Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Doyle.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’ll bullet point it to make this easier:
19 – Played in a punk band and toured the US off and on for over two years.
22 – The band broke up and I moved to LA where I waited tables. Met someone who created his own T-shirt brand so I decided to teach myself graphic design to do the same thing.
24 – Moved back to NJ to put me through a 10-month technical school which taught me the Adobe Design programs.
25 – Got a full-time job in Pharma Marketing as a Junior Art Director and hated it.
26 – Met someone who was a “Freelancer” and decided that was a better career path for me
31 – Started my own LLC called “drive 80 studios” and focused on print design, web design, videography, photography, and animation.
32 – After reading Built To Sell and having a coffee with someone from my networking group I decided to go all-in on Explainer Animations.
34 – Get divorced.
35 – Sell everything I own and travel with just a carload of stuff realizing I can work from anywhere.
36 – Moved to Raleigh after seven months of traveling.
42 – Drive 80 had its 11-year anniversary and I only focus on Explainer Animations, Instagram Stickers for Realtors, and logo animations.
I also have a comic that I’ve drawn and posted every day on Instagram for over four years and a podcast about the late 90s punk scene called This Was The Scene that just hit its four-year anniversary and has over 180k downloads to date.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Nope.
The main things that have been obstacles were personal and financial. Personally, my Dad died in 2013, and then three months later my wife left me for a mutual friend. Trying to keep your head straight during that much of a punch to the dick was difficult, haha. My business was the only thing I had that equated to stability so I kept with it.
I also put WAY too much focus on needing to make my business have a purpose which caused me to really hate it for a while. I think there are a lot of buzzwords in the Entrepreneur world that made me add unnecessary stress to what I was doing.
It took me about nine years to realize I just wanted to make a shit load of money and I can give back by doing small things like donating $10/month to a local restaurant that feeds people who can’t afford to eat and drop off $30-$40 worth of food every Sunday to a local food box. Once I started doing that the Universe really showed up and things started to work.
The financial struggles happened from 2014 to 2019(ish). I would have to borrow $200 here and there from friends just so I could make rent. Then 2020 happened things started to work out which is totally backward from what happened to a lot of businesses.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
The main products are Explainer Videos. We can simplify your sales pitch in 60-90 seconds with animation. These are used as a sales tool, a 24-hour educator on your website, starting off-pitch meetings, looping on at your trade show table, etc.
I also stumbled upon creating Realtor Instagram Stickers. This has been HUGE with the Realtor community because they utilize the shit out of Instagram and post daily if they’re a good marketer. I sell them as 5 or 10 packs and people use them to personalize their brand or have them available for their team.
I’m also known for my daily webcomic dailyBred (@yourdailybred on Instagram). I started this on a whim in 2017 and have since self-published five books.
The punk podcast is something else I’m known for because it’s very niche and sheds light on punk bands from the late 90s that a decent-sized group of people fell in love with 20+ years ago.
It doesn’t really bring in any money but is more of a passion project. I am able to utilize the intro to market my animation company so that actually landed me some gigs.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
Yeah, when the world was kicking ass financially I was struggling. When it went to shit, I somehow got super busy.
Pricing:
- Explainer Videos – $3500 – $15K
- Instagram Stickers – $425 – $800
- Logo Animations – $250 – $500
- Podcast Patreon – $1 / Month
Contact Info:
- Email: mike@drive80.com
- Website: www.drive80.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/yourdailybred
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drive80
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/thiswasthescene
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/drive80studios
- Other: https://yourdailybred.com/
