Good Monster evolves from a project filming local business owners

DeWITT — Good Monster, LLC, a two-year-old DeWitt–based Internet-marketing agency, is gaining business traction after it got its start producing video interviews with local business owners.

The company, which began as Dreamzocial Media, LLC in 2012 and later changed its name, offers services that include email marketing, lead generation, search-engine optimization, social-media marketing, website design, and video production.

Good Monster is based on “customer engagement,” says John Timmerman, director of strategy for Good Monster and co-owner of the company.

“We won’t build a website without making sure that it works, that it’s measureable, that things are actually drawing in more engagement or more leads or more customers,” says Timmerman.

Timmerman spoke with the Business Journal News Network on Aug. 7.

His business partner, Jason Maurer, lives in Watertown where he has a home office, but he’s also in the DeWitt office two or three days a week for “filming purposes.”

“Over 50 percent of our business is filming,” says Timmerman.

As of now, Timmerman and Maurer are the firm’s only employees, but Good Monster wants to hire three more employees this year on a contract basis to start, which could evolve into a part-time or full-time position.

Good Monster, which operates at 5870 Fisher Rd. in DeWitt, leases its space from Leoran, LLC, which operates in the same location.

The firm has worked with clients that include Sharkey’s Bar and Grill, Crouse Hospital, and CenterState CEO, according to Timmerman.

Good Monster also filmed a short question-and-answer video with Marny Nesher, president of the Business Journal News Network, that’s been available on the company’s “Daily News Alerts” email service.

Timmerman wouldn’t release specific figures, but indicated Good Monster’s revenue in 2014 “has already increased 200 percent” compared to 2013.

Timmerman, a 2002 graduate of Cicero-North Syracuse high school, didn’t begin his college days with his current endeavors in mind.

Company’s origins
Timmerman graduated from the State University of New York College at Cortland in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in exercise science.

He then interned with a strength and conditioning company in Boston before moving to Richmond, Va.

While living there, Timmerman in 2009 launched a company called The New Fit, a website that helped people get “strategized” training with nutritional information and a workout schedule.

At the same time, he also operated an off-line personal-training business under the same name.

During the recession, both businesses “suffered,” he says.

He then decided to return to the Syracuse area and sold off the assets of the website portion, says Timmerman. He then went to work for Trillium Fitness Center at 6701 Manlius Center Road in DeWitt as a personal trainer and handled some managerial and marketing duties for the company in the years that followed.

Timmerman eventually reconnected with Jason Maurer, his business partner.

Timmerman described Maurer as his brother’s “best friend” in their younger years. Though they weren’t real close in those days, Timmerman and Maurer saw each other at the Carrier Dome in 2011 and they met up again at Chuck’s Café on the Syracuse University (SU) hill.

Maurer at the time was working a full-time job with Visual Technologies and seeking opportunities for video production, which Timmerman describes as Maurer’s “specialty.”

Timmerman wanted to pursue opportunities for more digital marketing and social media because he had learned that while starting The New Fit.

“We decided to collaborate on a project called Project Rock City … a way that we could build something, use our talents to … grow a brand and meet new people in the area, mostly business owners,” says Timmerman.

He described Project Rock City as “a Travel Channel show on YouTube,” he says.

Timmerman and Maurer went to several entertainment-based businesses in Syracuse, Cortland, and Rochester. In Syracuse, those establishments included Empire Brewing Company, Middle Ages Brewery, the Westcott Theatre, and Laci’s Tapas Bar.

“We interviewed the business owner, [asked] why their place was special, what they were doing to differentiate themselves, why people should go there,” he says.

They worked on the project for about a year, and the episodes are still available on YouTube, he says.

“We made no money off it. That wasn’t really our intention. Our goal was to educate ourselves and get ourselves known,” he says.

As their efforts continued, the business owners took notice as well.

Some would later ask the pair if they could film a commercial or an event for a payment. They also asked about building websites or managing social media.

Their efforts evolved from Project Rock City to a digital-marketing company they called Dreamzocial.

They started out part time as Timmerman kept working for Trillium and Maurer remained with Visual Technologies. Maurer eventually decide to focus on Dreamzocial as he was “getting [a lot] of video work,” says Timmerman, who still worked part-time managing social-media efforts.

Soon after, Timmerman also decided to focus on Dreamzocial in a full-time capacity.

“We’ve been growing in the amount of work we’re doing and the amount of business that we get…” says Timmerman.

The firm’s “sole goal” is to find the best possible way for companies to “engage their customers” through content, he added.

They’re creating the videos for YouTube, placing content on websites so users can find it through search optimization, handling photography for Facebook and Twitter, helping companies turn their online presence into lead-generating platforms, and email marketing, says Timmerman.

Good Monster name
They arrived at Dreamzocial Media in 2012 as they searched for a name that was “inspiring and … told people what we do,” and Dreamsocial was already in use as a domain name, thus the reason for the “z” instead of an “s” in the word, according to Timmerman.

But the partners started noticing a pattern in their phone conversations, email messages, and invoices with clients.

“People kept getting it wrong,” says Timmerman.

They weren’t comfortable with their branding, eventually determining that as a name, Dreamzocial just wasn’t working, he added.

Timmerman and Maurer started thinking about a name change. They were socializing at one of their clients, Sharkey’s Bar & Grill in Clay, and weren’t having any luck.

Since the company was young, growing, and changing in its infancy, Maurer made the comment “We’re like a monster … growing and moving,” as Timmerman recalled it.

Timmerman then replied, “Yeah, but we’re good,” as he recounted during the interview, noting that the word monster has “negative, evil connotation.”

Maurer looked at Timmerman and said “That’s it! We’re a good monster,” as Timmerman recalled it.

They both figured it was a name that people could remember, he added.

“Every single person that we meet asks us that question. How did you come up with that name?  I love it. It works like a charm,” says Timmerman.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com