Young in Years, Mature in Approach. Detroiter - May 2005 - By Chris Mead
Detroiter Business Profile: Brian Balasia, Digerati Solutions
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Brian Balasia’s business career is that it’s compressed into so few years. Twenty-three to be precise, starting at birth.
Don’t let that age sidetrack you. Digerati Solutions, the company Balasia first began to develop while still in his teens, takes a mature, long-term and customer-first approach in its mission to help small businesses use technology creatively to boost productivity and improve the bottom line.
The company’s name blends the words “digital” and “literati,” the latter defined in the dictionary as “the educated class.” The combination is an apt description of Balasia and his full-time staff of seven who recently packed up and moved from an office in Troy to a suite on the 34th floor of the historic Guardian Building in downtown Detroit.
Although medical/dental practices are emerging as the company’s core market, Digerati Solutions also numbers clients in the retail, automotive supplier, nonprofit, technology, design and government sectors. Balasia hopes to double or even triple his staff over the next 12 months, a goal he modestly calls “quite a challenge.”
Balasia’s business philosophy is disarmingly simple: Technology is just a tool and, as such, it must achieve quantifiable results. At the outset of a project, he tells his clients exactly what they stand to gain -- before the work begins.
“We want to make absolutely sure that there’s a business case for everything we do with technology,” he says. And as proof he points to one of the company’s showcase clients, an oral surgery practice in Toledo. It recently notched a 47 percent increase in production, most of which was the direct result of processes implemented by Digerati Solutions.
Balasia, it seems, was programmed for business success at an early age, thanks in large measure to his father, Steve, recently retired vice president of government relations for SBC, and his mother, Donna, a hospital MRI technologist who went back to college after getting her three children through middle school. As long as he can remember, Balasia wanted to be an aerospace engineer. He got his degree in that field from the University of Michigan, but his career took a different twist when he decided that while he loved the science aspect of aerospace engineering, he really craved more interaction with people. And that was the genesis of Digerati Solutions.
Detroiter: If you were standing in front of a class of, say, second-graders, how would you describe your business to them?
I’d tell them we show business professionals how to use computers and cell phones and other pieces of technology to take better care of their clients or their customers or, in a medical setting, their patients. At the same time, we help them make more money or do their job in less time. We have teams of experts in specific fields and we bring them in to offer a full complement of services and help them understand all the different aspects of their business and how technology can be harnessed to make it all work better.
Detroiter: What prompted you to focus on this kind of business?
Throughout my short career I’d worked with a couple of small companies, and I’d always end up as the “IT guy.” I’d be the youngest person there and I’d end up knowing the most about computers. I saw all of these companies spending tens of thousands of dollars – for a small business that’s a big chunk of change – on technology or paying somebody to be their “IT guy.” All too often they were investing in technology just because they thought they needed to, but I failed to see any real improvement in their business. If you spend $150,000 on IT equipment, you’d better start seeing real improvement in efficiency.
Detroiter: How did you get Digerati Solutions off the ground?
I started to apply the processes in industrial engineering I learned during an internship at Munro & Associates in Troy to small business IT. My goal was to look at ways to help small businesses really improve efficiency or really reduce their costs. And the first step is to break down, piece by piece, their structure and their process using industrial processes that have been around for decades. So I came up with a business plan and scouted around for business partners. I was 18 at this time. It seemed like a real good business opportunity. Within two weeks, I had a signed a contract with Munro & Associates for them to help me get started with some initial capital. And that’s how everything kind of took off. We worked with them for about a year and a half until we were up on our own.
Detroiter: Let me get this straight: You were starting a business at the same time you were attending college?
Yes, I was really busy and I was going to class in a business suit. I considered school like a meeting, so I’d have the class blacked off on my schedule and I’d meet with clients between classes. Eventually my clients figured it out. It didn’t take them very long to see my age. There were times when it was very successful, but there were times when it was really difficult with classes and finals coming up, but somehow we made it work. Actually, it was probably easier for me to start a company then than it would have been later in life when you have families and children and mortgages to worry about. The worst thing that could’ve happened to me was that my idea didn’t work out and I went back to being a college student. It was a lot easier starting that way because there weren’t as many risks involved.
Detroiter: Did you have help in the early going?
Yes, we had outstanding people in our corner, helping us out and teaching us along the way. We had real hands-on, real-life situations. We were fortunate to be able to take input from 10 or 15 people before we made critical decisions and moved forward.
Detroiter: You say “we” a lot more than “I.” Is there a reason for that?
Within our company structure everybody’s on the same level – consultants, advisers, investors, engineers. Everybody is on the same playing field and everybody is expected to make the same input. The only difference is that as the owner, I break the tie.
Detroiter: You’ve been in business since you were in your teens. Has your youth ever been an obstacle?
There were some hurdles to overcome when we started the company but we deal with it less and less each year because our reputation spreads further and further. Sometimes people are concerned about age because they fear we might be going out of business. I think everybody’s been burned by so many of these dot-com companies that have all these great ideas and then go out of business after they burn through their capital. We had to deal with that perception.
Detroiter: How have you managed to build your reputation in such a relatively short time?
One thing we’ve done is set up a couple of showcase clients. We’ve worked for them for a year or two and streamlined their processes and they’ve allowed us to take potential clients on tours of their offices. We’ve also enlisted professional auditors who can show a direct result of the improvements we’ve put in place at our clients’ businesses. And sometimes, to get around the age issue, we’ve had to open our books to potential clients. We have bootstrapped it for the past four years. Our money is not coming in from some investor; it’s coming from clients we have actually been serving. Our big focus is: No work without significant reward. We want to make absolutely sure that there’s a business case for everything we do with technology. We will document these savings prior to implementation.
Detroiter: What’s your first step with a client?
We go in and evaluate the processes so we can see how to use the technology they already possess to more effectively serve them. So you might call it process improvement with a technology backbone. Along the way we end up finding that there are process improvements that can be made that aren’t necessarily related to technology. Technology is simply a tool to get the job done. It’s no different than a mechanic’s wrench. And so we have to know what the job is and we have to understand every aspect of that job and then we can apply the tools in specific areas to improve that particular function.
Detroiter: Why should a business choose your company over another?
What really differentiates us is our focus on return on investment. We do not implement anything without first showing our clients that what we are doing will really generate revenue or cut costs. That’s one of our strong suits. And the other thing is that we don’t go away. Our contracts are long-term contracts. We’re not squeezing for a deadline and then cutting you loose. We’re in it for the long haul because we think that technology and business processes go hand in hand.
Detroiter: What are your immediate plans for growing your business?
Over the next year we’ll be spending our time perfecting our processes internally and applying the strategies we put in place for our clients for ourselves. We’re working to really streamline the way we go about delivering our services to our clients as well as the way we go about hiring and training new employees. We need to clearly identify our growth limitations so that we can set aggressive growth rates while knowing that our customer service won’t be negatively affected. Once we determine that limit we’ll look to grow both within the Detroit Region and possibly a handful of other major markets.
Detroiter: As a successful entrepreneur, what’s your advice to others?
I think the first piece of advice that we learned is that there are three key people to have: a good bookkeeper, a good accountant and a good lawyer. They’ll take you a long way. The other thing is to be flexible. If you look at successful entrepreneurs, you’ll see that all of them have evolved their ideas over time in response to market pressure or customer demand. They’re not too stubborn to see that there could be different ways to approach the same business. And finally, be very cautious with your spending because in a small business there are always things that you can’t always anticipate that can really throw a wrench into your early financial planning. And this is particularly true for start-ups.
Detroiter: What’s the biggest challenge you face?
Balancing personal life with work. Finding that balance is difficult when you own your own company. You have to put in a lot of time in order to be successful. Sometimes you wish you could put it off until tomorrow, but that’s just not possible because there are a lot of pressures on you to succeed. What we’re really striving to achieve right now is getting our normal work day down to nine hours. We want to build a company where family and community are important.
Detroiter: What are the key ingredients of a good workplace?
When you come to work, you should enjoy it. If you’re not enjoying it, then maybe you’re not in the right place. I think one of the things that drives people at work is knowing that their opinions matter, knowing that they can grow and learn, make a decent living and feel like they contribute to society and their community. If you have those things, you’re going to have happy employees who will be productive and in turn make your life a lot better. The point of business is that you’re supposed to provide a service that you excel at to other people and they give you some of that back. It’s as simple as that.
File on . . . Brian P. Balasia Title – President, Digerati Solutions (founded 2001) Born – Aug. 24, 1981 Education – BSE in aerospace engineering, University of Michigan (2003) Home – Ann Arbor First job – Janitor at the DCX proving grounds Favorite vacation spot – Miami Beach’s South Beach Favorite book – “All Politics is Local and Other Rules of the Game,” by Tip O’Neil Hobby – Licensed private pilot
Digerati Solutions is a member of the Detroit Regional Chamber.
