Never before have we been empowered to do so much with so little. In the day of platforms, APIs, and cloud based services, entrepreneurs can take a fresh idea from concept to market leader overnight. New markets continue to be created and old markets displaced by more eager, nimble and creative competitors.

Great examples of this trend are Craigslist, Mint and Hulu. The environment, parties and outcomes are different with each company, but each contains its own series of lessons on how great strategic vision and user experience allowed an entrepreneur to challenge the establishment.

The media coverage of Craigslist has been long and numerous and the impact they’ve had on the newspaper industry has also been well covered. What tends to get overlooked though is how simple of an idea Craig Newmark had. He wasn’t the first to have this idea. His execution isn’t even the best, but in the end it doesn’t matter because he changed the way we think about the want ads. When Craig started his newsletter and later site, he didn’t wait for the perfect strategy to displace an industry or the perfect pitch to investors for financing. Instead he fulfilled a personal need and through numerous events and decisions ended up with a service that now receives over 49 million monthly visitors. All of this from a common idea with an imperfect implementation. What’s the lesson to learn? Speed and timing matters. By pushing the site out early Craig got a jump on the competition and began to build traffic sooner.

The story of Mint is shorter, but just as exciting. Mint.com began in 2006, born from the frustration of an employee from market leading financial software and services from Intuit and Microsoft. Aaron Patzer, Mint’s founder, believed the existing options hard to use, overly complex and riddled with artificial limitations. His idea was simple – build a package that would provide a great user experience. In the day of entrenched departmental turf wars and office politics, the competing corporate products suffered from feature overload and are an organizational nightmare. Mint didn’t do much more from a website feature perspective than your local bank’s website. It only did it better. Much better. Mint saw the opportunity and seized it. Though Mint has done extensive development in-house, what drives the numerous connections to everyone’s local bank isn’t even of their own doing. It’s an accessible platform within the banking industry, one that was and still is available to competitors that provides those connections. Again, Mint didn’t create an revolutionary idea. It was their execution of the idea and the speed at which they innovated that grew the user-base to 500,000+. The interesting twist with Mint is that near the end of 2009, Intuit bought them for 170 million. Proving that a better user experience and a few years can have a great return.

Hulu, a video portal began during a sea of alternative video sites. As YouTube, Google Video and Vimeo dominated page views, critics questioned the viability of a new service, even though it was backed by a group of media conglomerates. What the critics failed to value however was the leverage inherited by being both the content owner and distributor. Hulu has used this leverage, along with great user experience to become a market leader. Interestingly, as one of many industries facing increased pressures and threats of piracy, the creation of Hulu shows that the movie and television can have success embracing the internet. The Internet – threat turned resource and distribution outlet. Within the great user experience they incorporated in short and relevant advertising, something that many of us now skip with our DVRs. By accepting the realities of the Internet, they managed to turn a threat into a revenue generating channel. Sometimes framing a challenge into an opportunity changes everything.

Craigslist, Mint and Hulu – All sources of inspiration to us at dynamIt. The chance to help design and build out such a game changing service makes it easy to get out of bed in the morning and hard to clock out at the end of the day. Do you have the next big idea? Let’s talk.

Dynamit was honored as one of the “Best Places to Work” in 2010 & 2011 by Columbus Business First newspaper and Interactive Agency of the Year. Times are even better in 2012 and we’re hiring a Web/Graphic Designer for our aggressively growing team.

This is an exciting opportunity to work on cutting edge projects for well-known brands in a dynamic, entrepreneurial and highly creative environment. Please email resumes/cover letters and portfolio information (documents or links to online examples) to Gary Moneysmith via gmoney@dynamit.us.

A web/graphic designer on the Dynamit team will:

• Be well versed with Adobe Creative Suite: Strong knowledge of Photoshop, experience with Illustrator and InDesign.
• Have a strong understanding of Usability & Web Trends: Experience with user interface design, knowledge of best practices & examples of this in a portfolio or live site/application design. They will also be up-to-date on web trends and design tactics with examples.
• Have experience in user experience design (UXD) designing application and system interfaces. This experience is crucial for this position.
• Have Basic Programming Knowledge: We’re not looking for a developer here, but the designer should have the ability to design for web with a knowledge of the boundaries and how to design for execution by a programmer.
• Have a Strong Portfolio: We’d like to see much more web work than print.
• Be eager to learn, with a passion for design & the web. The designer should have a strong internal drive for industry knowledge and be committed to furthering the craft.

Experience is important, but personality is key. Our culture is what drives us, and we’re looking to build our team with someone who both fits and contributes to it.

The position is full time at our office in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. We offer a competitive salary and benefits package as well as a fun, high-energy, intellectually-stimulating work environment.

Benefits Include

• Competitive salary (compensation will be based on skills and experience)
• Fully paid medical/dental insurance for employees
• Paid parking
• Unlimited vacation time (within reason)
• Office bar + climbing wall — not recommended together

Don’t sit back. If you want to work in a fast paced work environment with great people who love what they do, apply today.

About Dynamit
Dynamit is a digital agency based in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. We work with clients and brands on digital initiatives that include strategy, design, user experience and development. We influence communication and commerce. Client work includes Hilton Worldwide, Charley's Grilled Subs, McGraw-Hill, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), E-Z-GO, American Electric Power (AEP), Columbus College of Art & Design and the Ohio State Medical Center (OSUMC) to name but a few.