startups: integrated alchemy Media - Founder and CEO

The vision of IAM was of a creative center that allowed all stakeholders to respond to strategic initiatives, in the burgeoning world of digital creative, with elegant go-to-market strategies and beautiful, expressive campaign content. We wanted to do this in an inclusive environment that nurtured creativity and innovation for both our team and our clients. Below are a few examples of the output and the story of our success.

So let’s just say it: the world of games and tech at the turn of the millennium was very white and male. But it was also a place that valued creative and allowed the entrepreneurial oddball to thrive and tread in worlds that weren’t so defined. When I founded Integrated Alchemy with my brother, the image at the top of this page shows what our crew looked like. But despite our apparent homogeny, our creative diversity was rocket fuel. We used it to drive a method that made work infectiously fun and in a few short years drew a lot of people, that weren’t at all like us, into our work and the industry as a whole.

We helped them bring their own expression to the forefront of the emerging digital era. We made ourselves the hottest shop in SF by prioritizing creative, but we made our business flourish by being friendly, thoughtful, and inclusive, not just in the workspace, but in collaboration with all stakeholders. The results were felt throughout the digital community and we found ourselves at the hub of businesses reaching the world through our online motion creative and the in-house clients, agencies, freelancers, and production specialists that supported the effort.

Since we sold the business, the original crew has gone on to do amazing work at elite levels by continuing in that vein of openness, fun, and brilliant, accessible creativity, regardless of norms in gender, race, creed, and ideology. It’s not surprising that our folks have gone on to make online video what it is today, pioneering digital video creative across every surface and every interaction, in agencies, non-profits, animation studios, venture capital, software development, SAAS, and brick n’ mortar retail. We do this by remembering the lessons from back in the day, when the ‘internets’ couldn’t handle video with any scale and formats were inconsistent. We found a way then to make ‘em fast, make ‘em pretty, and get ‘em seen. Now we do it at scale across industry.

Ultimately we were acquired by Whole Foods Market, a company we had targeted as a client for years, believing them to be the ultimate test of the branded digital and content ecosystem that we had been conceiving and building for a decade. We thought their customer base was a truly diverse community of disparate segments, that could be reached collectively with the right strategy. We were right and you can read more about realizing that vision on the Enterprise page.