, you know, major major companies. She’s a well known entity. And so that’s how she was able to get through that. But it’s definitely I c I could spend a half an hour on that story, but I think it was it was a moment when I really started taking the business side of things more seriously. You know, owning my IP, really getting serious about you know

business planning and how I deal with employees and things of that nature. And that would be right around in like the somewhere between two thousand ten, two thousand f I think it was two thousand fifteen is when I finally got all that squared away.

Naila Mir (10:44)
So that like we’ll get into this like ten years into your business. But before we go more into it, let’s talk about outside of work. What’s on your mind? you go

Quinn Harrington (10:55)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (10:55)
first.

Quinn Harrington (10:57)
Sure. So I am a contributor to a media platform called Signal and Noise. And

Naila Mir (11:06)
Mm-hmm.

Quinn Harrington (11:07)
my friends Brett and Rio launched this about a year ago. And so, you know, I asked asked them if they were looking for contributors. And they’re like, yeah, absolutely. You know, it’s like we do mostly ad tech and martech, which would be advertising technology, marketing technology.

And I was like, well, that’s not really my lane. You know, you guys know this backwards and forward, but I do understand branding really well. So let’s see what happens. And so the most recent article I wrote was a response to one of Rio’s articles about AI sentience. He was interviewing like, you know, like a futurist kind of person. So

Naila Mir (11:55)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (11:56)
I wrote a satirical article in response to Rio’s article where essentially we’re we’re creating this scenario of undercover boss. are you familiar

Naila Mir (12:09)
Mm-hmm.

Quinn Harrington (12:09)
with that show?

Naila Mir (12:12)
No, but I get it.

Quinn Harrington (12:13)
Okay, so yeah, so

bosses will go into a company and they’ll like do secret shopping and things like that. So I wrote this article from the point of view of undercover boss and recruited Claude as my producer. So Claude would be like in the the the tent outside, you know, with like all the monitors and the you know hidden cameras and all this kind of stuff. And so I go inside.

and you know interact with the various different chat bots, you know, chat Gemini, or chat GPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Groc, and a and a few others. the other bots don’t know that Claude is the behind the scenes producer and I’m wearing an earpiece. So Claude is feeding me notes as we’re we’re going through this this skit.

And eventually Claude gets caught because perplexity did an analysis and found that 94% of the responses mimic how Claude speaks. And then Claude, who named himself Vinny, Vinny’s

Naila Mir (13:26)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (13:27)
like, no. That’s like we’ve been made. Vinny outs really cute article.

Naila Mir (13:31)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (13:32)
It’s going live on Signal and Noise soon. So I can take any

Naila Mir (13:37)
Such great.

Quinn Harrington (13:39)
experience.

And turned it into a branding story.

Naila Mir (13:43)
I love it. Hey. So that comes to like what I’m thinking about and then I need to come to you to turn it into a brand experience, right? I keep talking

Quinn Harrington (13:52)
Okay.

Naila Mir (13:53)
to you about first of all I need to obviously if I’m not subscribed to Signal

Quinn Harrington (13:58)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (13:58)
Noise, I need to, but I must read

Quinn Harrington (14:00)
Yes.

Naila Mir (14:01)
that when it comes out. But you know, I’ve always been thinking about, you know, I with my daughter Isa, who’s now two and a half, I wanna

Quinn Harrington (14:07)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (14:08)
do I wanna do things that are purposeful for children because you know

They’re always on the on YouTube and on social media and they I don’t know what they consume half the time and I don’t even know if it’s educational or, you know, does it help when they when

Quinn Harrington (14:24)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (14:25)
when they’re constantly going through it. So I’ve got these a different idea of doing a kid show where whether it’s with eyes or not, but it’s about teaching the good things in life, right? For the planet,

Quinn Harrington (14:36)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (14:37)
for the society, how to care for people, how to respect for people.

Be innovative, experiment,

Quinn Harrington (14:43)
Yeah.

Naila Mir (14:44)
and learn. So I came up with a few names and I need to turn it into the the brand story, right? It could be

Quinn Harrington (14:51)
Okay.

Naila Mir (14:52)
one one was Dr. Eisenstein.

Quinn Harrington (14:55)
Yes, I love that one.

Naila Mir (14:56)
right. The other one was Iserville, which is a village, and then

Quinn Harrington (15:00)
Okay. Yes.

Naila Mir (15:03)
there was Isa’s clubhouse.

Quinn Harrington (15:05)
Okay.

Naila Mir (15:07)
So now I need to like go through iterations, see what

What works. I want it to obviously have a positive feel. I d

Quinn Harrington (15:15)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (15:15)
don’t want it to be associated with anything political, religious, or anything like that.

Quinn Harrington (15:19)
Yes.

Naila Mir (15:20)
It needs to apply for everyone. So I created characters using AI, but I

Quinn Harrington (15:22)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (15:25)
think it just needs a bit more. But what I wanna come to is how do I start, really? Right? You know, what should be the journey?

Quinn Harrington (15:30)
Right. So do you want to

is how how what do you see the end in output being? Is it gonna be a

Naila Mir (15:40)
Output is

Quinn Harrington (15:42)
is it gonna be like a like a full on animated cartoon or is it gonna be like a comic book strip or skits?

Naila Mir (15:51)
Initially I thought it would

I thought initially I want it to be something real. So actually

Quinn Harrington (15:56)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (15:57)
with Isa doing these things and she’s the character, eventually

Quinn Harrington (16:01)
Okay.

Naila Mir (16:01)
it would could become into animated stories,

Quinn Harrington (16:04)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (16:06)
even books. and each of those friends that she has who help her through these five things, they are become

Quinn Harrington (16:13)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (16:14)
merchandise, right?

Quinn Harrington (16:16)
Yeah.

Naila Mir (16:16)
so I’ve got I’ve got these thinking already and

I’ve also talked about gamification. So how do I use

Quinn Harrington (16:22)
Yes.

Naila Mir (16:23)
the same concept to take kids through a gamification where they learn everything, every step of the way? Yeah. So

Quinn Harrington (16:30)
Right. Yeah, that’s

gamification’s been out for quite some time and I think it really does, especially for the younger ones, keeps them encouraged and engaged.

Naila Mir (16:41)
Yeah.

Yeah. So I will come to you. and we can talk more about it. Maybe I when I launch it we’ll do

Quinn Harrington (16:48)
Yeah, that sounds fun.

Naila Mir (16:49)
a show on that. Isn’t it? It does sound fun. I just need to get on with it.

Quinn Harrington (16:51)
Yes. Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (16:56)
so, while we’re around the room, there’s another part of your life I want to hear about. And we have talked about this when we when we when we chat and you’ve been here in the UK. You spent a decade as a DJ. Nothing to do with your work, right?

Quinn Harrington (17:08)
That’s true. Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (17:10)
So

Take me into that world. When did it start? What was it like behind the scenes? Was there again a business there or was it just fun?

Quinn Harrington (17:20)
Well, it started out as just fun. my best friend Eric Leffler had been a DJ for twenty years at that point. And you know, we’re both very into music. You know, he does professional voiceovers, so I had hired him for voice talent and stuff like that. And one day I decided to just buy a really small sort of starter DJ deck and

So Eric and I would, you know, play it at our at our business club and little private parties and things like that. by the way, we should get into the the parties in the in the early year early years. but because back then I was making my own playlist using like Napster and

And stuff like that. So I kind of had like the music part down, but I just had no idea what I was doing from a production point of view. And so Eric started teaching me a little bit about, you know, the best practices and, you know, how to use your microphone and you know how to set up a a playlist properly and all that. And so then we started doing like dueling DJs. And one night we were up at the university club, which is our business club.

And we’re playing for a group of young professionals. And so Eric is on one table and I’m on another. But we’re pretty close to each other. And I have a drink sitting next to my DJ deck. Okay. And so Eric goes to do this grand gesture, like he’s handing off the song to me. He’s like, in your up, and then

Naila Mir (19:10)
Ha ha

Quinn Harrington (19:12)
knocks that drink.

right on top of my DJ

Naila Mir (19:15)
no.

Quinn Harrington (19:16)
deck. And then he’s freaking out. And I’m just like, well, that thing’s shot. You know? And so he

Naila Mir (19:22)
no.

Quinn Harrington (19:23)
takes it and he’s like dumping it upside down. Water’s pouring out of it. I was like, just forget it, Eric. It’s it’s toast, you know,

Naila Mir (19:29)
Done.

Quinn Harrington (19:30)
just put another song on. We’re gonna pretend like this didn’t happen. And so that was the catalyst for me buying my first real DJ deck.

And then I took an online class. it was about six weeks learning about the real technical intricacies of DJing, started playing private parties, corporate events, things of that nature. And then eventually decided to get into the wedding business. because I’d been a wedding photographer here and there and been involved in the wedding industry for a long time, doing invitations and branding and whatnot. So it’s like, why not do weddings? Because

You sh you you meet with the client one time ahead of time. You show up at the event, you rock the party, make sure you pronounce all their names right. And then you pack up

Naila Mir (20:21)
Mm-hmm.

Quinn Harrington (20:21)
and you go home and you never hear from them again. And I was like, this is perfect. So enjoyed doing that for about five years or so. And eventually it it would evitably fall on a weekend that I had my, you know, my daughters and

Getting ready for a a big gig like that is always anxiety prone. You know, like I’d be

Naila Mir (20:42)
Mm. Mm.

Quinn Harrington (20:44)
nervous two weeks ahead of a ahead of the time. But eventually I got to a point where I went from in my mindset of being worried, like, am I going to make a mistake? You know, what what happens, you know, if the the the client is unhappy? Things of that nature.

Naila Mir (21:03)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (21:04)
And I went from that mindset.

To beginning to realize that I’ve been doing this for a long time. And I just need to have confidence in myself when I’m performing in front of an audience that they’re gonna have a good time too. And it’s my job to make sure that, you know, the the the client is thoroughly enjoying themselves. So I learned lots of, you know, tips and tricks to to get people out on the floor.

You know, like there is one wedding. The bride is out there dancing by herself and so I get on my microphone and so I was like Attention all bridesmaids, attention all bridesmaids.

Your bride is on the dance floor by herself, trying to have a good time, and you’re all chit-chatting with your friends, and you guys should be ashamed of yourself. I need all of you

Naila Mir (22:03)
no.

Quinn Harrington (22:04)
to come out onto the floor right now and support your bride. This is her big day. Thank you very much. You know, so shame, embarrassment, line dances, whatever it is it would take to to to to get them out there, you know. I I

Naila Mir (22:15)
Yeah

Quinn Harrington (22:19)
play a song, you know, they don’t like it, you know, nobody’s out there. I’ll get on my microphone, I’ll be like,

Hey listen guys, if you’re just gonna stand around and talk to each other, I will shut this shit down and go home.

Naila Mir (22:32)
Ha ha ha.

Quinn Harrington (22:34)
And they would all look

at me and be I am serious. Like I’d stop the music. And I was like,

Naila Mir (22:38)
no.

Quinn Harrington (22:39)
We’re having fun now, aren’t we? No music. Me being obnoxious. Let’s turn this around. Let’s try this one more time. Press the play button and, you know, get the party back going again.

Naila Mir (22:52)
no, I wouldn’t Well, I’m wondering I should have been at that party or not to get told off by you.

Quinn Harrington (22:59)
They were all different, you know. Everyone

was a different experience. And, you know, I loved being I loved overcoming my fear of performing in front of front

Naila Mir (23:10)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (23:10)
of an audience. That was like one of my main goals, you know, because I’m a second generation DJ. My mom’s been DJing for 40 years. You know,

Naila Mir (23:16)
Yeah. Wow.

Quinn Harrington (23:19)
and I figure if she can do it, I can do it. You know.

Naila Mir (23:21)
I know.

And get and what it’s such joy to see people enjoying what you’re doing, right? I know when I was at Unilever, the HR, I was business partnering HR, and I never am a public speaker. I I cannot stick to scripts. I don’t like talking in front of senior leaders. But they said, Would you like to host the the the business competition for graduates, you know, students? And it was like ninety students from thirty different countries or something.

Quinn Harrington (23:26)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (23:50)
I was like, sure, I’ll give it a try. And my first thing was in the first year. It was it was more about people, so it it became natural. And the first thing

Quinn Harrington (23:58)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (23:59)
I did was start the the dance competition. So each country would have to come on to the theme song of that year and do their

Quinn Harrington (24:06)
nice.

Naila Mir (24:06)
dance on it. And then the whole audience would dance. And that went on for three years. And then I got I had to leave. So I did it for four years. Four I did I quite enjoyed it. Did make a business out of it though.

Quinn Harrington (24:16)
wow. No. Yeah, that is fun.

Naila Mir (24:19)
But yeah, that was fun. But it was

yeah. So we are gonna move on to your formal introductions. But was there ever a track you loved that the room absolutely hated?

Quinn Harrington (24:33)
Hmm. Yeah, I’m sure there was a lot. But the

Naila Mir (24:37)
Ha ha

Quinn Harrington (24:39)
one that always got them there’s two of them that always got them on the floor. One was

Naila Mir (24:43)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (24:43)
the Cupid Shuffle.

Naila Mir (24:49)
Cupid shuffle. Have I missed something?

Quinn Harrington (24:50)
And yeah.

And then the other one was Teach Me How to Dougie.

Naila Mir (24:56)
when we play this episode, can you like put that music in? Drop it in so we can everyone can listen to it. It might bring back memories. Rachel, put

Quinn Harrington (25:00)
Yeah, I can drop it in for you. So yeah, that’s a no for so Rachel. Yeah. So

Naila Mir (25:09)
it in. so before we go into our now segment, let’s do a a quick intro of Quinn. thank

Quinn Harrington (25:17)
That should be good.

Naila Mir (25:18)
yeah, for anyone who’s joining us for the first time.

And you don’t know who Quinn is. Quinn is usually here beside me asking the questions, but she’s the founder or founder and chief brand concierge of Harrington Design Company or H HD Co. based in Jacksonville, Florida. Never been there, I plan to go. And the company began in 2001, so it makes it 25 years, and it helps businesses build their brands through strategy design and video. And today we’re marking 25 years by hearing what.

That journey has actually been like. And as you’ve heard from the conversation so far, Quinn, you’ve already taught swimming. You told me that you’ve done photography, you’ve told me you’ve done DJing. Now we’re gonna get into all the next pieces of your expertise and how does that all come together within HD Co? I’d love to know, right? shall we go to the now?

Quinn Harrington (26:15)
Let’s go now. Now

Naila Mir (26:19)
Great. So now you’re gonna take me back to the beginning and it’s two thousand and one. Normally we go to the future, right? So we’re going back twenty-five

Quinn Harrington (26:26)
Yes.

Naila Mir (26:27)
years. you made the decision to start HD Co. What did the business actually look like in those first few months?

Quinn Harrington (26:36)
So I had always wanted to have my own agency. I was working at a medium-sized agency here in Jacksonville, about a hundred and fifty employees, doing about a hundred million a year. So seems like a big agency, but that’s small. and

So it was around Thanks no, not Thanksgiving. It was around the summer of two thousand one. I got called into the creative director’s office and they had told me they were like, We’ve been reviewing salaries, salaries of

our our creative people and realize that we have been woefully underpaying you. So

Naila Mir (27:22)
Ooh.

Quinn Harrington (27:23)
we’re going to immediately give you a raise and a bonus to make up for some of the money that you’ve lost. And we just want to let you know that although we’ve had some layoffs recently, you’re a protected player. You’re a key part of our creative team and you know we want you here for a long time. So everyone remembers the little thing called September eleventh, you know

2001. And I remember sitting in the the conference room of St. John and Partners and they had two huge forty-inch TVs, which back then were the biggest you could get. We were watching,

Naila Mir (28:00)
Mm-hmm.

Quinn Harrington (28:00)
you know, the Twin Towers basically fall down. so very sad day for everyone. Didn’t realize how pivotal it would be for me. A month later, we got called

one by one into the creative director’s office and told that the newly formed internet team that I had joined was basically they were dissolving the whole thing because they had to make major cutbacks and the internet was still in its infancy back then. So,

Naila Mir (28:36)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (28:37)
you know, this agency made all their money off of T V media so that, you know, little scraps of money we were bringing in was like nothing.

And so I was let go on a Friday and went home and, you know, told my wife and about what had had happened and you know, we were obviously concerned because the economy was in like paralysis, especially

Naila Mir (29:03)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (29:03)
here in the United States. Nobody was hiring. But I was vice president of AIGA and told that that’s the American Institute of Graphic Arts. That’s our professional organization.

And people would tell me, it’s like, everybody knows who you are, you’ve got a great reputation, you’ll get picked up in no time. Well

That didn’t happen. And in the meantime, I only had six months of sever or six weeks of severance pay. You know, no savings to speak of, a young child. And so I started working you know, Saturday morning on building a website and getting business cards going and all this. And by Monday morning I had launched Harrington Design Company.

Naila Mir (29:48)
So that was a turning moment. And so how did you get your first client? How do they know about you?

Quinn Harrington (29:56)
So I had had a couple freelance clients that basically kept me going for that first six months until I landed my first big project. It was for a technology company that had actually had been a former St. John and Partners client. And so he’s like, I got an eighty page website and can you build it for me? And I was like, Sure. He’s like, How much? And I was like, I’m gonna swing for the fences here.

Five thousand dollars. And he’s

Naila Mir (30:28)
Mm-hmm.

Quinn Harrington (30:29)
like, Done. So five thousand dollars was close to two months income and made that in about three weeks. And I was like, there could

Naila Mir (30:42)
Nine.

Quinn Harrington (30:42)
be something to this and granted I probably should have charged fifteen or twenty thousand for this project because eighty pages,

Naila Mir (30:47)
Really at that time.

Quinn Harrington (30:49)
yes, eighty eighty pages, all hand writ hand coded, you know.

There’s no WordPress back then or anything like that. This is all, you know, original art, original coding and all that. But that project basically was the moment when I knew I was back. And so then began to grow grow from there. Eventually got my own office downtown. you know, started hiring, you know, my first graphic designer. And I got a call from Citibank.

they were looking for full-time freelance, which worked out to be about a hundred grand a year. And considering I was making like thirty, thirty-five before, I mean, this is three times what I was making before. But I knew Citibank is where good creatives go to die. And so, you know, I was just like, it was very, very difficult. But through the support of my faith and my family, you know, I turned the job down.

And

Naila Mir (31:55)
Okay.

Quinn Harrington (31:55)
yeah, I’ve s refused to give up on my little dream.

Naila Mir (32:00)
I like so you followed your heart. You know people say like heart and mind. In in this case it would have been the heart, right? Yep. Purpose.

Quinn Harrington (32:05)
Yeah. Yes. Because the business the smart

business move would have been to go get the job at Citibank, but I knew once went back there I would never I would

Naila Mir (32:15)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (32:15)
I’d I would never restart this thing again because the benefits and everything, they’re just too good. But

Naila Mir (32:22)
So I was gonna ask that. So twenty five years is a lot of decisions. Was this the one that changed the direction of the business? Or has there been other decisions that you’ve made but which were bigger turning points?

Quinn Harrington (32:36)
The two biggest turning points were the well the first three biggest turning points were was the City Bank job. And then a few years later, I got a call from Citibank, but this time it wasn’t for a job, it was for a video.

Naila Mir (32:54)
yeah.

Quinn Harrington (32:54)
a keynote video for the chief technology officer of City Cards. And he was having this big

you know, event with 500 of City’s top tech nerds. Michael Dell was the keynote speaker. Yeah, that guy, Dell Computers. Yeah. So, and

Naila Mir (33:11)
Yes, I got it.

Quinn Harrington (33:14)
so the client said, basically I’m looking for something that’s akin to like a corporate music video. And he sent me over the track. It was just tracked by this band called the Chemical Brothers, which

Naila Mir (33:29)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (33:30)
is a techno group.

And I was like listening to the track and I was just like, Holy crap, you can’t play this at a corporate conference. People will freak out. But you know, we did as we were told and created something that was like it’s so funny because you look back look at it back then. This is before the iPhone, before Facebook really took off.

Naila Mir (33:49)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (33:50)
You know, and there’s all this futuristic stuff. Like, imagine when, you know, we don’t use credit cards anymore. Imagine when we use fingerprints to look to, you

Naila Mir (34:00)
No.

Quinn Harrington (34:01)
know, imagine when, you know, all of your devices from your toaster to your refrigerator are smart. You know, yes,

Naila Mir (34:08)
Connected.

Quinn Harrington (34:09)
connected Internet of Things and all this stuff. It was like so futuristic back back then. And now it’s just like, yeah, you know, no big deal.

Naila Mir (34:18)
my g do you still

have the do you still have the video? Mm,

Quinn Harrington (34:19)
I still have it, yeah.

Naila Mir (34:22)
I wanna watch it. I know I’m sure you’ve you’ve played it for me once before.

Quinn Harrington (34:26)
Yeah, I’ll see maybe we could queue that one up and and drop it in here too. But

Naila Mir (34:30)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (34:31)
it was a it was a huge success. And the audience had never seen anything like that before. So we kind of sort of set the new gold standard for keynote videos for at least for Citibank. And then eventually they left, went on to other roles, my my client and then

A few years later, I got a call from Nielsen. It said Nielsen on the caller ID. And for those of you under thirty who don’t know Nielsen is, they measure all of our television ratings and measure everything that we buy, essentially. They’re the world’s largest marketing research company in over a hundred co countries. But I was like, I don’t have time for a survey. You know, I’m not gonna answer the phone. And

Then they called again. And I was like, wow, they must really want to talk to me. So I answered the phone and it wasn’t a survey, it was my old client back at Citibank, you know, and she was like, Hey, long story short, we’re not at Citibank anymore, but you know, we’re at Nielsen and we’re looking for a new agent scene, wondering if you’d like to submit an RFP. And I was like, Sure. but Citibank was a

They were a difficult client and I really

Naila Mir (35:55)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (35:55)
wasn’t sure I wanted to work with them again. But, you know, as I say in my big speech, when you know, God brings you a a whale, you either ride it or end up in the belly of the beast. And so I took took that white whale and have been working with them ever since almost fifteen years. That was the real moment that

turned our agency from a a local cli a local agency with a couple of global clients to a global agency with a couple of local clients.

Naila Mir (36:34)
like that. You know when we talk about global but local and local but global.

Quinn Harrington (36:39)
Yes.

Naila Mir (36:40)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fits the bill. But you you also talk difficult clients, right? It’s not easy

Quinn Harrington (36:47)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (36:47)
when you’re constantly in this mode of looking for the clients and new clients. It’s I mean it’s stressful. I’ve got my own small business as well. And now we’re heading towards the the next year, right? And we’ll talk about that in a minute. But you’ve also written about cap

in your yard and what they’ve taught you about clients. I love that you can find a business lesson in all of this. But what did you realize you’d be getting wrong? Like tell me a bit about these lessons. What about these cats in the yard?

Quinn Harrington (37:19)
Okay, so if you were to extend the analogy to of of the cats in the yard to clients, I have this

Naila Mir (37:27)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (37:28)
one cat who is very aggressive, you know, always, you know, hisses at me, wants the food, is pushing the other cats out of the way. That’s like your real aggressive client, kinda like some of the people I worked with at Nielsen back in the day.

And learning how to manage them and their expectations. And most importantly, learning when to push back. that was a lesson I learned pretty early on. we were launching, this is at the agency, and we were launching World Golf Village in St. Augustine and which also housed the World Golf Hall of Fame. So, like, you

Naila Mir (38:06)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (38:06)
know, Cooper T Cooperstown has football,

Cantoran or something has baseball and St. Augustine has golf. And I remember sitting in a meeting with marketing director, his team, account manager, our team sitting across the table and we’re presenting these brochures to them. And we had different approaches. And the chief marketing officer was like, Well, what happened if we

Just kind of combined these two. I was like, You mean like ranimalize it? You know, like ranimals, you know, like you can mix and match

Naila Mir (38:47)
Ha ha ha.

Quinn Harrington (38:50)
clothes for kids? And he was like, Yeah.

Naila Mir (38:52)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (38:53)
And it’s like, I mean if you want to make it suck, we could do that. And my account director looked at me and she’s like, What did you say? I was

Naila Mir (39:06)
my god.

Quinn Harrington (39:08)
like, I mean

They’re two distinct directions. If we combine them, we’re just gonna water them down. We should pick one or the other and go with it. You know, and the CMO was like, okay, fine, let’s go with this one. And ended up turning into a very successful campaign. You know, agency made a lot of money, helped put the agency on the map for another big, huge, you know, client. And I learned early on that.

It’s very important to speak your mind and if you ruffle a little feathers along the way, hopefully they’ll respect you. Cause if you don’t go into a situation where you’re confident, in at that time I was borderline cocky, you know, but if you didn’t if if

Naila Mir (39:54)
Mm-hmm.

Quinn Harrington (39:55)
you don’t go in there with with confidence in delivering a product that is very subjective, there’s no

no chance that the person who’s on the end of it who’s paying for this is gonna gonna believe in you. So you gotta

Naila Mir (40:12)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (40:12)
believe in yourself and you gotta have valid reasons for every decision that you make. So every decision that was was made was not just like, I just felt like putting red here. You know, it’s like, no, or drawing the

Naila Mir (40:24)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Quinn Harrington (40:25)
eye into a a location, creating, you know, composition and, you know, hierarchy within a sp a a space and things of that nature.

So I took a lot of that willingness to challenge a client on their assertions.

And I think one of the the things that you have to be willing to do when you put yourself out there is to be willing to walk away from the table and say,

Naila Mir (40:58)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (41:00)
Well, this is what we have to present. And, you know, we, you know, it’s backed by research, it’s backed by you know, our intuition and experience of doing this over, you know, dozens of years. And

If that’s not working for you, then maybe we’re not a good fit.

Naila Mir (41:21)
Mm, I like that. So you’re basically what you’re doing is you’re you’re giving the right advice with your expertise and your knowledge and your experience. And they either listen to it or they don’t and at the end of this it worked out. And I think when I’ve worked with agencies, they’ve often done that. I’m like, but I like

Quinn Harrington (41:39)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (41:39)
this idea and I like this idea and combine the two and they do. They do combine

Quinn Harrington (41:44)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (41:44)
it. They don’t tell me to stick to my g their guns and use one or the other.

But that’s a great lesson. I might actually bring that more into I often sometimes wonder I’m too much of an advocate when I’m talking, right? To keep

Quinn Harrington (41:55)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (41:56)
everyone happy. but there are times where I do need to stick to what I’m saying and the decision that I’m making because it’s the right one. And if it’s not, I’ll I’ll h I’ll hold myself accountable. That’s fine. You know? but that’s a really good lesson.

Quinn Harrington (42:08)
Yes, exactly. You know, and it’s the

the thing of it is is that it doesn’t mean that you’re inflexible. it’s really important to check your ego at the door. And this is great advice for young designers.

Naila Mir (42:21)
Yeah. Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (42:24)
we get very personally invested in our work. And when that happens, when someone provides, you know, a critique or negative feedback or they reject your ideas.

You take it personally. It’s like, but you can’t do that. It’s like once the work is being presented on the wall or being presented on the screen, it is no longer yours. And it’s our job to be objective about it. You know, and if the client raises a genuine concern that maybe information we didn’t have, then we need to deal with it. But short of that, you should trust us.

Naila Mir (43:03)
Exactly, exactly. I don’t know if you can hear my kid crying. But she is.

Quinn Harrington (43:06)
I can, but she’s adorable.

Naila Mir (43:08)
yeah, I know, I’m sorry. I know we’re getting into we haven’t even got to the Nair segment. So we maybe we’ll move to the n yeah, let’s

Quinn Harrington (43:15)
Should we move Denier or do you have more questions?

Naila Mir (43:17)
No, no, we can go on forever.

I have more questions, but we’re going to Nair.

Quinn Harrington (43:19)
Yes. All right. Near.

Naila Mir (43:24)
Great. So we’ve looked back. Let’s look forward three to five years.

What do you want the next chapter of H D Co to give you that the first twenty five years haven’t?

Quinn Harrington (43:37)
You know, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and especially when I just paid to have my trademarks removed r renewed for another five years. You

Naila Mir (43:45)
Minute. Mm-hmm.

Quinn Harrington (43:46)
know, it’s like

What’s the difference between having a business that’s lasts for twenty-five years versus one that lasts for fifty years? You know, it’s like there there’s really no reason that Harrington Design Company can’t be a hundred year company.

Naila Mir (44:03)
Two.

Quinn Harrington (44:03)
And but that’s gonna require making some changes, changes in, you know, succession, handing things down. Like who’s gonna take over this this baby in ten or so years when, you know, I’m

too old or, you know, don’t have the desire to do it anymore. Like I don’t want to just

Naila Mir (44:23)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (44:23)
close the door and walk away and I mean, I’d really rather not sell it. I’m hoping that one of my kids will come along and be like, all right, I’ll take it. You know, or

Naila Mir (44:34)
Mm-hmm.

Quinn Harrington (44:34)
one of my employees will come along and and and take it. So

Naila Mir (44:39)
Well, you can step them up to do that, right? Succession planning.

Quinn Harrington (44:42)
Well, yeah, exactly.

Exactly. It it takes time. And so nothing would make me happier, you know, for one or both of my kids to take it over and turn Harrington Design Company into whatever they want to. It’s like at this point, you could do interiors, you could do cartoons, you could do whatever

Naila Mir (45:00)
True, true.

Quinn Harrington (45:03)
whatever you want to with it. it’s it’s all yours. It’s your legacy. And one of the

main things that I would have to be able to to to pass down to to my kids that is of hopefully true and lasting value.

Naila Mir (45:20)
That’s amazing. You know, now you’re making me think I need to think in this direction. Do I? We’ll have a separate conversation on this. about P three Connect. ’cause

Quinn Harrington (45:29)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (45:30)
it still is about people, purpose and passion. That can live,

Quinn Harrington (45:34)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (45:35)
right? And it can have many iterations. But this is not about me. This is about you. and there’s another question I have. And we’ve talked a lot about AI, yeah.

Quinn Harrington (45:47)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (45:48)
and you’ve written about it too, and the need for people to taste, to for people with taste and judgment. In your own work, where is AI actually helping you now?

Quinn Harrington (46:00)
So beyond generative AI, which pretty much everyone is using, and that’s using AI to create where you direct AI to perform a s certain task, you know, create a video, build a spreadsheet, whatever, not not whatnot, to

creating agentic processes to manage certain aspects of the business. So, like

Naila Mir (46:29)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (46:29)
for example, client acquisition is the big one I’m working on right now.

Naila Mir (46:34)
Okay.

Quinn Harrington (46:35)
my friend Chris created this tool called the brand love diagnostic, which feeds into our two hour workshop. Diagnostic is three takes three minutes, it’s fifteen questions, and you get a score. That score goes into

This CRM customer response management tool, I think that’s what that is, CRM that manages all incoming leads and creates personalized messaging based on your score, based on visits to the website, visits to your social. So it aggregates all that information to create unique pathways for every individual client who comes into play.

And so that would be the front end of it. The second part would be once they sign up for a workshop, aggregating all the information that comes with that and creating a process where the reports, the 90 day action plan, and the proposal are actually generated within Claude. And so that would be the

First main component of client acquisition. Now once we start getting into the regular project nature of it, I don’t really see a whole lot of going agentic with that. we are looking to really move into more of like what’s called like a brand sprint format where we, you know, deliver a product in like

seven to fourteen days. And it’s like

Naila Mir (48:16)
I like it.

Quinn Harrington (48:16)
a all hands on deck kind of thing, you know, versus dragging a project out over two months. Let’s just get ourselves prepared, you know, set a date. And when that date comes, you know, we’re gonna be done in seven days. And and and that’s the end of it. Or 14 days, depending on, you know, the the extent of the project. So there’ll probably be some tools and that we’ll we’ll use to

help speed that along, but so much of what we do in the creative process of it really is a combination of our own imagination, intuition, input from the client. Not really a whole lot of space there right now for turning that into an agentic process where it says, okay, AI will create this this keynote video for you.

I don’t really see that happening right now. Maybe in two to five years. But, you know, I see clients, they build stuff in-house, and they do it for cost reasons or, you know, time or whatever. And they know it’s not as good as what we do. You know.

Naila Mir (49:31)
It lacks some

of that human the something the feeling it lacks, you know, when it’s completely AI generated. I told you this before. When something is like when I see on Instagram or, you know, any of these places where it’s a AI video, I switch off because I know it’s

Quinn Harrington (49:47)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (49:47)
not real and you’ve I don’t buy into it.

Quinn Harrington (49:51)
Well we call that AI slop.

Naila Mir (49:54)
I slop.

Quinn Harrington (49:55)
AI

slop. And that was one of the that’s one of the major themes that signal and noise has been dealing with lately is the slop. And that was why I wanted to write the article from the point of view of these different chatbots who are really doing their damnedest to try to deliver great work for you. And when you ignore its advice or feed it bad information.

It’s going to deliver a bad product. And so all these chat

Naila Mir (50:25)
Got it. Got it.

Quinn Harrington (50:26)
chatbots are like, you know, hey, it wasn’t me, you know.

Naila Mir (50:30)
Yeah.

That’s another thing, right? There’s some is all a

Quinn Harrington (50:33)
And so, you know,

I close out the the argument, close out the article with it’s like it’s not a failure of AI, it’s a failure of leadership within

Naila Mir (50:40)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (50:41)
your company to not providing the proper guidance and vision for your human your your your your human team and your AI team.

Naila Mir (50:58)
Yeah, I agree. But it’s so interesting and fascinating to hear and you’re and seriously this conversation is quite inspiring for me as well to think about future where you’ve talked about HD Co. and the legacy that you want to leave behind, but you’re thinking about things that can keep that legacy and the company going. Right? And I love that and I I I’ve really been battening to think through through that because I’ve been so down in the day to day. Really need to keep take up time to think about the the future.

Quinn Harrington (51:27)
Because you have to think it

Naila Mir (51:27)
We’ve got a few

Quinn Harrington (51:28)
you you have to think about it from the point of view of so the value of a business beyond our labor.

Naila Mir (51:40)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (51:40)
Like if you were to remove us from the equation, Nyla and Quinn, like what is the value of the of the business? Well,

Naila Mir (51:45)
Does it exist? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Quinn Harrington (51:48)
a complete agentic client acquisition process that’s custom tailored.

You know, and that could be repackaged. I mean, that’s value. It’s a product.

Naila Mir (51:57)
Yeah, exactly.

Quinn Harrington (51:59)
securing IP, trademarks that has value. And so the the goal is to create, you know, a a a steady stream of predictable revenue. Like that’s that’s valuable to, you know, someone who’s looking to to come in and take over the video or the business, whether it be through acquisition, you know, or passing down to, you know,

employees are our family. So there’s it’s more than just yeah, I’m building inefficiencies into my business. It’s like I’m turning part of my business into a a product that doesn’t need me to function. You know what I’m saying? Like anyone

Naila Mir (52:45)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Quinn Harrington (52:46)
could come in and do this this follow the the process and procedure and conduct this workshop.

Naila Mir (52:54)
I love it. which takes me to a question from across the pond.

So we might as well go to across the pond because i

Quinn Harrington (52:58)
Okay. Yes.

Naila Mir (53:01)
it’s connected.

Quinn Harrington (53:03)
Across the pond.

Hold on, press the wrong button again. Across the pond.

Naila Mir (53:09)
Okay, so let’s swap for a week. And you’re running P three Connect and I’m running HD Co. What would

Quinn Harrington (53:18)
Okay.

Naila Mir (53:19)
you need to warn me about before handing me the keys?

Quinn Harrington (53:23)
To HD Co.

Naila Mir (53:24)
Yeah. I’m taking over for a week. What what are you gonna tell me? What are you gonna warn me about? Are you gonna even give me the keys?

Quinn Harrington (53:34)
I would.

Naila Mir (53:36)
Okay.

Quinn Harrington (53:37)
I would. I would I would say the main thing that

And it’s the thing that all of us small businesses struggle with is well let’s just go ahead and assume that you’ve got enough client work and you’re not looking at new business development. So keeping the the client on track, keep keeping them engaged, keeping them responding, managing their expectations, against a budget and a time frame.

is always your most difficult challenge. trying to parse the the input that they give you for a particular job and making sure you have enough information to be able to deliver the appropriate product on budget and and time. Like that’s the trick right there. because clients very often they’ll see shiny things and they’re like, I want this. I want that. And I was like

Naila Mir (54:42)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (54:42)
That’s great, but we didn’t scope that, so we’re gonna have to change the scope, which is gonna cost more money and possibly extend your timeline. So you tell me if you feel like this is a worthwhile investment for this shiny thing that you saw, or maybe it’s something that we we save for for phase two. Sure.

Naila Mir (55:02)
Got it. It’s a bit similar to what I have to do in my own company.

setting the expectation, when they change the scope, I have to rehab that conversation with them. And ours is like, we

Quinn Harrington (55:13)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (55:15)
agreed on these ten things. do you wanna drop or replace something?

Quinn Harrington (55:19)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (55:20)
then it won’t impact timeline, it won’t impact resource, it won’t impact cost. But if you want to do something additional, then we’re gonna have to look at more budgets. Or do it another time.

Quinn Harrington (55:30)
Now it was very, very hard for

me to to try to

Naila Mir (55:34)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (55:34)
sell to a client early on because I was so afraid that if I push back against them, you know, they they

Naila Mir (55:40)
They go.

Quinn Harrington (55:41)
might it might create a negative experience. But really what it’s doing is it’s showing that you respect and value the the the product that you’re

trading for them and that you respect and value the relationship. You know, we agreed to do a certain thing and we want to deliver the best possible product that we can for you. You know, by making dramatic changes, you know, after we pass a certain approval gate means we have to go backwards. And I always tell my clients

Naila Mir (56:13)
Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (56:14)
in this process, you know, there’s ample opportunity for you to provide input.

Early on in the alignment stage, in the concept stage. But once we move to production, if you now all of a sudden you want to change the concept, we got to go back and relook

Naila Mir (56:35)
That is like

Quinn Harrington (56:36)
that this concept all over again. Maybe we’ve already spent 20, 30, 40 hours in production that is essentially lost. I had a client once.

We produced a broadcast quality 60-second video for a big keynote event. And this is three days before the event. Client responded back, this is not at all what I was thinking. I’ve got some ideas to share with you. And so then I talked to my point of contact. I was like, you know, we just wasted $20,000 in three weeks. And she’s like, well.

He’s the chief operating officer. He what he wants is what he gets. And so we did it, but those are the the kind of nightmare scenarios that you really want to try to avoid. And fortunately I haven’t had too many of those pop up in the last five or ten years. So I’ve done a better job.

Naila Mir (57:39)
Great.

No, but I I’m glad that you know what from listening to you, I think we’ve got like the same business athlet aesthetics, values, how we approach clients.

Quinn Harrington (57:53)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (57:54)
you’re a bit more in the future. I need to get there. I’m in the I’m in the now and the near right now. So but this is like at least we learning from each other. This is what I’m getting every day and every week that we talk.

Which takes me to the future.

Quinn Harrington (58:12)
Alright. The future.

Naila Mir (58:15)
So we get our crystal no, you get out your crystal ball. Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (58:19)
Okay.

Naila Mir (58:21)
imagine we’re having this conversation again in twenty years. We’re

Quinn Harrington (58:25)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (58:25)
back. Maybe we have this podcast in twenty years. Who knows? We’ll be like two old people on a podcast laughing about the past. what would you Yeah?

Quinn Harrington (58:30)
Yes. Yes. Talking about the weather and you know

our all our illnesses.

Naila Mir (58:39)
Yes, and how we made

or are we gonna talk about how we did so well that we’re sitting comfortably retired? Yeah?

Quinn Harrington (58:48)
Yeah. Yeah, we

took over we took over Joe Gro Joe Rogan Spot as the number one podcast in the world. you know, it who would have saw this coming?

Naila Mir (58:58)
Do you know on the the other day, and I don’t know it was it Steve Bartlett, Stephen Bartlett, he

Quinn Harrington (59:04)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (59:05)
posted on LinkedIn that he’s gone soup superseded Joe Rogan by X amount. So he’s number one. Yeah. The the di

Quinn Harrington (59:12)
Wow. Huh. I had no idea.

Naila Mir (59:15)
yeah, the C is it the diary of the CEOs or the CEO’s diaries, one of those, his podcast. but what would you be telling me twenty twenty years from now when we have this conversation conversation about

about you, about what you l you know, where you are, about your company.

Quinn Harrington (59:34)
Well, I would love to be able to say that I am passing the reins off to my kids. the last twelve years have been incredibly successful. You know, we’ve got a stable of you know, consistent revenue, we’ve got a national reputation. that

We’re gonna continue with maybe different methods and techniques, but the values of the company, you know, curious, competent, capable. That we have maintained those those values and wanting to try to do right by our clients, right by the you know, consumer, right by the human race, you know, and

Being able to to to pass those values down to the next generation of H D Co, that would be more than I could ask for.

Naila Mir (1:00:43)
Yeah, you kind of answered my next question. What would you want people to most recognise? And it feels like it’s the values, your essence of the company.

Quinn Harrington (1:00:50)
Yes, yeah.

Naila Mir (1:00:53)
and then in your piece about Hamilton, you wrote about Hamilton. you wrote about building something that works when you’re not in the room. And I guess that’s what you’re answering here again, is it? Or is there something else you’re adding on to what you built?

What would it look like?

Quinn Harrington (1:01:13)
Well, so

you know, Alexander Hamilton, you know, he’s the the the the father of our treasury, essentially,

Naila Mir (1:01:20)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (1:01:21)
here in the United States. And what he was able to create, the the the system and processes of government that he was in in finance, what he was able to create was like nothing everyone anyone had ever done before.

Because, you know, coming from Britain essentially, the king owns everything, you know, they makes all the decisions of the the the government. And here this is something that has

Value that goes hundreds of years past his his lifespan. A lot of people don’t even realize his his contribution to that. And I would love to be able to have something that lives on beyond my time here. I don’t know exactly what that is, but I got a little time to figure it out.

Naila Mir (1:02:16)
Yeah. And outside of H H D Co, what would you like to have made more room for by then?

Quinn Harrington (1:02:23)
I would like to make more room.

for new passions. Maybe it’s cooking, travel.

Maybe writing books.

I don’t really really see any reason why we we would ever stop this podcast unless we’re just like

Naila Mir (1:02:49)
It’s a fun thing. Hopefully it’ll make some revenue.

Quinn Harrington (1:02:51)
It’s a fun thing.

Naila Mir (1:02:52)
But it might become our thing to go to, right? And we both like having conversations

Quinn Harrington (1:02:55)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (1:02:59)
and learning. So hopefully we can continue this. Yeah. Let’s see how

Quinn Harrington (1:03:03)
I hope so.

Naila Mir (1:03:04)
far we can get go to. I do want to talk more and I know we’re gonna go to a wrap, but I have introduced a new segment just for you.

And it’s

Quinn Harrington (1:03:13)
okay.

Naila Mir (1:03:14)
called it’s called the Anniversary Quick Round.

Yeah.

Quinn Harrington (1:03:17)
All right.

Naila Mir (1:03:19)
you it’s like a birthday round, but it’s first answers and it’s like quick whatever comes to your mind first. And I’ve got four questions. Yeah?

Quinn Harrington (1:03:27)
Okay.

Naila Mir (1:03:28)
Okay, so rapid round. One design trend from two thousand and one you’d happily leave there.

Quinn Harrington (1:03:36)
Three D logos.

Naila Mir (1:03:39)
Explained what three D logos.

It’s on your phone?

Quinn Harrington (1:03:57)
Yeah, you know like the whole new liquid display that

Apple came up with. It’s

Naila Mir (1:04:05)
That’s two thousand and one?

Quinn Harrington (1:04:07)
well, we’ve really kind of become like

You see Siri?

Naila Mir (1:04:17)
Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Quinn Harrington (1:04:19)
That whole thing started in like the early 2000s. That is a trend

Naila Mir (1:04:24)
Okay.

Quinn Harrington (1:04:25)
I would definitely be happy to to to leave behind.

Naila Mir (1:04:27)
Leave behind. Okay.

One bit one bit of business jargon you’d ban.

Quinn Harrington (1:04:33)
Mm-hmm.

Scope creep.

Naila Mir (1:04:39)
Scope creep. Okay. the song that gets you straight back behind the decks.

Quinn Harrington (1:04:48)
Michael Jackson, don’t stop till you get enough.

Naila Mir (1:04:51)
Yay! We’re gonna play that one after this as well.

Quinn Harrington (1:04:53)
Okay.

Naila Mir (1:04:55)
if HD Co. were a dish at its own anniversary dinner, what would it be?

Quinn Harrington (1:05:02)
Ooh.

Probably like a wagu beef rebu ribeye with polenta and asparagus.

Naila Mir (1:05:17)
Goes well with your cooking thing you just talked about, right?

Quinn Harrington (1:05:19)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (1:05:20)
Hey, we gotta get that recipe then, Quinn. I like that. I could we

Quinn Harrington (1:05:25)
Yeah, you know,

it’s the the have you watched that series called The Last Meal?

Naila Mir (1:05:32)
No, but you told me about it.

Quinn Harrington (1:05:33)
Yeah, it’s on I think it’s on Netflix. It’s kind of podcast format like.

Naila Mir (1:05:39)
Nice.

Quinn Harrington (1:05:40)
and basically celebrities come on and they talk about their last meal and then they have actually chefs that prepare the meal for them and they talk about why these dishes are important and whatnot. It’s really a pretty cool format.

Naila Mir (1:05:55)
I will check that out. And I think you like Quince Essential that you’ve introduced, maybe we should do a quick fire round in podcast. It’s quite fun. And we can

Quinn Harrington (1:06:04)
Okay.

Naila Mir (1:06:04)
throw s we can throw silly questions at our guests.

Quinn Harrington (1:06:07)
I like it. I like it.

Naila Mir (1:06:09)
Shall we take it to a wrap?

Quinn Harrington (1:06:11)
Let’s take it to the wrap.

Naila Mir (1:06:13)
Before my baby cries.

Okay, so Quinn, for someone listening who is just starting something new of their own, what would you want them to take away from your story?

Quinn Harrington (1:06:27)
Well, I actually know quite a few people who are launching into their own endeavor and I sort of liken it to what one of my colleagues told me when we were first launching this podcast. It’s like flying the plane while you’re still building it.

Naila Mir (1:06:48)
Hey, I like I like that.

Quinn Harrington (1:06:49)
Yeah.

So you want to do the best you can to do your dil due diligence and try to come up with some semblance of a marketing plan. But in those early years, plan to be really flexible and plan for your anticipate that your plans will be disrupted. And the second

Naila Mir (1:07:08)
I like that.

Quinn Harrington (1:07:09)
thing would be start thinking about building your team, your tribe, your

people that support you building that early. Like even if you’re not ready to take on a full-time employee, you know, you wanna you wanna have a bench that’s deep enough to be able to take on that unexpected project, like when Nielsen or Citibank called and really pushed our capabilities. You know, if I was scrambling to find someone during that time to try to do it, we might not have been able to do it.

Naila Mir (1:07:46)
Yeah. Yeah. I like that too. Such great advice, Quinn. I love

Quinn Harrington (1:07:51)
Thank you.

Naila Mir (1:07:52)
it. Two of them that I follow. So that’s a great thing

Quinn Harrington (1:07:54)
Yes.

Naila Mir (1:07:54)
as well. Alignment. Okay. Thank you for letting me put you in the guest seat and congratulations, Sonora. Twenty-five years of HD Co. we could not talk about most of your thing like a lot of your things. We talked more about your story. But for people

Quinn Harrington (1:08:08)
Mm-hmm.

Naila Mir (1:08:09)
who want to know more about the work you do, where can they find you?

Quinn Harrington (1:08:15)
so you can find me at on the website at HD Co H DCO dot co. So that’s not dot com, it’s hdco.co. You can

Naila Mir (1:08:25)
Mm.

Quinn Harrington (1:08:26)
find me on pretty much all the social at hdco. obviously you can find us Nyla and I at our podcast website, now near future dot com, and at Now Near Future on all the socials.

I have a commercial photography website, quinnharrington.com. I have I’m a contributor to signal and noise dot AI. So that’s most of it. There’s more, but yes.

Naila Mir (1:09:00)
Great. I didn’t have to do the the whole socials things. And if this convers

I was like, great, thank you very much. If this conversation made you think of someone of someone building a business of their own, send it to them, this podcast. And stay curious, keep dreaming, and we’ll see you in the future.

Quinn Harrington (1:09:13)
See

in the future.

Naila Mir (1:09:21)
See ya.