We celebrated Catalyst’s 10 year anniversary yesterday. We gathered the company together, had some champagne while Beth and I told some stories about our 10 year journey.
I will share two stories that occurred in our first year, 1998. We rented a room in a house that had been converted to an office building located in Brookline Village, MA. We were directly behind the famous Village SmokeHouse www.villagesmokehouse.com. Each morning Beth and I would enter our office to waffs of barbecued meat. I am not a vegetarian but that was rough at 7am. Alan the owner (and alleged mobster) would occasionally cook in our parking lot if he had a big catering event. A women named Nancy also rented an office in the building. She did not like Alan nor did she approve of him using our parking lot as a kitchen, in fact she called the fire department frequently. Nancy was an angry woman. One day Beth and I hear this “pssssss” sound coming from the parking lot. We look outside, Nancy had poured some fluid all over a rack of ribs that could have fed fifty. Alan must have heard the same sound. He came outside and witnessed what Nancy had just destroyed. He was irrate AND he had a 10 inch butcher knife in his hand (presumably to cut the meat). Nancy saw the anger in his eyes and took off running. Alan ran after her, knife in hand, as she screamed bloody murder. I am not making this up!
A second story I shared yesterday was a trip to NYC. Beth and I were intent on winning Pfizer’s business ASAP. We convinced one of the Internet marketing managers, Fred, to meet us for drinks. We jumped in the car and drove to NYC (at the time we did not have the luxury to pay for two plane or even train tickets). We parked the car around the corner from the restaurant. We had a great time with Fred (and eventually won some business). As we got up to leave we told Fred we were going to the airport to jump on the next shuttle to Boston (portraying that we were an established agency). Fred, being the gentleman that he is, told us he would hail us a cab. We told him we were all set, but he insisted. Beth and I walked to the corner, I see Beth’s car in the corner of my eye and smile at Beth. Fred opens the cab door and we jump in. The cab driver barks, “Where you going?” We ignore him and continue to smile and wave to Fred. He barks again, “Where are you going?” Fred turns the corner, we jump out of the cab and run as fast as we can to Beth’s car. We sit for ten minutes…waiting for the coast to be clear. We drive back to Boston laughing at ourselves and praying this Catalyst thing will be worth it.
I am proud to say ten years later it was and still is a great experience. Catalyst went from a two person shop surrounded by raw meat and crazy people to today announcing our integration into WPP/GroupM search enterprise, the largest search enterprise in the world, http://www.catalystsearchmarketing.com/resource-center/pdfs/GroupM%20-%20Catalyst%20Announcement.pdf. Yesterday was a good day for Catalyst, for me, for Beth, for our employees, for our clients and for WPP www.wpp.com. There are a couple people (first clients, now friends) who have provided longstanding support, Rick (our first meeting with him was at the Village SmokeHouse), Sue, and Kate. We thank you for your support and vision that search marketing was (ten years ago) and will continue to be a viable communication channel. We also thank our employees who have been with us for many years, Rich, Lee and Tim. I will sign off before I get too sentimental, thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed the stories. I am happy to report we are still having a good time!
