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Tim Fulton 00:00
Tim, welcome to the confluence cast presented by Columbus underground. We are a weekly Columbus centric podcast focusing on the civics lifestyle entertainment and people of our city. I’m your host. Tim Fulton this week, Holden Ellis, a creative studio in Columbus, just celebrated its 10 year anniversary, a milestone that founder and CEO Josh Fitzwater describes as a testament to resilience, creativity and teamwork. I sat down with Fitzwater to discuss the journey of Fulton Ellis From its humble beginnings to becoming a sought after agency specializing in healthcare, branding and digital experiences, building a business from the ground up, taught him lessons about prioritizing his team, navigating cash flow challenges, and staying true to the agency’s mission of making people curious. In our conversation, he shared insights on the evolving role of creativity in healthcare and why staying small and nimble remains central to his vision. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at the confluence cast.com, enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Josh Fitzwater, the founder and CEO of Holden Hellas. Josh, how are you I’m doing? Well. How are you good? Tell us about Holden Ellis. Tell us about what you guys do. Yeah.
Josh Fitzwater 01:31
So holding Ellis is creative studio here. Our job is to make people curious, and we do that by pushing the boundaries of creativity and strategy. We always fancy ourselves kind of as a bit of like a indie band, sort of studio, not following, you know, normal trends and kind of trying to do things our way. So
Tim Fulton 01:54
okay, and you tend to work in the healthcare space. That’s where you specialize.
Josh Fitzwater 01:58
It is, yeah, that’s one of our verticals. Okay, yeah, absolutely. And so
Tim Fulton 02:02
10 year anniversary at this point talk, let’s go back talk about sort of the founding of Fulton Ellis,
Josh Fitzwater 02:08
yeah, so I had never, I went I graduated from undergrad with a degree in Public Relations and poli sci Okay, and did absolutely nothing with it. I was in higher ed for a long time. I was a copywriter, and got the itch to join an agency. Went to the agency that I felt like I could run the creative team and run accounts, and that was cement. That was cement, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. And I just got kind of, I saw the space being created in my head of just being able to create an environment where really creativity could just, like, take hold. And I just, I got the burn. I got that itch that every entrepreneur gets, yeah, and I quit on a Friday, and by Monday, had a name, had a real crappy website version, you know, I won’t even call it one point. I was just like, point, and that was holding Ellis. And that was holding Ellis, okay, yeah. So humble, super humble beginnings. And yeah, it was, I’m
Tim Fulton 03:23
sorry, there was a you did do some work with Ghost label there, yes, at some point. Okay, how ghost label the composer of our theme song? Okay? Benji. Benji Robinson, yeah, okay.
Josh Fitzwater 03:36
Everything goes back to him. Yes, it does indeed. So, okay, small sidebar, then too. So forward used to be ghost label, and Kevin McIntyre and I started that right? I was still in higher ed. It was time to, like, come back together, form a company. It had become sort of more of a video based company at that time. Holden Ellis, the company that, that I’ve got was sort of the original intention of forward, okay, which is just like a creative studio anyway. So fast forward, and, yeah, humble beginnings and the, you know, I think, like looking back in 10 years, there’s just been a lot of good entrepreneurial lessons. I didn’t, you know, I was sort of like a reluctant entrepreneur. Wasn’t prepared for really what was about to happen, yeah, and just sort of, you know, locked arms with this idea, and off we went. What’s
Tim Fulton 04:36
the name? Come from my son. Okay, yeah. So,
Josh Fitzwater 04:40
like pendulum swinging. So cement, you know, submit marketing was a good name, but had kind of, like, I wanted a name that meant something to me, yeah, and kept me honest. And so I slapped my son’s name on it, so his name is whole. Nellis Fitzwater, okay, um. Um, and so, yeah,
Tim Fulton 05:01
there you go, yeah. And so, talk sort of through. Was there much of a learning curve based on what you were doing at some men, I know a bit about the space, right? Like, I know that you are dealing with RFPs, and you’re up against other agencies to pitch things, and there’s a certain amount of like, filling your pipeline. What do you think that you were aware of? Everything you were about to take on accountability wise, because it’s your it’s, it’s, you know, at least one mouth at home that you’re feeding in addition to yours, yeah. But then you take on employees, you take on contractors, you you take on that accountability, talk about that and sort of like how those early years went.
Josh Fitzwater 05:47
I mean, cash flow is a real thing. Yeah, right, yeah. I mean, there were, there were a lot of good lessons, you know, I think the early ones were and I and maybe for better or for worse. I mean, after like the first month, it was about prioritizing everybody else, okay, I knew that I would, I would get mine eventually, yeah. And so we staffed up all the money, went back to the people, and it was tough, because learning how to balance things, how to, you know, there was in the early years. I mean, there’s like a giant payroll struggle. Any, any, you know, fresh business has got those, those those stresses. And, I mean, we didn’t, we did it. We did it organically. There was never an investor. There was never, for a long time, even, like a business loan. It was just get to work. And did you
Tim Fulton 06:39
have some clients to start like you had enough to Okay, no,
Josh Fitzwater 06:42
no. I mean, a smarter business, a smarter business, you didn’t leave with anything, yeah, you know? And it was important, yeah, it was important to kind of like, do it the right way. And so there was no, no leaving with a client or anything like that, right? So it was really humble beginnings. For a long time, the thing that I learned was it was just like how important the team is, and we’ve had so many iterations, you know, and as the visionary, you can only do so much right. You have to have a good team. And there’s been times where we’ve had we’ve had the right team members and we’ve had team the moments where we’ve had the wrong team members, yeah, but that, I think that was that in just like you can’t, you know, like, every two weeks, payrolls come in, right? And
Tim Fulton 07:35
accounts receivable is also a thing, and like, at that time, you
Josh Fitzwater 07:37
just have to do everything you can. You believe in your dreams, so much you believe in this, this company, so much that you just there’s you do everything you can to, you know, in those tough times to push through now
Tim Fulton 07:49
that you’re 10 years down the road, do you feel like you’re still able to be as hands on as you want to be? Or do you try to be hands off when you’re like, I’m not really passionate about this project, but it’s paying the bills, and I have somebody who can do storyboards and do the right, frankly, write out the RFP and, yeah, paint a vision.
Josh Fitzwater 08:08
I mean, what’s nice is being a smaller agency is we, there isn’t a project that comes in that I’m not passionate about, great, yeah, and it’s a super fortunate place to be in, but we can be kind of choosy as to who we work with, and we’re excited about everything. Because I think, and I think our job too, and this is where I think people get it wrong with with agencies, is it’s not that we’re our job is to find like the sexy projects. Our job is to make it sexy, right? And so people might come in with something that’s complicated or it doesn’t seem very design indicative, okay, but our job is to bring that. Our job is to figure out how to tell a story. Our job is to make something interesting position. It to be interesting, even if on surface it seems like maybe this is a boring thing. It’s our job to make it exciting,
Tim Fulton 09:01
talk about the model a little bit. I’ve been exploring a lot about this is me personally, like, how does XYZ industry work? Right? This is everything from like, how does horse racing work? To,
Josh Fitzwater 09:14
how is, how does horse racing work?
Tim Fulton 09:17
I don’t know, but I know more than I did two weeks ago. Or, how does name, image and likeness contracts work? Or, how does a bookstore work, yeah, or a bicycle shop, yeah? And, like, what? There are things in your industry that I imagine, if you’re not in it, people don’t quite understand. Like, I don’t know. Like, how do you have clients that are just on retainer, or are you purely project based? We
Josh Fitzwater 09:44
used to be retainer, okay, and have kind of moved away from it. I think, on like, a long enough timeline with retainers, it becomes there’s a bit of an imbalance, yeah, of like squeeze for I’m paying for x. On hours a month, yep. And then, like, creative deliverables, yep. Sometimes that thing that’s like, this big and that small took a long time to do, and so there becomes this, like,
Tim Fulton 10:09
but that’s why you get paid this month and this month, right? Yeah. And
Josh Fitzwater 10:15
it just it got in. And I think partners matter too, right? Some partners get that. Some partners don’t. It becomes, like an hour squeeze. And when
Tim Fulton 10:21
you say, partner, are you talking about the end client, the end client or another agency? Because there’s going to be agencies of record, right? That like, may be the ones that are and when I say RFP, just it’s a request for proposal, basically, like, hey, what do you want to we want to do a TV ad. What would you like to do with this TV ad, yeah. And based on your response to that and what the end cost may be, you may or may not get the job, right, some of those are coming through other agencies, right? And are you going out for that, or are you just a pure client agency? Yeah,
Josh Fitzwater 10:55
we, I mean, I think we, our success rate is better when we just are talking straight to the client. Okay, that does happen sometimes where there’s another agency involved. We play nice in the sandbox with anybody. Yeah, I think one thing that you know, we pride ourselves on being pretty egoless. We have high expectations for your product, yeah, but I think we’re we can play nice with everybody.
Tim Fulton 11:23
So yeah, talk about the portfolio. Like, what are you proud of that you guys have put out in the world? Yeah,
Josh Fitzwater 11:28
when? So this goes back to kind of what you were talking about, too. So we’re right now. We’re working with so we do a lot in health care. So on one side of the coin. We’re working with large like fortune 10, companies like McKesson, okay, so they’re in healthcare distribution, and they’ve got their hands and a lot of stuff, working anywhere with them on national campaigns like Journey strategy, Journey work like of their their customer, their end user, okay? And and on the other side, something we’re working on right now, again, just to kind of like, talk about process, is a large I hate. So the worst part about healthcare is how acronym me everything is, yep. And I’m like, I hate acronyms, and then I find myself use them all the time. It’s shorthand.
Tim Fulton 12:22
I mean, it’s these are, I refer to them as terms of art, right? It’s
Josh Fitzwater 12:25
a great way for no one else to know what you’re talking about. Yeah, right. It’s like,
Tim Fulton 12:29
or to figure out if the person that you’re talking to is knows what the hell they’re talking, right? Yeah, exactly like I saw a little sparkle when I said, Said, RFP, you were like, Oh yeah, he knows what he’s already done a little bit. Well,
Josh Fitzwater 12:40
of course, you know what you’re talking Well, thank you. But so, so we’re working with a really large GPO in healthcare. GPO is a group purchasing organization, okay? So they, like, think about that as they they represent big buying groups that, like, on the pharma side, so like pharmacy, medication and so then they purchase it, purchase it in bulk. Okay? Purchase it in bulk. Then there’s, like, a lower price rate. But then the pharmacy gets this giant guarantee that, all you know that we just bought 3 million pills of whatever. So we’re doing this full rebrand for them, repositioning in the marketplace. But one of the things that we’re working on now, literally, like, right before I came here, was a new name. Okay, so their their name is, is antiquated. It itself is an acronym that is like trying to move away from that. But our process with this is taking a like, linguistic and phonetic look at like. So this new name needs to like, phonetically. So like in our research, it’s like two syllables in the sound of it the way that you say it should harken back. Doesn’t have to like be apples to apples, but it should, like, harken back to the mission and vision of what this company is in the healthcare space, right? And so we’re exploring all these possibilities based on sort of one, like emotional feel, but also to this, like, kind of like scientific modeling of of Link naming, linguistics, on how to make a name that,
Tim Fulton 14:17
like, Is this is this hard? Is this sharp? We can have a hard and a sharp but we cannot have, sorry, is this a sharp and soft right? We can have a sharp and soft, but we can’t have a soft and soft, and we certainly can’t have a sharp and sharp right. And so you’re, I imagine, just a board where you’re sort of mapping this out and
Josh Fitzwater 14:40
like, what’s if I say it, like, what? Where does my mind go with it, too, right?
Tim Fulton 14:45
One is everybody gonna say it the same and, yeah, like, when it’s like, like,
Josh Fitzwater 14:50
my like, synonymous. So if I say, I don’t know, like, I look at your water bottle. It’s like, cream. Ice Right, right? Cream makes me think of ice cream. And then I just go down this, this road, right?
Tim Fulton 15:04
So there’s a lot of weed, is what you’re saying. There’s a lot of, like, just got a brainstorm, yeah, I
Josh Fitzwater 15:10
mean, that’s I brought. This is my, my cannabis, right here, the green,
Tim Fulton 15:14
the plastic green Fern on the table. So, and from there, you come up with, I do not know how many, but then are you? Are you guys the ones administering everything from focus groups to a little basically validation studies to setting up landing pages that like, Hey, we’re gonna buy out $500 worth of Google ads for each landing page, see which one performs better based on the language that we put in front of people when they Google, where do I get XYZ thing fulfilled? Yeah,
Josh Fitzwater 15:47
full full strategy. Our main, our main spaces are branding and digital experiences, okay? Strategies sort of like, like data is sort of like the foundation, yeah, of course we’re gonna have a strategy, but then like to activate that strategy, you’ve got the brand and you’ve got digital experiences. So like web based stuff, mobile application based stuff, when it comes to like executing, like digital advertising, yeah, we’ll do all the creative. We’ll do the strategy, but the placement of it, we usually partner up. And are
Tim Fulton 16:21
you doing any and I know you’ve done some work with Walker in a previous iteration of their digital advertising space. I guess my question is, is, like, do you guys, is it all about look and feel for you, or are you getting a little bit into the the validation side of it?
Josh Fitzwater 16:39
It’s got to perform, okay, right? Like, especially there’s, there’s big dollars being invested in this, yeah, to just be like,
Tim Fulton 16:47
are you using a partner to do that or,
Josh Fitzwater 16:49
yeah, my mom said I’m really passionate
Tim Fulton 16:52
about it, yeah, yeah, got it. And so the renaming piece and like, that’s in process right now. Yeah,
Josh Fitzwater 17:01
yeah. Part of the brand that, yeah, so, like, that’s step one of, like, this brand rebrand repositioning that we’re working on.
Tim Fulton 17:07
Is that for McKesson, or is that another client, similarly position? Yeah, they got it.
Josh Fitzwater 17:11
McKesson will never rebrand. I wouldn’t. Yeah, right.
Tim Fulton 17:16
They’ll acquire things. Yeah. Talk about, so can you talk about that, like, basically the audience, engagement side of it, of like, when are you done with a project? Are you done with it when it’s out in the world? Or are you like, certainly, yes, you’re putting it in your portfolio. You’re putting it on your brand new website, which folks should go and check out. But when does the end of the project come for you? When the deliverable is done? Yeah,
Josh Fitzwater 17:49
okay, it just sort of depends, like so for example, and not to only have healthcare examples, but since we’re like, talking healthcare, yeah. So we, earlier this year we did the first ever national campaign, advertising campaign for McKesson. Okay, so they’re one of their business units is medical, surgical, so, gloves, syringes, all the like healthcare products and so our first we went through and figured out what their value props were. So I like, what’s your value proposition on how you’re positioning yourself in the marketplace? And from there, then we we went and created a couple different campaigns, but what we found was a way to differentiate. And that’s kind of like our sort of, like, big thing, especially in healthcare, everything is pretty vanilla. No one’s like, one person one time made a web page with like blue, and they’re like, Oh my God, that’s healthcare. It’s healthcare blue, right? And then they’re like, well, the reflex color blue is orange, so we got to put some orange in there, yeah. And then it just was like that for like, 20 years. And so we’re any client that we work with, any person that we talk to, anyone who’s trying to be successful in anything needs to differentiate. And what’s fun about the healthcare industry right now is it’s a lot of it’s the same. Now you get into, like, healthcare tax startups, they kind of, you know, they’re straddling that the startup space, so they they understand the point of brand and in narrative and storytelling,
Tim Fulton 19:30
but they’re a startup. They have to right to,
Josh Fitzwater 19:34
yeah, but then, like, once you’re past that, you know, some of these people, they kind of, like lose their way, they forget what got them there, or they become too big, that sort of things become so antiquated and disconnected and siloed. But so we, we created this campaign called Meet the moment where we are more taking more of like an emotive appeal to the to the healthcare work. Dollars. Okay? So instead of trying to get them to buy the gloves, it’s like, hey, we, the whole campaign is like, we, we understand your day to day, like you’re, we’re just here to help you do your job better, and your job is really tough,
Tim Fulton 20:16
yeah? And we’re gonna and we are there in the moment, yeah? And it’s about
Josh Fitzwater 20:21
like, empathizing with with them versus trying to sell them. So it’s a very soft strategy, but like, but like, but very conceptual and appealing to them emotionally. And so that campaign, when we created it, we created an entire year’s worth of of everything, of the
Tim Fulton 20:40
content that ends up getting going, right? Yeah. And that’s, well, what’s interesting, there’s a psychology, right? If you’re your audience, there is the nurse that grabs the glove. That nurse may actually not be the person that grabs the glove, sorry, that buys the glove, but they are the person that expects the glove. Yeah, right. And so they want the
Josh Fitzwater 20:59
person’s gonna buy it too, right? Like the procurement, like we even have, I mean, we have, part of our campaign is targeting procurement people, okay? Because they’re buying it, right? And they’ve got several options. One of them’s local here, you know? Okay, yeah.
Tim Fulton 21:15
Where do you want to be in 10 years?
Josh Fitzwater 21:16
That’s a great question.
Tim Fulton 21:18
Do you like this space?
Josh Fitzwater 21:20
I love it. Okay, yeah, I can’t I’m broken now. Like, I can’t do anything else.
Tim Fulton 21:26
Well, you did a nice ad for chemba couple months ago, right?
Josh Fitzwater 21:29
Oh yeah. Oh no, yeah. I mean, I can’t do anything other than creative. Oh
Tim Fulton 21:32
yeah, yeah. Well, but where does hold an Ellis want to be as an agency in 10 years? Yeah? Like, I
Josh Fitzwater 21:38
think we, we want to be still here, okay? I think Columbus, yeah, Columbus is just such a great place to have a business. We want to stay small, okay? I think being small lets us stay nimble, lets us be choosy. And as markets go up and down, there’s no people. If you work here, you just work here, right? You know, you don’t have to worry about 30 people off because we over rotated and got too big. So I think it’s staying small. It’s staying true to what we believe in, which is making people curious. Okay, so right now, that’s branding and digital experiences, but we’re not going to be so blinded to other opportunities, if it’s something again, I mean, we’re, you know, like we were working on a project where we were talking about, too, like, in integrating, just like, augmented reality into some of these, like, big, sort of, like mural scapes that we’re working on, and that’s all about making people curious. That’s like this nice surprise and delight moment, diving deeper into the creative so, you know, like healthcare startups, that’s the space that we like one, all they want to do is differentiate, and the other one is ripe with needing differentiation. So but again, but we don’t want to be too blind to what comes next. But, yeah, I think, I think just staying true to our core values and and growing,
Tim Fulton 23:17
okay, yeah, I end every interview with the same two questions, what do you think Columbus is doing well? And what do you think Columbus is not doing so well? Well?
Josh Fitzwater 23:29
Not to sound like a broken record, but I think Columbus is a great incubator for businesses, obviously, like prisoner of the moment. I happen to be one living in it. But it, I mean, it is a it is an environment that one is full with really creative people, really, I’ll break out of, like the agency stuff, just really accepting people, curious people, which makes it a great little testing ground for any type of business. The rents, good, cost of living is good. My, my, my kids, you know, we, I can still run a business and do all the kids stuff you’ve got that still, like Midwestern kind of, like, all shucks charm, but, but, but then at the end of the day, which actually, I think, is a misnomer, like, I think Columbus is like a go get it city where there’s a ton of entrepreneurism. It gets, it gets drowned out by, like, the big, you know, cover my meds, unicorn and root and and olive, right? Those, those ones were the big three.
Tim Fulton 24:41
But there’s so two varying successes.
Josh Fitzwater 24:44
There’s a whole Yeah, whole spectrum there, yeah, but, but like, in whether they made it or not, like they the ones that made it, I mean, are so successful, and the ones that didn’t, like, still had a great run and provided jobs to. A bazillion people. So I’d say that’s, that’s probably what Columbus is doing right. I think what Columbus is doing wrong is, I feel like it’s still the people who live here get it. But, I think there, there is a however, the city is personified. It feels a little wrong to me. I feel like we’re still chasing like, Nashville and Austin. It’s like, who cares about either of those cities? No, they’re both great. They’re great, great, yeah? But like, I feel like we’re still chasing and saying, Well, we’re like, We’re the new Nashville. It’s like, No, we’re Columbus. We don’t we’re not Nashville, right? We’re not Austin. And so there is a bit of, and I don’t think anyone’s like, quite got it right yet, but I feel like we’re still trying to prove that we’re cool, but we’re already cool, you know? And so there’s like, I feel like that’s, there’s a, I don’t know, like, are the way that we sell ourselves? I think we should just own who we are more, yeah, I think of what’s the place that like, they’re like, we’re weird at Asheville, yeah, right. They’re like,
Tim Fulton 26:18
we’re well, it used to be Austin, but Asheville also has a whole like, keep Asheville weird, yeah, vibe. But that’s also a reaction to getting big really fast, and getting a large tourism industry really fast.
Josh Fitzwater 26:34
And you need that, yeah, and I’m pro tourism, and I’m pro Columbus getting big, and it’s just we, I don’t think we found that like narrative hook of really,
Tim Fulton 26:46
so we had a conversation at the big table, which was recorded, and the audio is kind of not great, and so it’s probably just going to be a story on Columbus underground. And all credit to Adam burlet for being the first one to say it is that Columbus is a teenager. Yeah, and yeah it it is pretty darn clear where it’s going. It is pretty darn clear what’s happening. But it also is sort of just old enough to question authority and try to define itself, but not mature enough that you can trust it with two beers behind the wheel of a car, yeah? Like, I will critique, not, no, I’ll criticize experience. Columbus is yes. Columbus campaign, I realize the I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, yes. Comma, Columbus, and it’s meant for tourism. Yeah, I get it. I am not the audience for it. I also wonder, and there’s no point there. I’m just saying some things, yeah, but I do wonder, when you say, like, maybe that we aren’t necessarily putting out the best image of ourselves. First of all, I don’t think that’s the citizens. I think that that’s our government. I think that that’s our tourism bureau. I think, I think we’re fine. I think maybe we should be pushing back and say, just let us be Brigadoon, yeah. Like, keep, keep the businesses coming in. Keep, but, like, keep it insulated, right? Like, we Yes, we want art, yes, we want culture, yes, we want these things, and people will see it when they come here, and we will still, and we will it will be a much more organic thing, and we don’t need to feel like we’re having an acne outbreak every time we’re on a national stage. So I don’t know, but I don’t know, yeah, I’m just trying to extend the teenager metaphor, yeah. I
Josh Fitzwater 28:43
mean, I don’t disagree with that. Yeah. And, you know, I think, like, obviously, like, the campaigns work. They in the point of them matters. I think the Yeah, like, I would like to see, I’d like to see Columbus, really. I mean, I think it’s a lot like what you just said, just, just, well, just be Yeah, calm
Tim Fulton 29:14
down, yeah, calm
Josh Fitzwater 29:15
down. A little bit like, it’s cool. We’re cool. Everything’s cool. We
Tim Fulton 29:18
do not need a rebrand, yeah, yeah, maybe a new name, but not reverent. Josh, thanks for your time.
Josh Fitzwater 29:25
Hey, thank you. Yeah, it was a pleasure being here. Thank
Tim Fulton 29:38 you for listening to the confluence cast presented by Columbus underground. Again, you get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode of The confluence cast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of The confluence cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite designer if you’re interested. Sponsoring the confluence cast. Get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info, at the confluence cast.com, our theme music is composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I’m your host. Tim Fulton, have a great week.
